James Talarico

You know, as all great teachers, he is breaking us out of the dualistic thinking that plagues us.

He is rooting everything in his tradition, Judaism.

Everything goes back to Moses and the 10 commandments and the Torah, everything.

And he says, I'm not here to destroy the law.

I'm here to fulfill the law.

So he's connected to something that's bigger than himself.

But then he's also pushing us to take those teachings to the next level, to go deeper into them.

You know, the law tells you an eye for an eye.

I'm telling you to turn the other cheek.

Moses told you an eye for an eye because you weren't ready to hear turn the other cheek.

Eye for an eye was meant to keep things from spiraling out of control.

It was meant to have a balance of justice.

And then Jesus is going further in teaching nonviolence, which is consistent and a growth, an evolution.

And that's the universe we live in.

God created an evolving universe.

And you can actually go back in the New Testament.

The first word out of Jesus's mouth is change.

Some can call it repent or turn around, but change is the first thing he says in his public ministry.

So I think both of these things can be true at the same time.

We are rooted in something eternal, something that has existed forever.