Author: RadicalDiscipleship

Sermon: Stories of Salt and Light

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized1 Comment
Anneke_jans.jpg
Anna Jansz

By Katerina Friesen, February 5th, 2017, Fellowship of Hope Mennonite Church

Matthew 5:13-20

In recent sermons and reflections here at Fellowship of Hope, we’ve pondered how Jesus’ wisdom teachings and the way of the cross are foolishness to the world. Foolishness, to love our enemies. Foolishness, to be persecuted and blessed. Foolishness, that those who hunger and thirst are the highly favored ones. Yet this foolishness is the wisdom of God that we are given to chew on, the bread of life. Today, we draw our attention to a crucial ingredient in bread baking, the seasoning of our dough: salt. Continue reading “Sermon: Stories of Salt and Light” →

The Anti-Trump

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological Animation1 Comment

rileyBy Tommy Airey, a letter to his nephews who call him “Uncle Coo-Coo”

Riley and Mason,

I want so badly for you to grow up with a deep awareness of what it means to be “a real man.” You have a big advantage because you have parents and a Nawny who are committed to recovery: fearless and thorough in their commitments to mutual and rigorous honesty, to establishing boundaries and assertiveness and to pursuing gentleness with themselves and others in the process.  They have been important models in my own journey of re-claiming open-heartedness and emotional expressiveness.

Unfortunately, the man who gets the most attention, who you will see over and over on TV and the internet, whose name you will hear about more than any other man on the planet is a President who lives off a steady diet of name-calling and fear-mongering, who paints those from south of the border as “criminals” and “rapists” and says if refugees from Muslim-majority countries “are allowed in, it’s death and destruction!,” who magnifies deeply ingrained racial stereotypes of inner-cities as “in horrible shape and falling apart (not to mention crime infested),” whose whole ethos is shaped by bullying and “locker room talk” and whose policies favor the securing of enormous profits for a few over relieving the suffering of everyday people. Continue reading “The Anti-Trump” →

A Real Change

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Just PeacemakingLeave a comment

thichFrom Thich Nhat Hanh, Living Buddha, Living Christ (1995):

Meditation is not a drug to make us oblivious to our real problems. It should produce awareness in us and also in our society. For us to achieve results, our enlightenment has to be collective. How else can we end the cycle of violence? We ourselves have to contribute, in small and large ways, toward ending our own violence. Looking deeply at our own mind and our own life, we will begin to see what to do and what not to do to bring about a real change.

Welcome to the Resistance. Here’s Your Survival Guide.

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Uncategorized1 Comment

rose.jpgBy Rose Marie Berger. Reposted from Sojo.net

Even during a constitutional crisis and a white nationalist assault on the executive branch of federal government, the kids still need to get to school, bills must be paid, homework done, groceries bought, clothes washed, church attended.

In addition to your regular job, you are now a full-time grassroots organizer and obstructionist, showing up for protests and rallies. You’re also trying to implement a full-time legislative strategy, calling representatives, signing petitions, encouraging others to do the same. And for some, your full-time government job or journalism job or advocacy job now requires a renewed understanding of the ethics of public service, while also developing strategies to implement or refuse unclear and possibly illegal directives.

How do you keep from flaming out? Continue reading “Welcome to the Resistance. Here’s Your Survival Guide.” →

Wild Lectionary: An Unordinary Time

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Uncategorized, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment

Trees - Reddish Knob.jpgFifth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Isaiah 58:1-12

By Valerie Luna Serrels

We enter this week’s story through a blind spot. The people who historically have awakened to and connected to God, find themselves unable to see, disconnected from God, one another, and the land. This blind spot invites us to reflect on the ways in which we too are unaware and disconnected. Unaware of which world’s code of conduct we abide. What religion we practice. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: An Unordinary Time” →

A Culture of Passionately Gradual People

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Just PeacemakingLeave a comment

prechtelFrom Martin Prechtel in The Smell of Rain on Dust: Grief and Praise (2015):

That feeling of frustrated justice and hatred for the unpunished “perpetrator” is the hardest thing for people who cannot truly grieve. On the other hand, it is also not any good to become people who glide along on bliss and don’t care about anything, either. It’s needful for the peace of a people, peace of the human heart, peace of the earth, for grief to be there, not transcending on a bliss journey to avoid grief. Being zoned out, numb, unconnected, “above it all,” and not caring is just the lazier flip side of the coin of vengeance. They need one another. Continue reading “A Culture of Passionately Gradual People” →

Sermon: Grounded in the Bedrock of Faith

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized1 Comment

beatitutudesBy Joyce Hollyday. January 29, 2017,
Circle of Mercy, Asheville, NC

Micah 6:8; Matthew 5:1-12

On the night of January 19th, the eve of the inauguration, several of us from Circle of Mercy’s immigration mission group gathered at the home that Bill and I share. We kept a vigil in the tradition of the Watch Night Service.

Watch Night is typically traced back to New Year’s Eve of 1862, when enslaved communities stayed up all night waiting for the Emancipation Proclamation to take effect on January 1st. When I was collecting oral histories among African-American UCC churches during my time as an associate conference minister, I was told that the custom is actually much older—that enslaved families stayed up every New Year’s Eve, because January 1st was when masters decided whom they would sell off. Families facing the imminent threat of separation spent all night singing and praying and hoping that they would be together for another year. Continue reading “Sermon: Grounded in the Bedrock of Faith” →

I Was A Stranger

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological Animation1 Comment
martinFrom the Facebook page of Fr. James Martin:
President Trump has announced that he will order the construction of a Mexican border wall, the first in a series of actions to crack down on immigrants, which will include slashing the number of refugees who can resettle in the United States, and blocking Syrians and others from what are called “terror-prone nations” from entering, at least temporarily.

These measures, which mean the rejection of the stranger, the rejection of the person in need, the rejection of those who suffer, are manifestly unchristian and utterly contrary to the Gospel. Indeed, last year, Pope Francis said, “A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian. This is not the Gospel.”  

Continue reading “I Was A Stranger” →

Survival Skills

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as TheologyLeave a comment

bowBy Ric Hudgens

I resent your condescending remarks
about my fetal position. I am not overly
sensitive, depressed, incapacitated, nor
escaping adult responsibilities. When
I curve my back, bow my head, pull both
knees to my chest it is not weakness
that bends me so. What you never
understand is that this is my haven
of health, my reservoir of renewal. If
womblike, it is some placenta of hope
that nourishes and sustains me. We
must all find strength where we can.
I will unfold a fiercer soul.