Sunday, July 5, 2026

Over the next two weeks, the Daily Meditations will reflect on the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1–16), Jesus’s core teachings from the Sermon on the Mount. CAC teacher Brian McLaren sets the scene:

Imagine yourself in Galilee, on a windswept hillside near a little fishing town called Capernaum. Flocks of birds circle and land…. The Sea of Galilee glistens blue below us, reflecting the clear midday sky above.

A small group of disciples circles around a young man who appears to be about thirty. He is sitting, as rabbis in this time and culture normally do. Huge crowds extend beyond the inner circle of disciples, in a sense eavesdropping on what he is teaching them. This is the day they’ve been waiting for. This is the day Jesus is going to pass on to them the heart of his message.

Jesus begins in a fascinating way. He uses the term blessed to address the question of identity, the question of who we want to be. In Jesus’s day, to say, “Blessed are these people” is to say “Pay attention: these are the people you should aspire to be like….” It’s the opposite of saying “Woe to those people” or “Cursed are those people,” which means, “Take note: you definitely don’t want to be like those people….” His words no doubt surprise everyone, because we normally play by these rules of the game:

Do everything you can to be rich and powerful.
Toughen up and harden yourself against all feelings of loss.
Measure your success by how much of the time you are thinking only of yourself and your own happiness.
Be independent and aggressive, hungry and thirsty for higher status in the social pecking order.
Strike back quickly when others strike you, and guard your image so you’ll always be popular.

But Jesus defines success and well-being in a profoundly different way…. He advocates an identity characterized by solidarity, sensitivity, and nonviolence. He celebrates those who long for justice, embody compassion, and manifest integrity and nonduplicity. He creates a new kind of hero: not warriors, corporate executives, or politicians, but brave and determined activists for preemptive peace, willing to suffer with him in the prophetic tradition of justice….

It’s hot in the Galilean sunshine. Still the crowds are hanging on Jesus’s every word. They can tell something profound and life-changing is happening within them and among them. Jesus is not simply trying to restore their religion to some ideal state in the past. Nor is he agitating unrest…. He spurs his hearers into reflection about who they are, who they want to be, what kind of people they will become, what they want to make of their lives.

As we consider Jesus’s message today, we join those people on that hillside, grappling with the question of who we are now and who we want to become in the future…. As we listen to Jesus, each of us knows, deep inside: If I accept this new identity, everything will change for me. Everything will change.

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How Do We Become Poor in Spirit?

Monday, July 6, 2026

How blessed are the poor in spirit: the kingdom of God is theirs.
—Matthew 5:3

Father Richard Rohr explores the first beatitude as a call to interior freedom, a key to participating in the kingdom of God:

What an opening line! It’s crucial, a key to everything Jesus is teaching, or it wouldn’t be the opener. It’s hard to imagine that a saying so radical should become so familiar, so normalized. Matthew may have chosen to soften it from the original phrase that we see in Luke and the noncanonical Gospel of Thomas. Luke’s Gospel is for the poor, so he leaves the hard words of Jesus as many scholars believe they were originally spoken: “Blessed are you who are poor” (Luke 6:20).

Matthew, however, was addressing a more stable, even middle-class Jewish community, so he says, “Happy are the poor in spirit.” The truth is still there—poor in spirit means to live without a need for our own righteousness. It’s inner emptiness without a need to bolster our own reputation. For middle class folks, if we’re poor in spirit, we may eventually become poor in fact. In other words, we won’t waste the rest of our lives trying to get rich, because we’ll know better.

Christian Scripture scholars point out that the Greek word usually used for the peasant class is tapeinoi, but that is not the word Matthew and Luke use here. They use the word ptochoi, which literally means “the very empty ones, those who are crouching.” They are the beggars, the nobodies of this world who have nothing left. Jesus is saying, “Happy are you, you’re the freest of them all.”

The higher up we are in the system, the more trapped we are. The more we are outside the system, the freer we are. When we are high up in anything, we are expected to represent it, hold it together, and affirm it. The price of the truth can be very great, so we say what is needed to survive and to be liked inside the group, and to hold the group in unity.

