The Gospel, Period

“I don't preach a social gospel; I preach the Gospel, period. The gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is concerned for the whole person. When people were hungry, Jesus didn't say, ‘Now is that political or social?’ He said, ‘I feed you.’ Because the good news to a hungry person is bread.” - Desmond Tutu

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What do we do with the lump in the throat that is God?

What do we do when the wind of the Sacred roils through our souls,

turning us inside out and our world upside down?

What do we do when we come awake to that infinite, immanent One

When that transcendent intimate reality

Who loved the world into being

And sustains it still

And realize that we carry divine DNA

That we carry Sacred Presence (to put it bluntly)

and are

Sacred Children?

The answer should be obvious

We enter into a new way of doing life!

a radical

profoundly new

way of being in this world

this is about Love

that Love which is woven into the fabric of our being

by the one who is love 

oozing out of our very pores

shaping our thoughts, our perceptions, our feelings

and above all

our actions

Dallas Willard once put it very well

“Jesus does not call us to do what he did,

but to be as he was, permeated with love.

Then the doing of what he did and said

becomes the natural expression of who we are in him.”

Indeed!

Jesus was so permeated with Sacred

that the distinction between sacred and common (human)

was meaningless

I will never get there

I will always be painfully human

but I am a Sacred child

and I carry Sacred Presence

and I can

do live a different way

“The Spirit of the Lord is Upon Me”

Jesus proclaimed

‘That I might proclaim good news to the poor.

proclaim freedom for the prisoners

and recovery of sight for the blind,

to set the oppressed free”

The presence of the Sacred is in us

that we might do the same

that we might not only proclaim good news

but that we might BE good news

faith is lived

faith is most manifest not in holy songs

and rituals

but in acts of compassion and kindness

faith is most manifest not in sanctuaries

but in soup kitchens

and immigrant camps

and yes, perhaps, voting booths

and “preaching the Gospel”

is not about sharing ideology

or “magic” formulas that “save”

it is about meeting people where they are at

and touching their lives

at their point of need

it might be about healing a soul

it just might

but it is just as likely to be about

bread

and clothing

and housing

it is just as likely to be about

justice or equity

What do we do with the lump in the throat that is God?

What do we do when the wind of the Sacred roils through our souls,

turning us inside out and our world upside down?

What do we do when we come awake to that infinite, immanent One

When that transcendent intimate reality

Who loved the world into being

And sustains it still

The answer should be obvious

We enter into a new way of doing life!