45
" So often in the church, being a pastor or a "spiritual leader" means being the example of "godly living." A pastor is supposed to be the person who is really good at this Christianity stuff — the person others can look to as an example of righteousness. But as much as being the person who is the best Christian, who "follows Jesus" the most closely can feel a little seductive, it's simply never been who I am or who my parishioners need me to be. I'm not running after Jesus. Jesus is running my ass down. Yeah, I am a leader, but I'm leading them onto the street to get hit by the speeding bus of confession and absolution, sin and sainthood, death and resurrection — that is, the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm a leader, but only by saying, "Oh, screw it. I'll go first. "
― Nadia Bolz-Weber , Accidental Saints: Finding God in All the Wrong People
58
" looked at you, gave you bread, and said, “Child of God, the body of Christ, broken for you.” Child of God. Child of God. We’re all children of God. And we’ve been given the authority, even the duty, to declare that to each other. And so I find myself on US 36, where another asshole is embodying so much that I despise, and in my mind, I bless them. I look in their eyes, hold up the bread, and say, “Child of God…” Jeff, like so many of us, is changed by the word of grace that he hears in church. He is formed by the Word of God.*2 He is given a place where he is told by others that he is a child of God. He is given a place where he can look other people in the eye, other annoying, inconsistent, arrogant people in the eye, hand them bread, and say, “Child of God, the body of Christ, given for you,” and then he, in his own arrogant inconsistencies, has a frame of grace through which to see even the people he can’t stand. I argue that this wouldn’t just happen alone. This is why we have Christian community. So that we can stand together under the cross and point to the gospel. A gospel that Bonhoeffer said is “frankly hard for the pious to understand. Because this grace confronts us with the truth saying: You are a sinner, a great, desperate sinner, now come as the sinner you are to a God who loves you.” God wants you, you in your imperfect, broken, shimmering glory. "
― Nadia Bolz-Weber , Accidental Saints: Finding God in All the Wrong People
60
" I wonder if she’s ever encountered a Denver outreach worker with a bleach kit. Did she ever open a baggie from a clean-handed social worker and see a note under the tourniquet and sterile cooker that said, “You are loved as you are,” and did it ever break her heart? Well-meaning notes from church folks aren’t miracles and perhaps they all go unnoticed, but even if that’s the case, the truth remains: God loves Candy now. With dirty feet. Not just after she manages to start making better decisions, not after she washes them herself. God loves us now. Me, Anna, Candy, all of us, as we are. Sometimes just the simple experience of knowing this, of knowing that our sin is not what defines us, can finally set us free. "
― Nadia Bolz-Weber , Accidental Saints: Finding God in All the Wrong People