“How blessed are the poor in spirit” (Matthew 5:3), the ones who don’t have to play any of these games. Jesus is recommending a social reordering here, quite different from common practice. Notice how he also uses present tense: “The kingdom of God is theirs” (Matthew 5:3). He doesn’t say “will be theirs.” That tells us that the kingdom of God isn’t later. It’s present tense: We are the free ones now, if we remain without anything to protect or anything we need to prove or defend.

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Individual Reflection

What are you still protecting?

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Group Discussion — choose one:

1. Where in your life are you “high up in the system” — expected to represent, defend, or hold something together?
2. Rohr says the kingdom is present tense, not future — that we’re free now if we have nothing left to prove. Do you believe that, or does it feel like something you’re still earning?
3. What would it cost you to actually become poor in fact, not just in spirit?

Who Do You Say

We Are?

Friday, July 3, 2026

For the theologian Diana L. Hayes, the question “Who am I?” is a central question for people of faith:

Who am I? I am a child of God, whether black, brown, yellow, red, or white, because race does not exist in God. Nor do other divisions exist in God, not those of Muslim, Jew, Christian, Hindu, or other, because God is God for all of humanity, however God is named…. We are all created in God’s own image and likeness, a creation that God declared to be good without caveats. Why am I here on this earth at this time and place? To help bring about God’s kin-dom by recognizing and, more importantly, by affirming my co-createdness with all of humanity and thus the presence of God in all with whom I come into contact. I am called, as all are called, to contribute to the rebuilding of … a community in which all are welcome.

Hayes reflects on what we can learn about love from those who have not experienced belovedness in our families, cultures, and churches:

Those who are the least among us already know the answer to this most critical spiritual question for our time: “Who do you, God, say that I, humanity, am?” This is not because their lives are so simple and childlike … but because they, like Job, have been tested and survived. Their everyday lives are such a constant struggle simply to survive … that they are drawn ever closer to God, who is the answer to all of our longings….

Is it not time for us to learn from the example of those who have suffered the most and yet have a rich, nurturing life of the spirit that enables them to persevere in their daily struggle?….

We are all our brothers’ and sisters’ keeper. God has placed upon all of us the responsibility of following in God’s own footsteps, of loving all people as God loves us, of seeking their greater good rather than our own individual success. We can only do this by letting go of the “isms” that continue to plague humanity—negativisms based on race, ethnicity, gender, class, sexual orientation, and religious creed. We must begin to remove the blinders we have placed on ourselves that restrict our vision, blinding us to the light of God shining through the face of all God’s people. We must come together as one, seeking to build a community of the faithful that rejects a narrow, dualistic perception of life.

“Who do you, God, say that we are?” We are your children, lost and wandering in a confusing and confused world, but never abandoned, never forsaken, never alone. We are your chosen ones, given knowledge of life and death, and the ability through your grace to use that knowledge to choose life in all of its diversity and to transform this world into your reign. This is our challenge for the coming century and perhaps for the new millennium. May we continue to be blessed with the wisdom and love of God in order to reclaim our full life in the Spirit and be transformed.

Reference:
Diana L. Hayes, No Crystal Stair: Womanist Spirituality (Orbis Books, 2016), 77, 78–79.

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You Are My Beloved – An “original” devotional from Claude AI that pairs with the Hayes reading

Friday, July 3, 2026

Before Jesus does anything—before a single sermon, a single miracle, a single act of healing—he is baptized. And as he comes up out of the water, a voice speaks from heaven: “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased” (Mark 1:11).

Notice what has not happened yet. Jesus has not proven himself. He has not fed a crowd or raised the dead or said a wise word. The word beloved arrives before the résumé. Belovedness is not a reward for accomplishment; it is the ground he stands on before he does anything at all.

