Starter Prayer: "God of loving truth, keep me from the world of gossip and accusation. Do not let me 'kill' others, even in my mind or heart." (From Wondrous Encounters by Richard Rohr)
Read the whole chapter of John 7.
Jesus' isolation is increasing. His goodness is spot on in terms of what will transform the church and the culture. He will not back down from the truth. Still, as is so often the case, the powers that be will stop at nothing to insure their sense of power and control. Jesus chips away at the hierarchy. Jesus welcomes the unloveable and the marginalized. Jesus also tells his most powerful and capable followers that they must let their own sense of esteem and power collapse.
That is the only way that God's vision can be manifest in a real way. It was true when Jesus walked the earth. And it is true now.
Jesus says "I know you don't get it. You don't understand all that I have taught you. You are going to want kill me. Watch how I will set down my life so that you can be free and live as a new creation. I will return. I love you, and so does God.''
What stirs within us when we sink into the reality that this continues to happen in our church, our family, our community? How do we try to place blame upon others? How do we use our language to distort the truth about human suffering? How does our blindness to our part in human suffering place us on the side of death rather than life?
What needs to change within so that life and love and truth can flow freely? What patterns, assumptions and practices need to dissolve?
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