Dear God,Please help us to rest.Please help us remember that You are All There Is.I place my list of things to do in your hands.Just for a moment, I let it go.I place any thoughts about how things should be different in your hands.Just for a moment, I let them go.I place any thoughts about how someone else should be different in your hands.Just for a moment, I let them go.I place any thoughts about how I should be different in your hands.Just for a moment, I let them go.Right now, just for a moment,I allow things to be exactly as they are,I allow myself to be exactly as I am,And so I rest.Amen(from http://www.a-spiritual-journey-of-healing.com)

Dear God,Please help us to rest.Please help us remember that You are All There Is.I place my list of things to do in your hands.Just for a moment, I let it go.I place any thoughts about how things should be different in your hands.Just for a moment, I let them go.I place any thoughts about how someone else should be different in your hands.Just for a moment, I let them go.I place any thoughts about how I should be different in your hands.Just for a moment, I let them go.Right now, just for a moment,I allow things to be exactly as they are,I allow myself to be exactly as I am,And so I rest.Amen(from http://www.a-spiritual-journey-of-healing.com)

•The chief source-and, on many matters the only source-of information about what happened on the islands after Columbus came is Bartolome de las Casas, who, as a young priest, participated in the conquest of Cuba. For a time he owned a plantation on which Indian slaves worked, but he gave that up and became a vehement critic of Spanish cruelty. Las Casas transcribed Columbus's journal and, in his fifties, began a multivolume History of the Indies. In it, he describes the Indians. They are agile, he says, and can swim long distances, especially the women. They are not completely peaceful, because they do battle from time to time with other tribes, but their casualties seem small, and they fight when they are individually moved to do so because of some grievance, not on the orders of captains or kings. Women in Indian society were treated so well as to startle the Spaniards. Las Casas describes: Marriage laws are non-existent men and women alike choose their mates and leave them as they please, without offense, jealousy or anger. They multiply in great abundance; pregnant women work to the last minute and give birth almost painlessly; up the next day, they bathe in the river and are as clean and healthy as before giving birth.The Indians, Las Casas says, have no religion, at least no temples. They live in large communal bell-shaped buildings, housing up to 600 people at one time ... made of very strong wood and roofed with palm leaves.... They prize bird feathers of various colors, beads made of fishbones, and green and white stones with which they adorn their ears and lips, but they put no value on gold and other precious things. They lack all manner of commerce, neither buying nor selling, and rely exclusively on their natural environment for maintenance. They are extremely generous with their possessions and by the same token covet the possessions of their friends and expect the same degree of liberality. ...The Indians' attempts to defend themselves failed. And when they ran off into the hills they were found and killed. So, Las Casas reports, "they suffered and died in the mines and other labors in desperate silence, knowing not a soul in the world to whom they could turn for help." He describes their work in the mines:... mountains are stripped from top to bottom and bottom to top a thousand times; they dig, split rocks, move stones, and carry dirt on their backs to wash it in the rivers, while those who wash gold stay in the water all the time with their backs bent so constantly it breaks them…After each six or eight months' work in the mines, which was the time required of each crew to dig enough gold for melting, up to a third of the men died. While the men were sent many miles away to the mines, the wives remained to work the soil, forced into the excruciating job of digging and making thousands of hills for cassava plants. Thus husbands and wives were together only once every eight or ten months and when they met they were so exhausted and depressed on both sides ... they ceased to procreate. As for the newly born, they died early because their mothers, overworked and famished, had no milk to nurse them, and for this reason, while I was in Cuba, 7000 children died in three months. Some mothers even drowned their babies from sheer desperation.... in this way, husbands died in the mines, wives died at work, and children died from lack of milk . .. and in a short time this land which was so great, so powerful and fertile ... was depopulated. ... My eyes have seen these acts so foreign to human nature, and now I tremble as I write. ... When he arrived on Hispaniola in 1508, Las Casas says, "there were 60,000 people living on this island, including the Indians; so that from 1494 to 1508, over three million people had perished from war, slavery, and the mines. Who in future generations will believe this? I myself writing it as a knowledgeable eyewitness can hardly believe it...." •The radical new reality of a socio-political-religious direct rule of God over the people through Jesus that brings forgiveness, reconciliation, hope and new life to all people and where the poor, oppressed, disinherited and devalued experience renewed identity, livelihood and ownership of their future as they worship under the Lordship of Jesus as all evil is overcome and all oppression ceases. •Luke 5:1-11•The Sea of Galilee was also known as the Sea of Tiberias. Tiberias was Roman Emperor -- Caesar -- from AD 14 to AD 37. The Sea of Galilee was "Caesar's Sea," in other words. Caesar said who could and could not fish on "his" lake.The first century Galilean fishing economy was not a "free market." Fishermen had to get a license from the local tax collector, quite likely in Capernaum. Capernaum had both a tax office, and a major harbor. In fact, it was probably the major fishing village on the Sea of Galilee. The tax collector might well have been Matthew, in fact, who was a tax collector in Capernaum.Licenses tended to be sold to associations of fishermen, quite often based in kinship--James and John, for example, who had a "kinship-based fisherman's association," you might say, as did Peter and Andrew. Incidentally, all four of them were from Capernaum.The fishermen's relationship to the larger economy was quite complicated. The main dynamic was the flow of money from people on the bottom to the people on the top. There were taxes on almost everything. The total level of taxation approached 50%." The political "higher-ups" got enormously wealthy from taxation. According to the Jewish historian, Josephus, annual revenue for Herod Antipas, ruler of the region of Galilee, was 1.2 million denarii, roughly equivalent to at least $15 million today.Jesus spent a lot of time in these fishing villages, and seems to have used Capernaum as something of a "base" for his campaign. Various other fishing villages, some also with harbors, are mentioned in the gospels. Jesus spent time in Bethsaida, Gennesaret, Magdala, Gerasa, Tyre, and Sidon.