A Windfall of Delight

Wednesday, November 4, 2026

Those who bless the world in the lifelong process of learning to ripen … are those who have mastered the art of sustained effort, infused with a surrender to hidden sources of grace. 
— James Finley  

CAC faculty member James Finley shares his thoughts on spiritual maturity as a form of ripening: 

We ripen in holiness and spiritual fulfillment as we learn to sit in the sun of God’s mysterious, sustaining presence that energizes and guides our efforts, bringing us to realms of grace that are beyond, way beyond, anything we can achieve by our own efforts alone…. 

The lifelong process of ripening brings about a corresponding ripening of our ability to understand the fundamentals in a wiser, peace-giving manner…. As a person ripens in unsayable intimacies in God, they ripen in a paradoxical wisdom. They come to understand God as a presence that protects us from nothing, even as God unexplainably sustains us in all things. This is the mystery of the cross…. It does not mean that God prevents the tragic thing, the cruel thing, the unfair thing, from happening. Rather, it means that God is intimately hidden as a kind of profound, tender sweetness that flows and carries us along in the intimate depths of the tragic thing itself—and will continue to do so in every moment of our lives up to and through death, and beyond….  

We might say that, as fruit ripens, it fulfills itself in giving itself to us. In a similar way, we do not undergo the transformative process of ripening for ourselves alone, but rather that our transformed presence might be a source of nurture to others. 

Then too, there is the fruit that, in remaining unharvested, falls onto the ground and dies. The lesson here is in Jesus’s words, “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone, but if it dies, it brings forth fruit…” (John 12:24). 

And so it is with us. As we grow old we realize that, in all we have been through, Love has been using us for its own purposes. And for this we feel immensely grateful. We know, too, that our inevitable passing away, in which we fall into the ground and die, is not the end of our ripened and transformed life. It is rather our passage into an infinite and deathless fulfillment. Saint John of the Cross [1542–1591] talks about a windfall of delight. [1] When fruit becomes very ripe, the slightest wind can cause it to fall to the ground. This is also true of us, and not just in the sense in which we learn to be undone and fulfilled in all the unexpected little blessings that come to us throughout the day. The windfall of delight pertains as well to our last breath, which we know and trust will send us falling forever into the deathless depths of God. 

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The Dedication of St Thomas Abbey

a brief update and report

CHRIS EW GREENNOV 3

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Sunday, All Saints’ Day, we received and dedicated the Abbey. It was a beautiful ecumenical service, and a moving, hard-to-look-past reminder of the unity we share in Christ. 

It was good to have Bishops Quintin, Wayne, Michael, and Beth with us, along with local Presbyterian and Methodist clergy. Together, we gave thanks for the extraordinary gift we have received from the First Presbyterian congregation and prayed for the work ahead as we begin caring for this place and making it ready to welcome others. 

On this feast, especially, it seemed important to remember the people who had worshiped here long before we arrived, and to give thanks to the God who is faithful generation after generation. 

	Service Of Thanksgiving (All Saints)895KB ∙ PDF file
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For those who haven’t heard the story, the Abbey was made possible because congregation of First Presbyterian Ponca City has gifted us their building. They have entrusted us with a place they love, and they did so because they believed in the vision Julie shared with them. She spoke of that in her reflections at the transfer of the keys: 

At first, I thought of the Abbey as a dream, something I wanted to do. And only slowly have I realized that it is a calling, something God is wanting to do, and wanting me to cooperate with. It was in my heart only because it has been in his.

My first plans, if I can call them that, were for something much smaller and more manageable than where we are today. So, months ago when Father Stephen drew my attention to this cathedral, and encouraged me to come see it, I laughed it off as absurd. And even with all of Kay’s and Rick’s and the whole Presbyterian church’s hospitality and generosity, I struggled to believe this could be real. I tried to keep my imagination and daydreaming about this space in check, but God kept inviting me to believe this was HIS work and not just an idea I had. 

The Abbey is dedicated to St Thomas, doubting Thomas, for a reason! For a while, I was in “I’ll have to see it to believe it” mode. But the generosity of your congregation was overwhelming. Finally, I had to give in and accept it. And then I shifted—into a new mode of doubting: “I believe, help my unbelief.” Truthfully, I’m still in that mode. And it’s right where I should be, I think. Because for me, personally, this gift, precisely because it is so beautiful, so generous, so unexpected, has turned into work—the work of letting God be God, the work of learning to let go of my ideas about control. It’s only when I’m in that mode that I can be faithful to do what I’m actually responsible to do, no more and no less.

It is not easy for me to speak so personally. But I am beginning to see in what is happening to me a promise for those who will come here. Some will have doubts much like mine. Others will struggle in ways I have never known, and cannot speak to. We will all have to learn to welcome them without pretending we know how God will work in their lives.

But before that hard and beautiful work starts, it is good and right for us to pause, thank God for his goodness and thank you all for entrusting this wonderful, holy space to us. We are so very grateful and our hope is to preserve and protect all of your years of worship and service in this space as we continue moving forward in the work God is asking of us.

Needless to say, there is still plenty to do and all kinds of unanswered questions. So please continue to pray for Julie and me, for Father Marc and Jamie Aitken, and for all who will share in the care of the Abbey. If you would like to help support the work or speak with us about ways of being involved, Julie can be reached at julie@orderofstanthony.com.

Tuesday, November 3, 2026

Life is a process of emptying and moving into the oneness of life and death. It is living through dying. 
—Sally Severino 

Dr. Sally Severino writes of the process of aging as an opportunity to more fully experience union with God.  

Human beings are meaning-making creatures. Our lives take on new meaning with age. As human longevity has increased, aging no longer means inevitable decline, deterioration, or disability. It is a time to become more authentically ourselves—to be more freely who we really are in the fullness of our ripening. 

Spiritually, my childhood entailed baptism and confirmation—a time when I experienced God as parent. During mid-life my relationship with God became an understanding of God as partner. During senior life my relationship with God has taken the form of realizing the oneness of all life, including my journey toward oneness with God. This is consistent with what Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung described as the seven tasks of aging: 

1. accepting death as a part of life 
2. reflecting on one’s life 
3. limiting one’s time and energy 
4. letting go of ego dominance 
5. bringing opposites within us together into wholeness 
6. finding meaning in one’s life 
7. engaging our unused potentials in “dying with life” 

In other words, we empty ourselves in imitation of Jesus. When we are totally empty and only God is within us, then we recover our true selves. 

When we realize God as our true being, we realize our true selves. All we need to do is open our eyes to the goodness we have possessed all along. In seeing this goodness, we can die to “our” life and live the unique expression of God we were created to be. We can let God act in and through us.  

Severino describes how, by fully welcoming our oneness with God, we can offer our lives to the world:  

We are not only the recipients of divine love; we are also the dispensers of love in the world. When we are one with Christ, our hearts and souls are full of a compassion that then flows out into the world through Christ…. 

