If We Don't Find The Gospel Interesting...

...it's not the Gospel's fault.  Jesus is certainly enough to make short work of the relentless temptation to make various self-helpisms, moral standards, and abstract God-concepts the object of our attention.  Honestly, I don't see what is so cool about a bunch of mental gymnastics that are supposed to lead to self-improvement.  The only good thing they seem to do is show me that I'm really inadequate, and cause me to find someone else's performance sufficiently fascinating. That is if I'm on my toes and recognize it for what it is. Now this, for instance, is fasincating:

It has been testified somewhere, "What is man, that you are mindful of him, or the son of man that you care for him? You made him for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet."  Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus,  crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death  for everyone.[Heb 2:6-8]

The submission of Jewish Scripture(and everything else!) to Jesus, the humanity of Jesus and his kinship with us through the experience of death. He's accessible- there's no way to mistake Jesus for some vague cloud of God-ness or some such.  Which is essentially what's behind all this "taking advantage of the grace of God," or whatever it is that people warn about when you preach the Gospel like it matters.  Remember the snakes in the wilderness? The people complained against the Lord, and so he sent fiery snakes to bite them and kill them. And then God said to Moses: 

"Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live."[Num 21:8]

When he sees it, he shall live. Behold! That's really all it takes to be fascinated by it.  Yep, if that doesn't do the trick, well that's just a sign of my screwed up priorities, not of the Gospel's weakness.  Just remember this- Jesus found the Gospel fascinating:

And he said to them, "O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?" And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. [Luke 24:25-27] 

The Humanity of the Truth

First of all, go and read this.

This is what stories do: bring humanity to the Truth.  Because people who think they know the truth, but don't hear of it in terms of happenings, are incapable of seeing.

Jesus happened.  

Search for Significance?

This election day, my vote is going to Mark Galli, for this excellent article.  From Insignificant is Beautiful:

I have a good friend who has been caring for his elderly mother. She sits in a wheel chair, complains a lot, and requires constant attention — to the point of cleaning her up after regular bouts of diarrhea. What my friend and his wife are doing is heroic, virtue with a capital V. But it is hard to see how it is "world changing" as we normally think about such things. Such an act doesn't even change the mother's life, only makes it less miserable. It's not even "significant," by our usual calculation, but "merely" an act of love.

When we think of making a difference, we think about making the world a better place for the next generation, not taking care of people who have no future....As usual, Jesus turns this whole conversation on its head....His is an ethic that glorifies giving a mere cup of water to a thirsty soul (Matt. 10:42), praises the relatively worthless donation of an indigent widow (Mark 12:41-44), visits those who have disappeared from history, and honors the one who changes the diapers of the incontinent.