The Beatitudes and Political Realities

Preached at Silverton Friends Church

July 20, 2025

I have a lifetime of reading the Beatitudes, Matthew 5:1-12, as statements to me of how my interior life ought to be. Perhaps you also have heard the saying, “beatitudes are attitudes to be.” This (like many clichés) is only partly true.  I’ve also argued with these pronouncements, particularly those that seem to promote spinelessness and subservience. Since Jesus was neither spineless nor subservient, I figure I have misunderstood something about what he taught in these massively important words. So I’ve gone looking for context to help me update my understanding, particularly in relation to the turbulent times in which we are living. I want us to look at the beatitudes for their prophetic content.

Luke’s gospel records the moment when Jesus announced to his hometown congregation what he had come to do (Luke 4:17-21): “The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are downtrodden, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord” (Is. 61:1-2). This announcement sets context for Jesus’s mission here; Jesus places his calling in the line of prophets from ancient history. Therefore, we can expect to find precedent for his teaching in the Jewish Testament. We can also notice that Jesus stopped short of this word: “the favorable year of the Lord, the day of vengeance for our God.”  All his hearers would have noticed that he omitted this phrase.  

Luke includes a second version of the beatitudes, one less likely to be spiritualized and individualized (Luke 6:20-38).  Luke also includes the “woes”—the day of vengeance for our God. I’m not implying one is accurate and one is inaccurate; I’d guess instead that Jesus said these things more than just one time on a hillside.  

Today I want us to consider these three beatitudes from Matthew.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. 

These three beatitudes communicate the shocking idea that those who are beaten down are blessed, or happy.  No one actually thinks this is true. In the Greek,  “poor” connotes beggary, crouching in fear, helplessness; “mourn” connotes profound and irreparable loss; “meek” connotes downcast eyes, oppressed, depressed, lowly, tamed (though I have to include the meanings of gentle and humble).

It is hard to aspire to these conditions, even though Jesus announces that the law of the universe is that these conditions will be rewarded, or perhaps, if I understand the second part of the beatitudes more accurately, will be remedied far and above the harm.

Let’s look at the poor in spirit.  In Luke, Jesus says, “Blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of heaven.”

This is a common theme of the Jewish Testament. God is on the side of the poor, and will  recompense their misery.  Psalm 113 says, “Who is like the Lord our God, who is enthroned on high, who humbles himself to behold things in heaven and in the earth. He raises the poor from the dust, and lifts the needy from the ash heap, to make them sit with nobles, with the privileged of his people.” This is the tip of the iceberg of prophecies and psalms where God excoriates the rich for grinding the faces of the poor into the dirt and asserts that their wrongs will be redressed and those who wrong them will reap what they have sown.

Jesus, who grew up in a family with royal forbears and was part of the working class, may not himself have had this grinding down experience of poverty. But he gave up home and livelihood to obey the will of God—to preach the good news to the poor. The rich who came to him were confronted—Zacchaeus offered to pay back all he had defrauded at a rate of 4 to 1, and the rich young ruler went away sad because he couldn’t bear to part with the security of his wealth. Matthew himself gave up his lucrative tax practice in order to follow Jesus, and Mary poured a fortune in perfume onto him in worship. Detachment from wealth and increased generosity developed in Jesus's followers.

It’s tempting to think that Matthew, likely well-to-do, emphasized the “in spirit” version when Jesus said it, because those of us not impoverished also want to be eligible heirs of the kingdom of heaven. And Matthew also omits the “woes”: Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.” The rich believe their needs have been met and will be met by the cushion of wealth.  They are comforted and comfortable. Wealth is their comforter.

I’ll refer you to the parable of the rich man and Lazarus the beggar, in which Lazarus ends up being comforted in Abraham’s arms and the rich man ends up in flames, begging for a drop of water to drink. Abraham said to him, “Son, remember that in life you had all the good things and Lazarus had all the bad things, and so now he is comforted, and you are in torment” (Luke 16:19-31). This parable teaches us the same thing as the sheep and the goats—those who have must share to alleviate the suffering of those who have not, or there will be hell to pay.  

