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| Link | Quote | Stars | Tags | Author |
| 80483cf | Sin is the self curved in on the self. | Nadia Bolz-Weber | ||
| 844732f | We met the next day for coffee and when I asked her what was up she said, "I think I'm having a crisis of faith." To which I thought, "Yeah," she continued, "I-I think I believe in Jesus." " | Nadia Bolz-Weber | ||
| c63257a | And anyway, it has been my experience that what makes us the saints of God is not our ability to be saintly but rather God's ability to work through sinners. | Nadia Bolz-Weber | ||
| 0894357 | Maybe we want the people who care for us and lead us to not be like us, to not struggle like us, because if we realize they, too, are hurting and needy, then maybe the spell -- the illusion that we're okay, that we're in good hands -- breaks. | Nadia Bolz-Weber | ||
| 92d3f60 | makes me wonder if our need for pure black-and-white categories is not true religion but maybe actually a sin. | Nadia Bolz-Weber | ||
| 5484c4a | Maybe the Good Friday story is about how God would rather die than be in our sin-accounting business anymore. The | Nadia Bolz-Weber | ||
| 82726a5 | pas * triks) noun 1). A term of insult used by unimaginative sections of the church to define female pastors. 2). Female ecclesiastical superhero: Trinity from The Matrix in a clerical collar. "What on earth was that noise?" "A pastrix just drop-kicked a demon into the seventh circle of hell!" 3). Cranky, beautiful faith of a Sinner & Saint. --NewWineskinsDictionary.com" -- | Nadia Bolz-Weber | ||
| 335e70b | Personally, I think knowing the difference between a racist and a saint is kind of important. But when Jesus again and again says things like the last shall be first, and the first shall be last, and the poor are blessed, and the rich are cursed, and that prostitutes make great dinner guests, it makes me wonder if our need for pure black-and-white categories is not true religion but maybe actually a sin. Knowing what category to place heml.. | judgment | Nadia Bolz-Weber | |
| 8d8c77c | Sometimes God needs some stuff done, even though I can be a real asshole. There is absolutely no justice in the fact that Larry loved me and that church. But if I got what I deserved in this life, I'd be screwed -- so instead, I receive that grace for what it is: a gift. | Nadia Bolz-Weber | ||
| 48edd88 | My outrage feels empty because what I am desperate for is to speak the truth of my burden of sin and have Jesus take it from me, yet ranting about the system or about other people will always be my go-to instead. Because maybe if I show the right level of outrage, it'll make up for the fact that every single day of my life I have benefitted from the very same system that acquitted George Zimmerman. My opinions feel good until I crash from .. | outrage self-righteousness | Nadia Bolz-Weber | |
| 7bdcfd4 | The fact is, we are all, at once, bearers of the gospel and receivers of it. We meet the needs of others and have our needs met. And | Nadia Bolz-Weber | ||
| f67097d | the thing about grace, real grace, is that it stings. It stings because if it's real it means we don't "deserve" it. No" | Nadia Bolz-Weber | ||
| c9fdd31 | I looked harder at Matthew 25 and realized that if Jesus said "I was hungry and you fed me," then Christ's presence is not embodied in those who feed the hungry (as important as that work is), but Christ's presence is in the hungry being fed. Christ comes not in the form of those who visit the imprisoned but in the imprisoned being cared for. And to be clear, Christ does not come to us as the poor and hungry. Because, as anyone for whom th.. | romanticizing-poverty service | Nadia Bolz-Weber | |
| 2d7bef8 | There are some Christians who talk about the rapture as if the good people in heaven will be given these awesome box seats from which to watch the bad people suffer on earth. This is the good people's reward for never having any fun while in this earthly existence. This sort of fear-mongering bullshit sells like hot cakes. People eat it up. And why wouldn't we? It panders to the selfish, hateful, vengeance-seeking parts of ourselves, like G.. | rapture | Nadia Bolz-Weber | |
| 2bdb745 | We often behave as though Jesus is only interested in saving and loving a romanticized version of ourselves, or an idealized version of our mess of a world, and so we offer to him a version of our best selves. With our Sunday school shoes on, we sing songs about kings and drummers at his birth, perhaps so we can escape the Herod in ourselves and in the world around us. But we've lost the plot if we use religion as the place where we escape .. | self-presentation | Nadia Bolz-Weber | |
| 8543b9d | On All Saints' Sunday, I am faced with sticky ambiguities around saints who were bad and sinners who were good. | Nadia Bolz-Weber | ||
| 529b8d0 | I often think that the effort we put into trying to pretend something about us is true -- that we are less than we are or more than we are or that one aspect of ourselves is the whole story -- is based in a fear of being really known, of being truly seen, as we actually are. Perhaps we each have a wound, a vulnerable place that we have to protect in order to survive. And yet sometimes we overcompensate so much for the things we are trying.. | vulnerability | Nadia Bolz-Weber | |
| 1b3b0c8 | I'm more haunted by how what I've said and the things I've done have caused harm to myself and others than I am worried that God will punish me for being bad. Because in the end, we aren't punished for our sins as much as we are punished by our sins. | sin | Nadia Bolz-Weber | |
| cb9dcb8 | When all of it is given meaning in the larger story of Jesus Christ, it destroys us, then pours our melted selves back into another form that still bears the marks of how we got there. Then we become something that can bear light, the brightness of which is not diminished, even when divided and borrowed. | light | Nadia Bolz-Weber | |
| 3200df3 | when Jesus again and again says things like the last shall be first, and the first shall be last, and the poor are blessed, and the rich are cursed, and that prostitutes make great dinner guests, it makes me wonder if our need for pure black-and-white categories is not true religion but maybe actually a sin. | Nadia Bolz-Weber | ||
