21 results for tag: Kenneth Tanner
The Good & Beautiful Shepherd – Kenneth Tanner
Middle Eastern shepherds in the time of the Bible did NOT break the legs of sheep and carry them on their shoulders to keep them from running away again, or “hold them close to their heart” or whatever myth you heard growing up.
It’s terribly impractical, for one thing. Sheep can weigh up to 75 pounds. It’s a tremendous hindrance to properly caring for the whole flock. It can also permanently disable the sheep.
Imagine having a number of immobilized or broken sheep in a flock. What a mess that would be.
The rod of the shepherd was used to defend the flock from predators, not beat the sheep. And the hooked staff was ...
An Apocalypse of Love – Kenneth Tanner
The gospel calls humanity to stop trusting violence.
If Jesus is the sovereign Lord of all things, if he is King, not just of heaven but of earth, then today’s gospel (John 18:33-37) tells us that those who are apprenticed to his kingdom have renounced violence as the means by which the world and humanity will be saved.
Jesus tells Pilate that his followers don’t fight because his kingdom is not of “this world.”
The end of the world that this King promises is not an apocalypse of violence (as if God’s violence will somehow prove greater than humanity’s). Stories of the end that portray Jesus as a more strategic and ruthless general than ...
The Light has won, is winning & will win – Brad Jersak with Kenneth Tanner
The Light is Winning
Passover is coming. A time to remember how the people of God were quarantined in their homes behind blood-marked lintils, praying for deliverance from a deadly pestilence and quietly sharing what they thought might be their last supper. A time to remember Christ's final passover meal, his Last Supper with friends and anticipating the great exodus his own death would achieve. A time to remember that the shroud of death was removed from all people through the victory of his resurrection.
For some, these days are understandably a time of darkness, death and fear. Once again, we hunker down in our homes, wondering when this ...
December 2018
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Brad Jersak: Advent, Arrival, Appearance– pg. 1
Eden Jersak: Arrival of Hope– pg. 3
Brad Jersak: Arrival of Peace – pg. 4
Laura Urista: Arrival of Joy – pg. 6
Kenneth Tanner: Arrival of Love – pg. 8
Greg Albrecht: Kingdom of Heaven – pg. 8
Larry Parsley: J.B. Roane and the Case of the Belated Apology – pg. 12
Steve Stewart: Pure and Wonderful Grace – pg. 14
Brad Jersak: “What Lesson Is God Teaching Me?” -pg. 15
The “Universe” Does Not Love You – Kenneth Tanner
The universe is vast, mysterious, dark, and lovely (the images of the universe we are the first privileged humans to see blow my mind and provoke deep emotion in me).
The cosmos makes us ask questions of time and existence and meaning, some of which we cannot answer. Yet the ones we can answer inspire us to know and see and experience more.
The universe is intelligent and beautiful and is created good but it’s not personal and “the Universe” is not a good or a proper way to name God.
The “Universe” does not love you, the “Universe” will not raise you from death, the “Universe” is not patient or kind and it does not ...
The Saving, Triune God at the Jordan River – Kenneth Tanner
Forget about explanations and analogies for the Trinity (at least for a moment). Better to walk hand-in-hand with Jesus' disciples down a dusty path to the Jordan. There, among the tall reeds on the bank stands Jesus, who has just walked there from Nazareth, his feet tired, sore, and dirty. Jesus wades in ankle deep. The cool, flowing water is soothing. From here he watches his human brothers and sisters descend one by one, waist-deep, faces drawing near to John the Baptist.
They are entering the water to be cleansed, to repent. Jesus has no need for the cleansing, or the change of heart and mind, and yet here he is, his human face set toward ...
Is the Lord Among Us? Ken Tanner
As Christians, we do not live in denial about the downsides of existence. We do not deny the presence of evil as pestilence, or of evil as a lack of what is good and sustaining for us as creatures, nor do we ever imagine that these depravations are needed by God to bring about the good in us or in creation (please do not listen to teachers who who say such things).
So while squarely facing the realties (with the spectrum of emotions different people feel in troubling times, none of them sinful), we once again hear the first words of the Christian story: Do not be afraid! From within the maelstrom, we trust that the saving hand of God remains with us, ...