The poor sit next door to those who mourn.  Proverbs 29:2, “When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice, but when the wicked rule, the people mourn.” Psalm 55 is a long and bitter lament mourning the loss of a friend who betrayed the psalmist, and crying out to God to set things right. And just after Jesus’s mission statement from Isaiah 61 is this: “to comfort those that mourn, … to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified.”

It is difficult to overstate how much of the Jewish testament is given over to mourning, to lament, often followed by entreaties for God to take action and execute judgment and even vengeance on those who have done the harm. The beautiful psalm that begins with “By the waters of Babylon, we lay down and wept for thee, Zion” ends with a  bloodthirsty prayer that asks God to require an eye for an eye, an infant for an infant.

Even the Revelation of John includes the martyrs under the throne of God crying out for their blood to be avenged. 

It is hard to mourn without also blaming someone for the loss. And just after Jesus’s mission statement from Isaiah 61 is this: “the acceptable day of the Lord, the day of vengeance for our God, to comfort those that mourn.” But over and over, the Bible disapproves of taking personal revenge, even in the Law of an eye for an eye. At least that limits revenge, so that the wronged person doesn’t take more than was taken.  

Paul reminds his readers, “ Don’t repay anyone evil for evil, because ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay,’ says the Lord” and Jesus pushes beyond that to require us to pray for those who misuse us, who cause us harm. In fact, Jesus wades into the deep waters of turning the other cheek, offering no resistance to evil, and loving the enemy, all of which are unnatural to human beings and require us to seek the intervention of the indwelling Spirit of God to teach us how to respond to loss, to undeserved harm, to intentional evil. 

And finally, Blessed are the meek. Within this word is a picture of a tamed animal. For instance, the horse, while dangerous due to its size, is a prey animal, and lives in a state of readiness for alarm, even when tamed. A horse with a rope around its neck can be led by a small human. And anyone who has read Black Beauty knows how a horse can be abused by its owners, despite having the potential to trample said owner into the ground. 

The negative side of meekness is this subservience, this loss of belief in one’s own power to effect change, the resignation of the hopeless. And yet, in a direct reference to Psalm 37, “The meek shall inherit the earth, and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace.” Jesus says, “The meek shall inherit the earth." This psalm offers a picture of meekness: Trust in the Lord, do good, don’t fret because of evildoers, delight yourself in the Lord, commit your way to the Lord, rest in the Lord, wait patiently for him, cease from anger, believe that the Lord will set things right.

It’s pretty difficult not to fret because of evildoers, and anger seems unavoidable when we see evil prosper.  The Psalms are full of this anger, and yet they provide us with a way to move toward meekness. Taking the harms and the evil we see being done to the vulnerable among us, and to us ourselves at times, taking those to God in passionate, angry, justice-seeking prayer is a positive action.   

I’ve recently read Jacques Ellul’s book, Hope in Time of Abandonment (New York: Seabury Press, 1972).

Writing in the early 1970s, Ellul responded to the chaos of his times, expressing his observation that God has abandoned history. Ellul allowed for the perceived presence and activity of God in the lives of individuals, but he did not see God intervening in elections, in wars, in technological developments, in disasters natural and human-made.  He did not see God setting things right on behalf of those who need everything, those who lament irretrievable losses, those who are beaten down to the point of no resistance.  And, if I’m honest, these times are not better.  Ellul set out to write about this abandonment, but instead, he wrote, “hope asserted itself” (Preface, viii). It was precisely in this recognition of abandonment, this awareness that no human initiative or institution or election will redress the miseries of the world, this realization of the childishness and impotence of the church to bring positive change, it  was in this chaos that hope asserted itself.  

Ellul says this, “There is little attraction in prayer. It is boring. And yet, … without prayer there is no hope, not the slightest” (272).“Prayer is the assurance of the possibility of God’s intervention, without which there is no hope” (271-2).  

