If you’ve never bled, you have no material for preaching. If when you’re finished preaching you’re not finished, spent, wiped out – if you haven’t “given blood” – you haven’t really preached.9.
Twenty-first-century people hear and learn differently than most churches communicate.
I understand God’s patience with the wicked, but I do wonder how He can be so patient with the pious. – GEORGE MACDONALD.
To come to the table is to learn to be our real selves – not some construct conceived by someone else, but who God made us to be.
We don’t need to travel to find Christ. Christ has already traveled to find us. God is not the one whose back is turned. It is we who, for whatever reason, get our backs up or don’t turn back to God.
Anyone who doesn’t need company is either greater than a man, and is a God, or lesser than a man, and is a beast.17 – Aristotle, as quoted by Saint Thomas Aquinas.
For Jesus the home is not what defines the table; the table is what defines the home.
Jesus called his disciples to “follow me,” but he didn’t tell them where they were going.
Believe me, you have too many practices already. What is needed is rather a progressive inner simplification. Too many people identify spiritual prowess with being perpetually busy heaping meditation upon meditation, prayer upon prayer, reading upon reading instead of learning from the simple souls the great secret of knowing how, from time to time, to hold yourself back a little in peace and silence, attentive before God.5.
The devil ought not to be in our line of vision but in our shadow.
Someone once challenged me: “I bet I can tell you the whole Old Testament and New Testament in six sentences – three for each.” “You’re on!” I said. He started with the Old Testament: “‘They tried to kill us. We survived. Let’s eat!’” My friend went on. “Now here’s the New Testament in three sentences: ‘I love you! I forgive you! Let’s eat!’” Jean Leclerc offers the best definition of the gospel you’ll ever hear: “Jesus ate good food with bad people.
One’s destination is never a place, but rather a new way of looking at things.
The church needs to be so clear about its identity as the body of Christ that everything it does generates a gravitational pull toward the heart.
Some preachers need a travel agent to handle all the guilt trips they put on God’s people. But there is a big difference between putting a guilt trip on Christians and unveiling Christ to them. When Christ is presented in power, the Spirit of God will undoubtedly convict those who are walking in contradiction to their new nature.
We all need the pendulum swing of snatching spaces of solitude and serving tables of sociability. In fact, the more plugged in and connected we are, the more we need to unplug and disconnect. A world of presence needs a time of absence.
The essential element of Christian truth is that the risen Christ is not something you mimic but someone you manifest.
Preaching is the primary means whereby the miracle of Cana continues, as Jesus turns our life from water – tasteless, colorless, odorless – into homemade vintage wine, known for its vibrant flavor, vivid sparkle, and alluring aroma.
The kingdom of God is not a geographic domain with set boundaries and settled decrees, but a set of relationships in which Christ is sovereign. At the table, Jesus moves us from ideas about life and love to actual living and loving.
If we were to make the table the most sacred object of furniture in every home, in every church, in every community, our faith would quickly regain its power, and our world would quickly become a better place. The table is the place where identity is born – the place where the story of our lives is retold, re-minded, and relived.
Have your breakfasts all alone. Share lunch with your best friends. Invite your enemy to dinner. Nelson Mandela.
Every crisis raises relational issues: Will you try it and handle it yourself? Will you find a new partner? Or will you and Jesus tackle the crisis together? In tackling the stuff of life together, you’ll see that your relationship with God will deepen. In pondering Christ, you find that you are in fact living His life, and God is living yours. Christ in you and you in Christ. God doesn’t lead you through phases or steps.