But we quickly zoom in on a tiny barn in the middle of nowhere. Our focus is redirected; our perspective shifts.

God comes not in the form of power, but in the form of a tiny, humble, vulnerable baby.

It’s a frightening world when you live on occupied land. It’s a frightening world when you’re a shepherd, condemned as a criminal. It’s a frightening world when you’re an unwed teen mother. It’s a frightening world when you’re 9 months pregnant, you’ve been traveling all day, and you can’t find rest when you feel the life inside you bursting forth…

But the wonder of God, the Love that transforms the world, breaks through all the fear. In the bleak darkness, the light breaks forth.

Lindsey and Adam and friends celebrate the hope of Christmas that banishes all fear.

What extraordinary words from a newly pregnant, unmarried 14-year-old girl at a time when such a condition could mean death or shunning!

It’s amazing to meditate on Mary. Even before pregnancy, the living God who is Love must have filled her being so much to cast out the fear that would otherwise come with such a precarious situation. What must the whispers and rumors have been as her belly began to swell? The world is not a place for young pregnant girls – not then, not now.

But the systems of violence that make up the world – all of the hierarchies that oppress, all of the power structures that prey on the vulnerable – Mary could feel them coming to an end with the new life inside her. Her song is deeply personal, deeply political, and also universal and holy. Pregnancy can be a scary time, but to have the faith that the life inside you can truly change the world for the better… that’s a miraculous joy.

Mary’s incredible faith nurtured Jesus’s. It took her whole being to nurture the fully human embodiment of Love, whom we follow into new life and transformation of the world. Lindsey and Adam meditate on her world-upending love. 
 

Now a poor, homeless carpenter is about to begin a ministry of healing, teaching, and forgiveness.  Could this Jesus of backward, nowhere Nazareth truly be the Son of God?

John the baptizer says so, and calls us to prepare our hearts not only for a new Lord, but for a new kind of Lord. One who turns our ideas of kings and conquests completely upside-down. To hear his message, people must follow him into the wilderness. The good news is first proclaimed on the outskirts, away from the centers of power, where scapegoats and exiles are cast.

God comes to us in the wilderness of our lives, the places where guilt or grief have stripped us bare. Jesus comes to heal where we are most broken, in the violence of our cultures and the pain in our hearts. Adam and Lindsey reflect on John the Baptist’s call to prepare the way.

Translations and context make all the difference. The judgment in this parable is for the nations, not individuals, although individuals do shape the character of the nations in which they live. And the word translated as “eternal” is better translated as a “time” or “age.”

You can reconcile faith in universal reconciliation with this parable, while still holding onto the infinite urgency and dire warning within it. Ultimately, the way we collectively and individually treat the most vulnerable will have lasting consequences. Adam and Lindsey explore further.

A master leaves and entrusts three servants to his fortune, giving 5 talents to one, 2 to the second, and 1 to the third. The first two servants trade and double the master’s money, but the last buries it in the ground. When the master demands a reckoning, the third servant tells his master that he was afraid because he knew his master was a harsh man, so he buried his coin in the ground. The master kicks the “worthless slave” into the “outer darkness” of weeping and gnashing teeth.

Was the master, who trusted so much to his servants, generous or brutal? Was the last servant’s judgment clouded by fear, or did he see the most clearly?

So often this parable is interpreted to mean, “Don’t waste your talents!” Indeed, a talent is a terrible thing to waste. But Adam and Lindsey look below the surface, for the truth often lies buried under layers of misunderstanding.

And, of course, any time someone is cast into “outer darkness,” we must ask ourselves, did Jesus cast anyone out, or was he cast out himself?

Lindsey and Adam examine this difficult parable. Who is the bridegroom, and if it’s Jesus, would he really slam the door on the “foolish” bridesmaids who fail to bring oil for their lamps? Would the Jesus who multiplied loaves and fishes condone the “wise” bridesmaids’ refusal to share?

There are different ways to interpret this parable, but if it ever looks like the “Christ figure” of a parable is harsh and unforgiving, then either it’s not the Christ figure, or something beyond conventional wisdom is going on.

In the end, we’re called to ask ourselves: Do we see life through a lens of winners vs. losers, fend for yourself at the expense of others, some are in and some are out? Or are we being pressed to imagine a better way?

We end with a prayer for our nation and world as we seek to apply this wisdom to our lives in the wake of this turbulent election.

All Saints Day reminds us that we are all saints beneath the veneer of ego, since at our core we are made from and for Love. We are called to remember that we are caught up already in eternal life, eternal relationship with God and each other. So we better start loving one another!

Matthew 5: 1-12, the Beatitudes, show us the way of sainthood, living into blessing. Blessed are the poor in spirit, those who remember their interdependence on one another. Blessed are those who mourn, for Love and Love’s children (that’s us when we live into our vocation as God’s image-bearers) will advocate for them. The Beatitudes may look passive, but they are anything but! Adam and Lindsey explore their radical call to action!

As election day looms on the horizon, we remember that no matter who is elected, our work remains the same. We are called to humility, justice, peacemaking, and love. We look not only to Christ, but to the saints on earth and in heaven who model these virtues in action.

Jesus’s interrogators don’t approach him with love, though, when they try to trap him with their question. In response, Jesus challenges their understanding of authority as well. When scripture and tradition are used to trap and to hurt, they are abused, and Jesus counters this abuse by reminding his interrogators that there is a deeper authority than the human interpretation of tradition. Similarly, Pope Francis appeals to a deeper authority than church tradition to affirm same-sex marriage. Because the greatest authority isn’t scripture, the Pope, or the church. The greatest authority is Love.

This is mic-drop Jesus at his best! Adam and Lindsey discuss what is so badass about Jesus in this passage, including how he cleverly evades danger, what it means to be made in God’s image, and why Pharisees and Herodians teaming up = scapegoating. They also discuss the noncontroversial topic of the morality of paying taxes, taking care to point out the contrasts between Jesus’s context and our own.