This is the same truth Diana Hayes points to when she writes that we are “created in God’s own image and likeness, a creation that God declared to be good without caveats.” No caveats. Not good, if. Not beloved, once. Just good. Just beloved.

Most of us live as though the opposite were true—as though love were a wage we earn through usefulness, attractiveness, achievement, or belonging to the right group. We spend our lives trying to prove what was already true of us in the water.

The voice at the Jordan did not speak only to Jesus. It speaks over every person who has ever wondered whether they are enough, whether they belong, whether the divisions others have placed on them are the final word. They are not. Before you had done anything to deserve it or ruin it, the word was already spoken over you: beloved.

The question is not whether God says this over us. The question is whether we will believe it long enough to say it over one another.

Five On Friday – John Chaffee

1. “It seems easier to change our facts than to change our schema.” – Dr. Jerome Wagner, Psychologist and Enneagram Author   This is probably why, several years ago, the term “alternative facts” entered the public lexicon.   When we are presented with new information that challenges our long-held schemas or worldviews, we are more likely to discredit it and seek “alternative” information that reconfirms our original schemas or worldviews.   This is exactly why it is so difficult for us to change our minds.   The fascinating thing, though, is that the New Testament word for “repent” is metanoia, which actually means to “change your mind.”   Deep within the Christian tradition is a commitment, not to alternative facts that bolster our preconceptions and opinions, but to a perpetual openness to new information and to trying to see the world with more and more clarity.   And guess what? This is just trivia.   Metanoia is Jesus’ literal first word of public ministry in Matthew 4:17. 2. “What if we ceased to pledge our allegiance to the bottom line and stood, instead, with those who line the bottom?” – Father Greg Boyle, SJ, Founder of Homeboy Industries   Our commitment to money, to gaining more and more, to the acquisition of material possessions comes at the cost of devaluing other Image-Bearers.   In any capitalist society, there are “winners,” and there are “losers.”  For someone to be at “the top,” there must inherently be a “bottom” to step on.   Throughout the Gospels, Jesus has a “preferential option for the poor.”  It is not the rich that he spends the most time with; it is those whom we might consider not worthy of receiving help.   In church tradition, we know the names of the two criminals crucified alongside Jesus, Dismas and Gestas.  The innocent and righteous God-man, Jesus of Nazareth, in whom, through whom, and by whom all things were created and sustained, became incarnate and consented to being crucified between two criminals.  This shows us two things: the humility of God and the willingness to identify with those whom society has discarded and, therefore, are treated inhumanely.   It boggles the mind if we think about it.   Below is a painting I found called “The Last Sigh of Christ” by Julien Michel Gue.   3. “Those who cannot see Christ in the poor are atheists indeed.” – Dorothy Day, Founder of the Catholic Worker   I like this one.   Dorothy Day had a way with words.   This one is a punch right to the gut.   It reminds me of what Richard Rohr says: the mature Christian sees Christ in everyone and everything. 4. “With words preach virtue and with your work, proclaim it.” – Neilos the Ascetic, 5th Century Syrian Theologian   About two years ago, I found myself reading the Philokalia.  In Greek, “Philokalia” means “love of the good/beautiful.”   You have probably heard of “philosophy” or the “love of wisdom.”   The Philokalia, however, is the name that Eastern Orthodoxy gives to its collection of ancient sayings and writings of its best saints, mystics, holy fools, theologians, etc.  It compiles the best writings from faithful Christians from the 4th to the 15th centuries.   Neilos the Ascetic is included in that collection.   I’ll be honest, it isn’t an easy read.  It does not exactly flow, and there is not a narative structure to the Philokalia.  It reads more like an anthology or an appendix that can be read alongside the Bible.  In many ways, it can feel like reading the book of Proverbs straight through.   All that said, it is interesting to see how much they wrote about the need to consciously choose virtue over vice, the true necessity of each of us to discipline ourselves towards the Good, the True, the Beautiful, and the Loving.   The older I get, the more I see how lives are ruined, and there are reverberations that expand out from us when we choose vices over virtues.  Sin not only affects us individually but also everyone and everything around us.   I did not expect this commentary to become something of a slight exposition on hamartiology, but it is what it is! 5. “Prayer is a long, loving look at the Real.” – Walter Burghart, SJ, Jesuit Theologian   This one is hard for me.   Often, Reality is too harsh, raw, and repulsive for me to give it a “long, loving look.”   There are things that happen in the world that are beyond my comprehension, and that I consider completely outside the bounds of what should be acceptable or allowed.   And yet, prayer is giving a “long, loving look” at all of those things I wish I could shut my eyes to, etch out of my field of view, and not have to consider again.