We are each given the mind of Christ and the ability to give this gift to others.All we need to do is become aware, be grateful, and share our uniqueness with the world around us. Christ encourages us to do as he did—to act freely, expressing our gift in each unrepeatable moment of our lives. The spirituality of aging is a process of becoming increasingly Christlike—of emptying ourselves until only God lives within us. Just as we are each a unique image of Christ in the world, so too is our ripening process unique. God is always knocking, wanting to enter our lives. All we need to do is open. 

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the neuroscience of deep character change

(in a day of quick fixes) 

CHUCK DEGROAT NOV 1

It can be confusing to distill what real change looks like amidst the abundance of resources out there. 

Should I add new spiritual practices? 

Should I focus on my emotional health? 

Should I try to change my everyday habits? 

While all of these things are important, there is an underlying neuroscientific wisdom that holds much of it together—the body’s innate wisdom, which we can cooperate with for the sake of deep character change. 

Here are five high-level principles that lay a foundation for deep change. 

1. Regulation precedes maturation

Your nervous system profoundly influences how you perceive the world and respond relationally. And as I say in the new book, it’s almost impossible to change when your body is locked in threat mode. 

Threat mode is a body in dysregulation, with little capacity to adapt or grow. It’s a survival orientation, where your internal resources are bound up in self-protection rather than connection and growth. 

So, we need to create the conditions for growth by turning down your threat system and expanding your inner capacity for change. Otherwise, we may be inadvertently overwhelming your system with haphazard attempts at change. 

The change process often begins here—by working on creating the relational and internal safety that allows for a body to inhabit a new way of being in the world. 

2. Character is patterned

Neuroscience teaches us that what fires together, wires together. And repeated experiences strengthen neural pathways…the very pathways that shape your habitual ways of thinking, feeling, reacting, and relating, and which become your character. 

I know it’s common today to see books on character engaging ancient virtues—and I appreciate that—but these can become abstract. Character is anything but abstract. It’s who you’ve become over time. This is why insight or behavioral modification alone doesn’t produce lasting change. 

Your habits weren’t born overnight—and through the wisdom of neuroplasticity, you can slowly begin to reshape them. But this often requires more time and patience that we’re willing to invest amidst many other microwavable interventions. 

3. Character is formed and re-formed in connection

Your nervous system developed within your closest relationships, and continues to develop over a lifetime in the context of relationship. Those habits—as I said, they didn’t emerge overnight. They evolved based on the relative safety and connection you experienced. Who you are didn’t happen yesterday—you’ve been ‘becoming’ for quite a long time!

So, character maturation isn’t an individual achievement nor is it gained through mere self-help effort. To change, you’ll need to experience safety, trust, vulnerability, and belonging—and where there has been significant moral failure or betrayal, significant accountability. 

Creating the proper relational conditions is critical for real change.

4. There is a story your brain is telling you

Your brain is predictive. It actively interprets incoming data based on previous experiences. And in time, it forms a story. 

“Keep your guard up. You never know what’s coming.”

“If you want something done right, do it yourself.”

“Never let them see you sweat.”

“Don’t get your hopes up.”

“If I’m not in control, everything will fall apart.”

These stories can feel like objective reality when they’re simply ways you’ve learned to inhabit your world—for some really good reasons, I’m sure. But these stories do not need to define your future. 

Your body can learn a new way of being in the world and a new and better story to live within. 

5. You become what you behold

Character change depends, in large part, on what you attend to. When you’ve lived for years in threat mode—within whatever story that requires you to inhabit—you attend to the world in a braced and vigilant way. Your attention narrows. You control what’s in front of you. You tend to fight or flee. And it’s almost impossible to hold space for beauty, goodness, and gratitude. 

People are often surprised when I invite them to pay attention to what they’re paying attention to. But this simple act of intentional attention can begin to reshape reality. By doing this, you can make what has been invisible visible, bringing conscious attention to what has become habitual, engaging the prefrontal cortex, strengthening your capacity for self-awareness and emotional regulation, and increasing your sense of agency. 

In time, you’ll behold a whole new reality. 

In sum, character change is not about an exhausting attempt to reach for what feels like some unattainable and abstract virtue. It’s more about cultivating a capacity for deep change, through internal and relational safety and regulation, through intentional attention, through a growing awareness of your story and your state. 

Deep change is possible—but it’s a much more satisfying process when it’s a process that cooperates with your nervous system rather than fighting against it, which is so often the case when we simply apply behavioral or spiritual interventions willy-nilly. 

Character change, in the end, cooperates with your God-created, embodied wisdom. And it reveals that what you most deeply long for is possible, not least because God made this pathway of transformation possible in-and-through the unique way he designed you.

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Individual Reflection

Which of your scars is still doing the work of a wall?

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Group Discussion — choose one

1. Which of your patterns are ripening with age, and which are just hardening?
2. Where has your spiritual practice been one more quick fix laid over a body still braced for threat?
3. What have you been beholding lately, and what is it making you into?

Sunday, November 1, 2026

All Saint’s Day

Father Richard Rohr uses the language of “ripening” to describe the process of aging with wisdom and grace: 

The word “ripening” helps us move beyond any exclusive concern with physical aging, because our concerns are much more than that. We want to talk about notions of maturity, eldership, staging, sequencing, growth, and direction. Where is this thing we call “life” headed? Who sets the standard? Is there any standard?  

Unless we can somehow chart this trajectory, we have no way to discern growth or maturity, and no ability to discern what might be a full, fuller, or fullest human response. Neither do we have any criteria for discerning an immature, regressive, or even sick response. There must be a direction to ripening, but we must also recognize that any steps toward maturity are by necessity immature. An understanding of ripening basically teaches us the wisdom of timing, love, and patience, and allows us to be wise instead of judgmental.  

If I am to believe the novels, myths, poems, and people I have met in my life, old age is almost never described as an apex of achievement as one sits atop a summit with the raised arms of a victorious athlete. It is almost always something else—and usually something other than what was initially imagined or even hoped for. 

Ripening reveals much bigger or very different horizons than we realize. The refusal to ripen leads to what T.S. Eliot spoke of in “The Hollow Men,” lives that “end not with a bang but with a whimper.” I trust that we are willing to move toward our own endless horizons and not waste time in whimpering, trusting that we are, in fact, being led. Life—your life, my life, all life—is going somewhere, and somewhere good. We do not need to navigate the river, for we are already flowing within it. 

Ripening, at its best, is a slow, patient learning, and sometimes even a happy letting go—a seeming emptying out to create readiness for a new kind of fullness—which we are never sure about. If we do not allow our own ripening, an ever-increasing resistance and denial sets in, an ever-increasing protection around an over-defended self. At our very best, we learn how to hope as we ripen, to move outside and beyond self-created circles. Youthful hopes have concrete goals, whereas the hope of older years is usually aimless hope, hope without goals, even naked hope—perhaps real hope. 

Such stretching is the agony and the joy of later years, although one can avoid both of these rich experiences too. Old age, as such, is almost a complete changing of gears and engines from the first half of our lives, and does not happen without many slow realizations, inner calmings, lots of inner resistance and denials, and eventual surrenders. All of them by God’s grace work with our ever-deepening sense of what we really desire and who we really are.  

