The Parish

The religious leaders disapproved of Jesus' loving acceptance of tax collectors and sinners. So Jesus gives them a parable to explain it.... and then invites them to join the party!

Sometimes the truth we're looking for doesn't arrive because we've finally figured it out. It’s is revealed when we've learned to notice what was growing in front of us all along.

We live in a world that ruthlessly pursues efficiency and productivity. In that kind of a world intangibles like beauty can get pushed to the margins. But Jesus may see a more central role for beauty.

Celebrate when you recognize God at work in front of you, and search when you can’t. Both are spiritual practices. Both are holy work.

We live in an age of spectacle and it can be tempting to think that the church needs to follow suit. But Jesus has a different idea.

Jesus is starting a revolution, but not the kind anyone expected.  His followers would have felt unqualified to challenge the systems around them.  Yet Jesus insists that darkness is not defeated by power, but it is overcome by light.

When you challenge the status quo....when you expose what others would rather ignore....when you call people back to the heart of God, opposition often follows.

We sow the seeds of peace when we speak graciously, share generously and love deferentially

Have you ever felt that your life is spread too thin, with so many things competing for your attention, and loyalty. That shallow life is robbing us of not just seeing ourselves more clearly, but in seeing God more easily.  Spirituality has always insisted that the sacred is found in the depths, not merely at the surface.

Mercy-we need it more than we think...and we need to give it more than we think we do.

What if we could find satisfaction in working towards justice, not just in the experience of justice, It would mean planting trees of whose fruit we might never get a chance to eat.

When Jesus pronounces blessing on those who are meek he isn't addressing those who are weak and ineffectual but rather those who may have power and privilege but choose to hold them in reserve.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted... both troubles and intrigues me, if this is a promise, it doesn’t seem to work the way we think promises work.

Jesus isn’t looking for religious rule-keepers with their noses deep in their bibles, he is looking for followers. Followers who know they aren’t good at it yet, so know they need to stick close and watch what Jesus does.
 

A lot of things in this life can seem like an uphill battle. It can feel at times like these mountains-and God are working against us.  Jesus will have us pause to consider that there might be Gold in these hills.

Death, burial and resurrection - it is a story that captivates us; it is theology that grounds us and it is metaphor that shapes our lives.

We often discover joy in places where happiness could not survive.

This is one of those stories were we are watching people who don’t fully understand what they are seeing. And if we’re honest… neither do we.