April 2018
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Brad Jersak: Why Did Jesus Die? – pg. 3
Kenneth Tanner: Lazarus' Story is the World's Story – pg. 6
Greg Albrecht: The Church: It's the People, Not the Steeple – pg. 9
Stephen Crosby: The Cleansing of the Temple: Did Jesus Sanction Violence? – pg. 12
Greg Albrecht: “Who's Going to Heaven?” -pg. 15
God demands no curtain call (Matt. 23:1-12) – Kenneth Tanner
Matt. 23:1-12 - A warning against attention-seeking
Jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples, saying,
"The scribes and the Pharisees
have taken their seat on the chair of Moses.
Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you,
but do not follow their example.
For they preach but they do not practice.
They tie up heavy burdens hard to carry
and lay them on people's shoulders,
but they will not lift a finger to move them.
All their works are performed to be seen.
They widen their phylacteries and lengthen their tassels.
They love places of honor at banquets, seats of honor in synagogues,
greetings in marketplaces, ...
“The Right Hand of the Father” Kenneth Tanner
The hands that crafted humanity from the dust are the hands that grasp Mary's finger as she looks on her infant God with awe.
The divine finger that etched the commandment concerning adultery into the stone on Sinai is the human finger that drew in the sand as the frenzied crowd picked up stones to slay the adulteress.
The hand that wrote on the palace wall that Belshazzar, the pagan king, had been weighed in the balance and found wanting is the hand that was nailed to the tree and bled for the failures and imbalances of every human tribe.
The fingers that set the moons and stars in the cosmos like a master jeweler, smear mud on the eyes of the blind ...
Christ is a Walking, Talking Tree of Life, a Cross in Motion – Kenneth Tanner
"Christ is a walking, talking Tree of Life, a cross in motion, and everywhere he wanders healing comes to the world." - Fr. Kenneth Tanner
2 Sam. 7:1-14a
1After the king was settled in his palace and the Lord had given him rest from all his enemies around him, 2 he said to Nathan the prophet, “Here I am, living in a house of cedar, while the ark of God remains in a tent.”
3 Nathan replied to the king, “Whatever you have in mind, go ahead and do it, for the Lord is with you.”
4 But that night the word of the Lord came to Nathan, saying:
5 “Go and tell my servant David, ‘This is what the Lord says: Are you the one to build ...
Does God Do Anything He Wants Because He is God? Ken Tanner
I frequently run into the argument that God can do whatever he wants because he is God.
Partnered with this assertion is often an accusation that human "sensibilities" about what is right and wrong are not the same as God's—that his ways are higher than our ways—as a defense for God behaving in ways that we would otherwise call sociopathic in humans.
Christians believe we know what we know about evil because of what is revealed about God in Jesus Christ *and* by what is inherent in humanity, owing to our being fashioned in the image of God. This image is broken in us but not eradicated or absent, even in the "worst" of us.
And above and far ...
Prophetic Hope or Partisan Megaphone? Kenneth Tanner
If you are involved in the care of souls please avoid and flee the ever-present temptation to enter the partisan fray of contemporary life in America.
If things get *actually* horrendous (I know things are not well) those who look to men and women of the cloth for comfort and direction and wisdom need to be able to trust you.
They will not be able to trust you—even if they cannot consciously perceive or articulate a lack of trust—if you have been a shrill and (more or less) unending megaphone for the left or right or whatever cause célèbre replaces Jesus Christ.
Trust is earned by consistently elevating the person of Jesus Christ ...
A Season of Unfortunate Events? Superstition vs. the Gospel – Kenneth Tanner
Enduring a season of unfortunate events? Does God seem absent or aloof? Feel as though you have fallen out of favor with God?
Many of us grew up with Christian pastors, teachers, friends, and spiritual guides who taught by osmosis that if things were going wrong in our lives or the lives of others—if life was not one moment of glory followed by another—there were two possible answers: either we were not doing all the right things or we were not believing all the right things. A lack of faith, a misstep here or there, results in hardships and divine disfavor.
Most people call this superstition. What it is not is the gospel.
It’s ironic ...
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