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A Spirituality of Ripening 

Monday, November 2, 2026

All Soul’s Day

Father Richard describes how a spirituality of ripening allows us to hold greater paradox through an increasing awareness of our union with God:  

Reality, fate, destiny, providence, and tragedy are slow but insistent teachers. The horizon of old age seems to be a plan that God has prepared as inevitable and part of the necessary school of life. What is gratuitously given is also gratuitously taken away, just as Job slowly came to accept. And sometimes we remember that his eventual pained response was “Blessed be the name of the Lord!” (Job 1:21). We all live in the same cycle of unrequested birth and unrequested death. Someone else is clearly in control, yet most of our lives are spent accepting and surrendering to this truth, and in trusting that this “someone” is good and trustworthy besides. It is the very shape of faith and the entire journey of faith.  

If we are to speak of a spirituality of ripening, we need to recognize that it is always (and I do mean always) characterized by an increasing tolerance for ambiguity, a growing sense of subtlety, an ever-larger ability to include and allow, and a capacity to live with contradictions and even to love them! I cannot imagine any other way of coming to those broad horizons except through many trials, unsolvable paradoxes, and errors in trying to resolve them.  

Without such a gradually renewed mind and heart, we almost certainly will end with a whimper—not just our own, but also that of the disappointed souls gathered around our sick bed or gravestone. Too many lives have indeed been lives of “quiet desperation” and God must surely rush to console and comfort all humans before, during, and after their passing. Many put off enlightenment as long as they can.  

The ripening of mind and heart is most basically a capacity for nondual consciousness and contemplation. Many might just call it a growth in compassion, but surely no growth in compassion is likely unless one learns how to forgive as a very way of life, and to let go of almost everything as we first imagined it had to be. This is possible as our understanding of faith deepens, requiring a careful pairing of not-knowing (the apophatic way) with knowing (the kataphatic way). The Jewish and Christian traditions balanced our so-called knowing with trust, patience, allowing, waiting, humility, love, and forgiveness, which is very nearly the entire message, and surely the core message, necessary for the possibility of ripening. Otherwise, we all close down, and history freezes up with all of its hurts, memories, and resentments intact.  

So my guidance after over eighty years of life is a simple reminder to recall what we will be forced to learn by necessity and under pressure anyway—the open-ended way of allowing and the deep meaning that some call faith. To live in trustful faith is to ripen; it is almost that simple. 

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Individual Reflection

What would your hope look like if it had no goal attached?

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Group Discussion — choose one

1. Where do others see an over-defended self in you that you’re only beginning to notice?
2. Which contradiction in your life have you stopped trying to resolve, and could you ever come to love it?
3. Does “aimless hope” feel like freedom to you, or like giving up?

Love Is Who We Are 

Friday, October 30, 2026

Father Richard identifies our ability to love as the very foundation of our being:

The most powerful, most needed, and most essential teaching is always about love. Love is our foundation and our destiny. It is where we come from and where we’re headed. As Saint Paul famously says, “So faith, hope, and love remain, but the greatest of these is love” (1 Corinthians 13:13). 

My hope, whenever I speak or write, is to help clear away the impediments to receiving, allowing, trusting, and participating in a foundational Love. God’s love is planted inside each of us as the Holy Spirit who, according to Jesus, “will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you” (John 14:26). Love is who we are! 

All I can do is remind you of what you already know deep within your true self and invite you to live connected to this Source. John the Evangelist writes, “God is love, and whoever remains in love, remains in God and God in him or her” (1 John 4:16). The biblical creation story says that we were created in the very “image and likeness” of God, who is love (Genesis 1:26; see also Genesis 9:6). Out of the Trinity’s generative, loving relationship, creation takes form, mirroring its Creator.

We have heard this phrase so often that we don’t understand the existential shock of what “created in the image and likeness of God” means for us. If this is true—and I believe it is—our family of origin is divine. It is saying that we were created by a loving God to be love in the world. Our core is original blessing, not original sin. Our starting point is positive and, as is written in the first chapter of the Bible, it is “very good” (Genesis 1:31). We do have a good place to return home to. If the beginning is right, the rest becomes considerably easier, because we can know and trust the clear direction of our life’s trajectory. 

We must all overcome the illusion of separateness. It is the primary task of religion to communicate not worthiness but union, to reconnect people to their original identity “hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3). The Bible calls the state of separateness “sin.” God’s job description is to draw us back into primal and intimate relationship. “My dear people, we are already children of God; what we will be in the future has not yet been fully revealed, and all I do know is that we shall be like God” (1 John 3:2). [1] 

Love is who we are. When we don’t live according to love, we are outside of being. We’re not being real. When we love, we are acting according to our deepest being, our deepest truth. We are operating according to our dignity. [2] 

References:
[1] Adapted from Richard Rohr, Essential Teachings on Love, selected by Joelle Chase and Judy Traeger (Orbis Books, 2018), 12–13.

[2] Rohr, Essential Teachings, v.

Image credit and inspiration: Samuel Oakes, untitled (detail), 2021, photo, Broadway, UK. Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. Like bread offered to someone beyond the frame, we are invited to reach out to an unseen neighbor, both giving and receiving blessing.

John Chaffee – Five On Friday 10-30-26

1.

“Whenever anything disagreeable or displeasing happens to you, remember Christ crucified and be silent.“

– St. John of the Cross, 16th Century Spanish Mystic

This one is a bit difficult for me.

Why?

Because in my own head, I know I am a complainer.

This probably leads well into the next quote.

2.

“The ability to observe without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence.”

– Jiddu Krishnamurti, Indian Philosopher

We likely all have internal narratives about the world around us.  It is not easy to observe what’s happening around us without also giving it an interpretation that SEEMS to make sense to us.

I am not conversant in neuroscience, but I would bet our interpretations of the world are automatic and instantaneous.  It takes a relatively mature person to even question our own interpretations.  Ask yourself: how often do you question your own read of things?

That said, what if Krishnamurti is correct?  What if the ability to simply observe the world around us is the highest form of intelligence?

Imagine this…  We watch something happen, and the only thing we say is, “Huh, how about that?”

Is it even possible to be that detached from the present moment?  Can we simply be an observer?  Is that even the goal?  At best, we can only theorize an interpretation of why something happened.

Honestly, even writing this is raising more questions for me.

I’ll have to reflect on this more.

3.

“Christian life is not a life divided between times for action and times for contemplation. No. Real social action is a way of contemplation, and real contemplation is the core of social action.”

– Henri Nouwen, Dutch Catholic Priest

Henri Nouwen was a master at getting to the core issue, wasn’t he?

As I understand it, each of us tends to be one or the other, living primarily as a contemplative or an active.  This means we settle into one way of living and often neglect the other.

As a contemplative, I must be intentional about being more active.

Meanwhile, others are naturally active and must be intentional about being more contemplative.

It doesn’t matter which one you are; all of us must work toward becoming integrated active contemplatives or contemplative activists.

4.

“It’s not about right belief; it’s about right practice.”

