David Brisbin's Blog, page 24

Light of the World

With two great metaphors, Jesus shows us the effect a person has on everyone near, once they have come to see life through God’s eyes…salt and light.

As modern Westerners, salt makes no sense until we look back to see what it meant to ancient life before refrigeration and antibiotics. But light seems to make perfect sense right away. We think we know what Jesus means, which is probably worse. By thinking Jesus is only talking about the brightness and illumination, the goodness we associate with...

Salt of the Earth

In the poetic manner of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus starts by painting a portrait of the person who has become the Kingdom of Heaven…not entered or possessed it, but has actually come to embody God’s “reign,” God’s will being done on earth. His deepest purpose and pleasure: humility, connection, faithfulness—lived out in human form.

Jesus then transitions to show us the effect such people have on the lives and communities around them with two of his most famous metaphors. Salt and light.

When...

Wake Up Call

Ever watch a movie where you were missing every third word, maybe because of accents, fast dialog, or low volume? At first you listen harder. Then your mind tries to make meaning by contextually stitching the edges of what you did hear together. Eventually you just give up and watch something else.

This is essentially what happens when we read ancient scripture and especially the teachings of Jesus concentrated in the Sermon on the Mount. It’s not that we don’t have the right words in our modern...

Becoming Kingdom

Remember those Russian nesting dolls? Matryoshka dolls, one inside the other, smaller and smaller, but each containing the whole doll. In terms of Jesus’ teaching, the Bible is like this: open the Bible and find the New Testament, and inside that, the gospel of Matthew. Inside Matthew is the Sermon on the Mount, and inside the Sermon, the Lord’s Prayer. Each one smaller, but containing the whole.

If you were stranded on the proverbial desert island with just the Sermon on the Mount, you’d have n...

Between Knowing and Loving

Some six hundred years ago, in what has become a classic of Western spirituality, the anonymous English author of The Cloud of Unknowing is trying to show us the only way we can approach God: “No one can fully comprehend the uncreated God with knowledge, but each one, in a different way, can grasp him fully through love.” This love, understood as pure presence and connection, can only be experienced in the silence beneath words and the rational thought that speaks them.

But even this pure experi...

Contemplative Poetry

Have you ever thought of Jesus of Nazareth as a poet? I just asked a roomful of attendees on Sunday morning and got no takers. Truth is, we were not taught and don’t think of Jesus as poet. Jesus remains more or less an extension of ourselves: sharing enough of our values, attributes, and worldview to be comfortable. Truth is, Jesus was outrageously uncomfortable to his own people; how much more should he be to us?

The Sermon on the Mount, a compilation of Jesus’ core teachings probably used as ...

Freedom of Vulnerability

What’s the most important verse in scripture? That could be endlessly debated and ultimately impossible to answer unless asked this way: what is the most important verse in scripture to you? And once it becomes personal, it most likely becomes a moving target as well. Different verses have been signatures for me, changing over time, and recently, Luke 23:34 has been persistently growing in importance: Forgive them, Father, they don’t know what they are doing.

Not particularly warm, and mildly co...

Real Revival

We are fast on track to becoming a post-Christian country. Recent stats show that only 36% of the youngest among us, Millennials and Gen Z, have any church membership as opposed to Boomers at 58% and those born before 1946 at 66%. There is a generational changing of the guard, and for the first time, less than half the population are members of a church. Only one in three self-identified Christians actually attends church, and between four and seven thousand churches are closing every year.

Mere...

Interior Revolution

Fourth of July, 2021. Two hundred and forty fifth anniversary of what? Start of the revolution? Birth of the US? Signing the Declaration of Independence? The revolution started a year before, the Constitution wouldn’t be adopted for another twenty, and though signing the Declaration began on August 2nd, it wasn’t fully signed until the following year. But on July 4th, 1776, the rough draft of the Declaration was approved by congress… We like our history neat and tidy, but truth is messier.

Jesus...

Out of Control

A priest says that some of the most egotistical people he knows are clergy. A friend asks why people who believe in a loving, abundant God are not living happy, healthy, abundant lives. Digging down, the reasons are related.

True transformation is the merging of enlightenment and maturity, our state of consciousness and our stage of consciousness. The two are connected, but not the same. We can gain insight, understand deep, spiritual principles long before we have the maturity to live out the l...