Blogging Towards Sunday,

November 2
Jesus for President
Matthew 7:6-12

We have a hard time practicing what we preach. It's a real challenge - even if meaning-making and life-transforming - to follow Jesus. We want to be peacemakers, yet we become war initiators. We say we're for nonviolence, yet we are for the death penalty. We say we're for neighborly love (also called solidarity) yet freak at the hint of the s----ism word. We say we're for free grace and unconditional love yet are consistently sucked into the existential meaning-making propaganda of modern capitalism and the money pull of the weekly Target ad.

We learn more from watching, imitating and experiencing that from listening and taking notes. Who then can teach us? We need new heros to show us what Jesus meant in verse 12 - that can model for us what it means, looks like and costs to be Christian. (Mother Theresa, Matthew Fox, Soeur Emmanuelle, Desmond Tutu, Ben and Carol Weir) Isn't that what Dia de los Muertos is about in a senses? Or All Saints Day? Who are your heroes in the faith?

Here are some great pages on this from Jesus for President, pp. 228-231 & 318-322. Click on the image to enlarge it for reading. If it speaks to you buy the book!