Lectio Divina
Jesus was a revolutionary who did not become an extremist, since he did not offer an ideology, but himself. He was also a mystic, who did not use his intimate relationship with God to avoid the social evils of his time, but shocked his milieu to the point of being executed as a rebel.
Henri Nouwen
“You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’ ”
Mark 5
Prayer
God Revealed
in Jesus of Nazareth
My imagination
has been formed
by two party systems
Red. Blue.
Right. Wrong.
My subconscious
will categorize
all persons and things
inside a fraught dualism.
My mailbox fills
with adversarial lines
denouncing
the other.
Help me seek first
a Kingdom not ruled
by spin and commerce,
but a man
who touched the sick
and dined with sinners,
walking towards a cross.
May I love as Jesus did.
Blessing
Dear Friend
May you receive the gift of the Holy Spirit,
not the burden of a religious ideal.
May you seek beauty and justice
in nearness to God.
May you offer your life
as Christ did
incarnate,
in-the-flesh,
within the political tensions
of a Greco-Roman World,
yet attentive
to Jairus
and the bleeding woman alike.
The Lord be with You.
Amen