"We used to hate and destroy one another, and refused to associate with people of another race or country. Now, because of Christ we live together with such people, and pray for our enemies." - Justin Martyr ; Justin's First Apology Ch 11
"The empathy that grows from listening to others, from connecting with our neighbors, and from loving our neighbors as we love ourselves can define the courses of action we take." - Jacqui Lewis ; Fierce Love (p. 12)
"We belong to a mutually beneficial web of connection, well-being, and love. At the root of this connection is empathy; the result is kindness, compassion, respect, and understanding. When religion doesn’t center on this mutuality, it can become one of the toxic narratives that, in the end, dismantles self-love." - Jacqui Lewis ; Fierce Love (p. 30)
"In other words, we are each impacted by the circumstances that impact those around us. What hurts you hurts me. What heals you heals me. What causes you joy causes me to rejoice, and what makes you sad also causes me to weep." - Jacqui Lewis ; Fierce Love (p. 12)
"'Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.' 'And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people was one of many hoops that make one circle.' In our quest to make sense of the miracle of our lives we, at some point, consciously or otherwise, make a choice . . . To say that we believe in compassionate action is to say that we define our meaning in terms not of what we can accomplish for ourselves, but of what we can accomplish with and for others. And we welcome all, all whose spiritual paths have brought them here, to strive for a life built on compassionate action." - Steven Greenebaum ; The Interfaith Alternative: Embracing Spiritual Diversity
“[Jesus’s] basic issue, still basic today, is that most people have solved the human dilemma for themselves at the expense of everyone else, putting them down so as to stay afloat themselves. This vicious, antisocial way of coping with the necessities of life only escalates the dilemma for the rest of society . . . I am hungry because you hoard food. You are cold because I hoard clothing. Our dilemma is that we all hoard supplies in our backpacks and put our trust in our wallets! Such ‘security’ should be replaced by God reigning, which means both what I trust God to do (to activate you to share food with me) and what I hear God telling me to do (to share clothes with you). We should not carry money while bypassing the poor or wear a backpack with extra clothes and food while ignoring the cold and hungry lying in the gutter. This is why the beggars, the hungry, the depressed are fortunate: God, that is, those in whom God rules, those who hearken to God, will care for them. The needy are called upon to trust that God’s reigning is there for them (“Theirs is the kingdom of God”) . . . Jesus’ message was simple, for he wanted to cut straight through to the point: trust God to look out for you by providing people who will care for you, and listen to him when he calls on you to provide for them.” - James M. Robinson ; The Gospel of Jesus
“This warrants pause. Food for care. In the ancient world, those who lived on the margins of peasant life were never far from death’s door. In the struggle to survive, food was their friend and sickness their enemy. Each day subsistence peasants earn enough to eat for a day. Each day they awaken with the question: Will I earn enough to eat today? This is quickly followed by a second: Will I get sick today? If I get sick, I won’t eat, and if I don’t eat, I’ll get sicker. With each passing day the spiral of starvation and sickness becomes deeper and deeper and finally, deadly. Crossan has argued that this little snippet of ancient tradition is critical to understanding why the followers of Jesus and their empire of God were compelling to the marginalized peasants who were drawn to it. ‘Eat what is set before you and care for the sick.’ Here is the beginning of a program of shared resources of the most basic sort: food and care. It’s an exchange. If some have food, all will eat; if any get sick, someone who eats will be there to care for them. The empire of God was a way to survive—which is to say, salvation.” - Stephen Patterson ; The Lost Way: How Two Forgotten Gospels Are Rewriting the Story of Christian Origins, pp. 74-75
