World Famous Comics: Jesus: A Meditation on His Stories and His Relationships with Women
Jesus: A Meditation on His Stories and His Relationships with Women
By: Andrew M. Greeley Publisher: Forge Books Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Forge Books Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 176 Publication Date: March 04, 2008 Release Date: March 04, 2008
“We must begin our story of Jesus by granting him permission to surprise us endlessly....” ---from the Introduction
Jesus of Galilee taught through stories, which even today contain the power to startle us out of our prejudices and preconceptions. Now Father Andrew M. Greeley, one of America’s most beloved storytellers, examines the parables told by Jesus in search of a fuller understanding of the man and his message.
This engaging and informal collection of homilies reveals a Jesus whose simple parables carry profound lessons about the Kingdom of Heaven. Along the way, Father Greeley touches on such provocative topics as the significance of Jesus’s Jewish roots, his deep and revolutionary relationship with women, The Da Vinci Code, and The Passion of the Christ. He also singles out the four greatest parables, which best illustrate the infinite love and mercy of the God whose kingdom began with Jesus and continues even today.
As a storyteller, Jesus often surprised his listeners with unexpected twists that challenged them to see the world in a whole new light. Father Greeley’s insightful tour of the Gospels provides a fresh look at the parables that strips away centuries of false and mistaken interpretations to get at the essential truth of who Jesus really was and what he believed.
JESUS: A MEDITATION ON..... The critique on the parables were fill of surprises and insights.
Jesus: A Meditation on His Stories and His Relationships With Women Perfect! A wonderfully written book for reflection and affirmation for all women of any faith. It doesn't matter that most established churches are slow to recognize the importance of women and their roles in the church - What does matter is that Jesus loves us and appreciates our gifts and talents and has raised us high. He is the Saviour of us all.
Lite and lively Andrew Greeley is always fun, always provocative, and always accessible. Some might say he is not terribly deep, and that's fine too. This book, which he calls a meditation, highlights the many stories of Jesus interacting with women in the gospels. Greeley makes a pretty good case that Jesus was comfortable with women and surprisingly polite to them. He healed them, taught them and allowed them into his entourage. He acted toward to them as equals. Even the Samaritan woman at the well -- a social inferior, a foreigner and a heretic to boot -- is treated with kindness and is invited into the kingdom. Greeley only fails once to make his case -- in the story of the Syro-Phoenician women from whose daughter Jesus expels a demon. Jesus does make an analogy in which she is referred to as a dog, but he respects her saucy answer and finally comes through. Unsurprisingly, the women present at Jesus's Resurrection come in for special attention. They were the first disciples to whom Jesus revealed himself after rising, which Greeley sees as no accident.
Another section moves away from Greeley's major focus on the women to examine four parables in which Jesus tells us about God -- the Prodigal Son, the Lenient Judge (Greeley's name for the story of the woman taken in adultery), the Good Samaritan and the Workers at the Vineyard. This section is stronger in that Greeley's tones down his penchant for smirky asides. He shows how God is a crazy, intemperate lover -- generous to the point that if he were a human, he would be considered insane. This vision of the God preached by Jesus is certainly at odds with the Jesus who judges harshly and speaks of torment in the afterlife for unrepentant sinners. Some may not agree with Greeley's solution, which is to focus on the loving, forgiving God while ignoring the condemnatory one. But it is a logical choice, given Jesus's mission to heal, forgive and gather.
Andrew Greeley's "Jesus" is not a deep analysis of Jesus's parables, but it is a good-hearted one that, for all its wildness, is quite orthodox. His Greeley-esque insistence that Jesus's full humanity involved sexual attractiveness and even sexual imaginings is a bit discomfiting but not uncalled for in a man who was like us in all ways except for sin. Some readers may still have questions about the inconsistencies about God's character found in the gospels. Is he a lover or a judge? But Greeley does make the case fairly well that the crazy-loving God he finds Jesus preaching through his association with women and teaching through his parables is the one in which he believes.
Jesus of Galilee. How I wish that the leaders of our Catholic Church were more like the real Jesus.He saw women as equals, men and woman created in His Father's image.Andrew Greeley's book tells how Jesus respected woman and of the wonderful relationships he had with them.
Excellent & uplifting Jesus: A Meditation on His Stories and His Relationships With Women is a marvelous book. The meditations are loving and uplifting, they show how much Jesus loves us and respects us and teaches other to do like wise. I shared this book with my niece, who is 20 years younger than I am and she is presently enjoying it. I recomend it to women, so that they can feel the love that is pure and I recomend it to men as a teaching tool showin them how women should be loved and treated.
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