Drew Downs

Make a New Normal

Prophetic

  • In the Feast of Stephen, we confront what light coming to break the darkness looks like in practice—when we face it in our midst.

  • This week’s gospel comes to us as a final exam—not a random teaching. That context, in the last days, is central to our understanding of it.

  • When John the Baptist confronts religious leaders in line waiting to be baptized, we are confronted with the reality of change.

  • Like Jonah, we fear to live into our calling. Then hate those we’re called to help. It isn’t about being good, but becoming it.

  • We often mistake the pursuit of justice as a problem. Then punish the justice seeker rather than extrajudicial violence.

  • The gospel is always social. It is the tangible intersection of faith and action: of belief and the active living into a life of wholeness and hope.