– Cynthia Bourgeault, Episcopal Priest and Author

In seminary, I was encouraged to be as “orthodox.”  Fortunately, my schooling didn’t emphasize this enough to make me fundamentalist in my orientation to faith, but it did encourage me to do good scholarship on my own faith.

I am grateful for my schooling.  Looking back, I believe it did many things well.

However, since seminary, I have certainly encountered people who use orthodoxy as the highest metric for gauging someone’s faith.

Not only is this wrongheaded, but I believe it misses the forest for the trees.

The primary terms here are “orthodoxy” (right belief) and “orthopraxy” (right practice or action).

If my “orthodoxy” leads me to have an unloving, critical, vindictive, scapegoating, self-permissive/self-condemnatory “praxy” then something is wildly off.

However, if my “orthopraxy” leads me to go back and re-evaluate the “orthodoxy” I was holding onto, then I might just find myself being led toward the “orthodoxy” that Jesus had.

I have no idea if I am ranting or making sense to anyone but myself, but another way to say this might be…  If a tree (orthodoxy) bears bad fruit (bad orthopraxy), it is time to cut the tree (bad orthodoxy) down.

5.

“Fauxnerability is what happens when we learn the language of healing but stop short of the surrender healing requires. Fauxnerability is what happens when we become experts in talking about suffering without having experienced the dark night. Fauxnerabilty is what happens when we disclose to soothe our nervous systems rather than to be truly known. Fauxnerability is what happens when honest words are performative rather than a manifestation of authentic presence.“

– Chuck DeGroat, Author and Therapist

Fauxnerability.  That’s Chuck’s word for performative and false vulnerability.

I feel as though I am on a constant learning journey or path about vulnerability.  At times, I think I am good at it, and then more life happens, and I realize my tendency to “self-protectively” isolate.  Of course, that is an oxymoron because isolation is considered a war crime.  Isolation is not protective, healthy, or holy.

In fact, many orders of Christianity would not permit monks to become hermits if they were going into the hermitic life for the wrong reasons.  They must first be proven healthy and holy.

True vulnerability is most likely showing up to the present moment in the fullness of our whole being, with our strengths but even more so with our weaknesses and lack.

I rather enjoy the work of philosopher Pete Rollins, who teaches…

“The secret of the lack… is the lack of the secret.”

What does this mean?

We are all looking for a cure-all secret recipe to take away our sense that we are lacking, incomplete, or less than.

However, the real secret to the lack is realizing there is a “lack of a secret.”  There is no cure-all secret recipe.  Our sense of lack, our sense of being incomplete, our sense of being less-than is BECAUSE we think there is a secret fulfillment that we are not currently owning.

But what are the closing words of the Parable of the Running Father in Luke 15?

“Son, I am always with you, and everything of mine is already yours.”

Love Is the Law 

Thursday, October 29, 2026

Public theologian Rachel Held Evans (1981–2019) considers how Jesus understood love as the ultimate fulfillment of God’s law:

Jesus made it clear that he did not come to abolish the laws of the Torah, “but to fulfill them” (Matthew 5:17). The life and teachings of Jesus, then, embody all that these laws were intended to be. Jesus is what the living, breathing will of God looks like. This includes compassion for the poor, esteem for women, healing for the sick, and solidarity with the suffering. It means breaking bread with outcasts and embracing little children. It means choosing forgiveness over retribution, the cross over revenge, and cooking breakfast for the friend who betrayed you. As Elton Trueblood put it, “The historic Christian doctrine of the divinity of Christ does not simply mean that Jesus is like God. It is far more radical than that. It means that God is like Jesus.” [1]

When Jesus was challenged by the experts on the Law to give an answer for what Scripture is all about, he offered a very straightforward, very Jewish response. Quoting Deuteronomy 6 and Leviticus 19, he replied, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments” (Matthew 22:37–40).

This is the point of every liberation, every wandering through the desert, every law about oxen and yeast and blood. To love is to honor God and keep God’s commandments. Love is the law that liberates slave and slaveholder alike. Love is the ultimate deliverance story, for only love can sustain the sojourner out of Egypt, through the desert, up the mountain, and into the promised land.

The truth is, you can bend Scripture to say just about anything you want it to say…. We all go to the text looking for something, and we all have a tendency to find it. So the question we have to ask ourselves is this: are we reading with the prejudice of love, with Christ as our model, or are we reading with the prejudices of judgment and power, self-interest and greed? Are we seeking to enslave or liberate, burden or set free?…

This is why there are times when the most instructive question to bring to the text is not, What does this say? but, What am I looking for? I suspect Jesus knew this when he said, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you” (Matthew 7:7).

If you want to do violence in this world, you will always find the weapons. If you want to heal, you will always find the balm. With Scripture, we’ve been entrusted with some of the most powerful stories ever told. How we harness that power, whether for good or evil, oppression or liberation, changes everything.

References:
[1] Elton Trueblood, cited in Brian McLaren, A New Kind of Christianity (HarperCollins, 2010), 114.

Rachel Held Evans, Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again (Nelson Books, 2018), 55–57.

Image credit and inspiration: Samuel Oakes, untitled (detail), 2021, photo, Broadway, UK. Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. Like bread offered to someone beyond the frame, we are invited to reach out to an unseen neighbor, both giving and receiving blessing.

Love Indivisible: John the Beloved on the Union of God, neighbor, and sibling

BRADLEY JERSAKOCT 25

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Love Indivisible in John the Beloved 

The First Epistle of John the Beloved is a treasury of challenges to every assumption that would sabotage Love’s work in our lives and world. Read closely, it calls for a fearless self-examination that rattles religious presumptions and prepares us to hear the radical claims of divine love. Along those lines, I invite you to notice the “fusion of two loves” that push our notions of “divine union” to the n^th degree.

The Fusion of Divine and Human Love

First, let’s notice how John fuses divine and human love. John learned from Jesus that the whole of the Law and Prophets can be expressed in a two-fold summary command: love God with your whole heart and love your neighbor with the same concern you have for yourself. John had witnessed Jesus unite love for God and neighbor in practice, such that the two loves became an indivisible fusion.

John boldly asserts that we cannot claim to love God while we still hate our human siblings. To imagine love for God but not our neighbor is, to John, a delusion. And living as if we could is hypocrisy—a lie. Strong words, but consider: in John, loving our neighbor IS loving God; it’s how you love God. More than a “should,” an obligation, or implication. More than an application or corollary to the Great Commandment. John has moved beyond a two-step “first you love God (via devotion), then you love your neighbor (via kindness, etc.).”

No. That would still imply a separation between God and humanity. It would overlook the radical union of Christ with his human family with whom he shares “one substance.” Jesus showed us that to love the poor, naked, hungry, sick, and imprisoned is to love him. In Christ and to Christ, ‘they’ are ‘Me.’

So too, he interrogates Paul, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” Notby way of analogy. And not indirectly. To persecute ‘them’ is to ‘murder Me.’To kill the other—whether the foreign enemy, the murderer on death row, or the war child—is to murder him.

