The Bible makes it clear that every time that there is a story of faith, it is completely original. God’s creative genius is endless.
Parables release the adrenaline of urgency into our bloodstream.
Joy is not a requirement of Christian discipleship, it is a consequence. It is not what we have to acquire in order to experience life in Christ; it is what comes to us when we are walking in the way of faith and obedience.
That’s why I tell stories: to create readiness, to nudge the people toward receptive insight. In their present state they can stare till doomsday and not see it, listen till they’re blue in the face and not get it.
I had escaped the snare of certitude that I welcomed so avidly at first and entered, via the name of Jesus, the wide and comprehensive company of Jesus.
The Holy Spirit’s instruments have no consciousness of His purpose; if they imagine they have, it is a pretty sure token that they are NOT His instruments. Nathaniel Hawthorne
My job is not to solve people’s problems or make them happy, but to help them see the grace operating in their lives.
We learn the language of prayer by immersing ourselves in the language that God uses to reveal Himself to us.
My uncle Ernie didn’t believe in God.At least that’s what he said. But he alwaysWent to church on Christmas. Which I thoughtSeriously compromised his atheism.
The devil does some of his best work behind stained glass.
Apart from childhood and crisis, prayers have a way of being abstracted from the homely and distinctive details that are part and parcel of our ordinary and daily life.
The truth must dazzle gradually or every man be blind. Emily Dickinson
Language consists in equal parts of speaking and silence.
There is nothing quite as destructive to the gospel of Jesus Christ as the use of language that dismisses the way Jesus talks and prays and takes up instead the rhetoric of smiling salesmanship or vicious invective.
Self-justification is a verbal defense for restoring the appearance of righteousness without doing anything about the substance.
The temptations that use the raw material of good for evil can continue unrecognized for a long time without awareness.
When it comes to doing something about what is wrong in the world, Jesus is best known for his fondness for the minute, the invisible, the quiet, the slow – yeast, salt, seeds, light. And manure.
There is a long and well-documented tradition of wisdom in the Christian faith that any venture into leadership, whether by laity or clergy, is hazardous. it is necessary that there be leaders, but woe to those who become leaders.
Money and machines anesthetize neediness. They put us in charge, in control. As long as the money holds out and the machines are in good repair, we don’t need to pray.
The church is the primary arena in which we learn that glory does not consist in what we do for God but in what God does for us.
Prayer is a way of language practiced in the presence of God in which we become more than ourselves while remaining ourselves.
Spontaneities offer one kind of pleasure and taste of sanctity, repetitions another equally pleasurable and holy.
Unlike mere action, prayer is not subject to immediate evaluation or verification. If we are addicted to “results” we will quickly lose interest in prayer.
Preaching reveals God in action here and now — for ME.
There is nothing more common than for people who want to talk about God to lose interest in the people they are talking to.
We need alert listeners to give dignity to those stretches in our lives when we are not aware of participating in anything we think might be embraced by the kingdom of God.
We do not become less needy, less dependent when we pray; we become more needy, more dependent, which is to say, more human.
Cross and resurrection are the South and North polls, true gospel polarities, of a single, undivided, salvation world. Remove either Paul and you’ve got salvation.
Isn’t it interesting that all of the biblical prophets and psalmists were poets?
You don’t make your words true by embellishing them with religious lace. In making your speech sound more religious, it becomes less true.
Without stories we end up with stereotypes — a flat earth with flat cardboard figures that have no texture or depth, no INTERIOR.
That’s the whole spiritual life. It’s learning how to die. And as you learn how to die, you start losing all your illusions, and you start being capable now of true intimacy and love.
If you don’t take a Sabbath, something is wrong. You’re doing too much, you’re being too much in charge. You’ve got to quit, one day a week, and just watch what God is doing when you’re not doing anything.