The way of imagination

They gave him the book; they said it was holy And so he committed large portions to memory They called it Scripture; they said it was true Though as how to grasp most of it, he didn’t have a clue. They said God was the author; they said the book was inspired But for God to speak in human words; well, how could that transpire? And if he didn’t understanding the meaning, to whom could he turn? What are parents for?  So he quickly learned… No question was unanswered; the truth was black on white Moses and Mom – God had spoken to them both; one taught by his letters, the other by her life One day, adventure beckoned and the boy flew the coop Where to, you may ask?  Why of course, to Bible school. Meandering among the towering rows of books, he contemplated the vast knowledge stretched from wall to wall And this little fellow realized that it’s a big wide world after all . He had always enjoyed works of history; now, as he surveyed the countless ...

Fear (not).   Fear – fear is a powerful driving force in all of our lives – fear of running out of money, fear of dying, fear of sickness, fear of loneliness, fear of failure, fear of being perceived to be a failure, fear of accidents, fear of bills, fear of speaking in public …fear of being afraid.  Blaise Pascal was a 17 th -century mathematician, scientist, philosopher and theologian.  He is probably best known for his Pensées , his collection of meditations on how to continue believing in Christianity in the midst of a European culture that was becoming more and more rationalistic.  At one point in the Pensées, Pascal says: “Fear not, provided you fear ; but if you fear not , then fear”.  What’s going on here?  Something similar is going on in today’s gospel – Jesus says: “ do not fear those who kill the body”; “but I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who has authority to cast into hell.  Yes, fear him!” … “ do not be afraid...

Divine itinerary.   From October 3 – November 24, the weekday Gospel readings all come from chapters 9-19 of the Gospel of St. Luke.  These chapters are called Luke’s “travel narrative”.  In chapter 9, Jesus “sets his face” towards Jerusalem and in chapter 19, his “triumphal entry” into the city (Palm Sunday) is acclaimed by large crowds of pilgrims who had come to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover. On the “way”.   Throughout these chapters, Jesus is (literally) “on the way” to Jerusalem.  That is to say, he is journeying along the road .  For Luke, this is a metaphor for the Christian life – disciples of Jesus are travelling “the way” of obedience to Christ and are responding to his call to serve him and to be transformed to resemble him more and more as they follow him on the path of faithfulness.  In fact, in Volume 2 of Luke’s work – the book of the Acts of the Apostles – the early Christians are simply described as being those of ...

     The Bible [1] is a collection of books from the ancient world [2] .  It is by all means possible to study the literature of the Bible in the same way that one would study the texts of any ancient culture (many scholars do exactly this).  However, prior to the 18 th century AD [3] , no one was studying the Bible in this “neutral” way. [4]   For 2,000 years, the Christian Church has read the Bible as the “Word of God”.  We will discuss this notion in more detail shortly.  Because, to put it mildly, there is something that sets the Bible apart from other texts from the same time period.  Think about it: Who has ever heard of the Epoch of Gilgamesh (ancient Mesopotamian text containing a story of a catastrophic flood and a man who built a boat in order to survive it)?  Who has ever read Julius Caesar’s [5] The Gallic Wars (Caesar’s memoirs of his campaign to conquer Gaul [France])?      It would be con...