The union of God and humanity is complete. We literally cannot know or love God apart from encountering him in every ‘them’ Jesus calls ‘Me.’ Cannot. I don’t just mean we should not see them as separate. They just aren’t. The union of God and humanity makes the separation impossible. Eventually, hopefully, unthinkable.

There is no “Love God” category AND “love neighbor.” 
In Christ, the two loves are fused in hypostatic union.

The Fusion of Neighbor and Sibling

When I spoke of fusing love for God and neighbor in John’s epistle, I deliberately imported the language of neighbor. But that’s not right; John does not mention our neighbor. He speaks of “one another” (allēlōn – 6x) and “brother(s)/sister(s)” (adelphos/adelphē – 15x). Since John’s heart and theology are gender universal, I’ll use the inclusive term “siblings.” 

As a child literalist with a King James Bible, I knew John was at least addressing my relationship with my one and only actual human brother, Rodney. I’ve told the story somewhere of the Sunday School poster I posted on my wall, “You cannot love God and hate your brother.” That’s short for the admonition:

“Those who say, ‘I love God,’ and hate a brother or sister are liars, 
for those who do not love a brother or sister, whom they have seen, 
cannot love God, whom they have not seen.” (1 John 4:20, NRSVUE)

I left the poster on my wall for months, undergoing its work on me because I genuinely wanted to love God, but I knew I was often impatient, unkind, and sometimes cruel to Rodney. I wanted to do better.

While John didn’t mean for my obedience to be that exclusive, many of us still assumed “brother” referred to our Christian brothers and sisters. In fact, some streams of Christian theology not only narrow our love from all our neighbors to ‘the elect,’ but pull the same stunt with God! They claim that “God is notlove” by nature and does not love everyone—God, they say, is only love in the experience of the elect.

In this model, God’s love and ours are directed not at our neighbor, but specifically at our Christian brothers and sisters—John seems to urge love for a specific faith community of Christian believers. But history demonstrates this constricted love reopens the door to misuse and violence toward the feared minority, the despised stranger, and enemy other (a worrisome trend again today). 

Universal Siblings

I want to offer an alternative reading of 1 John that I believe better reflects the same author who proclaimed, “God so loved the world.” This is John’s transformative takeaway from the revelation of God’s love in Christ. So I propose a second fusion: rather than seeing “siblings” as the faith-bearing subgroup within the broader human population, John’s vision of love is that in Christ, all neighbors are now revealed as siblings. 

Practically, the Sikh hymn (and title of Valarie Kaur’s book) teaches us to “See no stranger.” Just as John sees love of God and neighbor as one indivisible act, so he replaces the language of neighbor with sibling because there is no difference. We look at the world in terms of strangers, enemies, and neighbors (categories of difference), but in Christ, we are one, a united family of siblings—including Jesus. He is not ashamed to call us siblings, and we must honor all humanity as siblings too. 

In Christ, my neighbor is now my sibling. 
And all are in Christ, not because they ‘became Christian,’ 
but because in his incarnation, he became human, 
united to every human person.

My Brother’s Keeper?

I’ll close by revisiting the biblical archetype of Cain, who famously asked God (ever so defensively), “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

Today, I hear Jesus, piercing our eyes and hearts with this sober reply, “No. You are their sibling. And they are Me.”

Wednesday, October 28, 2026

Summarizing the parable of the good Samaritan (Luke 10:25–37), Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King reflects on how we define our neighbor: 

Who is my neighbor? “I do not know his name,” says Jesus in essence. “He is anyone toward whom you are neighborly. He is anyone who lies in need at life’s roadside. He is neither Jew nor Gentile; he is neither Russian nor American; he is neither Negro nor white. He is a ‘certain man’—any needy man—on one of the numerous Jericho roads of life.” So Jesus defines a neighbor, not in a theological definition, but in a life situation.  

What constituted the goodness of the good Samaritan? Why will he always be an inspiring paragon of neighborly virtue? It seems to me that this man’s goodness may be described in one word—altruism. The good Samaritan was altruistic to the core…. The Samaritan was good because he made concern for others the first law of his life.… 

Man-made laws assure justice, but a higher law produces love…. The good Samaritan represents the conscience of [humankind] because he also was obedient to that which could not be enforced. No law in the world could have produced such unalloyed compassion, such genuine love, such thorough altruism…. 

More than ever before, my friends, [people] of all races and nations are today challenged to be neighborly. The call for a worldwide good-neighbor policy is more than an ephemeral shibboleth…. No longer can we afford the luxury of passing by on the other side. Such folly was once called moral failure; today it will lead to universal suicide. We cannot long survive spiritually separated in a world that is geographically together. In the final analysis, I must not ignore the wounded man on life’s Jericho Road, because he is a part of me and I am a part of him. His agony diminishes me and his salvation enlarges me.  

In our quest to make neighborly love a reality, we have, in addition to the inspiring example of the good Samaritan, the magnanimous life of our Christ to guide us. His altruism was universal, for he thought of all [people], even publicans and sinners, as brothers. His altruism was dangerous, for he willingly traveled hazardous roads in a cause he knew was right. His altruism was excessive, for he chose to die on Calvary, history’s most magnificent expression of obedience to the unenforceable.  

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A Jesus Follower’s Voter Guide

Something to carry with you into next Tuesday

BEAU STRINGEROCT 27

Election Day is one week from today, and if you’re feeling a little worn out by the whole thing, you’re definitely not alone. I have had several conversations lately with folks who feel anxious about this season, and a lot of them have told me it’s hard to know how your faith fits into all of it.

So, I made something for you. 

It’s a short guide with eight truths about Jesus and how they might shape the way we think about casting a vote. I put it together as a simple image so it’s easy to save, print, or pass along to someone who might need it.

Big shout out to Brian Zahnd, whose own Christian voter’s guide inspired me to write this one.

I kept each point simple, and every one of them centers on Jesus. Something he said or did, or something the church has confessed about him from the very beginning. From there I trust you to connect the dots for your own life and your own ballot. I refuse to endorse anyone. 

My hope is that this helps you walk into the voting booth remembering who you belong to. The earliest followers of Jesus lived under an empire that asked for their loyalty, and they kept right on saying “Jesus is Lord.” That confession is ours too, next Tuesday and every day after.

And whatever the results are a week from now, I hope you’ll wake up on Wednesday knowing what is true. Jesus is still risen. The worst thing is never the last thing. Every neighbor you pass is still made in the image of God. And the kingdom he talked about is still quietly growing all around us.

If you’d like a prayer to carry with you, here’s one you’re welcome to borrow:

God of every nation and every neighbor, give me clear eyes and a kind heart as I vote. Help me care most about the people you care about. Keep me from fear and from contempt. And whatever the results are, remind me that my hope rests in you. Amen.

Tuesday, October 27, 2026.

Richard Rohr maps the expansion from self-love and group love to the gospel call of universal love: 

We’re told by developmental psychologists that there’s a staging in our growth in love. We have to start with self-love and respecting the self. If we don’t respect ourselves, we won’t know how to respect anybody else. 