What are we to make of this terrifying story? Do we tie ourselves in knots trying to justify the king’s actions because we think the parable wants us to identify the king with God? Is there a Christ figure in this parable, and if so, who? What does this mean for us in tim

Does this parable challenge our understanding of a nonviolent God and universal salvation? Lindsey and Adam find hope and a call to responsibility in a parable often interpreted violently, warn against anti-Semitic readings, and discuss the authority of violence versus the authority of Love.
 

We warmly invite you to join the conversation every Wednesday afternoon at 5 CT /3 PT on the Raven Foundation Facebook page!

This is where Jesus finds himself at the beginning of Matthew 14: 13 -21, which Adam and Lindsey explore in this episode.

John the Baptist has just been killed, and Jesus is utterly drained. Who knows how many tears he has cried… for his cousin, for a world so caught up in violence that it keeps killing the very prophets who try to lead the way to better?

So he goes out in a boat to a deserted place. But when he comes back, there are multitudes of people awaiting him. Thousands and thousands.

If I were Jesus, I would probably want to walk away without a word. Or scream, “Why don’t you leave me alone for once?” But Jesus, utterly spent, finds in that moment that he has more to give.

His “heart goes out of him” in his compassion. The Greek word used literally means “to rip the internal organs out a victim.” Yikes! But here, as with everything else Jesus does, the meaning is subverted. Instead of a mob coming to rip Jesus apart (as Jesus knows will happen to him as it did to his cousin), Jesus sees a crowd of seeking, vulnerable people, and offers his own heart. 

He wanders into the crowd and befriends them. He shares wisdom. He cures the sick.

And when evening falls and the disciples tell him to send the crowds home so they can find food, Jesus says, “You give them something to eat.”

The disciples protest that they have almost nothing. Yet Jesus has just modeled a way to give and multiply blessings even when you feel empty. He has just modeled the way a little bit of love can be multiplied. And he tells his disciples – he tells us – to do likewise.

Adam and Lindsey explore this miracle of abundance and all of its meanings. One potential key to understanding: look at those who are almost left out of the story – the women and children. 

For the seventh Sunday after Pentecost, Adam and Lindsey reflect on one of the more seemingly frightening parables of Jesus, the Parable of the Weeds among the Wheat (Matthew 13: 24-30 and 36-43). There’s even an explanation that seems pretty straightforward. But, as with everything Jesus says and does, it’s subversive, world-turning, and infinitely better news than it appears to be at first glance!

The word Jesus uses for “weeds” refers to a type of weed that resembled the wheat so closely that it was hard to tell them apart. When we try to root out evil, we also may have a hard time recognizing it. Scripture and history both testify to humanity’s poor track record when it comes to judgment. Scapegoats have been condemned, whole peoples have been marginalized, tribes and ethnic groups have warred against each other.

These words of Jesus recall the utter indiscrimination of war and violence, the all-consuming cycles that spiral out of control. Bombs don’t distinguish between the innocent and the guilty, and what do those words even mean in the context of war when each side loses its distinctions in the violence? That kind of doubling where distinctions are eroded is what Jesus is referring to. If we try to be good and righteous and pull out the weeds, we become weeds ourselves!

So, Jesus tells us not to. Rooting out evil with violence is not our job.

So Jesus will root out the evil himself, right? He’ll send heavenly armies to burn evildoers, right? Doesn’t it say so right in the text?

Don’t be so sure. After all, these words are all being spoke by the one who was himself judged to be a weed! Jesus himself went to the places of weeping and gnashing teeth, to the poor and the marginalized, to the sick and the suffering. He went to heal them, and was himself cast out and killed. And… death did not have the last word. 

If we are to follow Jesus, but we are expressly told not to root out evil, then what are we to do instead? What is Jesus doing instead? Adam and Lindsey dive deep into the weeds and the wheat, and invite you to join them in this episode of Jesus Unmasked!

“Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. Let anyone with ears listen!”

What a difference an interpretive lens makes. If we see God through a lens of harsh judgment, presider over a might-makes-right world, capriciously saving and damning whomever, we might envision God recklessly scattering humanity in dangerous places… but some just happen to fall into good soil. This makes it sound like God is fickle and much of humanity is doomed.

If we interpret this parable to mean that most of the time faith won’t take root in poor conditions, we may end up struggling very hard to create what we perceive to be the “right environment” for faith. And very often, that looks like staying away from “troublemakers.” Maintaining purity by forming outcasts. Becoming judgmental. 

Doing the exact opposite of what Jesus does.

Matthew’s Gospel doesn’t make it clear exactly what the Sower sows, but Mark’s does. “The Sower sows the word.” What is the word? Jesus.

It’s Jesus – it’s Love – that goes through the world with reckless, abundant generosity. Love will go where the soil is rocky or where the thorns are overgrown. Love goes to the margins, to those perceived to be condemned, love goes even to the enemy! Love goes through the danger and the trouble, and we never know where love will be received. 

But where it is received, it yields results. Love grows and multiplies. 

We can read this parable through a lens of fear or power, or we can read it through humility and love. Parables are tricky, and how they are read and interpreted makes all the difference. 

Go deep into this parable with Lindsey and Adam in this week’s episode of Jesus Unmasked!

Jesus’s opening words are strange. This generation is like a bunch of dissatisfied children who didn’t get what they expected. What does this mean?

In Jesus’s time, men marked festivities by playing the flute and dancing. Women would lead ritual mourning at funerals. Children learn by imitation. So children playing in the marketplace are learning how to live in the world by imitating the roles of the adults around them.

But something is going wrong. The rituals are breaking down.

Children see what happens on the surface, and it takes time for them to learn all the meaning behind it. Jesus sees this generation responding to their rituals breaking down with no deep understanding of why.

What’s happening? A few verses ahead we see, “the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news.” 

Justice is coming, breaking down hierarchical barriers. Mercy is coming, welcoming in the outcast. 

It’s shaking up the order of things, and people don’t know what to do. 

