From Servant to Friend

40 Essays in Around 100 Words #26

I’ve been reading stories of famous Sufis lately. One thing I’ve found in multiple stories is that people’s lives are transformed when they realize that they are a friend of God. Wealth is sold. Status is abandoned. Nothing matters anymore if God considers you a friend. Naturally this strikes me particularly because of some of Jesus’ last words–I no longer call you servants, but friends. As someone who employs servants and invites them to attend parties, I can assure you that moving from servant to friend is a very big move. Servants must completely change how they think of themselves to become friends.

Does friendship with God mean we can sit and do crafts with Him?

Truly Shocking Stuff

40 Essays in around 100 words #25

I’ve been walking with a group of women through prayerfully imagining themselves into stories from the Bible. Over the course of six meetings, these women had become disciples of Jesus in a way–meeting Him as he taught crowds, then following Him to homes and along the road. Finally we came to the last supper. I encouraged the women to imagine what it would feel like to have Jesus wash their feet. One woman found that much too shocking. She would never allow a respected figure like Jesus to wash her feet, to think of Him doing such a menial task. And that’s the whole point of the story, right?

Writing Herstory

40 Essays in around 100 words #24

Did Jesus wash women’s feet? I’ve been dabbling in some feminist liberation theology lately, and one concept therewith is imagining women into the stories that were written by men. So it makes me wonder, who exactly was at the Lord’s supper? The disciples. Of course no woman is mentioned by name in this section, but we know Jesus had women as disciples–Mary learning at Jesus’ feet obviously illustrates this. Imagining Jesus washing women’s feet feels like it makes His illustration of true love and service to others even more poignant. 

I made this cake for my friend's birthday. Surely there was cake at passover? And I really doubt Peter baked it.