Then God moves us to group love, family love, which is basically the love of people who are connected to us or who are like us. A lot of people don’t even get there. They don’t know how to love their family or those close to them or those in their group. 

From there, God moves us to the third level, which is universal love. I’m afraid a much smaller number of people get to this place. As we see in politics, in our country, and throughout the world, at best most people just get to the second stage of knowing how to love people who are like them: their race, their nationality, their religion, their political party. When we stay at this second stage of group love, we clearly don’t create a healthy society. We can look at countries and politics the world over to witness how this is true.  

In Acts 10, we discover that even Peter had to be taught by the Holy Spirit how to grow in love. Peter was at the stage of group love, believing that God only loved the Jewish people. And then this strange thing happened where the Holy Spirit fell upon gentiles! Peter looked around and said, “Oh my gosh! God seems to be for everybody and not just for the Jewish people!” He understood that it was okay to include gentiles into what eventually became known as the church. In spite of this, most of church history has not really imitated Peter’s insight. We pulled back into group think and group love. 

Peter said, “In truth, I see that God shows no partiality. In any country, whoever fears God and acts uprightly is acceptable” (Acts 10:34–35). At that moment he became both a Jewish and Christian heretic! Peter himself began to recognize that God works with all people of goodwill — not just people in his group. But he had to be pushed there. Little by little, God leads him to universal love. 

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The Best Days of Our Lives

Ten Years Later

BRIAN ZAHND OCT 27

My shadow with Peri walking on ahead on the Camino de Santiago.

Ten years ago today Peri and I completed our first 500-mile pilgrim walk across Spain on the Francés route of the Camino de Santiago. It changed our lives. This is not hyperbole, it’s just a stone-cold fact. Peri has written a memoir of our experience—Every Scene By Heart. The following is my brief reflection on those blessed days ten years ago.

Finding my initials in El Acebo, population 37.

It was a long walk across Spain—the best days of our lives. We knew it while we were doing it. Even when we were beset with blisters and worn down by fatigue, we would turn to one another and say, “This is the best thing we’ve ever done.” While walking thousand-year-old paths made holy by the feet of millions of pilgrims, we found respite “far from the madding crowd” of modernity. For forty days and forty nights our lives were reduced to the blessed simplicity of walking from town to town, from church to church, from shelter to shelter, always moving a bit closer to Santiago. We didn’t dart here and there, back and forth in a frenzy; we didn’t speed through the world in cars, trains, and planes; we just moved steadily westward, no faster than foot-speed. And with the simplicity and the slowing down came that which we miss most in our high-speed, high-tech, high-stress age: Peace.

We had come to the Camino to escape the quadrennial madness that falls upon America during presidential elections. We had come to the Camino for our first sabbatical in thirty-five years of ministry. We had come to the Camino in hope of finding healing for our overwrought souls. And on the Camino we found all we were looking for and more. It’s not often that a much-anticipated experience exceeds our expectations, but the Camino de Santiago was better than we had dared to hope. It was a gift from God; a five-hundred mile walk deep into the grace of Christ.

As it became known that we planned to walk the Camino, people who had already had their own Camino contacted us; they were as eager to tell us of their experience as we were to gain what advice we could. Over time I noticed that these Camino veterans tended to say the same three things in their own way:

1. It’s harder than you think.
2. You will love it.
3. It will change you.

Taking a break near the village of Trabadelo, population 321.

Today, ten years after our arrival in Santiago, I can say that all three prophecies were precisely true. It was harder than I anticipated—as Peri’s memoir makes clear. And I did love it. Even when I had seventeen blisters I was aware that I loved the privilege of being a pilgrim on this wonderful journey. And, most importantly, I know the Camino has changed me. I found a peace on the Camino that I’m still consciously aware of today.

Over those five-hundred miles I shed a layer of skin—a layer that was too easily blistered by anxiety. At Cruz de Ferro I laid down a burden I have not retrieved—I left it at the base of an iron cross and there it remains. 

At Cruz de Ferro, where pilgrims lay down a small stone they have carried on the Camino, representing something they want to let go of.

Those long walks through the lovely mountains of the Pyrenees, the vineyards of Navarra, the plains of the Meseta, and the wooded hills of Galicia brought me to a new place of calm and contentedness. This was an answer to prayer. The Camino was a forty-day, five-hundred-mile prayer, and with the Amen offered in the Cathedral of Santiago I found a new depth of the peace of God which surpasses all understanding. Thank you, Camino. Thank you, Peri. Thank you, Jesus.

Buen Camino.

BZ

Loving God, Self, and Others 

Sunday, October 25, 2026

One of the scribes came to Jesus and asked, “Which is the first of all the commandments?” Jesus replied, “The first is this: … ‘You shall love the Lord with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”  
—Mark 12:28–31  

In this homily, Father Richard Rohr considers Jesus’s response to the question, “Which is the first of all the commandments?”:  

I don’t think any of us really know how to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. We might want to love like that, but how do we put all the parts of ourselves together and actually do it? It takes our whole lives to figure out what Jesus’s words might even mean. Then Jesus says, “You must love your neighbor as you love yourself” (Mark 12:31). Do any of us do that? Do we really love other people? Do we really give them as much attention as we give to ourselves? I don’t think so.  

Imagine how different the world would be if we just obeyed that one commandment to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. It would be the most mighty political and social upheaval imaginable. The world would be radically different if human beings really treated other people as they would like to be treated. We can take this as a simple rule of thumb: What would I want from that person right now? What would be helpful for me to receive?Well, there’s the commandment—our obligation to do for others!   

It’s so simple that we can see why we put all our attention on the Ten Commandments, or the hundreds of other regulations culture and religion place on us. It’s much easier to worry about things that keep us “pure,” so to speak, but are of little consequence.   

I think the scribe is asking a very good question. After all is said and done, it comes down to loving God and loving our neighbor—and that implies loving ourselves. If I said this without quoting Jesus, I could be accused of oversimplifying or ignoring some of the important commandments. Thank God, Jesus said it first. He taught that it’s all about love. In the end, that’s all we’re all going to be judged for. Did we love? Did we love life? Did we love ourselves? Did we love God? Did we love our neighbor? Concentrating on love takes just about our whole lifetime, so we won’t have much time left over to worry about what other people are doing or not doing. Our job is to love God, love ourselves, and love our neighbor.  

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Sacred Service  

Monday, October 26, 2026

Interspiritual teacher Mirabai Starr centers Jesus’s teaching to love one’s neighbor as oneself in his Jewish tradition:  

The second-century Talmudic master Rabbi Akiva said that the entire essence of the Torah could be summed up by Leviticus 19:18 “Love your neighbor as yourself.” There is a famous story in the Talmud about Rabbi Hillel, another spiritual genius of this lineage. A Gentile came to a rabbi named Shammai and said that he would convert to Judaism if Shammai could teach him the entire Torah while standing on one foot. Infuriated, the rabbi chased the man away. Hillel, however, balanced on one leg and said, “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary. Now go and study it.” The Gentile converted on the spot. 