Equality can seem threatening when you’ve always found your identity over and against others. Those threatened by the inauguration of justice will find one reason or another to denounce or demonize the heralds of justice. They did that to John the Baptist and Jesus, for opposite reasons. They did that to King and Kaepernick, too.

But Jesus says the wisdom of God has been revealed to infants. He’s not talking about age. The marginalized and oppressed, experiencing and expressing the love of Jesus, understand the truth that conventional “wisdom” gets wrong: our infinite worth is found not in measuring ourselves over and against others but in living with and for others. 

This is the wisdom of infants because it’s still so new to us. Even 2000 years after Christ, we are still learning how to live not by rivalry and competition, but by love and cooperation. We are still growing into this wisdom. Come and listen and share your wisdom as we grow together in the new life of love that Jesus opens. 

What is a prophet’s reward?

Jesus also said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown.”

Those who bear witness to injustice, speak truth to power, and rise up to challenge a status quo built on inequity are lauded as heroes… except by the authorities and those who benefit from the status quo in their own nation. Right now, we are witnessing the crackdown of authority on the prophets of our time, as militarized police and the National Guard enforce curfews and often use excessive force in response to Black Lives Matter protests. Several people have died; hundreds more have been injured.

And the officers quelling protests are the front lines of the system of injustice and racism created and sustained by racism, scapegoating, and sacrificial order. The blood of the prophets is on the hands of everyone not working to transform injustice. Lindsey and Adam recognize their own accountability as well.

So, a prophet’s reward is scorn, injury, and death. 

But.

As the Spirit of Truth moves through the world, and more and more people stand with the prophets, change happens.

The prophet’s reward becomes hope. Transformation. And ultimately, justice.

We become prophets when we let the Holy Spirit speak through us. And as that happens, truth dispels the fog of racism, of over-againstness. Love casts out fear. Mercy casts out sacrifice.

Even the smallest actions we take in the spirit of Love ripple through the world, replacing the crumbling foundation of injustice with the firm foundation of compassion. Even a cold cup of water given to the vulnerable helps to build a world of love.

Join Lindsey and Adam as they ruminate on how we can participate in this holy transformation in the latest episode of Jesus Unmasked!

“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace but a sword.”

Strong words, and probably not even the hardest in this passage. But let’s start here…

Jesus is not talking about a literal sword. But he is disrupting the “peace.”

Any peace built on ignoring the suffering of “the least” of these, any peace built at the expense of the marginalized and vulnerable, is no peace at all. The active love of God will unravel that peace.

Jesus also says, “a slave is not above the master.” To use this as endorsement of slavery is to misunderstand or manipulate his words. The obedience to which the disciples are called is the way of loving service which Jesus first showed them. In context, Jesus is warning his disciples that just as he was abused and killed, his disciples, in following him, are also putting their lives on the line. 

But he says “Don’t fear those who can kill the body. Instead, fear those who can destroy body and soul in hell.”

Who can destroy our souls? We can destroy our own souls by giving into violence and apathy. We can destroy souls by building a world of enmity where some are doomed to hopelessness so others can “succeed.” What is hell if not that?

But what if Jesus is sending his disciples – us! -- into the midst of hell so that we can help others out of it? What if Jesus is sending us into the suffering and the struggle so that, through compassion and solidarity, we can transform rather than succumb to it?

So many difficult elements in this minefield of potential misunderstandings. But if we navigate Jesus’s words with great care and prayer, we can understand the call to radical, world-changing love within them. Explore them with us in the latest episode of Jesus Unmasked!

What does Jesus send followers to do? Proclaim that there is one true way to follow and all others are damned? Of course not.

Jesus sends his disciples to do the hard, urgent work of compassion in a dangerous world that has long operated on the myth that some lives matter less than others. In a culture where disease was considered punishment for sin, even by some of the disciples themselves, curing the sick was a political statement on the inviolability of human dignity as well as an act of mercy.

And to whom does Jesus give this urgent work?

All his disciples, including one “Simon the Cananean.”

Wait, weren’t the Cananites those people that “God” commanded the early Israelites to kill?

The idea that God cares for some lives at the expense of others, that some people are more God’s children than others or that God might have created peoples for exploitation or extermination… Jesus obliterates that idea.

The human projection of violence onto God is exposed by the prophets and particularly by Jesus. Jesus has Moabite genealogy and a Cananean disciple.

Cananean lives matter. 

Black lives matter.

Lindsey and Adam discuss these verses of the Bible, which shines the light of God’s expanding, all-inclusive, merciful love, in the context of today’s uprisings for a world in which lives are no longer sacrificed on alters of white or Christian supremacy, or greed, or powerlust.

Also discussed in this episode: kingdom economics and the meaning of myth. Abundance, generosity, and sharing. Recognizing the voices of those once silenced. 

We invite you listen, reflect, and lend your voice and talents to the calling Jesus gives in this episode of Jesus Unmasked.

For Trinity Sunday, Adam and Lindsey dive into this doctrine, using Matthew 28: 16-20 as their springboard. “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

These proto-Trinitarian words might not have been an exact quote of Jesus. The evangelists tried to capture the essence of his message, but his words weren’t written in real time. But it says no less for the Trinity if this reference to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit all together did not come straight from Jesus’s lips. In fact, it shows that the evangelist was able to piece together the connection – the shared divinity – from the larger message, the words and deeds of Jesus’s lifetime, the meaning of his death and resurrection, and the light it sheds on all of scripture before him.

The doctrine of the Trinity may not have been codified until the 4th century, but the nature of God as the relationship of Love – love that engendered creation, love that lived in solidarity with the outcast, love that empowers us to comfort the afflicted and work for justice – had become clear.

The Trinity is the Love-dance of God. Love is not solitary, it is ever-flowing in relationship. And the nature of God’s relationship is a dance of harmony. The difference between the relationship among God’s own Self and our relationships with each other is that within God, there is no rivalry, only everlasting love. And that difference shrinks as we grow into our destiny as living images of God, following the model of Jesus.

