Intersect

Matthew 3.13-15 (CEB) At that time Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan River so that John would baptize him. John tried to stop him and said, “I need to be baptized by you, yet you come to me?” Jesus answered, “Allow me to be baptized now. This is necessary to fulfill all righteousness.”  Luke 24.25-26 Then Jesus said to them, “You foolish people! Your dull minds keep you from believing all that the prophets talked about. Wasn’t it necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” Acts 4.12 Salvation can be found in no one else. Throughout the whole world, no other name has been given among humans through which we must be saved.” We were moving our son into his dorm in New York recently. While we were there, we visited one of our favorite charity thrift shops. The kids are great thrifters. They’ll look at second-hand clothing, shoes, bags, and tchotchkes for hours. I look around the store more quickly, maybe trying on a shirt or two before I find somet

John 6.53-59 (CEB) Jesus said to them, “I assure you, unless you eat the flesh of the Human One and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. My flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in them. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me lives because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. It isn’t like the bread your ancestors ate, and then they died. Whoever eats this bread will live forever.” Jesus said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum. The author of  The Gospel of John  has Jesus using provocative language to stimulate the minds of his students. The language above is graphic and often riles us even today. What is Jesus talking about, eating his flesh and drinking his blood? Taken literally, this passage is like an episode of “

  Philippians 2.6-8 Though he was in the form of God, he did not consider being equal with God something to exploit. But he emptied himself by taking the form of a slave and by becoming like human beings. When he found himself in the form of a human, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. This passage from Paul’s letter to the church in Philippi is a beautiful hymn about Oneness. It conveys how deeply Paul understood that Jesus was a teacher in the Jewish wisdom tradition who called his followers to a radical shift in consciousness: away from the misperceptions of this temporal reality created by mind and ruled by Ego, into the unified field of divine love, which must be perceived not only by mind, but also by body and soul. Obedience for Jesus and Paul is not subservience, it is wholeness, unity, Oneness. Experiencing it requires silencing (or learning to ignore) the constant, blaring fabrications of our minds and merely sitting in non-

PROVERBS 6.16-19: There are six things that the Lord hates, seven things detestable to God: snobbish eyes, a lying tongue, hands that spill innocent blood, a heart set on wicked plans, feet that run quickly to evil, a false witness who breathes lies, and one who causes conflicts among brethren. The  Proverbs  list of “things God hates” eventually became “The Seven Deadly Sins:” THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS lechery / lust ( luxuria  in Latin) gluttony ( gula  in Latin) avarice / greed ( avaritia  in Latin) sloth / discouragement ( acedia  in Latin) wrath ( ira  in Latin) envy ( invidia  in Latin) pride ( superbia  in Latin) “The Seven Deadly Sins” were etched into my psyche sometime while we lived in Moss Bluff, Louisiana. I was a high school junior. Because of the mixed religious background of my parents (and my own innate unwillingness to take  anything  at face value), I had done a lot of reading about different religions and reached the conclusion that every organized religion