•Their place is not so secure that that they are unwilling to risk all they have to change the status quo…•“It was precisely and specifically by the shores of the Sea of Galilee that the radicatlity of Israel’s God confronted the normalcy of Rome’s civilization under Herod Antipas in the 20’s of the first century AD.” –John Dominic Crossan•Amos 4:1•Habakkuk 1:15-17•Ezekiel 29:2-4•Jeremiah 16:16•“The “first” call to discipleship is an urgent, uncompromising invitation to “break with business as usual.” The world is coming to an end, for those who choose to follow. The kingdom has dawned, and it is identified with the discipleship adventure.” - Ched Myers•"Radical is a term as unfashionable today as it was trendy in the 1960s, but its etymology (for the Latin radix, "root") is the best reason not to concede it to nostalgia. As Gore Vidal said in 1992, "If you want to get to the root of anything you must be radical. It is no accident that the word has been totally demonized by our masters, and no one in politics dares even to use the word favorably, much less track any problem to its root." I am concerned both with exposing the roots of our socio-political and historical pathologies in the First World and recovering the roots of our discipleship tradition..." –Ched Myers•“To live in the light of the resurrection is to refuse to use the powers that crucified Jesus in the name of achieving justice” – Hauerwas•-Commit to the radical new world Jesus is laying out and follow him-Engage in the life of the church -Learn more and more and more and more-Give and give and give – in every way, all the time-Stand for justice and with the marginalized, never ever with the powerful-Pray – not because we “need” something but because we never want to loose connection to God-Divest our power and our money in every way we can-Repent of the way we’ve misunderstood, twisted the Bible to get what we want and of the ways we have oppressed and hurt others -Repeat.•Our faith should be:-Grounded in this world – not in the next or just inside us-Historically engaged and not abstract, private, uncommitted or escaped-Covenanted among and with real people not aloof and disconnected -Incarnational setting up our lives with and among people who are hurting•"catching" - spare the life

•The chief source-and, on many matters the only source-of information about what happened on the islands after Columbus came is Bartolome de las Casas, who, as a young priest, participated in the conquest of Cuba. For a time he owned a plantation on which Indian slaves worked, but he gave that up and became a vehement critic of Spanish cruelty. Las Casas transcribed Columbus's journal and, in his fifties, began a multivolume History of the Indies. In it, he describes the Indians. They are agile, he says, and can swim long distances, especially the women. They are not completely peaceful, because they do battle from time to time with other tribes, but their casualties seem small, and they fight when they are individually moved to do so because of some grievance, not on the orders of captains or kings. Women in Indian society were treated so well as to startle the Spaniards. Las Casas describes: Marriage laws are non-existent men and women alike choose their mates and leave them as they please, without offense, jealousy or anger. They multiply in great abundance; pregnant women work to the last minute and give birth almost painlessly; up the next day, they bathe in the river and are as clean and healthy as before giving birth.The Indians, Las Casas says, have no religion, at least no temples. They live in large communal bell-shaped buildings, housing up to 600 people at one time ... made of very strong wood and roofed with palm leaves.... They prize bird feathers of various colors, beads made of fishbones, and green and white stones with which they adorn their ears and lips, but they put no value on gold and other precious things. They lack all manner of commerce, neither buying nor selling, and rely exclusively on their natural environment for maintenance. They are extremely generous with their possessions and by the same token covet the possessions of their friends and expect the same degree of liberality. ...The Indians' attempts to defend themselves failed. And when they ran off into the hills they were found and killed. So, Las Casas reports, "they suffered and died in the mines and other labors in desperate silence, knowing not a soul in the world to whom they could turn for help." He describes their work in the mines:... mountains are stripped from top to bottom and bottom to top a thousand times; they dig, split rocks, move stones, and carry dirt on their backs to wash it in the rivers, while those who wash gold stay in the water all the time with their backs bent so constantly it breaks them…After each six or eight months' work in the mines, which was the time required of each crew to dig enough gold for melting, up to a third of the men died. While the men were sent many miles away to the mines, the wives remained to work the soil, forced into the excruciating job of digging and making thousands of hills for cassava plants. Thus husbands and wives were together only once every eight or ten months and when they met they were so exhausted and depressed on both sides ... they ceased to procreate. As for the newly born, they died early because their mothers, overworked and famished, had no milk to nurse them, and for this reason, while I was in Cuba, 7000 children died in three months. Some mothers even drowned their babies from sheer desperation.... in this way, husbands died in the mines, wives died at work, and children died from lack of milk . .. and in a short time this land which was so great, so powerful and fertile ... was depopulated. ... My eyes have seen these acts so foreign to human nature, and now I tremble as I write. ... When he arrived on Hispaniola in 1508, Las Casas says, "there were 60,000 people living on this island, including the Indians; so that from 1494 to 1508, over three million people had perished from war, slavery, and the mines. Who in future generations will believe this? I myself writing it as a knowledgeable eyewitness can hardly believe it...." •The radical new reality of a socio-political-religious direct rule of God over the people through Jesus that brings forgiveness, reconciliation, hope and new life to all people and where the poor, oppressed, disinherited and devalued experience renewed identity, livelihood and ownership of their future as they worship under the Lordship of Jesus as all evil is overcome and all oppression ceases. •Luke 5:1-11•The Sea of Galilee was also known as the Sea of Tiberias. Tiberias was Roman Emperor -- Caesar -- from AD 14 to AD 37. The Sea of Galilee was "Caesar's Sea," in other words. Caesar said who could and could not fish on "his" lake.The first century Galilean fishing economy was not a "free market." Fishermen had to get a license from the local tax collector, quite likely in Capernaum. Capernaum had both a tax office, and a major harbor. In fact, it was probably the major fishing village on the Sea of Galilee. The tax collector might well have been Matthew, in fact, who was a tax collector in Capernaum.Licenses tended to be sold to associations of fishermen, quite often based in kinship--James and John, for example, who had a "kinship-based fisherman's association," you might say, as did Peter and Andrew. Incidentally, all four of them were from Capernaum.The fishermen's relationship to the larger economy was quite complicated. The main dynamic was the flow of money from people on the bottom to the people on the top. There were taxes on almost everything. The total level of taxation approached 50%." The political "higher-ups" got enormously wealthy from taxation. According to the Jewish historian, Josephus, annual revenue for Herod Antipas, ruler of the region of Galilee, was 1.2 million denarii, roughly equivalent to at least $15 million today.Jesus spent a lot of time in these fishing villages, and seems to have used Capernaum as something of a "base" for his campaign. Various other fishing villages, some also with harbors, are mentioned in the gospels. Jesus spent time in Bethsaida, Gennesaret, Magdala, Gerasa, Tyre, and Sidon.•Their place is not so secure that that they are unwilling to risk all they have to change the status quo…•“It was precisely and specifically by the shores of the Sea of Galilee that the radicatlity of Israel’s God confronted the normalcy of Rome’s civilization under Herod Antipas in the 20’s of the first century AD.” –John Dominic Crossan•Amos 4:1•Habakkuk 1:15-17•Ezekiel 29:2-4•Jeremiah 16:16•“The “first” call to discipleship is an urgent, uncompromising invitation to “break with business as usual.” The world is coming to an end, for those who choose to follow. The kingdom has dawned, and it is identified with the discipleship adventure.” - Ched Myers•"Radical is a term as unfashionable today as it was trendy in the 1960s, but its etymology (for the Latin radix, "root") is the best reason not to concede it to nostalgia. As Gore Vidal said in 1992, "If you want to get to the root of anything you must be radical. It is no accident that the word has been totally demonized by our masters, and no one in politics dares even to use the word favorably, much less track any problem to its root." I am concerned both with exposing the roots of our socio-political and historical pathologies in the First World and recovering the roots of our discipleship tradition..." –Ched Myers•“To live in the light of the resurrection is to refuse to use the powers that crucified Jesus in the name of achieving justice” – Hauerwas•-Commit to the radical new world Jesus is laying out and follow him-Engage in the life of the church -Learn more and more and more and more-Give and give and give – in every way, all the time-Stand for justice and with the marginalized, never ever with the powerful-Pray – not because we “need” something but because we never want to loose connection to God-Divest our power and our money in every way we can-Repent of the way we’ve misunderstood, twisted the Bible to get what we want and of the ways we have oppressed and hurt others -Repeat.•Our faith should be:-Grounded in this world – not in the next or just inside us-Historically engaged and not abstract, private, uncommitted or escaped-Covenanted among and with real people not aloof and disconnected -Incarnational setting up our lives with and among people who are hurting•"catching" - spare the life

•The chief source-and, on many matters the only source-of information about what happened on the islands after Columbus came is Bartolome de las Casas, who, as a young priest, participated in the conquest of Cuba. For a time he owned a plantation on which Indian slaves worked, but he gave that up and became a vehement critic of Spanish cruelty. Las Casas transcribed Columbus's journal and, in his fifties, began a multivolume History of the Indies. In it, he describes the Indians. They are agile, he says, and can swim long distances, especially the women. They are not completely peaceful, because they do battle from time to time with other tribes, but their casualties seem small, and they fight when they are individually moved to do so because of some grievance, not on the orders of captains or kings. Women in Indian society were treated so well as to startle the Spaniards. Las Casas describes: Marriage laws are non-existent men and women alike choose their mates and leave them as they please, without offense, jealousy or anger. They multiply in great abundance; pregnant women work to the last minute and give birth almost painlessly; up the next day, they bathe in the river and are as clean and healthy as before giving birth.The Indians, Las Casas says, have no religion, at least no temples. They live in large communal bell-shaped buildings, housing up to 600 people at one time ... made of very strong wood and roofed with palm leaves.... They prize bird feathers of various colors, beads made of fishbones, and green and white stones with which they adorn their ears and lips, but they put no value on gold and other precious things. They lack all manner of commerce, neither buying nor selling, and rely exclusively on their natural environment for maintenance. They are extremely generous with their possessions and by the same token covet the possessions of their friends and expect the same degree of liberality. ...The Indians' attempts to defend themselves failed. And when they ran off into the hills they were found and killed. So, Las Casas reports, "they suffered and died in the mines and other labors in desperate silence, knowing not a soul in the world to whom they could turn for help." He describes their work in the mines:... mountains are stripped from top to bottom and bottom to top a thousand times; they dig, split rocks, move stones, and carry dirt on their backs to wash it in the rivers, while those who wash gold stay in the water all the time with their backs bent so constantly it breaks them…After each six or eight months' work in the mines, which was the time required of each crew to dig enough gold for melting, up to a third of the men died. While the men were sent many miles away to the mines, the wives remained to work the soil, forced into the excruciating job of digging and making thousands of hills for