“Hope is based on God’s promise constantly fulfilled and renewed. But how can we forget that, throughout the Bible, this promise is linked with the ceaseless outcry of prayer? It is [our] prayer which demands the fulfillment and its ongoing. Without prayer, the promise and its fulfillment are forces just as indifferent and blind as fate and necessity” (273).  Prayer is the only basis for hope, and at the same time it is the means of hope and the expression of hope.  “Prayer is the referral to God’s decision, on which we are counting” (272).

Jesus pointed us in this direction with his parable in Luke 18 of the persistent widow and the unjust judge, “a parable to show that at all times [we] should pray and not lose heart.”

A widow, one of the poor, the mournful, the meek, petitioned a judge to avenge her on her adversary.  He ignored her.  She brought her case again, and then again, and then again.  Finally, the unjust judge said, “Even though I do not fear God nor respect human beings, I will avenge her. She is wearing me out, bothering me beyond endurance.”

And Jesus said, “Now shall not God bring about justice for those he cares for, who cry to God night and day?”

What can we learn from these beatitudes and the Old Testament sources they derive from? We learn that centering our hearts on God’s character and God’s faithfulness is the place to start. (I’m trying contemplative prayer for this purpose.)  It is always right to pray. It is not the last resort; it is the only resort in hopeless times. Prayer is the expression of hope when there is no basis for hope. 

Prayer is modeled throughout the Bible, and recommended (!) by Jesus in the face of injustice and evil leadership.  Prayer expresses the anger and despair we feel about the power evil wields in our world and channels our feelings towards God, who can absorb them, so that in our daily lives we can act and react with non-violence in word and deed, but still act in ways that make life more bearable for the poor, the mournful, the beaten down. 

We pray because God told us to, and we then do what God tells us to. 

Meditations on the Resurrection

Preached at Silverton Friends Church, Jan. 12, 2025

I've been preaching on what scripture says the crucifixion of Jesus means to us, and today I want to talk about the resurrection.  Let me just say that without the resurrection and the loosing of God's Holy Spirit on those waiting for it, the crucifixion is just another death of a good man. One meaning of the resurrection is that Jesus is who he claimed to be, and he is a reliable witness to the character and purposes of God. Now on to the rest of the sermon.

I have a friend I’ll call Dorothy whom I met at the Pacific Northwest Quaker Theological Conference. This was a biennial meeting of women from North Pacific Yearly Meeting, what at the time I called liberal Quakers.

Dorothy stood up in our closing unprogrammed worship and said the following: “Some of you know that i occasionally see Jesus.” I was not expecting this.  She went on, “I first saw him while I was in heavy traffic in Seattle, and other drivers were getting on my nerves. I looked over at the passenger seat and there he was. He said, "Dorothy, do you have to use such language?” This was not all of the conversation, but I remember only this. I was both impressed and a little envious. I’d love to see Jesus in his glorified and yet identifiable physical self.

Some years later, Dorothy stood and said that Jesus had shown up  (while she was exercising, if I remember correctly) and told her he would be her personal trainer for the following year. She was looking forward to this. As it turned out, her personal training took her through breast cancer. She survived both the cancer and the treatment, and she learned about accepting help rather than being the one giving help.  

For many, the thought of seeing Jesus, or for that matter, his mother Mary, fills them with skepticism. People who see what they call apparitions are particularly credulous or vulnerable in some way, and their experiences can be dismissed as delusions.

But not dismissed by me. Dorothy is a grounded, sensible, scientific type person, and she occasionally sees Jesus. And she isn’t the only one. 

I’m not sure whether it was Jesus or a messenger from God that I met one despairing day.  I was sitting in church, weeping quietly over my pain over memories of my childhood, and I couldn’t bear it. So I got up and drove toward Champoeg Park. I came to a place in the road where the pavement had been removed and there were barriers with “No Through Traffic”; as I sat there stuck about what to do next, a big green boat of an American car came from the other direction.  The driver, whom I did not see clearly, leaned out of the window and said, “You can make it through.” I received this as the word of Jesus to me, and it comforted me.

You may have your own stories about hearing or seeing Jesus.

