Most of us spend considerable time and energy trying to make our lives as safe and secure as possible. We want to be able to sit back and count our blessings - such as our jobs, our homes, our net worth. Jesus turns our notion of a blessed existence upside down, finding strength in vulnerability and warning us about the dangers of contented complacency. A blessed existence involves being sent to hell.

The "Ritual of Friendship," or "Passing the Peace" or whatever else that period of enforced sociability might be called, is a practice of problematic significance. A large percentage of congregants cringe and steel themselves while they plaster on a phony smile and breathe their most sincere prayer of the service - that this ritual will get over with quickly! In fact it is not unreasonable f…