Longer Tables, Shorter Walls: Every Body Belongs
John 10:1-11, Acts 2:42-47, Acts 3:1-7 NRSVUE
Reflections
The idea that our bodies don’t matter to God is a lovely idea that comes from a warm place with a cozy blanket, but it is not true. To be sure, I am a beloved child of God, but it does matter what happens to my body. Our bodies matter. If they didn’t, why would Jesus bother with the incarnation? Seems messy to go through all that spit and sweat and suffering if it was merely about souls. Jesus could have snapped a finger, Thanos-style, and waved goodbye to the dominions of darkness. It certainly would have been so much cleaner (and less painful) that way. But Jesus chose to take on a body and enter what it means to be human, even all the snotty bits we blush about. The Word became flesh, and we try to turn it back into words again. Our theology is incarnational because bodies matter.
— Amy Kenny, My Body Is Not a Prayer Request
- Community of Jesus is a community of good shepherd
- often there are false messiah, not the good shepherd; they lie, hate, steal, destroy
- it’s too easy to hate, when we dehumanize others, when others are being numbered rather than named
- a good shepherd knows all by name
- Community of Jesus is an interconnected community
- taking care of each other in the community
- The deepest reality of life in the Spirit depicted in the book of Acts is that the disciples of Jesus rarely, if ever, go where they want to go or to whom they would want to go. Indeed the Spirit seems to always be pressing the disciples to go to those to whom they would in fact strongly prefer never to share space or a meal, and definitely not life together. Yet it is precisely this prodding to be boundary-crossing and border-transgressing that marks the presence of the Spirit of God. Acts is the story of a God who desires us and all of creation and will not release us to isolations, social, economic, cultural, religious, gendered, and geographic. — Willie James Jennings, Acts: A Theological Commentary on the Bible
- Community of Jesus is an inclusive community
- while Jesus heals some, He welcomes all