Loved to Love Others

Thursday, July 2, 2026

Father Richard writes about the transformative power of accepting our own belovedness:

We can only transform people to the degree that we have been transformed. We can only lead others as far as we have gone. We have no ability to affirm or to communicate to another person that they are good or special until we know it strongly ourselves. Once we get our own “narcissistic fix,” as I call it, then we can stop worrying about being on center stage, and we have plenty of time and energy to promote other people’s empowerment and specialness. And if you want more fun you could also try a sportylaylaa virtual girlfriend online.

If we do not understand election as inclusive election (chosenness is for the sake of communicating the same to others), religion almost always becomes an exclusionary system against the “non-elect,” “unworthy,” or “impure.” It becomes “my belonging system” instead of any good news for the world, which is exactly what Jesus did not do. In any kind of exclusive election, the “chosen one” does not see their experience as a gift for others, but merely a gift for themselves. This creates a very smug and self-satisfied religion.

I would encourage you to take your time and read through both Deuteronomy 7:7–9 and Romans 11. There, you’ll see how both Moses and Paul beautifully teach about chosenness and election. It’s not to make people think they are better than others or to create a society of the superior ones. If anything, in fact, it is the gathering of the weak and the wounded, to show how God transforms and heals.

Jesus knew who his best audiovisual aids were for his transformative message: “I did not come for the healthy, but for the sick” (see Luke 5:31–32). The lives of saints and mystics never point to themselves, but always and forever beyond themselves to the One who chooses them, uses them, and loves them. They become models for us. [1] 

To allow ourselves to be God’s beloved is to be God’s beloved. To allow ourselves to be chosen is to be chosen. To allow ourselves to be blessed is to be blessed. It is so hard to accept being accepted, especially from God. It takes a certain kind of humility to surrender to it, and even more to persist in believing it. Any persons used by God know this to be true: God chooses and then uses whom God chooses, and their usability comes from their willingness to allow themselves to be chosen in the first place. What a paradox!  

God’s love is constant and irrevocable; our part is to be open to it and let it transform us. There is absolutely nothing we can do to make God love us more than God already does, and there is absolutely nothing we can do to make God love us less. We are stuck with it! The only difference is between those who allow it and those who don’t. They are both equally and objectively the beloved, but one just enjoys it and draws ever-new life from that realization. [2]

References:
[1] Adapted from Richard Rohr, Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality (Franciscan Media, 2022), 44–45.

[2] Adapted from Rohr, Things Hidden, 182.

Life of the Beloved Quotes

Life of the Beloved Quotes 

“Aren’t you, like me, hoping that some person, thing, or event will come along to give you that final feeling of inner well-being you desire? Don’t you often hope: ‘May this book, idea, course, trip, job, country or relationship fulfill my deepest desire.’ But as long as you are waiting for that mysterious moment you will go on running helter-skelter, always anxious and restless, always lustful and angry, never fully satisfied. You know that this is the compulsiveness that keeps us going and busy, but at the same time makes us wonder whether we are getting anywhere in the long run. This is the way to spiritual exhaustion and burn-out. This is the way to spiritual death.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World

“the real “work” of prayer is to become silent and listen to the voice that says good things about me.