Jesus, again, speaks to the crowds from a mountain in Galilee.

Jesus has work for us to do, even in our doubts and imperfections. Make disciples of all nations… doesn’t this conjure imperialist imagery? Not if we remember that to invite the way of Jesus is to live into the message he first gave from that mountain. Humble ourselves and be in solidarity with those most in need.

Show that God is Love so that all can be swept joyfully into the Dance.

The Day of Pentecost is the birth of the Church, the new community founded by the Holy Spirit and built on the foundational love of Christ.

The old way of building community and order was based on sacrifice and exclusion. Pentecost is often described as a reversal of the Tower of Babel, where the people sought to build a tower to Heaven to achieve unity and “reach God.” The story of Babel mythologizes – disguises – the violent ways in which people sought unity in the ancient world, and sadly still seek unity today. It was the unity of sacrifice – murder of a victim to achieve catharsis, blaming and killing a scapegoat to form bonds of community over-and-against an outcast. God in this story is recreated in humanity’s mistaken image – petty and vengeful, establishing identity over and against humans by knocking them down lest they reach Heaven, scattering them and confusing their language.

But the message behind the myth is that building a world on sacrifice and victimization will always lead to division. Worshipping the false idea of a violent God by violent means – believing that God wants some to live at the expense of others – this is what scatters us. 

The truth of Pentecost is that God’s universal love unites us and brings us into our fullest selves. A common language cannot unite if that language is violence, if it teaches the lie that God – that the Power that orders the Universe – demands violence. But the God who gives us different languages and different abilities and different gifts brings all of our diverse beauty together so that we may understand and help and enjoy one another.

We need not define ourselves over and against each other or against God, but are invited to find ourselves in the Love that creates, sustains, and binds us together.

For the last Sunday in Easter, we again go back to before the crucifixion, where Jesus prays for the Father to “glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you.” Jesus’s glory is in the crucifixion itself, where, raised high for all the world to see, he forgives the violence that murdered the living God. In that moment, he definitively shows that God is not among the judges but among the judged, that God is not the author of righteous violence but the victim of it, and that mercy has the final word over sacrifice.

At the end of the Easter season, we revisit this prayer, and it takes on a new light in the ascension. Jesus went to the cross in Love, to fully embody solidarity with victims and stop hate in its tracks with forgiveness. Now he will be glorified in Love, so that our eyes can be opened to the beauty and wonder and joy of the Triune Dance of Love that created the cosmos and the earth and all of us.

Eternal life is not the reward given to those with perfect theology or perfect obedience. Jesus prays for his disciples who “have kept [God’s] word,” even though the disciples messed up again and again. All they have done is remain in relationship with Jesus, because Jesus himself has remained faithful to them. And that relationship is eternal life. And through his defeat of death on the cross and his model of mercy, Jesus has opened that relationship to the whole world.

Another Advocate.

Jesus himself is the first Advocate, the defender of victims and the accused. He has shown the disciples that advocacy is solidarity; that is, the way to show concern for the poor and marginalized is to become marginalized and live among the poor. He has fed, healed, and comforted those against whom society had turned their backs. He has eaten with “sinners and tax collectors.” He has redefined “sin” as exclusion itself (rather than a valid reason to exclude), and he has redefined “righteousness” as mercy.

Now he will model the ultimate solidarity with the “least” according to the world’s standards, being executed as a criminal and a blasphemer, in order expose the upside-down order of a world that operates on violence and sacrifice. God is not the author of sacrifice. God is the victim of sacrifice, the Advocate for all sacrificial victims, and the Love that unravels sacrifice and brings life out of death.

The world will see him as another crucified criminal. But the disciples will see through the lens of mercy, which will shine ever brighter after God reveals the limitlessness of God’s mercy on the cross. They will see through this lens that Jesus lives. And because he lives, hope and love and mercy will spread through those who follow in Jesus’s footsteps and “keep [his] commandments.”

These verses may appear exclusive, as if only a select few can truly know “the Spirit of Truth” while the rest of the world remains clueless and condemned. But the only condemnation the world receives is the condemnation it generates. God does not condemn but forgives the world.  At first, those who know this, those called to be Christ’s body and do his work of forgiveness, will be few.  But the Spirit of Truth cannot be contained; she blows where she will and sets hearts aflame with compassion, and her holy fire will burn through the lie of sacrificial violence until only Love remains.

These words have been quite a source of confusion. Through a lens of sacrifice, “No one comes to the Father except through me” seems pretty cut and dry… and unyielding. It leaves little room for people of other faiths or our own doubts. Many have tried to wrap their understanding of love around an exclusivism that has so long been the primary interpretation of this verse.

This is backwards.

Jesus is the embodiment of solidarity with the marginalized and the outcast. He is compassion, mercy, and love incarnate. To reduce the way to God to a narrow belief or creed or dogma is to go completely against Jesus. He is not “the way, the truth, and the life” because he demands absolute adherence to a religious formula, but because he lives into the fullness of his humanity as the incarnation of God’s love.

“No one comes to the Father except through me” means that the way to Love is the way of solidarity, compassion, and mercy that embraces, not excludes. Not only is this path always open to all, it is the path of openness itself. God leads all of us through it. We just have to recognize God in the one we might look down upon, exclude, or condemn. This path is universal, but still difficult, because it tells us that the way to God is not what we thought it was. The Good News is that it’s infinitely better!

In the midst of Ramadan, when Muslims so beautifully embody the very solidarity with the hungry and poor that Jesus models and prescribes, it’s urgent to understand the true meaning of Jesus’s words not as exclusion, but as the ultimate call to including all within the embrace of love and solidarity. Adam and Lindsey and the whole Raven flock wish all our Muslim friends a blessed Ramadan!

Okay, it makes sense to think of Jesus as a shepherd. But a sheep gate? What is going on?

A little context. The “sheep gate” was the gate through which the sheep entered the city of Jerusalem. When the sheep went from the pasture into the city, there was only one reason: sacrifice. A shepherd would lead sheep through the city gates… on their way to slaughter.

