Luke 4:31-44

The blueprint of the household of God looks nothing like the blueprints of our own cultural and social cliques. If we want to know how to embody the household of God, we need look no further than to Jesus. While on earth, Jesus modeled this new reality by connecting with every type of person around - conservative theologians, liberal theologians, prostitutes, divorcees, children, politicians, people who party hard, military servicemen, women, lepers, ethnic minorities, celebrities, and so forth - and inviting them to be part of his group and to work together to bring wholeness to their cracked and crumbling world. - Christena Cleveland, Disunity in Christ: Uncovering the Hidden Forces that Keep Us Apart

Luke 4:16-30

Many and varied are the interpretations dealing with the teachings and life of Jesus of Nazareth. But few of these interpretations deal with what the teachings and life of Jesus have to say to those who stand, at a moment in human history, with their backs against the wall.... This is a matter of tremendous significance, for it reveals to what extent a religion that was born of a people acquainted with persecution and suffering has become the cornerstone of a civilization and of nations whose very position in modern life has too often been secured by a ruthless use of power applied to weak and defenseless peoples. - Howard Thurman, Jesus and the Disinherited

Luke 4:1-15

(formatted as poetry) There is not a place in this world where I am not asked to prove it./ Substantiate my belonging./ Verify that my body is qualified to occupy this space,/ as if the miracle of my enfleshment weren't enough./ But I am asked to be superhuman. Divine even. More than mediocre,/ like the rest of them,/ to demonstrate that my placement on this earth is not the mere result of affirmative action./ But I will not eat the bread of your cunning. My sustenance is found elsewhere. -Drew Jackson, "Prove It" in God Speaks Through Wombs

Luke 3:19-38

No person we meet from the moment we open our eyes in the morning till we shut them in sleep at night is finished. Each person is a tragic-comic soul whom God is saving. Implicit in every personal name (explicit in baptism) is the Holy Trinity, that intricate coming into being of persons-in-relationship in a not-to-be-fathomed eternity. - Eugene Peterson, Reversed Thunder

Luke 3:1-18

"[John the Baptist’s message] is not good news in the sense that it will make everybody happy. It is not good news in the sense that whatever evil and injustice people have committed and still commit is no longer important. It is good news in the sense that a new reality is dawning. Thanks to the one whose coming John announces, evil and injustice will be undone...But it is not good news for those who thrive on injustice, whose power is oppressive and unjust. For them, the good news is first of all the possibility---and the need--- of what may well be a costly repentance.” Justo Gonzalez

Luke 2:41-52

Spiritual transformation is not about behavior modification. It is about changing the sources of behavior, so the behavior will take care of itself. When the mind is right and the heart is right and the body and the soul and the relationships that we have in our social world are right, the whole person simply steps into the way of Christ and lives there with joy and strength. It is not a struggle. One of the lies about the spiritual life is that it is hard. No, no. It is not hard. It is the easy way. What's hard is the other way, and that is what you see when you look at the world. - Dallas Willard, Living in Christ's Presence

Ephesians 3:1-12; Matthew 2:1-12

That hidden thing calling me on to the chase is the very thing that puts me in my place. It is at once invitation and caution—a burning bush beckoning and a warning that I’ve ventured onto holy ground... - Joshua Stamper, "Proverb"

Luke 2:21-38

This is what Christmas is all about - something radically new that cannot be generated out of the conditions of this world. It does not emerge. It comes. We do not extrapolate it. God promises it. If darkness has descended upon you and your world, you need not try to persuade yourself that things are not as bad as they seem or to search desperately for reasons to be optimistic. Remind yourself instead of a very simple fact: the light of the One who was in the beginning with God shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. - Miroslav Volf, Against the Tide

Luke 1:26-38

"The Advent season should come as a reminder to us that we can never be, and should not be, adjusted to the world. We are here to proclaim the reality and the imminence of a wholly other world, a world in which different powers rule and different standards operate. We are here to make it possible for ordinary men and women really to believe this, and therefore to live in hope and readiness." - Lesslie Newbigin, The Good Shepherd