Robert Willis, the Dean Emeritus of Canterbury Cathedral, put morning prayers on youTube during the pandemic. He helped me through the pandemic and to this day. Dean Robert said the best evidence for the resurrection (for those who have not seen Jesus personally) is in the book of Acts. This chronicles how people behaved who had seen the risen Jesus, and there is no other good explanation for their behavior and their attitudes. (YouTube "How We Know the Resurrection Was Real, start around 11:28)

In the culture of a religious power base, the one that manipulated the Romans into killing Jesus: 

they are unafraid 

they speak their truth 

their confidence knows no limits

they hold authorities accountable for wrong-doing

they urge everyone to repent (which means to change one’s mind)

they promise hope

they forgive

Here are some of the things those first Christians said:

After healing a well-known beggar on the steps of the temple, Peter and John were hauled in before the priests, the temple guard, and the Sadducees, the religious power base and their muscle. These folks told them to shut up and lie low.  Here’s what they replied: “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God, you judge. For we cannot but speak the things we have seen and heard.” (Acts 4:19)

Not long after, the apostles were imprisoned for preaching, and an angel let them out.  They were again brought before this group of powers that be, who said, “We commanded you not to teach in this name, and instead you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching, and intend to blame us for this man’s death.”

But Peter and the other apostles answered and said, “We ought to obey God rather than men.  The God of our fathers raised up Jesus whom you murdered, raised him up to his right hand to be prince and savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins, and we are his witnesses to these things and so also is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him.” When the leaders heard this, they were furious and plotted to kill the apostles.… They beat the apostles and again commanded them not to speak in the name of Jesus and let them go. So they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for Jesus’ sake. (Acts 5:29, 60)

Ignoring these orders, Stephen, a man full of faith and grace, preached and did miracles. A conspiracy arose to accuse him of blaspheming Moses and God, so he was brought before the council.  He took the opportunity to review the history of the Jewish nation at length and God’s call on them, ending like this: “You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears! you always resist the Holy Spirit as did your fathers before you. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who foretold the coming of the Just One, of whom you now have become the betrayers and murderers.” They ground their teeth in rage. Then Stephen said, “Look! I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!” (Acts 7:56)

They hauled him outside the city and stoned him to death, leaving their coats with a young Pharisee named Saul.

And as Stephen was dying, he said, “Lord, receive my spirit.” Then he knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not charge them with this sin,” And when he had said this, he fell asleep. (Just a side note, Jesus also viewed death as sleep, which we can understand better since the news of the resurrection.)

And then there is the meeting Saul the persecutor had with Jesus: “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” (Acts 9:4) It’s worth nothing that no one else saw or heard anything. Saul’s spiritual blindness manifested in physical blindness, and he had to be led to Damascus. His personal encounter with the risen Jesus resulted in a life dedicated to making the good news known, often at great personal cost; it eventually cost him his life, as tradition has it.

Paul writes many times about how important it is that Jesus died and rose from death to glorified life. It’s too much to read all the passages, but here’s a sampling:

Romans 4 ending

Just as Abraham’s faith counted for him as righteousness, when we believe in the God who raised Jesus from the dead, our faith counts for us as righteousness, our faith in the God who raised Jesus from the dead, Jesus whose surrender to death contains our side-slips, our falling, our failing, and whose resurrection from death contains the pronouncement from God that our guilt is removed and we are just what we ought to be, innocent and righteous..

Indeed, Paul rises to exhilarating heights in Romans 8 as he lists out what the resurrection means to us: 

We are not condemned;

We walk according to God’s spirit in us; 

We are God’s children.

“If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you. (Romans 8:11)

Paul doesn’t gloss over the fact that life here will be difficult for any number of reasons calling them “these present sufferings”: Both the creation and we ourselves groan, eagerly waiting for the redemption of the body, and the earth, For we were saved in this hope, which we do not yet see.

His hope gives him the courage to say this: These present sufferings are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us…For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:18, 38-9)

This is what the resurrection means for people of faith in the God who raised Jesus from death. 

Jesus himself said that he listened to what his Father told him and did what he was told; and that he was doing only what he saw his Father doing. He told his disciples that he was going away and that the Father would send them the Spirit of truth who would guide them into all truth.