Some questions: What was the purpose of sacrifice in the first place? What would constitute a “good shepherd?” And why would Jesus compare himself to a sheep gate, a doorway of death, and say “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly?”

Adam and Lindsey explore why humanity has felt the need for sacrifice… and has confused that false need for the will of God. Sacrifice has been practiced all over the world and still exists in modern forms. Judaism didn’t invent sacrifice… rather, the Judeo-Christian scriptures expose, explore, and ultimately guide the way toward eliminating sacrifice.

Sheep were literal sacrificial animals… but they are also a metaphor for the most vulnerable among society. When life is viewed through a lens of scarcity, where prosperity for some seems to depend on poverty for others, where success comes at the expense of others… the weak and vulnerable are trampled.

When Jesus says, “I am the sheep gate,” he is saying he is the way for the vulnerable and marginalized. And indeed, he exposes the way of sacrifice as death. When Jesus walks the path of the vulnerable and condemned, he opens that path to new life by exposing human folly and answering it with divine mercy.

Come explore this beautiful, bizarre metaphor with us in Jesus Unmasked!

This isn’t just one of the most underrated stories in scripture; it’s also one of the funniest. Two disciples are walking along the road when Jesus, whom they do not recognize, joins them. Jesus asks what they are talking about, and they say, “Have you been living under a rock?” (Actually, yes.)

They proceed to tell Jesus everything that has happened to him as if he’s the outsider. Which, of course, is nothing new for Jesus. He has been treated as an outsider and a blasphemer his whole life. Born outside the shelter of the inn, made a refugee in childhood, marginalized for embracing the marginalized, killed as a criminal.

The one thought to be outside the boundaries of God’s protection, mercy, and love… is God’s own self.

The disciples disciple-splain everything to Jesus, and his first words back to them are “You fools.”

I laugh… in empathy, not derision. Because I know I couldn’t do any better.

Perhaps the hardest thing in the world is being forced to re-evaluate everything we think we know, especially when our wake-up call comes from someone we hadn’t taken seriously.

The disciples hear of the resurrection from “the women” and don’t believe them. Jesus himself walks among them and they don’t recognize him. They had dedicated their lives to the one they thought was the redeemer of Israel. They probably expected battle and victory and glory.

Instead they witnessed ridicule, suffering, and death.

But now Jesus is back, showing them that there is a world beyond all of this, beyond everything they have ever imagined, as he gradually opens their eyes. Even beyond death, there is hope and love.

And even before they recognize him, they listen and are changed, because they offer radical hospitality even when they still think he’s a stranger.

That is the Gospel opening up in a nutshell.

Listen for more on how Jesus gives us new eyes through which to see scripture, God, and humanity, and share your thoughts on our FB page!

With these words, Jesus breathes new life into his disciples.

Shut up within that room, frightened after seeing their leader murdered and having their ambitions crushed, they are probably in a state of utter defeat. But suddenly, Love bursts through the walls.

With the assurance, “Peace be with you,” Jesus calms the storm of confusion and fear must have raged within the disciples in the instant they saw him. Jesus is not there to rebuke those who ran away at his hour of death, but to comfort them and reinvigorate them.

Jesus tells the disciples, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” This may sound like Jesus is giving followers – believers – the power to bless or curse. But with the Holy Spirit guiding them from within, there is only one real path they can take. Why, then, does Jesus mention retaining sins?

Thomas is not with the disciples when Jesus first encounters them. He is skeptical of the account the disciples give – and who can blame him?

The story of “Doubting Thomas” has been used to shame people into better, stronger belief. That tactic never works.

Jesus doesn’t shame Thomas. He gives his skeptical disciple what he needs to believe. But he does say 
“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

All of us have seen something, but none of us have seen everything. All around us, there is evidence of new life springing from the well of compassion and mercy that God opened to us by suffering with us and forgiving us for the suffering we have caused. But none of us have yet seen the fullness of the world living into perfect love. That is the Kingdom of God.

To believe is to trust God’s Kingdom is possible and coming into being, so that we can live into vocations as reflections of God and do our part to usher it in. That is the blessing that Jesus gives to his disciples and all of us in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

Those words probably stung.

Mary was deeply grieving. She had watched the man she loved die the most painful death imaginable, and when she went to anoint the body, it was gone.

In her sorrow, she couldn’t see Jesus at first. And this year, it might be easier to understand that level of despondency than ever before. Everything seems to be going wrong. How hard it must have been to believe he had risen, even though he had said he would. How hard it is to believe good news when we’re surrounded by ashes and tears!

But then Jesus says her name, and in an instant, her heart recognizes him. Of course she wanted to throw her arms around him! She probably never wanted to let him go. But Jesus says, “Don’t.”

Why won’t Jesus let her embrace him?

We can’t grasp onto Jesus because he is not exclusively ours. How many times has Easter been used as a time of triumphalism? How often have we heard Jesus’s victory over death interpreted as a victory over people who believe differently?

Jesus ascends to his Father and our Father because God is the Father of us all. And as such, we are all God’s children, sisters and brothers perfectly and unconditionally loved. And if we are all loved, then there is no room for sacrifice, no room for us versus them.

I hope Mary took comfort in that, even if she couldn’t embrace Jesus.

I hope we can all take comfort in this new, inclusive identity that leaves no one out.

If it doesn’t feel like Easter with a pandemic hovering over the world, think about how we are awakening to the needs of the most vulnerable and how we can live in compassion for one another in this time of uncertainty.

After all, Jesus came among the most vulnerable and was crucified as a criminal. When he rose, he turned our ideas of power and glory upside-down. Jesus uplifts the most vulnerable first, and brings the world along with him.

We do not rise until we all rise together.

First, Peter’s betrayal of Jesus (John 18:15-18 and 25-27). “Again Peter denied it [being with Jesus], and at that moment the cock crowed.”