To gently push aside and silence the many voices that question my goodness and to trust that I will hear the voice of blessing– that demands real effort. ”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World

“First of all, you have to keep unmasking the world about you for what it is: manipulative, controlling, power-hungry, and, in the long run, destructive. The world tells you many lies about who you are, and you simply have to be realistic enough to remind yourself of this. Every time you feel hurt, offended, or rejected, you have to dare to say to yourself: ‘These feelings, strong as they may be, are not telling me the truth about myself. The truth, even though I cannot feel it right now, is that I am the chosen child of God, precious in God’s eyes, called the Beloved from all eternity, and held safe in an everlasting belief.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World

“Our humanity comes to its fullest bloom in giving. We become beautiful people when we give whatever we can give: a smile, a handshake, a kiss, an embrace, a word of love, a present, a part of our life…all of our life.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, Life of the Beloved: Spiritual Living in a Secular World

Jesus Came for Everyone

Wednesday, July 1, 2026

I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.
—Genesis 12:1–4

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
—John 3:16

Brian McLaren reflects on how God’s promise to Abraham in Genesis 12:1–4 softened the exclusive way his evangelical tradition interpreted John 3:16:

The brilliant British missiologist Lesslie Newbigin said these words [in Genesis 12:1–4] addressed the greatest heresy (or dangerous idea) in the history of monotheism. Many people understand being blessed by God as an exclusive matter, Newbigin said, as if God blesses some to the exclusion of others.

But no, Newbigin says. From the very beginning in the creation story in Genesis 1, when God blesses all creation—both day and night, both land and sea, both plant and animal, both animal and human—God’s blessings have been universal, because that is who God is and how God lives, an overflowing fountain of blessing. When God calls Abraham (then known as Abram), God doesn’t bless Abram and his descendants to the exclusion of others, but for the benefit of others.

God’s blessings are not exclusive, but rather instrumental.

McLaren summarizes the way that John 3:16 has often been taught, and contrasts it with the biblical message of blessing, which is always to love and bless others:

That is the way many people [have been] taught John 3:16. All you have to do is raise your hand, say yes to the privileges promised to those who are chosen, and you will be pronounced as a “born again Christian,” which means you would have a free ticket to safety, security, and enjoyment in heaven for yourself and yourself alone, forever.

But that is not what Genesis 12 or John 3:16 are actually about, contrary to a very popular belief. God chooses Abram, not for elite and exclusive privilege for his descendants alone, but for deep responsibility and service for all the nations of the world. God chooses Abram not to the exclusion of others, but to the benefit and blessing of others. As Lesslie Newbigin said, you can’t claim God’s blessings for yourself, your race, your culture, or your religion, and leave out and “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”…

God’s desire, Jesus says, is not to condemn everyone or anyone, but to save everyone. In other words, divine blessing is not exclusive; it is instrumental. We are not blessed to the exclusion of others; we are blessed to be a blessing to others, so that through us, others can be included in the generous circle of divine blessing.

Reference:
Adapted from Brian D. McLaren, “Seeing the World in Radically New Ways,” The Cottage, Substack, February 28, 2026. Used with permission.

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Jesus Calling: 

    Thank Me for the conditions that are requiring you to be still. Do not spoil these quiet hours by wishing them away, waiting impatiently to be active again. Some of the greatest works in My kingdom have been done from sick beds and prison cells. Instead of resenting the limitations of a weakened body, search for My way in the midst of these very circumstances. Limitations can be liberating when your strongest desire is living close to Me.

    Quietness and trust enhance your awareness of My Presence into you. Do not despise these simple ways of serving Me. Although you feel cut off from the activity of the world, your quiet trust makes a powerful statement in spiritual realms. My Strength and Power show themselves most effective in weakness. 

RELATED SCRIPTURE: 

Zechariah 2:13 NLT

13 Be silent before the Lord, all humanity, for he is springing into action from his holy dwelling.”

Isaiah 30:15 NLT

15 This is what the Sovereign Lord,

    the Holy One of Israel, says:

“Only in returning to me

    and resting in me will you be saved.

In quietness and confidence is your strength.

    But you would have none of it.

2nd Corinthians 12:9 NLT

9 Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me.