cassava plants. Thus husbands and wives were together only once every eight or ten months and when they met they were so exhausted and depressed on both sides ... they ceased to procreate. As for the newly born, they died early because their mothers, overworked and famished, had no milk to nurse them, and for this reason, while I was in Cuba, 7000 children died in three months. Some mothers even drowned their babies from sheer desperation.... in this way, husbands died in the mines, wives died at work, and children died from lack of milk . .. and in a short time this land which was so great, so powerful and fertile ... was depopulated. ... My eyes have seen these acts so foreign to human nature, and now I tremble as I write. ... When he arrived on Hispaniola in 1508, Las Casas says, "there were 60,000 people living on this island, including the Indians; so that from 1494 to 1508, over three million people had perished from war, slavery, and the mines. Who in future generations will believe this? I myself writing it as a knowledgeable eyewitness can hardly believe it...." •The radical new reality of a socio-political-religious direct rule of God over the people through Jesus that brings forgiveness, reconciliation, hope and new life to all people and where the poor, oppressed, disinherited and devalued experience renewed identity, livelihood and ownership of their future as they worship under the Lordship of Jesus as all evil is overcome and all oppression ceases. •Luke 5:1-11•The Sea of Galilee was also known as the Sea of Tiberias. Tiberias was Roman Emperor -- Caesar -- from AD 14 to AD 37. The Sea of Galilee was "Caesar's Sea," in other words. Caesar said who could and could not fish on "his" lake.The first century Galilean fishing economy was not a "free market." Fishermen had to get a license from the local tax collector, quite likely in Capernaum. Capernaum had both a tax office, and a major harbor. In fact, it was probably the major fishing village on the Sea of Galilee. The tax collector might well have been Matthew, in fact, who was a tax collector in Capernaum.Licenses tended to be sold to associations of fishermen, quite often based in kinship--James and John, for example, who had a "kinship-based fisherman's association," you might say, as did Peter and Andrew. Incidentally, all four of them were from Capernaum.The fishermen's relationship to the larger economy was quite complicated. The main dynamic was the flow of money from people on the bottom to the people on the top. There were taxes on almost everything. The total level of taxation approached 50%." The political "higher-ups" got enormously wealthy from taxation. According to the Jewish historian, Josephus, annual revenue for Herod Antipas, ruler of the region of Galilee, was 1.2 million denarii, roughly equivalent to at least $15 million today.Jesus spent a lot of time in these fishing villages, and seems to have used Capernaum as something of a "base" for his campaign. Various other fishing villages, some also with harbors, are mentioned in the gospels. Jesus spent time in Bethsaida, Gennesaret, Magdala, Gerasa, Tyre, and Sidon.•Their place is not so secure that that they are unwilling to risk all they have to change the status quo…•“It was precisely and specifically by the shores of the Sea of Galilee that the radicatlity of Israel’s God confronted the normalcy of Rome’s civilization under Herod Antipas in the 20’s of the first century AD.” –John Dominic Crossan•Amos 4:1•Habakkuk 1:15-17•Ezekiel 29:2-4•Jeremiah 16:16•“The “first” call to discipleship is an urgent, uncompromising invitation to “break with business as usual.” The world is coming to an end, for those who choose to follow. The kingdom has dawned, and it is identified with the discipleship adventure.” - Ched Myers•"Radical is a term as unfashionable today as it was trendy in the 1960s, but its etymology (for the Latin radix, "root") is the best reason not to concede it to nostalgia. As Gore Vidal said in 1992, "If you want to get to the root of anything you must be radical. It is no accident that the word has been totally demonized by our masters, and no one in politics dares even to use the word favorably, much less track any problem to its root." I am concerned both with exposing the roots of our socio-political and historical pathologies in the First World and recovering the roots of our discipleship tradition..." –Ched Myers•“To live in the light of the resurrection is to refuse to use the powers that crucified Jesus in the name of achieving justice” – Hauerwas•-Commit to the radical new world Jesus is laying out and follow him-Engage in the life of the church -Learn more and more and more and more-Give and give and give – in every way, all the time-Stand for justice and with the marginalized, never ever with the powerful-Pray – not because we “need” something but because we never want to loose connection to God-Divest our power and our money in every way we can-Repent of the way we’ve misunderstood, twisted the Bible to get what we want and of the ways we have oppressed and hurt others -Repeat.•Our faith should be:-Grounded in this world – not in the next or just inside us-Historically engaged and not abstract, private, uncommitted or escaped-Covenanted among and with real people not aloof and disconnected -Incarnational setting up our lives with and among people who are hurting•"catching" - spare the life

•The chief source-and, on many matters the only source-of information about what happened on the islands after Columbus came is Bartolome de las Casas, who, as a young priest, participated in the conquest of Cuba. For a time he owned a plantation on which Indian slaves worked, but he gave that up and became a vehement critic of Spanish cruelty. Las Casas transcribed Columbus's journal and, in his fifties, began a multivolume History of the Indies. In it, he describes the Indians. They are agile, he says, and can swim long distances, especially the women. They are not completely peaceful, because they do battle from time to time with other tribes, but their casualties seem small, and they fight when they are individually moved to do so because of some grievance, not on the orders of captains or kings. Women in Indian society were treated so well as to startle the Spaniards. Las Casas describes: Marriage laws are non-existent men and women alike choose their mates and leave them as they please, without offense, jealousy or anger. They multiply in great abundance; pregnant women work to the last minute and give birth almost painlessly; up the next day, they bathe in the river and are as clean and healthy as before giving birth.The Indians, Las Casas says, have no religion, at least no temples. They live in large communal bell-shaped buildings, housing up to 600 people at one time ... made of very strong wood and roofed with palm leaves.... They prize bird feathers of