The early Quakers affirmed the idea that Jesus is present to teach His people himself. We can see that they were fearless in preaching this insight; they were confident when facing authorities; they listened and obeyed.

The Spirit that descended on Jesus and filled Him, that galvanized the first generation of Christ-followers and their descendants the early Quakers, (and other renewals too numerous to mention) is the same Spirit the resurrection lets loose all who believe, including us. How do we live according to the Spirit?

 As James wrote, “If anyone lack wisdom, let that person ask of God, who gives to all liberally and doesn’t scold.” (James 1:5)  Let us, full of the hope given us by Jesus rising from death, ask, listen, and obey.

Meditations on the Crucifixion and What It Means for Us: Taking Up the Cross and Dying Daily

Preached at Silverton Friends Church, December 8, 2024

Novelist Flannery O’Connor, in her novel Wise Blood, wrote about a street preacher named Haze Motes who has given up on religion, and preaches the Church without Christ.  He harangues people with this: “Where in your time and your body has Jesus redeemed you.  Show me where because I don’t see that place….If you had been redeemed … you would care about redemption but you don’t.”  (84, 72) I’m still intrigued about what Jesus’s crucifixion and our redemption means for us, and as Haze wonders, what it means specifically in our daily lives.  

Let us just remember that Jesus ministered and died and was resurrected in a world where the Roman Emperor was a god and demanded worship, where his own homeland and was occupied by the Roman army and governed by Roman puppet rulers, and where executions took place in public and with regularity, for offenses from theft to murder to political protest and insurrection. So what Jesus says applies under those very unpleasant circumstances.

We’ll start with what Jesus said before the crucifixion about what it would mean to be his follower. In Mark 10, with similar passages in Matthew and Luke, Jesus tells his disciples, “All those who want to follow me will have to deny themselves, take up their crosses, and then follow me.” Matt 16:24, Mark 10:24; Luke 9:23. I have puzzled about what I am denying when I deny myself, because I have also felt confident that God loves that self, and God wants me to rejoice in my life and humanity. But what I want us to consider is that denying oneself refers to saying no to the need for admiration, approval, praise, control, fame, power, position.

We can see that no one wanted to hear that message, because shortly after, two disciples, expecting him to become king, wanted Jesus to promise them pride of place on his left and right hand. Understandably, this infuriated the other disciples (who may have regretted not getting in there first) until they heard Jesus’s answer:  You don’t know what you ask. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with? They answered: We are able.  In hindsight we can see the giant warning in Jesus’s metaphors, but they didn’t have our understanding that the cup was his suffering and the baptism was his death.

Jesus said, “You will indeed drink the cup that I drink and you will be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with, but those seats of honor are already assigned.“ 

Then he went on to say some home truths about power vs discipleship to his followers then and now; “The nature of rulers is to lord it over their people, the great ones exercise authority over the people; You can’t be like that. Whoever wants to be one of the great ones must be your servant and whoever wants to have first place must be the slave of all.  

For even the Son of Man (namely Jesus) did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many.”

Remember this verse: 

I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me: and the life which I now live in this body I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

Gal. 2:20

So what does it mean that we are with Jesus in his crucifixion? What does it mean to pick up the cross daily? St. Paul was working on this when he wrote, “I die daily.” Or this: “But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.” (Gal. 6:12)

The idea of “denying one’s self” links up with “the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world” and “Christ lives in me.” These truths can help us live meaningfully and hopefully and humanely in troublesome times.

In early November, I pulled out The Roots of Goodness and Resistance to Evil by Ervin Staub, which I referenced last time I was here. Staub was sheltered from the Nazis by a Christian family, which began his interest in why people choose goodness in circumstances which make it dangerous to get involved, circumstances where evil is easier.  The writer I want to bring in today is Tzvetan Todorov, who grew up in totalitarian Bulgaria. As a scholar, he inquired into the nature of virtue under the Nazis and in the concentration camps and wrote about it in Facing the Extreme: Moral Life in the Concentration Camps. 

One of his main conclusions is to differentiate between heroic and ordinary virtues. And this is where we can see how dying to the world, denying one’s self, and Christ living in us can help us make decisions about our responses and responsibilities.