| 05bda79 | There are many reasons to steer clear of Christianity. No question. I fully understand why people make that choice. Christianity has survived some unspeakable abominations: the Crusades, clergy sex-scandals, papal corruption, televangelist scams, and clown ministry. | Nadia Bolz-Weber | ||
| 17812d9 | Because, after all, it was Jesus who had all the powers of the universe at his disposal but did not consider his equality with God something to be exploited. Instead, he came to us in the most vulnerable of ways, as a powerless, flesh-and-blood newborn. As if to say, "You may hate your bodies, but I am blessing all human flesh. You may admire strength and might, but I am blessing all human weakness. You may seek power, but I am blessing all.. | Nadia Bolz-Weber | ||
| 653105f | being loved, really loved, can sting a little, reminding us of all the times we have loved poorly or not at all, all the ways in which we have done things that make us feel unworthy of real love. | Nadia Bolz-Weber | ||
| d6295fc | But as much as being the person who is the best Christian, who "follows Jesus" the most closely can feel a little seductive, it's simply never been who I am or who my parishioners need me to be. I'm not running after Jesus. Jesus is running my ass down." | Nadia Bolz-Weber | ||
| 765dced | I told them that when I heard Billy was bright, an artist and musician, and when I heard that he loved his family and loved people through difficulty in relationships, and when I heard that he struggled with heroin and booze addictions and an unhelpful brain chemistry, and when I heard that he was beautifully queer and passionate and sometimes played piano in his sister's dresses, I knew. I knew that Billy was pretty much exactly the kind o.. | Nadia Bolz-Weber | ||
| 78120a5 | Many of us would pray not to die in a car crash before we were baptized, like other people pray to not get sick before their employee benefits kick in. | fundamentalism humor | Nadia Bolz-Weber | |
| cf41c61 | The Bible is not God. The Bible is simply the cradle that holds Christ. | Nadia Bolz-Weber | ||
| e5566d1 | I remembered that, at one point in my life, my own depression had felt so present, so much like a character in my life, that it had actually felt right to go ahead and give her a name. I named my depression Frances | Nadia Bolz-Weber | ||
| ceed1f4 | All fiction may be autobiography, but all autobiography is of course fiction. | Autobiography | ||
| 55d83a1 | I need to be broken apart and put back into a different shape by that merging of things human and divine, which is really screwing up and receiving grace and love and forgiveness rather than receiving what I really deserve. I | Nadia Bolz-Weber | ||
| c5d4d32 | what if God's Word is so much more powerful than our ability to become worthy of God? I mean, not for nothing, but if God can create the universe by speaking it into existence, then I think God can make us into God's beloved by simply saying it is so. This, it seems to me, is a vital and overlooked miracle of the Annunciation story. | Nadia Bolz-Weber | ||
| fa02656 | A lot of people don't experience that kind of freedom, and they're hungry for it. Yet instead, people have been fed spoonfuls of nonsense and told it was Jesus. | Nadia Bolz-Weber | ||
| 3d89907 | We have to hear again and again who God is for us and what God has done on our behalf. We must free each other from bondage through our confession and forgiveness. | Nadia Bolz-Weber | ||
| 4ecefdf | But around God's table, and around God's people, you don't have to pretend or overcompensate. You can just be. And in just being, you can, in the fierce and loving eyes of God, be known, be whole, and maybe even find a little rest. Because keeping it all going is just exhausting. | Nadia Bolz-Weber | ||
| c7014af | Che Guevara, since | Nadia Bolz-Weber | ||
| 581097a | even though this is often how we treat Jesus, like we are trying to shelter him from reality. We often behave as though Jesus is only interested in saving and loving a romanticized version of ourselves, or an idealized version of our mess of a world, and so we offer to him a version of our best selves. With our Sunday school shoes on, we sing songs about kings and drummers at his birth, perhaps so we can escape the Herod in ourselves and in.. | Nadia Bolz-Weber | ||
| 612c41b | McPreachy's Kool-Aid fountain of positive thinking. | Nadia Bolz-Weber | ||
| 1cb1d09 | to say "Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy" is to lay our hope in the redeeming work of the God of Easter as though our lives depended on it. Because they do. It means that we are an Easter people, a people who know that resurrection, especially in and among the least likely people and places, is the way that God redeems even the biggest messes we make " | Nadia Bolz-Weber | ||
| 87287b2 | How is it that Judas, who betrayed Jesus once and was filled with remorse, became the villain, while Peter, who denied Jesus three times and wept bitterly, became the rock on which the church was built? When it comes down to it, what is the difference between Peter and Judas? Well, maybe nothing. And maybe there's not a whole lot of difference between us and them too. | Nadia Bolz-Weber | ||
| db8d5c1 | Jesus could have hung out in the high-end religious scene of his day, but instead he scoffed at all that, choosing instead to laugh at the powerful, befriend whores, kiss sinners, and eat with all the wrong people. He spent his time with people for whom life was not easy. And there, amid those who were suffering, he was the embodiment of perfect love. | Nadia Bolz-Weber | ||
| 091d389 | God is always present in love and in suffering. | Nadia Bolz-Weber | ||
| 179b3c2 | I can, however, talk endlessly about the way I've been thrown on my ass over and over by the Bible, the practices of the church, and the people of God. That is to say, by religion. | Nadia Bolz-Weber | ||
| 879c75e | Of course if no one had ever been exposed to dangerous ideas from scandalous women, Christianity itself would not have had its unique beginning nor its glorious history, but whatever. | Nadia Bolz-Weber | ||
| fdd9b2a | Good Friday is a stark and unapologetic display of remorse. Remorse for the way in which humanity kills ourselves and the creation and love and God him/herself. | Nadia Bolz-Weber |