Humility

The Feast of the Lamb in a World of Wolves

What would a feast look like for a lamb?

In a world at peace, we might imagine fertile fields, abundant grass, clear water, and nothing to fear. The lamb eats and rests. There is enough for everyone.

But put that lamb among wolves, and the meaning of the feast changes. There is still a feast. The wolves are eating.

The lamb is the meal.

The Answer I Could Not Give

Jesus had already told them to cross to the other shore.

One man was in the boat. Another stood in the water, holding it close while the others came aboard. The crowd was loosening reluctantly. People who had waited to speak were trying to ask their questions over one another.

I had spent the afternoon listening.

I was a scribe. Usually, when someone spoke about the scriptures, I knew where to question him. With Jesus, I kept finding that the question I had prepared was smaller than what he was saying.

Now he was leaving.

Nowhere to Lay His Head: Faith Without a Settled Refuge

A man tells Jesus that he will follow him wherever he goes. Jesus answers that foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.

It sounds like a warning about losing shelter. The animals have somewhere to return, while the man who follows Jesus must prepare for a life without the comfort of home.

But the same Gospel soon describes Jesus sending messengers into welcoming households. They are instructed to stay there and receive food and drink. Their commission includes provision for their needs.

Perhaps It Was Enough for Today

The two men stopped because they could not agree which path led to the village.

I was clearing stones from a field. There were always more stones. You could spend a morning carrying them away and strike another with your hoe before noon.

One of the men pointed toward the ridge.

“Does that road take us there?”

“It does,” I said. “But you will walk farther than you need to. Take the lower path. At the old well, turn left.”

They thanked me. They ought to have gone then.

Instead, I asked where they had come from.

The Gardener Who Was Late

I was late that morning because of a goat.

There are explanations that make a man sound respectable, and there are explanations that make him wish he had simply lied.

Mine was a goat.

Prayer Is Not a Means of Making God Act

When Jesus says, “And praying, do not use vain repetitions like the Gentiles, for they think that in their many words they will be heard,” the key word is βατταλογήσητε. The word has the sound of a parody of stuttering: a person tries to say something, tries again, adds more words, and still does not arrive anywhere. This is not simply a warning against repeating a phrase.

Faith as Imagination, Trust, and Humbleness in the Teaching of Jesus

A careful reading of the Gospels suggests that “faith,” as Jesus understands and evaluates it, is not a single faculty but a compound disposition consisting at least of three inseparable elements: imagination, trust, and humbleness. When any one of these is absent, faith collapses—even if the other two appear to be present. This helps explain why Jesus sometimes praises extraordinary faith where belief seems minimal, and at other times rebukes “little faith” where belief in his power appears obvious.

Why Christ Arrives Readily?

Many Christians live with the idea that humanity is ready for Christ to come. People are told to watch, prepare, and wait. Yet generation follows generation, Christ appears not to come, and the same question returns: Why is he taking so long?

The name Christ Arrives Readily begins by turning that question around.

What if Christ is not the one who is unready? What if he is already prepared for the encounter and is waiting for us? What if the apparent delay lies not in his unwillingness to arrive, but in our difficulty recognizing how near he already is?

The Moral Record Comes Second

The Gospels repeatedly show Jesus meeting people whose moral records were clearly damaged. Yet he rarely begins by examining those records. He does not normally ask how many commandments they broke, how long they lived wrongly, or how many individual sins must first be accounted for. Again and again, his attention moves to something more immediate: repentance, humility, mercy, forgiveness, and the abandonment of self-righteousness.

Forget for a Moment Your Moral Achievements: The First Threshold of the Kingdom

People often examine their lives by looking first at ordinary moral and religious duties. They ask whether they stole, lied, committed adultery, participated in evil schemes, neglected church, or failed in some other commandment. They may also compare themselves with people who openly do these things. When resisting evil requires real effort, it is natural to hope that this struggle has value before God and will eventually be rewarded.

Humility