How did Jesus know Peter would deny him? Is it because Jesus has divine knowledge, because he is the Son of God?

Actually, maybe we should re-define “divine knowledge.” Maybe it’s not about knowing the future, but about having a deep, intuitive knowledge of humanity that comes through love.

Jesus knew Peter. He knew not just that Peter would be afraid, but also that he would yearn for belonging. Notice that Peter inserts himself into the crowd before the people ask if he was with Jesus. He isn’t just running away; he is seeking out a new community now that the one he knows – and his sense of purpose along with it – is dissolved.

How are we like Peter, longing for the security of belonging? Afraid as much of being alone as we are for our physical safety?

How might we be more like Jesus, understanding others intuitively through love?

Next, Jesus’s words on the cross (John 19:25-30). John only gives us three of his statements. First, Jesus says to his mother, “Woman, behold your son,” and to his beloved disciple, “Here is your mother.” Then Jesus says, “I am thirsty.” Finally, just before he dies, he says, “It is finished.”

There’s something beautiful about ensuring that loved ones will be in good hands when you die, about creating new familial bonds around yourself that can be sustained after your death. But there’s more going on here. To understand the deeper meaning of Jesus’s words, listen to the podcast!

What is Jesus thirsty for? What can quench his parched spirit… and ours?

What, exactly, is finished? What new thing may now begin?

Palm Sunday: Jesus’s triumphal entrance into Jerusalem! Crowds spill out into the streets to greet their king, waving palm branches, bumping into one another, probably jockeying to get a better view. Hosannas ring out joyfully as the crowd gathers and people and branches and noise fills the air and…

Maybe this year, not so much.

It’s a strange Palm Sunday indeed when the world is shut indoors. But as we consider the crowds that thronged to Jesus, hailing him as a king and following his processional, we can remember the world just a few weeks ago. The streets were packed and we couldn’t foresee the sudden, dramatic change about to befall us.

If the last week of Jesus’s life could be broken up into a 3-act play, the acts could be called “Hope,” “Fear,” and “Love.” Palm Sunday is hope. The atmosphere is percolating with anticipation; the people are ready – hungry for change, thirsty for liberation.

And Jesus comes riding out – noble, glorious and… humble? He’s mounted on the foal of a donkey. He’d probably be taller if he were walking.

But he’s subverting all understanding of what it means to be a king. Riding a beast of burden instead of a war horse, showing that the greatest honor lies in service, not conquest. And he will lead the people to liberation not through battle, but through opening their hearts to self-giving love.

There is an ominous feeling in the air even in the midst of hope. The end of the passage says the city was in turmoil. Expectation can easily turn to disappointment, and hope can be swallowed up in fear in times of upheaval.

Soon the people will turn against Jesus and then disperse. The crowded streets will be empty. It feels like that now… the time in-between the hope of Palm Sunday and the triumph of resurrection. As we wait, let’s consider the world as it is. How do we understand power and wealth and freedom, and what images do we see in our mind’s eye of success and prosperity? How is Jesus turning it all upside-down?

Why does Jesus weep?

Just before raising Lazarus from the dead, tears spill from Jesus’s eyes. Why, when he alone knows the unprecedented joy that is about to ensue? Why, when he can probably see in his mind’s the incredible reunion mere moments away?

There is so much within this story: family, friendship, doubt, faith, death, life. And there’s so much within Jesus: sorrow, grief, wisdom, love, hope… fear? Perfect Love casts out fear… was Jesus perfecting his own love, and discovering the infinite possibilities within himself, in this moment?

Looking closely at this story, we see patterns of accusation and a world caught up in violence. Jesus’s disciples point out that, in going to Lazarus, Jesus would be returning to a place where people had tried to stone him. Mary and Martha’s loss of their brother is particularly devastating in a patriarchal culture where women without male relatives were physically and economically vulnerable. Jesus sees the patterns of humanity’s violence and its consequences distilled in this scene and compounded by personal grief.

So Jesus weeps in compassion, in the shared sorrow and love for his friend and the hole that his absence has left. And beneath that surface, he weeps for a world caught up in the pain and grief of violence and disease and death. His sadness echoes through the ages, goes to the heart of the broken world’s malady.

But there is also hope in his tears, hope and faith that there is a power stronger than death. In all of Mary and Martha’s pain, they still feel hope, believing that Jesus can still make things better. Perhaps their faith reinforces his just as his reinforces theirs. That’s what being human is all about.

What is the tomb that Jesus is calling you to emerge from? What binds you, and how can faith and love set you free?

This is what the disciples – not the crowds or the Pharisees, but Jesus’s closest followers – ask. It is a victim-blaming mentality that sees misfortune and terrible circumstances as punishment for sin. It is cruel, and it perpetuates misery by hindering compassion and further marginalizing those most in need.

Jesus answers that neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that this man was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. There may be a temptation to interpret this as God making a man blind in order to provide the occasion for a miracle so that Jesus can prove his power. But God doesn’t make people blind in order to show off!

Any time someone takes the opportunity to show love and compassion, God’s works are revealed. The new vision we all need is to see that God is Love, and that God empowers us to love one another beyond all the barriers we create to keep us apart.

Our worst blinders are blame, accusation, and resignation. Our worst blinders are those that keep us from reaching out to others because of fear or hate, or an understanding that “they” are not “us.”

Sometimes, our worldview can become so clouded with cynicism and enmity that it needs to be shut down completely. Sometimes we need a “road to Damascus” moment, when we have to be blinded by Light and Love in order to see.

A Samaritan woman goes to a well in the heat of the day. Jesus breaks all the rules of propriety to talk to her – a woman, a non-Jew, and an outcast. How do we know she’s an outcast? Anyone who goes for water alone, in the heat of the day, is avoiding, or being avoided, by her society? Why?

Well, Jesus reveals that this woman has had five husbands and is now living with a man who is not her husband. In a patriarchal culture, where women had little power and depended on the care of their husbands, fathers, or brothers, this poor woman has become a pariah through no fault of her own. Men have left her – by death or divorce, we can’t know – and now she is ostracized.

