Many and varied are the interpretations dealing with the teachings and life of Jesus of Nazareth. But few of these interpretations deal with what the teachings and life of Jesus have to say to those who stand, at a moment in human history, with their backs against the wall.... This is a matter of tremendous significance, for it reveals to what extent a religion that was born of a people acquainted with persecution and suffering has become the cornerstone of a civilization and of nations whose very position in modern life has too often been secured by a ruthless use of power applied to weak and defenseless peoples. - Howard Thurman, Jesus and the Disinherited
The Temptation of Jesus - 2.2.25 | Dr. Cyndi Parker
(formatted as poetry) There is not a place in this world where I am not asked to prove it./ Substantiate my belonging./ Verify that my body is qualified to occupy this space,/ as if the miracle of my enfleshment weren't enough./ But I am asked to be superhuman. Divine even. More than mediocre,/ like the rest of them,/ to demonstrate that my placement on this earth is not the mere result of affirmative action./ But I will not eat the bread of your cunning. My sustenance is found elsewhere. -Drew Jackson, "Prove It" in God Speaks Through Wombs
Jesus' Baptism and Ancestry - 1.26.25 | Rev. Chris Currie
No person we meet from the moment we open our eyes in the morning till we shut them in sleep at night is finished. Each person is a tragic-comic soul whom God is saving. Implicit in every personal name (explicit in baptism) is the Holy Trinity, that intricate coming into being of persons-in-relationship in a not-to-be-fathomed eternity. - Eugene Peterson, Reversed Thunder