Monday, March 23, 2009

Lent Bible Challenge | Day 23
March 23
Luke 9:51-62

What does it cost to follow Jesus? The last 48 hours have been devastating to Oakland, where I live. A challenge to see what it sometimes costs us to work and live in Oakland. Every choice has inherent risks: just and unjust, that we consciously choose and that we could never consciously fathom. I think oftentimes when the going gets tough for us in terms of faith or in life-in-a-faith-community we just quit. Fights over money, suspicion of the behavior of other people, judgments of purity/righteousness against others: these are some of the things that most often we see as risks in faith-community-life when in fact maybe they have more to do with our own brokeness, mistrust and sin being exposed, or made visible to us, in and through the actions of others. In the end maybe that's the biggest risk that Jesus says followers will face: no home to hide in, no cave to take refuge in when we are exposed to the harshness of life that pushes us to recognize and name our limits, our interdependence and our existential need for God and others?

No comments: