“And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people. So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, those having seizures, and paralytics, and he healed them (Matthew 4:23-24).

“When he came down from the mountain [after the sermon], great crowds [here are the crowds again] followed him. And behold, a leper came to him and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.” And Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, “I will; be clean.” And immediately his leprosy was cleansed” (Matthew 8:1-3).

And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people. So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, those having seizures, and paralytics, and he healed them. And great crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis, and from Jerusalem and Judea, and from beyond the Jordan. Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:
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“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth (Matthew 4:23-5:5).

“I am sitting in church with my family and I am thinking that few if any of these people here know what it’s like to wake up afraid, in fear of their lives. They will wake up to food and presents and family, safe in their houses. It won’t be on their minds to think of everyone who doesn’t have the security, the privilege that so many of us ignorantly have. There are kids around the world that go to bed fearful for their lives and wake up so thankful they made it through the night; yet so incredibly frightened because they will spend the rest of the day afraid. What a privilege it is to not wake up afraid” (by my daughter, A. Hawley Anderson).

​“Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was ‘well timed’ in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word ‘Wait!’ It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This ‘Wait’ has almost always meant ‘Never.’ We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that ‘justice too long delayed is justice denied’” (MLK, Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail).
 
“Actually, time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively. More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity” (MLK, Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail).
 
“But in general, when ancient Latin writers used the term patientia, they didn’t have heroes in mind; they were thinking of subordinates and victims. Patience seemed an appropriate attitude for people of no account who were on the receiving end of actions or experiences. For these people—powerless, poverty stricken, and often female--patientia was ignominious. Patience was the response of people who didn’t have the freedom to define their own goals or make choices. Notably patience was a response of slaves, for whom it was an inevitability, not a virtue.” (Alan Kreider, The Patient Ferment of the Early Church: The Improbable Rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire, p. 20).
 
“The earlier Christian tradition was based on an understanding of God’s work as manifested in the life, teaching, death, and resurrection of Jesus. The word that summed this up for them was patientia (hypomonē in Greek) [patience]. In their patience-shaped perspective, history is safe in God’s generous hands. So people who worship God and follow Jesus do not need to control things; they do not rely on the power of the state to vindicate their point of view; they do not fret their brows or hurry; and they never impose their view by coercion and force. And somehow, spontaneously, carriers of the gospel show up—slave women, business people, people of no account—and the church grows, spottily, unsystematically, and by ferment” (Alan Kreider, The Patient Ferment of the Early Church, 294–95).

​“The reason there will be no change is because the people who stand to lose from change have all the power. And the people who stand to gain from change have none of the power” (attributed to Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli).

“It’s easy to confuse what is with what ought to be, especially when what is has always worked in your favor” (Tyrion Lannister, “Game of Thrones”)

His passion is, as Abraham Heschel has seen, the passion of this God who knows what time it is (Jer 8:7). God knows, and his prophet knows with him, that it is end time. The king does not know, never knows, what time it is because the king wants to banish time and live in an uninterrupted eternal now. God has time for his people and God insists his people take his time seriously” (Walter Brueggemann, Prophetic Imagination, 48).
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“Hebrew history preceded what Christianity repeated: we both preferred kings, wars, and empires instead of suffering servanthood or leveling love” (Richard Rohr).