While Judaism takes it on faith that the ultimate Divine Being transcends all attributes and defies all description, it also affirms that God is intimately concerned with the human predicament. If human beings are made in God’s image and if His nature is one of infinite compassion, then efforts to act with kindness and to defend the persecuted are as vital to spiritual life as are prayer and Torah study. To love God is to love each other and to see each other as having been created in Her image, just as we ourselves have been…. 

Mercy is the root that blossoms into living acts of chesed (lovingkindness) and tzedakah (righteousness). Tzedakah can be confused with charity. But it is not about grand gestures of beneficence. If we are spiritually attuned, giving becomes a natural outflow of our recognition of the interdependence of all life. To withhold what we have from others is to violate the gifts the Holy One has given to us. Not only that, but acts of tzedakah are said to sanctify God: our righteousness makes the Holy One holy! 

Jesus’s teaching invites us to express who we are by how we act:   

Jesus reminded his Jewish followers that the most important of all the Holy One’s prescriptions are “to love God with all your heart and all your soul and all your strength” and “to love your neighbor as yourself.” Following these two commandments requires a balance between reaching upward toward the divine mystery and manifesting our commitment to the sacred in each other. 

In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ calls his disciples “the salt of the earth.” By carrying his message of love to all they touch, they will serve to bring out the true flavor of the spiritual life and preserve what is best in the human experience. Sacred service in the name of love, he promises, is worth far more than worldly fame and material fortune. The divine commission is to stand up in our righteousness and radiate our light to the world. 

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Individual Reflection

Of the three (God, neighbor, yourself), which one do you quietly leave out?

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Group Discussion — choose one:

1. Rohr says we fuss over purity because it costs less than love. What’s your version of that?
2. Starr says withholding what we’ve been given violates the gift. What are you holding back, and from whom?
3. Hillel’s answer fit on one foot. Why do we keep needing more legs to stand on?

New Cornerstones 

Friday, October 23, 2026

Joanna Arellano-Gonzalez, co-founder of the Coalition for Spiritual & Public Leadership, reflects on the influence of empire thinking:

John Dominic Crossan, in God and Empire, names the four cornerstones of empire as political, economic, military, and ideological power. While the first three subject marginalized people to crushing realities, ideological power is the most nefarious. It shapes, controls, and distorts the minds and spirits of both oppressor and oppressed…. 

We have been indoctrinated by the forces the American Empire rests upon—taught to value profit over people and individualism over interdependence. Embodying these values leads to greater disembodiment of God’s love. Our Inner Empire must be dismantled and rebuilt so we can respond with fiercer clarity and love as Christians. 

The four cornerstones of the Inner Empire are supremacy, privilege, hatred, and fear. These four cornerstones lead to the dehumanization of others and the self.  

Supremacy captures the belief in our own inherent superiority over others. Privilege points to unearned advantages we protect or ignore at the expense of others. Hatred names active hostility toward others (or parts of ourselves). Lastly, fear fuels self-protection. When we fear losing control, status, or safety, we build walls inside ourselves, like the walls of Jericho, impenetrable to danger, but also impenetrable to authentic love.  

Knowing that these cornerstones corrode the soul, what can restore the soul? 

In Matthew 21:42, Jesus quotes a Psalm from his Hebrew tradition that says, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone” (Psalm 118:22). Arellano-Gonzalez writes:

Jesus … embodies the cornerstones and models that we need in our daily lives. We need to follow his blueprint.  

We can rebuild our foundation with the four cornerstones of humility, responsibility, compassion, and connection. These four practices help restore our sense of humanity toward others and ourselves….  

Humility allows us to see one another as equal, with deep reverence and openness to all and the environment. It reminds us we are stardust amongst the infinite cosmos.  

Responsibility teaches us to be accountable for our actions and stewards of one another and the land.  

Compassion promotes empathy, love, and benevolence, which help us tap into God’s tenderness for the world.  

Connection is the strongest cornerstone. It teaches us about radical solidarity, belonging, and courage. Connection invites us to action. We recognize that when one injustice happens against one group of people, it happens to us all because of our sacred interconnectedness.  

Have the courage to shake the foundations of your spiritual world. When you examine and create awareness around your entitlement, your privilege, and your position of power in communities, you can ultimately rediscover your true understanding of self, others, God, and the planet.  

To create the world we want to see, we need to start with ourselves. We must dismantle the Inner Empires we’ve built—brick by brick, belief by belief. The empire within must fall so that solidarity, justice, and love can rise.  (Editorial addition by Ray Watson: But can we do that work ourselves in our own strength without starting with the foundational relationship with the Cornerstone, Jesus? I need Jesus to help me because I am not capable in my own strength/weakness. I must seek first the relationship that is foundational to all others. Hold me, Abba. Mold me with your love so I can love…)

Reference:
Joanna Arellano-Gonzalez, “Dismantling Your Inner Empire,” the Mendicant, (Center for Action and Contemplation), Fall, 2025.

Image credit and inspiration: Bradley Pritchard Jones, untitled (detail), 2023, photo, Ynys Llanddwyn, Wales. Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. Like old stones slowly returning to the hillside, the structures of empire fade while the way of Jesus, rooted like the land itself, remains.

John Chaffee’s Five On Friday, 10-23-2026

A Bigger and More Beautiful Neighborhood 

Thursday, October 22, 2026

In CAC’s virtual gathering, “How Can We Reclaim Jesus from Empire?” Brian McLaren shares how his faith has changed since he embraced the historical Jesus of the Gospels.

In the last couple of hundred years, wave after wave of theologians and Christian thinkers and activists have tried to free Jesus from our theological straightjackets and rediscover him in his historical and political setting. When you do that, you realize the core message of Jesus was not, “Here are the four steps to go to heaven when you die.” Jesus’s core message was, “The kingdom of God is at hand.”

“At hand” means within reach and available now. That’s revolutionary!

So few see this, in part because of misguided traditions of teaching and in part because of confusing translations. 

Our English word kingdom comes from a Greek word basilea, which means empire. It’s the same word. So, Jesus shows up in a historical moment when the empire of Caesar in Rome is dominating the Mediterranean world. Jesus says, “Hey everybody! The empire of Caesar is a dirty little neighborhood within a much bigger kingdom—the empire of God. Stop framing your lives in that small, ugly, distorted frame of earthly human empire. Deconstruct all your Rome-dominated assumptions. Learn a whole new way of seeing the world because the empire of God is all around us and within reach!”

Sadly, too many Christians have done the reverse. They have shrunk God into the image of a human emperor. They see God as a supreme, dominating, authoritarian autocrat. They don’t see how Jesus is taking the language of empire and flipping it on its head.

What do empires do? They kill people. What does Jesus do? He dies as a nonviolent witness against empire.

What do empires do? They torture and imprison people. Jesus heals people and sets them free.

What do empires do? Empires forcefully relocate people. Jesus goes to people where they are and meets them where they are.

What do empires do? They create domination hierarchies: These people are over these people, who are over these people, who are over these people. What does Jesus do? He takes the role of the servant and washes people’s feet. He leads from below, kneeling at their feet. What a stark reversal of human domination systems.

