Life on Planet Earth on Strangers

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Betting on Jesus

Author

Keywords

Scripture

Luke 21:1-4, Acts 4:32-35

We didn’t have a lot of rules [at the food pantry at St. Gregory, an Episcopal congregation in San Francisco]. You could be a drunk or junkie, but you couldn’t volunteer if you were high. You couldn’t...

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Author

Henri J. M. Nouwen

Keywords

Hospitality, therefore, means primarily the creation of a free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy. Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space ...

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How Strangers Become Friends

Author

John M. Perkins

Keywords

Scripture

Romans 12:10, John 15:13, Proverbs 18:24, Ecclesiastes 4:9-12, Proverbs 27:17

There’s been a lot of talk about friendship because of Facebook and the internet. You can collect friends and “likes” and begin to feel pretty good about yourself, depending on how many you accumulate...

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Author

T. S. Eliot

Keywords

When the Stranger says: "What is the meaning of this city? Do you huddle close together because you love each other?" What will you answer? "We all dwell together To make money from eac...

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Strangers to Themselves

Author

Joseph Butler

Keywords

Scripture

Jeremiah 17:9, Proverbs 16:2, Proverbs 21:2, Matthew 7:3-5, Galatians 6:3, 2 Samuel 12:

There is not any thing, relating to men and characters, more surprising and unaccountable, than this partiality to themselves. . . . Hence it is that many men seem perfect strangers to their own chara...

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Author

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Keywords

We sometimes encounter people, even perfect strangers, who begin to interest us at first sight, somehow suddenly, all at once, before a word has been spoken.

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Jesus, you are our peace You proclaim

Author

Lisa Ann Moss Degrenia

Keywords

Scripture

2 Thessalonians 3:16, Matthew 11:28-30, Philippians 4:6-7, Isaiah 9:6, Romans 5:1, John 14:27, Colossians 1:19-20

Jesus, you are our peace You proclaim it You create it You bring us near Without you there is No safety No belonging No nurturing No identity rooted beyond this dust Without you we are Anchorless St...

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We bring before you, O Lord, the

Author

Anselm of Canterbury

Keywords

We bring before you, O Lord, the troubles and perils of people and nations, the sighing of prisoners and captives, the sorrows of the bereaved, the necessities of strangers, the helplessness of the we...

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Author

Brian D. McLaren

Keywords

To be truly good means more than not robbing people . . . To be truly good means more than being righteously religious . . . To be truly good means being a good neighbor. . . . And to be a good neighb...

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The Gospel and the Other: Preaching in an Age of "Us vs. Them"

Author

Andrew DeCort

Keywords

Scripture

Luke 10:25-37

When conflict and division are driving both politics and media (including social media), the contrast between the way of the world and the way of Jesus stands out more than ever. How can pastors, task...

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God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: You

Author

Richard Herman

Keywords

Scripture

Psalm 139:7-10, Romans 8:38-39, Matthew 11:28-30, 2 Corinthians 12:9, Isaiah 40:31, Luke 10:25-37, John 11:32-35

God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: You are always and forever for us: We can’t run away from Your presence; nor out-sin Your amazing grace and forgiveness. We can’t exhaust Your unconditional love nor ...

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Heavenly father, we confess to you that

Author

Jacob Traeger

Keywords

Heavenly father, we confess to you that we do not always think or act as the children which you made us to be. You tell us to honour our fathers and mothers, not to murder, commit adultery, steal or c...

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Adapted from Ephesians 2:19-22

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Scripture

Ephesians 2:19-22

So then you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and of the household of God, Being built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus ...

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Jesus–our Lord, Savior, Friend and

Author

Richard Herman

Scripture

1 Corinthians 13:4-7, Matthew 11:28-30, Isaiah 41:10, Ephesians 2:8-9, Psalm 23:1-2

Jesus–our Lord, Savior, Friend and Companion: To be “in” You is to no longer be strangers to Your Father, or to one another. In You–we are brought near. In You–we are redeemed and forgiven. In You–we ...

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Lord our Lord – How majestic is Your

Author

Richard Herman

Keywords

Scripture

Psalm 8:1-9

Lord our Lord – How majestic is Your name in all the earth. The sun’s light is but a dim flicker next to the brightness of Your glory. Your care is far more intimate than that of a mother sparrow hove...

