He walked among us
embodied the kingdom,
a life of total submission
to the rule of God.
The story of Jesus, a parable of God
that we might know God.
He not only proclaimed God’s rule,
he inaugurated it.
the smallest of seeds, buried,
sprouts and grows
becoming a tree.
The insignificant, like yeast hidden
in the bread-makers dough, swells,
bubbles and bursts, unseen.
The kingdom advances out of view
until everything is transformed.

We live in this “already, not yet”
kingdom and proclaim a gospel
shallow enough for babies
to wade in; deep enough
for scholars to swim in
and never touch bottom.
We pray, “Your kingdom come,”
anticipate God’s rule on earth,
life lived God’s way; the
whole world become his holy land.

DAS

In the gospel mix of fear,
misapprehension, evening meals,
locked doors and breakfast on the beach,
God’s new age has broken into
the present time, our time.
We preach to a world that is
always in danger of thinking
that death has the last word.
We throw our voices up against
the final enemy one more time.
He is risen!
He comes back to us who
betrayed and denied him; to us
who misunderstood and disappointed
him; to us who fled into the darkness.
He returns to us. He rose for us.
The proof of the resurrection is not
the absence of his body from the tomb
but the presence of the alive Jesus
to his followers. The gospel message
of the resurrection is not first
“Though we die, we will one day
live again” but it is “Though we
were dead, Jesus returned to us.”
Our only claim, our only hope:
He came back to us. We live not alone!

DAS

In the charged air of Passover
he rides Zechariah’s donkey into the city,
crowds before and behind him
shout hosannas, wave palm branches
declare him king.

He is not like the conquerors
who’ve come before him or those who
will come after. He speaks of a seed
and death; a grain of wheat in the
soil as if in a tomb, dies; free from
its encasement, it becomes
a resurrection
plant, its many grains resurrection fruit.

He fulfills his kingly role by dying;
reproduces his life in others
rules by the allegiance
of the heart; by love.
We who are his live the same way,
die to ourselves; to follow him
the sum of our duty; to be where
he is, the sum of our reward.

DAS

Her mid-day arrival at the well
speaks volumes, reveals her outcast state,
a fallen Samaritan woman, three
strikes at high noon. His request
for a drink surprises her, breaks
the rules. She asks for the living
water he offers, understanding neither

the gift nor the giver. His unveiling
of her past startles her; she retreats
into a conversation about the prophet
to come and the right place of worship.
“The messiah will come” she says,
“and he will explain all things.”
“I am he” he says. In a moment

of full disclosure the outsider
and the messiah stand face to face
for one lucid fragment of time,
no pretense about who
they are. She knows herself; she
knows him. By telling her who
she is, he shows her who he is.

DAS