How she must thirst for acceptance and love! How she must yearn for belonging!

The woman at the well is a scapegoat, a pariah against which her community measures their own worthiness. She is also a badass woman of scripture, and a messenger of love. Find out the rest of her story in this week’s Jesus Unmasked!

Before this famous verse, though, we get a story of Nicodemus. He is a Pharisee who seeks Jesus in the night because he recognizes the divine presence within Jesus. Jesus tells Nicodemus that no one can see the kingdom of God without being born “from above.” Nicodemus doesn’t understand, asking if anyone can re-enter the mother’s womb.

Nicodemus may have misunderstood, but he’s trying. He’s “in the dark,” confused and bewildered, but he found his way to Jesus. Before we laugh at Nicodemus’s literalism, we should humbly remember that we are all on a journey into deeper understanding; our eyes are still adjusting to the light that grows brighter as we follow, and of course, we too get things wrong.

And John 3:16 is one of those verses that has long been misinterpreted, has long needed to be understood in the light of God’s universal, unconditional love. God’s salvation is not limited to those of a particular religion or creed. “Whosoever believes” is not meant to single out only Christians for salvation.

Adam and Lindsey explore the meaning of John 3:16 and the following verses. What are we saved from? What does it mean to be called to believe in Jesus, in Love Incarnate? What does it mean to be condemned “already,” and is condemnation permanent?  The discussion touches on these questions.

Ultimately, we at Raven believe in universal salvation and reconciliation. John 3:16 attests to God’s great love for the world, but it has been used as a line in the sand between “believers” and “nonbelievers”—doubters, seekers, those who profess other faiths. How do we, like Nicodemus, come to a deeper, better understanding? Let’s discover together.

Stop right there!

What a sneaky, vicious little word, “If.”

The last thing Jesus hears before setting off into the desert is the proclamation that he is God’s Son, the Beloved, “with whom I am well pleased.” It is security in the knowledge that he is loved that gives Jesus the strength and stamina to spend 40 days and nights in the desert. Who is this “tempter” to sow seeds of doubt?

It looks like there are three temptations here, but there are really 4… or, only 1, depending on how you look at it. The first and perhaps only temptation is to give in to the word “If.” When we doubt the unconditional love of God, we forget who God is and who we are. God is Love. We are reflections, outpourings, of Love. Everything goes wrong when that truth slips from our grasp.

How does Jesus face up to the temptations that press on us daily? We are tempted to lose sight of the fact that we are unconditionally loved. Then we compete for resources that we perceive to be scarce, we try to show off our abilities, and we seek power – or even the means of attaining justice – over and against rather than with and for others.

Lindsey and Adam explore each of these temptations and also seek to understand why Jesus goes to be tempted in the first place. Maybe it is because life is a constant temptation to see ourselves narrowly and forget that we are all connected in Love. Maybe that temptation always surrounds us, and only when we face it head on, as Jesus did, can we recognize and overcome it.

Happy Ash Wednesday! Wait… that can’t be right! Or can it? Adam convinces Lindsey to celebrate as we enter the season of Lent together!

The Gospel for Ash Wednesday is Matthew 6:1-6 and 16-21. “Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.”

What are we to make of this warning on the one day that many of us actually wear our faith on our foreheads?

Lindsey admits that she has always enjoyed Ash Wednesday for the way it helps her feel a sense of solidarity with others in the street who wear the ashes as a visible symbol of faith. For Christians who see one another with the ashes, there’s a sense of recognition and belonging that we don’t see other days of the year.

But what if we expand our sense of solidarity beyond symbols? What if we could look at every single person and feel a sense of connection simply by virtue of our humanity? What if we remembered, in all times and places, that we are united to each other in the everlasting embrace of Love?

Repentance, to which we are called at all times but especially during Lent, is about reorienting our lives around the knowledge that we are loved. We can recognize the things we need to change about ourselves when we are secure in the comfort of the truth that will never change: we are always perfectly loved. We can reorient our whole lives around that pivotal truth.

When we pray, or fast, or work, to be seen by others, we have our reward. Recognition, esteem, status… they all feel really good! But all of these things simply orient us to crave more and more attention, and feel more loss when we lack that attention. It makes us feel as though we have to keep trying and competing over and against each other. That’s why Jesus tells us not to seek out the recognition of others, because he wants to reorient us around the Love to whom we never have to prove ourselves. From that point, we can pray and work and live for the good of others, assured of our own security.

The ashes remind us that we are dust, and to dust we shall return. But Love upholds us even beyond our mortality. So we are to store up our treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust can consume. Because everything we do to build ourselves up against others will wash away, and only the Love that connects us to God and one another will remain.

The last Sunday of Epiphany is Transfiguration Sunday. Our eyes have adjusted to the light that guided shepherds and sages from afar to the amazing discovery of God born among us. Now they drink in the full brilliance of God’s manifestation in the illuminated Christ. Lindsey and Adam explore Matthew 17:1-9.

Jesus takes Peter and James up the mountain, where he is suddenly transfigured before their eyes, standing with Moses and Elijah and dazzling like the sun. Awed, Peter asks to build a dwelling place for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah, but God interrupts him with a cloud of light and a booming voice. The words spoken at Jesus’s baptism are repeated: “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him!” Him, not them. When the cloud recedes, Jesus is the last man standing; Moses and Elijah are gone.

Jesus stands with the law and the prophets that Moses and Elijah represent. But they are absorbed into Jesus, who fulfills rather than abolishes. The best of the law and the prophets, all that is good and true, shines in Jesus. What fades away is the human misunderstanding that has led to violence and the notion that God can only be on our side at the expense of others.

The stories of both Moses and Elijah show leaders who gradually grew in their relationship with God. Their understanding of divine liberation was mingled with their conviction that God destroys enemies; yet they both came to a revelation of God’s glory apart from violence. Adam and Lindsey briefly explore their stories.

