But what we have to work not miss with our 21st century eyes and ears is that she should not have been in this space at all. Women don’t talk to men in public. Certainly, when whatever request they have made is denied, they do not challenge the decision. Nevertheless, she persists. She is powerless, yet she refuses to behave that way. She has no recourse, but she refuses to let the matter drop.

Worshiping at the altar of individualism run amuck, we are rewarded with a moral superiority that allows us, if we so choose, to blame the poor for being poor, women for being raped and people of color for being shot. We have learned to use the very scripture that is intended to tell us the story of God’s great love for all of us in ways that make it an ally of the very evil we are called to resist.

Do I know what happened an that first Easter? How the stone was rolled away? What it was like for those disciples to encounter Jesus after the crucifixion? No, I don’t know. But when I hear about and see people doing the kinds of things that I believe Jesus would be doing if he were here with us now, I cannot help but think that he is here with us now, alive.

I don’t have to tell you all reasons and all the ways that you could choose to despair. From gun violence and school shootings to sexual abuse and human trafficking, the reasons to turn away from the world are numerous. Yet, God does not turn away from us. God turns to us with a certain kind of empathy to say surely the days are coming. . . when God will put God’s law within us, and will write it on our hearts; and God will be our God, and we shall be God’s people.

God’s intent was never to narrow that love down to me and mine and those that I could convince to think like I think. No, the flow is in entirely the opposite direction, broad, expansive, inclusive, Loving the whole world.

Yet, we miss it. We abuse it. We resist it. We twist it. We fashion it into something that better suits our purposes. Rather than losing our lives for the sake of the gospel, we lose the Gospel for the sake of our lives.