Yes, Jesus talks about God being a father, but is Jesus’s father a Roman patriarchal father? No, God is the opposite: a merciful parent who doesn’t punish a disobedient son, but rather welcomes him home and throws a party to celebrate.

Suddenly, when you see this, you see everything in a new light. Jesus doesn’t legitimize human nation-states and their dominating systems of top-down control. In word and deed, Jesus exposes and inverts the whole pyramid.

He points to something bigger and more beautiful. Shouldn’t we do the same?

Reference:
Adapted from Brian McLaren with Randy Woodley and Edith Woodley, “How Can We Reclaim Jesus from Empire?” (Center for Action and Contemplation, July 10, 2026). Unavailable.

Image credit and inspiration: Bradley Pritchard Jones, untitled (detail), 2023, photo, Ynys Llanddwyn, Wales. Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. Like old stones slowly returning to the hillside, the structures of empire fade while the way of Jesus, rooted like the land itself, remains.

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Whose Image? Bradley Jersak

Homily – Church of the Magdalene — Oct. 18, 2026

BRADLEY JERSAK OCT 18

READ IN APP

I delivered this homily to the Church of the Magdalen. I’ve retained the personal nature of speaking to 20 people I know very well, seasoned Jesus-followers whose example I note. So in a sense, readers are overhearing a family discussion, but as the shoe fits, please wear it. 

LECTIONARY READINGS (with links)

Psalm 96:1-13
Isaiah 45:1-7
1 Thessalonians 1:1-10
Matthew 22:15-22

WHOSE IMAGE?

Today,
Today, mind you,
the Lord Jesus asks us,
us, mind you,

Whose image, whose icon,
whose likeness, whose face 
is on the Coin?

What caption, what inscription,
what slogans and titles
does our Coin bear?

Come to think of it,
what is our Coin (uppercase C)?
the Coin we carry
and has our allegiance?

As our Lord looks up from our Coin
we make eye contact, and he says,

“Render to God what is God’s.”

And because it’s you,
dear friends and siblings,
I see him break into a broad, warm smile.

CAESAR’S IMAGE

The first part is too easy, too familiar.

We know the image of Caesar is empire, domination, and control.
Caesar’s image is on our currency,
our flags, our anthems, our hand-on-heart pledges,
Caesar speaks from our capitol buildings and in our tax assessments.
Caesar knows you … by number, as number.
Caesar tells you what to render and renders it from you.
to pay for your water, your electricity, your highways, schools, 
(thank you),
to pay for Caesar’s death rows, deportations, and genocides,
(damn it).

And today,
today, mind you,
self-anointed prophets insist we vote and bow to their chosen Caesars,
even anointing them with the name “Cyrus” to justify their blasphemies.

THE TRUE IMAGE

BUT, but, but! 
That’s just coin.
The reality is far more radical, more beautiful, more joyous.

All of today’s readings,
today’s message from heaven,
lift our eyes to the One true Image of God,
to behold the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

PROCLAIMED IN THE PSALMS

The Psalmist proclaims the beautiful Gospel of the Coming One—
the Lord who is great and greatly to be praised,
whose compelling image we receive and proclaim and sing and declare…

His Psalm, our song, is not raised 
to some tribal God of the elect de jour,
our Lord does not serve any nation’s political expansion,
or exclusive religious movement like “Christian” nationalism,
that crave dominance.

The Psalmist says our Lord is good news
for everyone,
for all the earth,
for the whole world,
for the families of the peoples in every nation!

When they hear he is coming as Judge,
they do not cower in dread.
The heavens are glad,
the earth rejoices,
Creation exults

Precisely because it is Jesus coming to judge the earth
Because, finally, we have a ruler whose reign is mercy
and whose judgments are equity for everyone,

The image on his banner is the Cross 
where the scales of justice
always render a verdict of God’s peace on all the earth 
and divine goodwill to all people.

PREVIEWED IN THE PROPHETS

This same Lord the Psalms proclaim,
the Prophets also preview.

Isaiah offers Emperor Cyrus as a mere shadow of a far greater Reality.
However dimly, Cyrus blindly prefigures 
the Image of God we now behold in Christ.

Cyrus, who does not know God,
is anointed as a gesture to the Messiah 
who does know God, 
comes from God, 
was with God from eternity, 
and is the Image and Likeness of God.

Those local, temporary, political exploits of Cyrus 
are fulfilled in Christ on a cosmic, universal scale
that delivers us all from the Empire of Darkness.

Let’s give ear to the fulfillment,
Today,
today, mind you,

Jesus is God’s anointed,
Jesus subdues nations,
Jesus strips the prince of darkness of power,
Jesus breaks open the gates of Hades to conquer death,
and the gates of His fair city will never be shut.

Jesus goes before us to level mountains of injustice,
he breaks in pieces the iron bars of bondage,
and he has and is and will deliver us,
us, mind you,
his treasure and his riches and his inheritance,
retrieving—rendering—from darkness 
everyone, everyone.

Jesus is Lord, and there is no other,
Jesus is Lord, and you do know him,
from the rising of the sun to its going down,
there is just no one like him,
not even the false image of Jesus 
that false prophets of Caesar parade before us.

You know the Jesus of the Psalms, the Prophets, and the Gospels,
and every shadow is washed out in the Light of his glory.

The Epistle picks up the image or face of Christ,
the icon of God proclaimed in the Psalms, 
prefigured in the prophets, 
and locates it … where?

PORTRAYED IN HIS PEOPLE

Today,
today, mind you,
the Image of Christ is reflected in the people called by his name.

The Thessalonians and the Magdalenes
are and are becoming the icon, 
the image of the Image of God—
the face of Christ in the world, 
for the life of the world…

Listen to Paul describe you,
as he describes himself 
and his Lord:

I always give thanks to God for all of you,
always mentioning you in our prayers,
constantly remembering 
your work of faith,
your labor of love,
your steadfast hope,in our Lord Jesus Christ.

The Magdalene image of Christ 
bears and shares
the message of the gospel,
In word, yes,
and in the power of the Holy Spirit,

So, when I look for the image,
I see the imitators,
an example to all the believers,
and not only in Macedonia and Achaia.

No, you lot have sounded forth in
Mexico, Canada, and the United States,
you’ve traversed Europe and the UK
and touched hearts in the Middle East,
you’ve ventured from Southeast Asia,
and lived your peace in far-off Islands.
What continent has Sister Gillian 
not mentored from her home?
(maybe Antarctica?)

What a strange, eclectic little collection of Maggies,
in whose faces I see the Image of the Image of God,
in whose hearts and hugs I’ve encountered Jesus.

WALK THIS WORLD AS THE PARDON OF GOD

Our friend Peri, reflecting on Francis of Assisi,
leaves us with this commission to bear the image
and render our lives to Christ:

Walk the world as the pardon of God
Always affirm the Christ you see in others 
Let your faces and your words 
radiate the radically inclusive welcome of Jesus.
Be the image you bear and who bears you.

Lord, make us an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let us sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that we may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.