Author: ppadmin

Dear Jesus: Don’t do that. Don’t go saying “I come not to bring peace, but division.” You’re scaring us. Don’t you know there are children in the room!

Peace is not the product of the politics of fear, of Wall Street fraud or war profiteer.

Listen, Lord, we need you to get back to being a sweet Jesus. Sweet little Jesus boy, born in a manger.

Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. You are not obligated to complete the work but neither are you free to abandon it.*

And how are we to spend ourselves for the sake of the world that God loves? For the recognition? For the virtue?

For the hope of return in the future? Maybe for the pleasure?

Listen up, you heralds of hope: Hear the cheer of angels for your big, bold, even brassy acts of courage. Don’t back down from the chance to be audacious, bodacious, maybe even contentious.

Yet it is the tenacious on whom the Beloved most depends.

Quotidian faithfulness—in life’s persistent, unremarkable moments, when no bands play, no cameras roll, no headlines appear—this is the persevering labor which Redemption most employs. Ordinary time rocks.

Friends, of all the things we believe or disbelieve, only this is sure:

We are a delight to the One who crowns the earth with sky,

Who shines on the soil by day and shelters the heart by night.

Oh, for a Word to be heard from above
School us in mercy, tutor in grace

Oh, for a pardon for hardened contempt
School us in mercy, tutor in grace

Oh, for a vision, a decision and desire
School us in mercy, tutor in grace

People of Mercy, put your hands together for the One we adore, lift your cheers to the Tender of orphans and widows, to the Protector of migrant farmer and those crushed with medical debt.

[All clap and cheer!]

Release your grip on the gods of armed might, on strategies of shock and awe. Confound the tortured schemes of the White House, jolt the laggard vision of the church house, and raise the burdened hopes of the poor house.

The Spirit draws near to the people of Promise, a people grown weary by the delay of Heaven’s remission and earth’s Redemption.

{Singing} Come ye disconsolate, where’er ye languish.

Lean into Mercy, you prisoners of hope, with all your damp, dismayed strength.

Hear this, oh people of the Covenant: The claim of Heaven’s Reign and the clamor over earth’s rule are woven together. The seed sown in one is harvested in the other. All questions of piety are questions of power. But the nature of power is contested.

No one can serve two masters.

There is this version of the Golden Rule: Those with the gold get to rule.

As shadows advance with light’s retreat, prompt wings of the heart to fold in repose.

No fright scars the night, encircled in mercy.

As western sky fades, with compline’s approach, prompt vigilant hands to fold in repose.

Nicodemus, stalwart among the Sincere-Upright Party of God, came to Jesus, confused.

“Rabbi-teacher,” says he, “your walk conforms to your word; your call, to your claim; your feats, to your faith. Why do you distance yourself from our Party?”

“Dear Brother Nicodemus,” Jesus replied, “none could be so right and so wrong. To walk in the Way requires birth from Above on the wings of a dove.”