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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Richard Rohr
Read between
May 4 - May 11, 2023
it may be a charwoman in whom Christ makes Himself a servant again, or a king whose crown of gold hides a crown of thorns.
On the day I read this, I was introduced, via the book LEND ME YOUR EARS, edited by William Safire, to the 1896 speech by William Jennings Bryan entitled CROSS OF GOLD. The sentiments of Bryan are reflected in this statement. Is the author familiar with the speech?
Realization of our oneness in Christ is the only cure for human loneliness. For me, too, it is the only ultimate meaning of life, the only thing that gives meaning and purpose to every life.
We cannot overestimate the damage that was done to our Gospel message when the Eastern (“Greek”) and Western (“Latin”) churches split, beginning with their mutual excommunication of each other’s patriarchs in 1054. We have not known the “one, holy, undivided” church for over a thousand years. But you and I can reopen that ancient door of faith with a key, and that key is the proper understanding of a word that many of us use often, but often too glibly. That word is Christ.
Ironically, millions of the very devout who are waiting for the “Second Coming” have largely missed the first—and the third! I’ll say it again: God loves things by becoming them. And as we’ve just seen, God did so in the creation of the universe and of Jesus, and continues to do so in the ongoing human Body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:12ff.) and even in simple elements like bread and wine. Sadly, we have a whole section of Christianity that is looking for—even praying for—an exit from God’s ongoing creation toward some kind of Armageddon or Rapture. Talk about missing the point! The most
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God’s “first idea” and priority was to make the Godself both visible and shareable.
Jesus came to show us how to be human much more than how to be spiritual, and the process still seems to be in its early stages.
Jesus of Nazareth would not likely have talked that way,
The Biblical scholars known as the Jesus Seminar, in their quest to find, or perhaps learn more about the historical Jesus, hypothesized which words attributed to Jesus in the Bible were actually spoken by him or are from other sources. They concluded that none of Jesus' words from the Gospel of John were spoken by Jesus of Nazareth.
History is not aimless, not a mere product of random movement, or a race toward an apocalyptic end. This is good and universal truth, and does not depend on any group owning an exclusive “divine revelation.” How different from the clannish form religion often takes—or the anemic notion of individual salvation for a very few on one minor planet in a still-expanding universe, with the plotline revolving around a single sin committed between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers!
light is less something you see directly, and more something by which you see all other things.
The world no longer trusts Christians who “love Jesus” but do not seem to love anything else.
Christ is the light that allows people to see things in their fullness.
Reading this reminded me of a song written by Meredith Willson in his great musical THE MUSIC MAN, "Till There Was You."
History has clearly shown that worship of Jesus without worship of Christ invariably becomes a time- and culture-bound religion, often ethnic or even implicitly racist, which excludes much of humanity from God’s embrace.
“I shall return to take you with me, so that where I am you also may be” (John 14:3), the Christ has promised. That might just be the best and most succinct description of salvation there is in the whole New Testament.
No doubt you’re aware that many traditional Christians today consider the concept of universal anything—including salvation—heresy.
loving anything always means a certain giving up of control.
When you look your dog in the face, for example, as I often looked at my black Labrador, Venus, I truly believe you are seeing another incarnation of the Divine Presence, the Christ.
I certainly saw that in my dog Buddy who loved me and mine unconditionally.
Divine perfection is precisely the ability to include what seems like imperfection.
the only thing that separates you from God is the thought that you are separate from God!)
As Joan of Arc brilliantly replied when the judge accused her of being the victim of her own imagination, “How else would God speak to me?”
There is no such thing as a nonpolitical Christianity.
Most of the canvas is taken up by the apostles, who are being drawn up with Christ with their eyes, as the two feet move off the top of the painting, presumably into the spiritual realms.
One of the blessings of the modern age to most readers is the ability to immediately research a passage via the Internet. In this case I was able to find the painting very quickly and easily. But I saw it in a completely different way. Rohr draws our attention to Jesus' feet. Recall an image of Jesus' crucifixion. Notice the feet. They are pointed down; nothing supports them. Gravity is the instrument of death, as the full weight of the body squeezes out of the breath (spirit) of Jesus. Back to the feet. In Kulmbach's painting, the feet are not pointed down; they are in a position as if Jesus is preparing to land on earth. Is this painting of Jesus' Ascension or his Second (Final?) Coming. Notice also the disciples. They are old men. I think most Christians imagine them to be much younger.
Humans like, need, and trust our mothers to give us gifts, to nurture us, and always to forgive us, which is what we want from God.
for every person who voices doubt, many more quietly walk away from a religion that has come to seem irrational, mythological, and deeply unsatisfying to the heart and soul. These are not bad people!
Everything will be all right in the end. If it’s not all right, it is not yet the end. —The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
myth does not mean “not true,” which is the common misunderstanding; it actually refers to things that are always true!
This affirms my belief that the spiritual truths in the Bible are not dependent on the truth of the stories in which they are contained.
The central issue here is not whether Jesus did or did not physically rise from the dead, which supposedly “proves” the truth of the Christian religion if you agree, and disproves it if you disagree. No scientific proof is ever likely to be possible.
Another question also seems germane to the issue: Did Jesus rise from the grave or was he raised? Did God the Father give him a helping hand?
Resurrection is also grace taken to its logical and full conclusion.
He had to live his life with the same faith that we must live, and also “grow in wisdom, age, and grace” (Luke 2:40), just as we do.
How often have I heard that Jesus, as an infant and teenager, had mental powers equal to God's.
Sin, salvation, and forgiveness are always corporate, social, and historical concepts for the Jewish prophets and for Paul. When you recognize this, it changes your entire reading of the Gospels.
I always loved giving pre-marriage instructions because the engaged couples were usually living in a highly teachable time,
And probably living together.
“Blessed are the poor in Spirit” are Jesus’s first words in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:3). And although Jesus made this quite clear throughout his life, we still largely turned Christianity into a religion where the operative agenda was some personal moral perfection, our attaining some kind of salvation, “going to heaven,” converting others rather than ourselves, and acquiring more health, wealth, and success in this world.
Perhaps Christians should focus on the Beatitudes from the Sermon on the Plain, from the Gospel according to Luke. I suspect there are many who do not know them, have never heard of them.
