WE SEEM TO FORGET
by Ann Weems

What concerns me,
what lies on my heart, is this:
That we in the church
papered and programmed
articulate and agenda-ed
are telling the faith story all wrong,
are telling it as though it happened two thousand
years ago or is going to happen
as soon as the church budget is raised.
We seem to forget that Christ's name is Emmanuel,
God with Us,
Not just when he sat among us
but now,
when we cannot feel the nailprints in his hands.

And He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise from the dead. And He was stating the matter plainly. And Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. But turning around and seeing His disciples, He rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind Me, Satan; for you are not setting your mind on God’s purposes, but on man’s.”

And He summoned the crowd together with His disciples, and said to them, “If anyone wants to come after Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it benefit a person to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul? For what could a person give in exchange for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.”

-- Mark 8: 31–38