April 1                                                                      Mark 8:1-10

Let's talk a little about magic.  I'm a gigantic role playing geek, so I know a lot about magic as it's portrayed in fantasy settings like Dungeons & Dragons or Changeling: The Dreaming.  As well as how it's portrayed in some fantasy literature and movies and TV.  If we wanted to contain the miracles of Jesus in something as constricting as a role playing system, we'd find them somewhat underwhelming.

It's true!  The character sheet for Jesus would probably roll out to be only a medium-level wizard, cleric, or healer.  He walks on water, just like the Werewolf: the Apocalypse Gift Surface Attunement, which you only need to be the second Rank to get.  He heals the sick, the crippled, and once raised someone from the dead, but most of that healing could be done by a low-level D&D Cleric.  And in this passage and one other, he does a simple act of transmutation.  Harry Potter and his friends could probably change water to wine and multiply a little bit of food to feed a mob by the end of their third year at Hogwarts.

But if we look slightly differently, everything changes.  What if the incarnation of God in the flesh, the son of God, what if he was given unlimited power by the Holy Father?  What if he had the power to crush the Romans, chase them out of Israel, and make a mighty castle in Jerusalem appear with one stomp of his foot?  What if he could do absolutely anything, but instead chose to use his power to heal and feed? 

Even the scale matters.  What if Jesus could wave a hand, and every ill person in the Middle East, or even the whole world, would be restored to perfect health?  Maybe he could.  Maybe he chose instead to walk among the people and touch them, one by one, to maximize the human connection.  Then it follows that he used his power for what he felt was the most important things: to heal, to feed, and to make a wedding more festive. 

Feeding the hungry was so important to Jesus.  I cannot understand why that lesson seems lost on the supposedly Christian lawmakers that are fighting so hard to take away what few services we have to feed our poor and unemployed.  And why they are so frightened of Universal Healthcare, which will heal millions of the sick.  Why are the needs of corporations placed higher than the needs of the poorest Americans?  

PK Louve