We aim for ordinary virtues, rather than heroism.

Heroes are courageous and willing to risk their own lives for an ideal; but also Heroes are careless of others’ lives. Heroes are willing for any number of  people to die so that the ideal can survive; the beneficiary of their deaths is an abstraction such as humanity or history or democracy or freedom. heroes prefer the ideal to the real.

People of ordinary virtues are also courageous and willing to risk their lives, they also refuse to accept that things have to be this way, they also do not mindlessly follow orders. But, unlike those of heroic virtues, they prioritize the safety and escape of other people.  They embody the ordinary virtues of dignity (remaining a subject with a will) and caring (contributing to the welfare of others). In complete contrast to the heroes, they live or die for individuals rather than for ideas. The beneficiaries of their courage are real individual persons. They will be active bystanders, aware of their surroundings and their companions and choosing to disrupt the actions of hatred and violence that afflict them. At the same time, it is best not to be a martyr if possible. As Jesus advised, “Be wise as the serpent and as harmless as the dove.” Pay attention, be aware, and intervene with as little harm done as possible.

I grew up in Central Africa under a military dictatorship, and during two civil wars.  In the one from 1960, a young man who had studied in the U.S. and was on the army's hit list took refuge in the house of a Quaker missionary doctor. When the soldiers came to his door, Perry met them and said, "This man is a guest in my home. If you want to take him, you will have to take me also." This seemed too risky to the soldiers, since they were afraid that the U.S. might retaliate if they harmed an American, so they went away.  The young man was spirited across the border and eventually found safety in the U.S.  Perry used his privilege as a white American to deflect violence without making the situation worse and without harm to anyone. He exemplified a person of ordinary virtue.

How does this relate to taking up the cross and dying to self?  First, dignity and caring, the ordinary virtues, are not about exercising power, only choice.  It is hard for humans to give up trying to be the powerful one, the leader, the charismatic prophet, particularly if there are followers to be had.  Second, recognizing that I am responsible to do all the good I can for as long as I can removes the impulse to go out in a blaze of glory, glory being another kind of ego trip.  Third, my impulse to remain as safe as I can takes a back seat to my choice to disrupt violence, hatred, and evil. Fourth, I don’t waste my time saying I care; instead I do caring actions.

St. Paul says that our old worn-out habitual self is crucified with Jesus. Certainly the instinct of facing danger with fight, flight, or freeze are old habits that we can choose against.  Certainly the natural and unhelpful impulse to grasp the upper hand, to be or to follow idealistic leaders is something we can question. Paul says that this old mindset is dead on the cross, and that from now on we should choose not to serve it. He calls it sin, and I want us to think about this meaning something other than lust or avarice, something instead that causes us to acquiesce to systemic evil.  He says in Galatians that he is dead with Christ, and the life he lives now is lived by the faith of God’s Son. He is alive because Christ is faithful. He says that because Christ is raised, we also will live with him in a setting where death has no dominion. (Romans 6:6-9) Thus we do not fear death, but also we do not run towards it.  “For me to live is Christ, to die is gain,” is not the slogan of a man hurrying toward martyrdom.  

I want to draw attention to the number of times Jesus simply evaded dying by slipping away in the crowd. Even when he was encircled by a mob of angry and self-righteous men wanting to stone an adulterous woman, he responded to their mood quietly and disruptively, standing with the woman, but not inciting or inviting violence toward her or himself. When he protested against the systemic evils of temple merchandising and priestly corruption  by overturning tables, he exposed only himself to retaliation, and when he was captured in the garden, he made certain his followers lived to see another day. He made his choices with dignity and purpose, and he cared for those within his sphere.  This is a leader who is dead to ego needs and alive to God and his neighbors.

As we face into an uncertain and worrisome future, I encourage us to be persons of ordinary virtues, persons who recognize everyday evil and choose to act to diminish, deflect, or disrupt it rather than ignore it or comply with it. Let’s live so that we show in our time and body where Jesus has redeemed us. Let us respect our own ability to choose, let us care for our neighbor, and let us rejoice in the faithfulness of Jesus who lives in us.