Prayer: The Frontier of the Spiritual Life




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He Loved Them to the End

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"Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end." --John 13:1   Life with Jesus was life immersed in the gracious love of God:  embracing; drenching; challenging; shocking; thrilling.  The love was strong yet tender.  They were destabilized from their normal way of life while becoming rooted deeply into another Jesus-centered way of being.  The love was moment-by-moment, decision-by-decision; a life-changing agape love that was inviting them and transforming them at the same time. When Jesus gathers his disciples for the Passover meal  on what we call Maundy Thursday, he knows that "his hour has come;"  the time they had been preparing for was now here.  And how do the twelve arrive?  Hopelessly wrongheaded, it would seem, their heads full of assumptions about their own privilege in God's emerging kingdom, bickering with each other over what positions each will hold in the new administration, blissfully deaf to the p...
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Greater Things

Very truly I tell you, the one who believes in me will  also do the works that I do, and in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.  --John 14:12 Of all the things Jesus teaches, this may be one of the hardest teachings for us to receive as his disciples.  How in the world can WE do what Jesus does?  Not to mention "greater things?" Jesus heals the sick and the wounded and the traumatized.  He lifts up and empowers those who have been crushed by the world's systems; the discarded, the forgotten.  He stands with the scapegoated , the condemned, those being bullied.  He removes labels and shame; he names people in new, life-giving ways.  He overcomes the power of death to define life.  He feeds the spiritually and physically hungry.  He pitches his tent among the poor and inaugurates an order that puts them first.  He forgives--removing obstacles, lifting  burdens, loosing that which binds us...
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The Growing Community of Disciples

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A disciple is a "learner," a student.  We also identified them as "followers of Jesus: and "choice-makers" (that's a good one!). Who are Jesus' disciples in the gospel stories?  We began to make a list. Simon Peter (the fisherman in Luke 5:1-11 and later a visible leader among the disciples) Andrew (Simon's brother; in John's gospel the first disciple) John  (he and brother James are the sons of Zebedee and fishing partners with Simon and Andrew) James Mary Magdalene  (one of our early names, and a key follower of Jesus!) Judas Iscariot (known as the one who betrays Jesus) Matthew  ( a Roman tax collector called to follow Jesus) Philip Bartholomew Thomas The Other Simon: the "Zealot" or Canaanean  ( the Zealots were revolutionaries who fought the Roman occupation) James son of Alphaeus Thaddeus Nathaniel Levi (also identified as a tax collector) Judas son of James We always hear about "The Twelve."  Bu...
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