We now enter into Easter season as we prepare for Pentecost. To prepare us for Pentecost, I want to devote a spot on this blog each day on weekdays to 40 Days Living the Jesus Creed.
I’ve not blogged through a book of my own before, and don’t have any intent of summarizing chps. Instead, I’ll ruminate on and reflect on the theme of each chp. So, let me begin with this thought:

Pentecost is about the gift of the Spirit that creates Pentecost Community and Pentecost Praxis. The Community and the Praxis are generated by the Spirit. These twin themes will be the guiding lights for our journey toward Pentecost. What Pentecost brings is a community shaped entirely by love of God and love of others, the Jesus Creed. So, to prepare for Pentecost so we can become more of a Pentecost Community, we will focus on the Jesus Creed.
To use an image: we are prone to read an idea and think we’ve got it. Instead, I learned a lesson last summer from hummingbirds. They fed on our feeders up to 50 times a day — stopping by for a drink and a sip and then off to burn off that energy supply. Instead of eating like lions — and I think they eat only every few days but when they do they eat truckloads — we need to feed like hummingbirds on the Jesus Creed if we want to have its energy each day. Hence, for 40 days we’ll sip daily from the themes of this book about the Jesus Creed. (By the way, this is a book about how the Jesus Creed shaped the earliest Christians, sections that would have made the original The Jesus Creed: Loving God, Loving Others too long.)
Hence, again, I will ask us to repeat the Jesus Creed each morning and each evening, and any time it comes to mind. What is it? Here it is:
Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.
The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself.
There is no commandment greater than these.