Luke 7:18-35

"The reason I can continue watching and waiting, even as the world is shrouded in darkness, is because the things I long for are not rooted in wishful thinking or religious ritual but are as solid as a stone rolled away." - Tish Harrison Warren, Prayer in the Night

Luke 7:1-17

"The best testimony to the truth of the gospel is the quality of our life together. Jesus risked his reputation and the credibility of his story by tying them to how his followers live and care for one another in community.... How we live together is the most persuasive sermon we'll ever get to preach." - Christine Pohl, Living Into Community

Luke 24:1-12

Perhaps the drama is played out now, and Jesus is safely dead and buried. Perhaps. It is ironical and entertaining to consider that at least once in the world's history those words might have been spoken with complete conviction, and that was upon the eve of Resurrection. - Dorothy Sayers, "The Greatest Drama Ever Staged"

Luke 19:28-48

Palm Sunday challenges us to consider whether we have adopted the efficiency of force and cruelty instead of the way of Jesus. Stated differently, Jesus’ life was not just a means of salvation; it was a way of being human. - Esau McCaulley, Lent: The Season of Repentance and Renewal

Luke 6:37-42

Only under the gaze of God can we fully and truly accept ourselves.... When we see ourselves with God's eyes, we experience tremendous freedom. It could be called a double-freedom: to be sinners, and to become saints. - Jacques Philippe, Interior Freedom

Luke 6:27-36

We are sowing the seed of love, and we are not living in the harvest time. We must love to the point of folly, and we are indeed fools, as our Lord Himself was, who died for such a one as this. - Dorothy Day, Called to Community: The Life Jesus Wants for His People

Luke 6:17-26

Never soul was set free without being made to feel its slavery; nothing but itself can enslave a soul, nothing without itself free it. - George MacDonald, "The Hardness of the Way," in Unspoken Sermons

Luke 6:1-11

"I do not know You God because I am in the way." - Flannery O'Connor, A Prayer Journal

Luke 5:27-39

Turn and leave your life behind.

More beautiful words have never been spoken.

My passage through seconds, minutes, and hours

could hardly be called life. Enticing.

Those words waft toward me like smells from Mom's kitchen.

They drift toward me supremely, like the love from Coltrane's saxophone.

I realize that those words, follow me, are just an invitation back home.

-Drew Jackson, "Follow Me" in God Speaks Through Wombs

Isaiah 6:1–8; Luke 5:1-26

The gospel imperative for the church is not simply the call to a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ. In that way of expressing the gospel message, a radically individualistic emphasis overwhelms the definition of what it means to be a Christian. While no one would argue against the idea that the Lord saves individuals and reconciles them to himself, the gospel is so much more than that. It must include the fulness of what it means to be made in the image of God. The finished image, the most telling and striking likeness of God, is the entirety of redeemed community. - Irwyn L. Ince, Jr., The Beautiful Community