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Loving God, you are always ready to

Author

Chip Hardwick

Keywords

Loving God, you are always ready to forgive our sins. We are much less eager to forgive those with whom we disagree. So often when we have something against our friends, family, or strangers, we escal...

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Mountains: 2, John 4:7-26

Author

Allen Thompson

Keywords

Scripture

John 4:7-26, 1 Corinthians 2:12, 1 Peter 12:12-23, John 6:1-15, Galatians 4:21-31, Psalm 42:7, Psalm 121:null

New Testament Mountains Like the Old Testament, the New Testament has plenty of references to mountains. There’s the Sermon on the Mount, obviously. Jesus often went onto hills or mountains to pray...

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Author

Rodney Stark

Keywords

Homelessness

To cities filled with the homeless and impoverished, Christianity offered charity as well as hope. To cities filled with newcomers and strangers, Christianity offered an immediate basis for attachment...

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A Holy and Humbling Mystery

Author

Norman Wirzba

Keywords

Food

Food is a holy and humbling mystery. Every time a creature eats it participates in God’s life-giving yet costly ways, ways that simultaneously affirm creation as a delectable gift, and as a divinely o...

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The Secret to Happiness Among the Famous

Author

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Keywords

We’ve all seen and loved the movies about the young underdog becoming a star. I won’t claim to be 100 percent immune to it. In fact, I think there’s something natural about wanting to be famous, in te...

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Little Children Wandering the Aisles of the Internet

Author

Ashley Hales

Keywords

Addiction isn’t just measured in time spent connected to screens but also in how it dulls our spiritual sensibilities. We use social media to blunt the edges of overwhelm, to find something to thrill ...

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The Scorpion and the Old Woman

Author

Joan Chittister

Keywords

Sister Joan Chittister, a Benedictine nun, tells the following Sufi story. Once upon a time there was an old woman who used to meditate on the bank of the Ganges. One morning, finishing her meditatio...

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The Most Popular Argument for Slavery

Author

Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove

Keywords

Slavery

I read that Thornton Stringfellow, pastor of the Stevensburg Baptist Church in Virginia, had made one of the most popular arguments for slavery when Baptists in the mid-nineteenth century were decidin...

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Anger Isn’t the Opposite of Love

Author

Rebecca Manley Pippert

Keywords

Sin

Scripture

2 Peter 3:9, Proverbs 3:11-12, Romans 2:4, Nahum 1:2-3, Hebrews 12:6, Ephesians 4:26, Romans 1:18

Think how we feel when we see someone we love is ravaged by unwise actions or relationships. Do we respond with benign tolerance as we might toward strangers? Far from it…. Anger isn’t the opposite of...

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Two Sketches

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

Scripture

1 Peter 3:3-4, 2 Samuel 11:, 2 Samuel 12:, 1 Kings 1:, 1 Kings 2:, Proverbs 31:30, 1 Samuel 16:7, Genesis 26:7

Have you ever noticed that we often see ourselves, specifically our bodies, our facial features differently? In 2013 the soap company Dove decided to explore this phenomenon by hiring an FBI-trained f...

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Pastors & Therapists: Human Like Every One Else

Author

Lori Gottlieb

Keywords

Perhaps you’ve never thought of this before, but there are a lot of commonalities between therapists and pastors. Both therapists and pastors are given an inside view into the joys and mess that make ...

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Virtue as Part of Our Story

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Alasdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue reconnected thinking about ethics back to virtue by connecting virtue to the story a life is a part of. In order to know how we ought to live, we first need to answ...

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The Power of the Worldwide Church

Author

Gerald L. Sittser

Keywords

Scripture

1 Corinthians 12:12-14, 1 Corinthians 12:27, Isaiah 43:2, 1 John 4:7, Romans 12:5, James 5:14-15

It is a phone call no parent wants to receive. “Jerry,” Bethany said, “Catherine’s had a little accident.” “Accident! How bad?” “She’s going to be okay. You want to talk to her? We’re in a kind of am...

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Author

Jen Pollock Michel

Keywords

Home

One burden of homelessness is this: you’re always a stranger, counting on someone’s good graces.

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Author

Albert Einstein

Keywords

Strange is our situation here upon earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to a divine purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing...

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