various colors, beads made of fishbones, and green and white stones with which they adorn their ears and lips, but they put no value on gold and other precious things. They lack all manner of commerce, neither buying nor selling, and rely exclusively on their natural environment for maintenance. They are extremely generous with their possessions and by the same token covet the possessions of their friends and expect the same degree of liberality. ...The Indians' attempts to defend themselves failed. And when they ran off into the hills they were found and killed. So, Las Casas reports, "they suffered and died in the mines and other labors in desperate silence, knowing not a soul in the world to whom they could turn for help." He describes their work in the mines:... mountains are stripped from top to bottom and bottom to top a thousand times; they dig, split rocks, move stones, and carry dirt on their backs to wash it in the rivers, while those who wash gold stay in the water all the time with their backs bent so constantly it breaks them…After each six or eight months' work in the mines, which was the time required of each crew to dig enough gold for melting, up to a third of the men died. While the men were sent many miles away to the mines, the wives remained to work the soil, forced into the excruciating job of digging and making thousands of hills for cassava plants. Thus husbands and wives were together only once every eight or ten months and when they met they were so exhausted and depressed on both sides ... they ceased to procreate. As for the newly born, they died early because their mothers, overworked and famished, had no milk to nurse them, and for this reason, while I was in Cuba, 7000 children died in three months. Some mothers even drowned their babies from sheer desperation.... in this way, husbands died in the mines, wives died at work, and children died from lack of milk . .. and in a short time this land which was so great, so powerful and fertile ... was depopulated. ... My eyes have seen these acts so foreign to human nature, and now I tremble as I write. ... When he arrived on Hispaniola in 1508, Las Casas says, "there were 60,000 people living on this island, including the Indians; so that from 1494 to 1508, over three million people had perished from war, slavery, and the mines. Who in future generations will believe this? I myself writing it as a knowledgeable eyewitness can hardly believe it...." •The radical new reality of a socio-political-religious direct rule of God over the people through Jesus that brings forgiveness, reconciliation, hope and new life to all people and where the poor, oppressed, disinherited and devalued experience renewed identity, livelihood and ownership of their future as they worship under the Lordship of Jesus as all evil is overcome and all oppression ceases. •Luke 5:1-11•The Sea of Galilee was also known as the Sea of Tiberias. Tiberias was Roman Emperor -- Caesar -- from AD 14 to AD 37. The Sea of Galilee was "Caesar's Sea," in other words. Caesar said who could and could not fish on "his" lake.The first century Galilean fishing economy was not a "free market." Fishermen had to get a license from the local tax collector, quite likely in Capernaum. Capernaum had both a tax office, and a major harbor. In fact, it was probably the major fishing village on the Sea of Galilee. The tax collector might well have been Matthew, in fact, who was a tax collector in Capernaum.Licenses tended to be sold to associations of fishermen, quite often based in kinship--James and John, for example, who had a "kinship-based fisherman's association," you might say, as did Peter and Andrew. Incidentally, all four of them were from Capernaum.The fishermen's relationship to the larger economy was quite complicated. The main dynamic was the flow of money from people on the bottom to the people on the top. There were taxes on almost everything. The total level of taxation approached 50%." The political "higher-ups" got enormously wealthy from taxation. According to the Jewish historian, Josephus, annual revenue for Herod Antipas, ruler of the region of Galilee, was 1.2 million denarii, roughly equivalent to at least $15 million today.Jesus spent a lot of time in these fishing villages, and seems to have used Capernaum as something of a "base" for his campaign. Various other fishing villages, some also with harbors, are mentioned in the gospels. Jesus spent time in Bethsaida, Gennesaret, Magdala, Gerasa, Tyre, and Sidon.•Their place is not so secure that that they are unwilling to risk all they have to change the status quo…•“It was precisely and specifically by the shores of the Sea of Galilee that the radicatlity of Israel’s God confronted the normalcy of Rome’s civilization under Herod Antipas in the 20’s of the first century AD.” –John Dominic Crossan•Amos 4:1•Habakkuk 1:15-17•Ezekiel 29:2-4•Jeremiah 16:16•“The “first” call to discipleship is an urgent, uncompromising invitation to “break with business as usual.” The world is coming to an end, for those who choose to follow. The kingdom has dawned, and it is identified with the discipleship adventure.” - Ched Myers•"Radical is a term as unfashionable today as it was trendy in the 1960s, but its etymology (for the Latin radix, "root") is the best reason not to concede it to nostalgia. As Gore Vidal said in 1992, "If you want to get to the root of anything you must be radical. It is no accident that the word has been totally demonized by our masters, and no one in politics dares even to use the word favorably, much less track any problem to its root." I am concerned both with exposing the roots of our socio-political and historical pathologies in the First World and recovering the roots of our discipleship tradition..." –Ched Myers•“To live in the light of the resurrection is to refuse to use the powers that crucified Jesus in the name of achieving justice” – Hauerwas•-Commit to the radical new world Jesus is laying out and follow him-Engage in the life of the church -Learn more and more and more and more-Give and give and give – in every way, all the time-Stand for justice and with the marginalized, never ever with the powerful-Pray – not because we “need” something but because we never want to loose connection to God-Divest our power and our money in every way we can-Repent of the way we’ve misunderstood, twisted the Bible to get what we want and of the ways we have oppressed and hurt others -Repeat.•Our faith should be:-Grounded in this world – not in the next or just inside us-Historically engaged and not abstract, private, uncommitted or escaped-Covenanted among and with real people not aloof and disconnected -Incarnational setting up our lives with and among people who are hurting•"catching" - spare the life