"It begins with a knock at the door. On the stoop stand two itinerant beggars, with no purse, no knapsack, no shoes, no staff. They are so ill-equipped that they must cast their fate before the feet of a would-be host. This is a point often made by historical Jesus scholar John Dominic Crossan. These Q folk are sort of like ancient Cynics, but their goal is not the Cynic goal of self-sufficiency; these itinerants are set only for dependency. To survive they must reach out to other human beings. They offer them peace—this is how the empire arrives. And if their peace is accepted, they eat and drink—this is how the empire of God is consummated, in table fellowship. Then another tradition is tacked on, beginning with the words ‘Whenever you enter a town.’ This is perhaps the older part of the tradition, for this, and only this, also has a parallel in the Gospel of Thomas (14). There is also an echo of it in Paul’s letter known as 1 Corinthians (10: 27). Here, as in the first tradition, the itinerants are instructed, ‘Eat what is set before you.’ Again, the first move is to ask. The empire comes when someone receives food from another. But then something is offered in return: care for the sick. The empire of God here involves an exchange: food for care.” - Stephen Patterson ; The Lost Way: How Two Forgotten Gospels Are Rewriting the Story of Christian Origins, pp. 74-75
“Do not get any gold or silver or copper to take with you in your belts—no bag for the journey or extra shirt or sandals or a staff, for the worker is worth his keep. Whatever town or village you enter, search there for some worthy person and stay at their house until you leave. As you enter the home, give it your greeting. If the home is deserving, let your peace rest on it; if it is not, let your peace return to you. If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet.” - Gospel of Matthew ; Matthew 10:9-14
"I know this to be true: The world doesn’t get great unless we all get better. If there is such a thing as salvation, then we are not saved until everyone is saved; our dignity and liberation are bound together." - Jacqui Lewis ; Fierce Love, p. 14
"Their objective was to create an entirely different kind of human being. All the sages preached a spirituality of empathy and compassion; they insisted that people must abandon their egotism and greed, their violence and unkindness. Not only was it wrong to kill another human being; you must not even speak a hostile word or make an irritable gesture. Further, nearly all the Axial sages realized that you could not confine your benevolence to your own people: your concern must somehow extend to the entire world." - Karen Armstrong ; The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions
"Fierce love breaks through tribalism to help humans realize an inextricable and irrevocable connection, and understand that the liberation, livelihood, and thriving of people and planet are tied up together." - Jacqui Lewis ; Fierce Love (p. 12)
"Romanticism cultivated a reverence for the individual. It eschewed the Enlightenment focus on universals for a focus on particularities. The romantic movement highlighted the differences, as opposed to the similarities, between peoples." - Kelly Douglas Brown ; Stand Your Ground; Black Bodies and the Justice of God (p. 16)
"God’s dream is that you and I and all of us will realize that we are family, that we are made for togetherness, for goodness, and for compassion." - Archbishop Desmond Tutu ; Quoted by Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis in Fierce Love, p. 129
"The world doesn’t get great unless we all get better. If there is such a thing as salvation, then we are not saved until everyone is saved; our dignity and liberation are bound together." - Jacqui Lewis ; Fierce Love (p. 14)
"We have a choice to make. We can answer this question with diminished imagination, by closing ranks with our tribe and hiding from our human responsibility to heal the world. Or we can answer the question of who we are to be another way: We can answer it in the spirit of ubuntu. The concept comes from the Zulu phrase Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu, which literally means that a person is a person through other people. Another translation is, “I am who I am because we are who we are.” - Jacqui Lewis ; Fierce Love (pp. 11-12)
"If we all derive our origin from one man, whom God created, we are plainly all of one family. Therefore it must be considered an abomination to hate another human, no matter how guilty he may be. For this reason God has decreed that we should hate no one, but that we should eliminate hatred. So we can comfort our enemies by reminding them of our mutual relationship. For if we have all been given life by the same God then what else are we but brothers? . . . Because we are all brothers God teaches us never to do evil to one another but only good - giving aid to those who are oppressed, and experiencing hardship, and giving food to the hungry." - Lactantius ; Divine Institutes, Book 6 Ch 10
"All men [and women] are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be." - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. ; The Man Who Was a Fool
"The all pervading life of God is the ground of the spiritual oneness of the race and of our hope for its closer fellowship in the future." - Walter Rauschenbusch ; A Theology for the Social Gospel, p. 186