some thoughts about change:
things are bad the way the are now. we can all agree to that. amen? and the gospel is about change, about love and about redemption. so what does this mean?
part of being the church (that's you and me, fellow christian) is working for change in the bad situation. it's part of being Jesus for the world, part of incarnating God's love and our love for God (how's that for construing a generative, greek friends?). yet there's a second, nasty, part. Jesus assures us (and history does as well) that all our efforts at initiating change will fail. we our born (again) failures. this is where faith factors in. faith is the commitment to continue in this effort of change despite the miserable outcomes. faith is trusting that changing the bad situation is the endgame of God's plan for the world.
to get really, honestly theological about this whole matter, we need to bring in "the kingdom" vocabulary. nothing concerned Jesus more than the kingdom of God. most of his preaching, his parables, and his prophesying had the kingdom or the coming of the kingdom as their content.