Luke 4: 31-44Authority comes from one of a few ways:1.Violence/Bully2.Elected (will of people)3.Creation/Rearing4....“From the beginning of his work in village communities until the climax of the Gospel story in Jerusalem, moreover, Jesus’ renewal of Israel is set over against and is threatening to the Jerusalem rulers and their representatives. The people who witness his powerful exorcism of the demon in the village assembly at Capernaum acclaim in astonishment, “What is this? A new teaching – with authority!” That is, Jesus acts for the people with (legitimate) power, as opposed to the scribal representatives of the Jerusalem “authorities” who lacked authority among the people, presumably because they wielded their power against the interests of the people…Jesus is working from the Israelite popular tradition as he declares his mission to be the fulfillment of the people’s longing for deliverance.” –Richard Horsley, “Jesus and the Powers”Jesus authority derives from the people because he is working on behalf of the people, in the name of God!Hope is the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the bestThese proponents of the power of hope argue that a person who believes he will get better produces endorphins and enkephalins released by the pituitary gland, which can intercept the feelings of pain in the body from reaching the brain. The research of Jerome Groopman M.D. is some of the most conclusive about the effects hope has on sick people. His research attempts to show the way the brain aids the body's healing and coping ability in sick peoples' bodies. Manipulations of the nervous system sparked by the emotions associated with hope begin a chain of events, which may help sick people recover. Groopman uses the placebo effect to help explaining how the nervous system, with the help of hope, combats pain. The placebo effect is widely accepted by medical doctors and scientists. It shows that in some cases a placebo or fake cure can satisfy patients and make them believe they are cured when in reality no medicine, surgery, or treatment has been given. For example a doctor who prescribes a sugar pill or pill containing no medicine to a group of patients suffering from an illness, without telling them that the drug is a placebo, will have some patients who report their symptoms have faded. It may seem that theses particular patients were not really that sick to begin with, but the placebo effect is actually thought to be a result of "belief and expectancy". The patient believes and expects the medication to cure her ailments. Belief is encouraged as the patient trusts that a doctor will be able to identify an illness and then find the appropriate medication to treat the problem. The patient then expects the treatment to work. This combination of belief and expectation can sometimes be enough to help a person recover from their symptoms. “I used to think hope was just a warm, vague feeling. It was that sense of excitement that I got before Christmas when I was a child. It lingered a while and then disappeared,” writes author and Gallup senior scientist Shane J. Lopez, Ph.D, in his book Making Hope Happen: Create the Future You Want for Yourself and Others. Maybe you can relate. Maybe hope has a fleeting quality for you, too. Maybe you also associate hope with childhood, a kind of effervescence that didn’t survive the transition into adulthood. Today, Lopez, who’s a leading researcher of hope, has a different perspective. He views hope like oxygen. “We can’t live without hope.”Why is hope so important? For instance, Lopez and his colleagues conducted three meta-analyses. Their findings showed that hope leads to everything from better performance in school to more success in the workplace to greater happiness overall. And it makes sense. According to Lopez, “When we’re excited about ‘what’s next,’ we invest more in our daily life, and we can see beyond current challenges.” Unfortunately, only half of us measure high in hope, Lopez notes in the book. Fortunately, however, hope can be learned. Hopeful people share four core beliefs, according to Lopez:1.The future will be better than the present.2.I have the power to make it so.3.There are many paths to my goals.4.None of them is free of obstacles. In the book, Lopez also underscores that hope is contagious. “Your hope is actually dependent on your entire social network, including best friends, role models and secondhand associates. And your hope can be shared with others.” According to Lopez, we can spread hope by modeling it through stories and our actions and providing support to others. Hope gives us the power to effect change.As he writes, “Please build up your hope. Then with hope to spare, help others build a future that is better than the present. Much better.”The radical new reality of a socio-political-religious direct rule of God over the people through Jesus that brings forgiveness, reconciliation, hope and new life to all people and where the poor, oppressed, disinherited and devalued experience renewed identity, livelihood and ownership of their future as they worship under the Lordship of Jesus as all evil is overcome and all oppression ceases. Revelation 21:5-5

Luke 4: 31-44Authority comes from one of a few ways:1.Violence/Bully2.Elected (will of people)3.Creation/Rearing4....“From the beginning of his work in village communities until the climax of the Gospel story in Jerusalem, moreover, Jesus’ renewal of Israel is set over against and is threatening to the Jerusalem rulers and their representatives. The people who witness his powerful exorcism of the demon in the village assembly at Capernaum acclaim in astonishment, “What is this? A new teaching – with authority!” That is, Jesus acts for the people with (legitimate) power, as opposed to the scribal representatives of the Jerusalem “authorities” who lacked authority among the people, presumably because they wielded their power against the interests of the people…Jesus is working from the Israelite popular tradition as he declares his mission to be the fulfillment of the people’s longing for deliverance.” –Richard Horsley, “Jesus and the Powers”Jesus authority derives from the people because he is working on behalf of the people, in the name of God!Hope is the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the bestThese proponents of the power of hope argue that a person who believes he will get better produces endorphins and enkephalins released by the pituitary gland, which can intercept the feelings of pain in the body from reaching the brain. The research of Jerome Groopman M.D. is some of the most conclusive about the effects hope has on sick people. His research attempts to show the way the brain aids the body's healing and coping ability in sick peoples' bodies. Manipulations of the nervous system sparked by the emotions associated with hope begin a chain of events, which may help sick people recover. Groopman uses the placebo effect to help explaining how the nervous system, with