“Many concerned Christians today lament lack of power in the contemporary church. One sure reason is that most Christians have never considered that they must experience anything remotely akin to the wait at Jerusalem [for the Holy Spirit].

They run here and there in a desperate attempt to keep the ecclesiastical machinery oiled. They feel mildly uneasy about giving whole blocks of time to prayer and study. Somehow Christians feel that such efforts are taking them away from the real work of the Kingdom. Have they not learned that a shallow life gives birth to a shallow ministry? How completely they have been indoctrinated by this world’s system! Surface roots produce dwarfed fruits” (Richard Foster in Quaker Life, March 1972, republished in Renovare Weekly Digest, November 4, 2016).

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“Listen, God love everything you love—and a mess of stuff you don’t.” (Alice Walker in The
 Color Purple).

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Comments from Kayla McClurg on the story of Zacchaeus:  Luke 19: 1-10

“Imagine how it goes. You meet someone who already knows your name, knows where you live, knows what you need. Quickly your senses jump from curious to alert. There you are, above it all, trying to get no closer than necessary, when you hear your name. “Come down,” Jesus says, ” … from your old positions, your earlier perceptions, your abuse of ◊power and the suspicions that have separated you from others. I’m going home with you today.” And just like that, Zacchaeus says come on over! One would think he is well-practiced in generous extravagance. He opens his hands and gives—his home, his financial resources, his old greed, his new life.

Maybe we don’t need to know more about Jesus as much as we need to be known by him, to come on down into the river of grace and let it carry us to the far shore. All we need is to get close enough to hear salvation invite itself over, and to be ready to say, “Come!”(in Season and Scripture: Luke, Ordinary Time C).

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