I say let's be idealists. "Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not yet see" (Hebrews 11:1).

We're remembering both the good and the bad in our history together in this world. This isn't an attempt to make people feel bad every morning and to force them to go stick their fingers in a wall socket. We chose these things we included as a way to point people toward the possibility of transformation even while remembering the great pain we have experienced as humanity.

We give people fish. We teach them to fish. We tear down the walls that have been built up around the fish pond. And we figure out who polluted it.

Only Jesus would be crazy enough to suggest that if you want to become the greatest, you should become the least. Only Jesus would declare God's blessing on the poor rather than on the rich and would insist that it's not enough to just love your friends. I just began to wonder if anybody still believed Jesus meant those things he said.

If you have two coats you have stolen one. We have no right to have more than we need when someone else has less than they need.

Christianity can be built around isolating ourselves from evildoers and sinners, creating a community of religious piety and moral purity. That’s the Christianity I grew up with. Christianity can also be built around joining with the broken sinners and evildoers of our world crying out to God, groaning for grace. That’s the Christianity I have fallen in love with.

Faith is being idealistic, because we have made an idol out of the status quo.