We must learn from those texts that move us beyond our natural desire for ego security, status needs, and group idolatry. Only then can we trust that it is God who is breaking into human consciousness—and into the text. But how can we trust that we are following the correct tangent? By noting the trim of the sails. Where is the tack of the text directing us? This is precisely the meaning of the Christian affirmation that Jesus is the fulfillment of the Scriptures. The sails are set for a God of suffering and humble love, as we finally see in Jesus. Only because of him are we totally assured that God is beyond tribalism, violence, hatred, and validating the vanities of the small self.
—from the book Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality
by Richard Rohr, OFM