the help of hope, combats pain. The placebo effect is widely accepted by medical doctors and scientists. It shows that in some cases a placebo or fake cure can satisfy patients and make them believe they are cured when in reality no medicine, surgery, or treatment has been given. For example a doctor who prescribes a sugar pill or pill containing no medicine to a group of patients suffering from an illness, without telling them that the drug is a placebo, will have some patients who report their symptoms have faded. It may seem that theses particular patients were not really that sick to begin with, but the placebo effect is actually thought to be a result of "belief and expectancy". The patient believes and expects the medication to cure her ailments. Belief is encouraged as the patient trusts that a doctor will be able to identify an illness and then find the appropriate medication to treat the problem. The patient then expects the treatment to work. This combination of belief and expectation can sometimes be enough to help a person recover from their symptoms. “I used to think hope was just a warm, vague feeling. It was that sense of excitement that I got before Christmas when I was a child. It lingered a while and then disappeared,” writes author and Gallup senior scientist Shane J. Lopez, Ph.D, in his book Making Hope Happen: Create the Future You Want for Yourself and Others. Maybe you can relate. Maybe hope has a fleeting quality for you, too. Maybe you also associate hope with childhood, a kind of effervescence that didn’t survive the transition into adulthood. Today, Lopez, who’s a leading researcher of hope, has a different perspective. He views hope like oxygen. “We can’t live without hope.”Why is hope so important? For instance, Lopez and his colleagues conducted three meta-analyses. Their findings showed that hope leads to everything from better performance in school to more success in the workplace to greater happiness overall. And it makes sense. According to Lopez, “When we’re excited about ‘what’s next,’ we invest more in our daily life, and we can see beyond current challenges.” Unfortunately, only half of us measure high in hope, Lopez notes in the book. Fortunately, however, hope can be learned. Hopeful people share four core beliefs, according to Lopez:1.The future will be better than the present.2.I have the power to make it so.3.There are many paths to my goals.4.None of them is free of obstacles. In the book, Lopez also underscores that hope is contagious. “Your hope is actually dependent on your entire social network, including best friends, role models and secondhand associates. And your hope can be shared with others.” According to Lopez, we can spread hope by modeling it through stories and our actions and providing support to others. Hope gives us the power to effect change.As he writes, “Please build up your hope. Then with hope to spare, help others build a future that is better than the present. Much better.”The radical new reality of a socio-political-religious direct rule of God over the people through Jesus that brings forgiveness, reconciliation, hope and new life to all people and where the poor, oppressed, disinherited and devalued experience renewed identity, livelihood and ownership of their future as they worship under the Lordship of Jesus as all evil is overcome and all oppression ceases. Revelation 21:5-5

Luke 4: 31-44Authority comes from one of a few ways:1.Violence/Bully2.Elected (will of people)3.Creation/Rearing4....“From the beginning of his work in village communities until the climax of the Gospel story in Jerusalem, moreover, Jesus’ renewal of Israel is set over against and is threatening to the Jerusalem rulers and their representatives. The people who witness his powerful exorcism of the demon in the village assembly at Capernaum acclaim in astonishment, “What is this? A new teaching – with authority!” That is, Jesus acts for the people with (legitimate) power, as opposed to the scribal representatives of the Jerusalem “authorities” who lacked authority among the people, presumably because they wielded their power against the interests of the people…Jesus is working from the Israelite popular tradition as he declares his mission to be the fulfillment of the people’s longing for deliverance.” –Richard Horsley, “Jesus and the Powers”Jesus authority derives from the people because he is working on behalf of the people, in the name of God!Hope is the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the bestThese proponents of the power of hope argue that a person who believes he will get better produces endorphins and enkephalins released by the pituitary gland, which can intercept the feelings of pain in the body from reaching the brain. The research of Jerome Groopman M.D. is some of the most conclusive about the effects hope has on sick people. His research attempts to show the way the brain aids the body's healing and coping ability in sick peoples' bodies. Manipulations of the nervous system sparked by the emotions associated with hope begin a chain of events, which may help sick people recover. Groopman uses the placebo effect to help explaining how the nervous system, with the help of hope, combats pain. The placebo effect is widely accepted by medical doctors and scientists. It shows that in some cases a placebo or fake cure can satisfy patients and make them believe they are cured when in reality no medicine, surgery, or treatment has been given. For example a doctor who prescribes a sugar pill or pill containing no medicine to a group of patients suffering from an illness, without telling them that the drug is a placebo, will have some patients who report their symptoms have faded. It may seem that theses particular patients were not really that sick to begin with, but the placebo effect is actually thought to be a result of "belief and expectancy". The patient believes and expects the medication to cure her ailments. Belief is encouraged as the patient trusts that a doctor will be able to identify an illness and then find the appropriate medication to treat the problem. The patient then expects the treatment to work. This combination of belief and expectation can sometimes be enough to help a person recover from their symptoms. “I used to think hope was just a warm, vague feeling. It was that sense of excitement that I got before Christmas when I was a child. It lingered a while and then disappeared,” writes author and Gallup senior scientist Shane J. Lopez, Ph.D, in his book Making Hope Happen: Create the Future You Want for Yourself and Others. Maybe you can relate. Maybe hope has a fleeting quality for you, too. Maybe you also associate hope with childhood, a kind of effervescence that didn’t survive the transition into adulthood. Today, Lopez, who’s a leading researcher of hope, has a different perspective. He views hope like oxygen. “We