Mother Laura (hey, should we be calling you Bishop Laura?) has tagged me for the Five Things I Dig About Jesus meme. Like MoreCows, I was nearly ready to tag myself for this one, so thank you Laura+!
Rather than tagging five people, I am simply going to ask that any readers self-tag, and let us know in the comments that you did so. While I love playing memes, I am aware that not everyone does and I have tagged people in the past who would prefer not to play. So... play away, all you who so wish.
Five Things I Dig About Jesus
1. Jesus turned everyone's expectations of "religious" and "righteous" on their heads.
2. Jesus rejected purity codes as distractions from the heart of the law, that we love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and that we love our neighbors as ourselves.
3. Jesus' definition of "neighbor" was mind-blowingly broad-- our neighbor is never who we expect her to be.
4. Jesus focused more in internals (the intentions of the heart) than externals (apparent righteousness).
5. Jesus proclaimed release to the captives... which is to say, all of us, who are captive in our own prisons, our own hells, our own closets.
I could go on and on... ok, one more.
Bonus: Jesus (at least in the gospel of John) did some of his best and most interesting theology in conversations with women. He took us seriously as partners in the salvation story (and two thousand years later, that is still radical and controversial.)
Thanks Mother Laura!
3 comments:
Amen and Amen.
So good. I especially like you saying for #3--"our neighbor is never who we expect her to be." That's the hard part about loving our neighbor, especially with the world today. It's back to that Pax Christi bumper sticker I have but have not put on my car: "God bless the whole world--no exceptions."
Brief and brilliant, thanks so much, Cecilia.
And thank you so much for all your kind and generous support of my new step in ministry.
Minor Catholic/Anglican trivia point fyi...hope it doesn't sound too silly or fussy...bishops get a cross before the given name and priests after. So I was Laura+ and am now +Laura (for formal use, not between friends of course.) Fr. Chris T. usually just tacks it on when he's defending me to difficult male bishops :-) and I tend to do the same....
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