Liminality

Our sin . . . for us religious people . . . is what separates us from knowing, loving, and embracing the divine.  It’s what keeps us from validating the humanity of the other.  It’s what keeps us completely and utterly lost.  It’s a spiritual disconnect.  And I think it begins with a lack of trust and a lack of gratitude.  We don’t trust our place as God’s child so we “hypocritically tolerate sin while verbally espousing spirituality.” [1] And I see this in myself too – it’s my own “lostness.”  I don’t want to live this way.  I want to confess the sin that looms over my life like a black veil.  I hate it.  I’m ready to name it and take it down.  But what I fear more than admitting it is imagining what you may think of me when you find out I have it.  So I bury it and try to be the only one that truly knows about it.  I live hypocritically. This “lostness” is hard to admit because it’s tied so closely to my desire to b...

It's clear, when looking at the scene of Jesus on the cross, that we as humans have the capacity to hurt each other, deliberately.  We have it in us to inflict pain.  What Jesus underwent at the cross was no mere accident.  He was not inadvertently run over by a horse or struck down by random lightning.  He died as the result of premeditated strategy.  Human beings, knowing precisely what they were doing, planned out every detail of this process of torture and execution as a deliberate means to an end.  Crucifixion was the strategy the Roman Empire had devised to keep occupied people under control.  The Romans had successfully extended their domination over the whole of the Mediterranean Basin, and as a way of maintaining that control, the process of crucifixion had proven exceedingly useful.  It served two purposes.  It not only eliminated troublemakers from occupied lands, but it also served as an example to any other would-be rebel...

It’s hard to understand the motives of Peter in Mark 8:31-38.  We place our worldview into scripture and wag our finger claiming him to be an arrogant hothead for rebuking Jesus.  We do this because we’re accustomed to hearing the things that get Peter so riled up.  We’re accustomed to hearing about Jesus having to die.  But the idea of losing a life to gain another makes no sense to Peter.  Think about his worldview.  Salvation was supposed to come to the earth as a powerful force that destroys the Roman enemies and sets the social order right.  Salvation was supposed to come in on the wings of a soldier riding a horse waving a rebellion flag.  Salvation was supposed to usurp the powers and principalities of the day, not be destroyed by them.  And Peter thought he had all this in Jesus.  I mean up to this point Jesus had done it all right.  He’d healed the sick, cared for the needy, began usurping the powers and princip...