Ultimately, the transfiguration is the story of the transformation of our understanding of God. And that story continues. Peter and James cannot fully grasp what has happened. Jesus warns them to speak to no one until “after the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.” Maybe this is because a partial understanding of God can lead to self-righteousness and destruction.

To fully understand who God is and who we are meant to be, we must come down from the mountain and follow Jesus into the pain and tears of humanity. We can only dare to travel into the shadows of sin and suffering with the transfigured Christ, a glimpse of God’s light eclipsing all violence, as our guide. We will take that journey during the Lenten season, and emerge in the radiance of Love’s triumph over death.

Yet it would be wonderful if more people could take that verse seriously, if not literally. Because that verse, and this whole passage, is about taking responsibility for ourselves. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the onus for preventing exploitation and abuse fell on the people tempted by lust and not on those objectified by their temptation? If instead of critiquing the way people (almost always women) dress, we asked people to take responsibility for the lust in their own hearts?

Actually, it would be best if we recognized everyone’s agency, women’s as well as men’s. This passage doesn’t acknowledge a woman’s ability to lust, and admonishes against divorce by claiming that it brings guilt upon women. There may have been ways in which the flawed male brain of Matthew misunderstood and misreported the words of Jesus, and there are definitely ways in which the patriarchal culture in Jesus’ day shape these verses even as Jesus subverts that culture.

And these verses are very subversive, challenging our sensibilities about God, humanity, and morality.

Jesus himself doesn’t live into his warnings against anger literally – he gets angry quite a bit, and uses harsher language than “fool.” But he shows us how to be angry without being violent, and warns us where anger can lead, where lust can lead, where seeing ourselves apart from others can lead. He shows us a different path out of anger or lust, by acknowledging responsibility for ourselves while caring for the welfare of others. That’s why he calls on us to reconcile with those who have something against us. And while we shouldn’t take calls for self-mutilation literally, we should be warned about what is happening to our own souls when we objectify others – whether in lust or greed or anger or pride.

Ultimately, these verses collapse the distance between heaven and earth, by showing that we cannot care for God without caring for our fellow human beings.

How did we go from blessings to the threat of being trampled so quickly?

Remembering that everything is grounded in the context of love for the most vulnerable, Lindsey and Adam wrestle with the text and glean good news from these difficult words.

We are the salt of the earth. We are made to give the world variety and flavor… and we are also made to preserve the world. Stewards of the earth. Caretakers of each other. We do not have to do anything to earn this honor or position. We are already made in God’s image.

How might we lose our saltiness? How might we lose sight of our vocation as God’s image-bearers?

Who throws us out? Who does the trampling?

And does following Jesus guarantee that we won’t be trampled? Just look what happened to him…

We are the light of the world. Does light glorify itself or shine on others? Is there anything we would rather keep hidden in the darkness? What risks come with living into our role as light?

How does Jesus regard the law and the Pharisees, teachers of the law? Adam and Lindsey explore ways to avoid an anti-Semitic reading of this text. Not all Pharisees are the same, and Jesus is critiquing a method of interpretation and exposing its consequences, not condemning a group of people. Jesus fulfills the law by living it out within a framework of mercy, not sacrifice. If we use the law to condemn anyone, we turn it from an instrument of grace into an instrument of death.

What draws the crowds to Jesus in the first place; why have so many come to hear him speak from this mountain? Before the words come the actions. Jesus has built relationships by ministering to the sick and suffering, healing them and restoring them to their communities. He has gone out and actually blessed the poor in spirit before proclaiming that blessing. We are called to follow.

The beatitudes root the struggle for justice in God’s love, drawing attention to the people for whom we struggle rather than catching us up in the violence we seek to overcome. They remind us that those who suffer – and those who compassionately enter into the suffering of others – are blessed because God loves them and because they are reflecting God’s love to others.

Adam and Lindsey discuss each beatitude, the ones they find inspiring and the ones they find difficult. (All of them are different combinations of both!) What do these similar but differently-worded blessings mean? What does it mean to possess the kingdom of heaven now, or to be promised the inheritance of the earth in the future? What does it mean that the pure in heart “see God” or that the peacemakers are “children of God”?

And what in the world could it truly mean to “be glad” when facing persecution?

As Adam and Lindsey wrestle with these questions, they invite you to ponder them anew and share your insights.

Jesus goes to Galilee, the land of Gentiles or “others,” to subvert our understanding of “otherness.” This is fully within the Jewish tradition, in the blessing of Israel to be a blessing to the world.

Jesus goes to a land of “death and darkness…” and beckons us to follow Him! Christianity is not about avoiding death or hell, but about going there to bring hope and love.

Jesus calls fishermen – among the most marginalized and despised of people. Literally pushed off the land and forced to make a living on the sea, the “realm of chaos,” fishermen were not accustomed to being wanted… except for their labor. There’s an eagerness to follow Jesus because he sees their humanity. But there’s also a risk, because Rome was keeping track of their productivity, and would possibly punish them for leaving their posts. This is an example of nonviolent civil disobedience.

What do we make of the way the disciples leave their father, Zebedee, behind?

Jesus gives free universal healthcare!

In times of war, the poor and the sick are often neglected. War exacerbates health problems and erodes compassion. But Jesus puts the sick, the poor, the broken and the injured FIRST. Changing the world isn’t about marching out with a powerful army but meeting the powerless where they are and healing them.

We have to change our entire outlook on what saves us. This is what repentance is all about.

Change your mind about the fisherman. They are worthy and loved and called by Jesus.

Change your mind about who the “others” are. Love your neighbors and your enemies.

Change your mind about violence. The world will be saved through healing hands, not slashing swords.

Change your mind about who God is. God is not the one who demands sacrifice or death. God is Love.

Repentance doesn’t mean wallow in guilt. It doesn’t mean revel in self-righteousness.

Repentance means you are perfectly loved, just as your enemies are perfectly loved. When we see that Perfect Love loves us all perfectly, how does that reorient our lives?