can’t live without hope.”Why is hope so important? For instance, Lopez and his colleagues conducted three meta-analyses. Their findings showed that hope leads to everything from better performance in school to more success in the workplace to greater happiness overall. And it makes sense. According to Lopez, “When we’re excited about ‘what’s next,’ we invest more in our daily life, and we can see beyond current challenges.” Unfortunately, only half of us measure high in hope, Lopez notes in the book. Fortunately, however, hope can be learned. Hopeful people share four core beliefs, according to Lopez:1.The future will be better than the present.2.I have the power to make it so.3.There are many paths to my goals.4.None of them is free of obstacles. In the book, Lopez also underscores that hope is contagious. “Your hope is actually dependent on your entire social network, including best friends, role models and secondhand associates. And your hope can be shared with others.” According to Lopez, we can spread hope by modeling it through stories and our actions and providing support to others. Hope gives us the power to effect change.As he writes, “Please build up your hope. Then with hope to spare, help others build a future that is better than the present. Much better.”The radical new reality of a socio-political-religious direct rule of God over the people through Jesus that brings forgiveness, reconciliation, hope and new life to all people and where the poor, oppressed, disinherited and devalued experience renewed identity, livelihood and ownership of their future as they worship under the Lordship of Jesus as all evil is overcome and all oppression ceases. Revelation 21:5-5

Luke 4: 31-44Authority comes from one of a few ways:1.Violence/Bully2.Elected (will of people)3.Creation/Rearing4....“From the beginning of his work in village communities until the climax of the Gospel story in Jerusalem, moreover, Jesus’ renewal of Israel is set over against and is threatening to the Jerusalem rulers and their representatives. The people who witness his powerful exorcism of the demon in the village assembly at Capernaum acclaim in astonishment, “What is this? A new teaching – with authority!” That is, Jesus acts for the people with (legitimate) power, as opposed to the scribal representatives of the Jerusalem “authorities” who lacked authority among the people, presumably because they wielded their power against the interests of the people…Jesus is working from the Israelite popular tradition as he declares his mission to be the fulfillment of the people’s longing for deliverance.” –Richard Horsley, “Jesus and the Powers”Jesus authority derives from the people because he is working on behalf of the people, in the name of God!Hope is the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the bestThese proponents of the power of hope argue that a person who believes he will get better produces endorphins and enkephalins released by the pituitary gland, which can intercept the feelings of pain in the body from reaching the brain. The research of Jerome Groopman M.D. is some of the most conclusive about the effects hope has on sick people. His research attempts to show the way the brain aids the body's healing and coping ability in sick peoples' bodies. Manipulations of the nervous system sparked by the emotions associated with hope begin a chain of events, which may help sick people recover. Groopman uses the placebo effect to help explaining how the nervous system, with the help of hope, combats pain. The placebo effect is widely accepted by medical doctors and scientists. It shows that in some cases a placebo or fake cure can satisfy patients and make them believe they are cured when in reality no medicine, surgery, or treatment has been given. For example a doctor who prescribes a sugar pill or pill containing no medicine to a group of patients suffering from an illness, without telling them that the drug is a placebo, will have some patients who report their symptoms have faded. It may seem that theses particular patients were not really that sick to begin with, but the placebo effect is actually thought to be a result of "belief and expectancy". The patient believes and expects the medication to cure her ailments. Belief is encouraged as the patient trusts that a doctor will be able to identify an illness and then find the appropriate medication to treat the problem. The patient then expects the treatment to work. This combination of belief and expectation can sometimes be enough to help a person recover from their symptoms. “I used to think hope was just a warm, vague feeling. It was that sense of excitement that I got before Christmas when I was a child. It lingered a while and then disappeared,” writes author and Gallup senior scientist Shane J. Lopez, Ph.D, in his book Making Hope Happen: Create the Future You Want for Yourself and Others. Maybe you can relate. Maybe hope has a fleeting quality for you, too. Maybe you also associate hope with childhood, a kind of effervescence that didn’t survive the transition into adulthood. Today, Lopez, who’s a leading researcher of hope, has a different perspective. He views hope like oxygen. “We can’t live without hope.”Why is hope so important? For instance, Lopez and his colleagues conducted three meta-analyses. Their findings showed that hope leads to everything from better performance in school to more success in the workplace to greater happiness overall. And it makes sense. According to Lopez, “When we’re excited about ‘what’s next,’ we invest more in our daily life, and we can see beyond current challenges.” Unfortunately, only half of us measure high in hope, Lopez notes in the book. Fortunately, however, hope can be learned. Hopeful people share four core beliefs, according to Lopez:1.The future will be better than the present.2.I have the power to make it so.3.There are many paths to my goals.4.None of them is free of obstacles. In the book, Lopez also underscores that hope is contagious. “Your hope is actually dependent on your entire social network, including best friends, role models and secondhand associates. And your hope can be shared with others.” According to Lopez, we can spread hope by modeling it through stories and our actions and providing support to others. Hope gives us the power to effect change.As he writes, “Please build up your hope. Then with hope to spare, help others build a future that is better than the present. Much better.”The radical new reality of a socio-political-religious direct rule of God over the people through Jesus that brings forgiveness, reconciliation, hope and new life to all people and where the poor, oppressed, disinherited and devalued experience renewed identity, livelihood and ownership of their future as they worship under the Lordship of Jesus as all evil is overcome and all oppression ceases. Revelation 21:5-5