Category: Theological Animation

Why Faith Must Learn the Language of Flood: Water as Apocalyptic Witness of Last Resort

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J Perk, ShoesBy Jim Perkinson (09.01.2019)

*Note: This is a sermon Dr. James Perkinson (right, performing spoken word at the Heidelberg Project in Detroit, MI) did  for the liturgical “season” being adopted by some churches including St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Detroit. It is called the Season of Creation (Sept 1 to Oct 4). The focus on this Sunday (September 1, 2019) was on the oceans. J-Perk included a number of biblical passages related to the seas and water and asked a few questions/made some comments [as indicated], before getting into the sermon proper. 

Background

In the beginning, God created the Heavens and Earth. The Earth was without Form and Void, and Darkness was upon the Face of the Deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the Waters—Canaanite Mythology (Gen 1:1-2).  Continue reading “Why Faith Must Learn the Language of Flood: Water as Apocalyptic Witness of Last Resort” →

Don’t Touch

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, Cloud of Witnesses, Subverting Empire, Theological AnimationLeave a comment

Dan B.An excerpt from Daniel Berrigan: Essential Writings (ed. John Dear, p.50).

One day, as we were being taken handcuffed from the jail for a court appearance, a young nun who was a dear friend reached out her hand to mine in solidarity as we issued from the jail. One of the marshalls came forward in a swift, reptilian move. He crashed down between our hands with a karate blow. “Don’t touch!” It was the epitome of the system; he had said it all.

Don’t touch–make war. Don’t touch–be abstract, about God and death and life and love. Don’t touch–make war at a distance. Don’t touch your enemies, except to destroy them. Don’t touch, because in the touch of hand to hand is Michelangelo’s electric moment of creation. Don’t touch, because law and order have so decreed, limiting the touch of one person to another, to the touch of nightsticks upon flesh. Continue reading “Don’t Touch” →

The Way Costs Exactly Everything

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BabelBy Wes Howard-Brook & Sue Ferguson Johnson (on Luke 14:25-33)

*Note: this piece was originally posted to Radical Discipleship during the summer of 2016.

It is no mystery who Luke’s audience is in this week’s Gospel (14.25-33): “For which of you, intending to build a tower (Gk, purgon)…” (14.28). Clearly, this is not a building plan envisioned by landless peasants, lepers and other poor and marginalized people. Luke is speaking here to the young elite of the Roman Empire, seeking to instill in them the cost of rejecting their imperial formation and choosing Jesus’ Way of discipleship. Continue reading “The Way Costs Exactly Everything” →

Wild Lectionary: Choosing Life in the Context of Climate Change

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized, Watershed Discipleship1 Comment

69907266_10156534406631146_7098887487753289728_nProper 16(21)C

By Zoë Tobin Peterson

I call Heaven and Earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live.  Deuteronomy 30:19

Growing up in Vancouver, a “green city,” I have been at the forefront of a shift towards choosing life. A shift towards environmental consciousness; but consciousness isn’t always enough. We can say we choose life all we want but until there is action behind it nothing is going to change. Our reasons for action matter as well, as they determine the proportions of the actions we take. If our intentions are to save the world for our generation alone, long-term changes just aren’t going to be made. Are we choosing life out of spite? Necessity? Validation? Love? Or are we acting because we see the Earth as more than just a witness?

Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Choosing Life in the Context of Climate Change” →

White Ain’t God

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race, Subverting Empire, Theological Animation2 Comments

nick petersonAs RadicalDiscipleship.net approaches Her 5-year birthday this month, we will start posting more frequently from the archives. This classic is from the prophetic imagination of Nick Peterson, currently pursuing his PhD in Liturgics and Ethics at Emory University. 

*Originally re-posted from social media in April 2016.

As a powerful but vain imagination, white supremacy attempts to imprison God to whiteness. In a white supremacist framework – God has a white sentence without parole. While confined, God must look white, talk white, think white, affirm white, bless white, and value, above all things, “his” own image made in whiteness. White supremacy attempts to hold the very God of the universe in chains – theological, liturgical, spiritual, creedal, geographical, social, emotional, and political.  Continue reading “White Ain’t God” →

I Speak from the Deep Throated Voice of a Survivor

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, Feminist/Womanist/Queer Liberation and Theology, Subverting Empire, Theological AnimationLeave a comment

RubyBiography as Theology from the Front Porch of Mother Ruby Sales (posted to Facebook August 28, 2019).

My story which is both a Black story and an American one. It is a story shaped by more than fifty years of watching and wading in the ebb and flow of White supremacy in America. It is the story of both a survivor and freedom fighter who has experienced the best and worst of America.

Our story

“They are bringing drugs and sending their criminals.”

“Go back to where you come from.”

“Go back to your crime ridden neighborhoods.” Continue reading “I Speak from the Deep Throated Voice of a Survivor” →

Blackness In and Of Itself Became Criminalized

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DominiqueAn excerpt from Duke Divinity School’s interview with Dominique Gillard, the author of Rethinking Incarceration. This is his response to the question, “How did we get here? How did we get in this situation?”

I quote a criminologist in the book, Elliott Currie. She says, “Short of major wars, mass incarceration has been the most thoroughly implemented government social program of our time.”

That’s a powerful statement. But I think we got here a couple of ways.

Theologically, we’ve misunderstood God’s justice as just about divine wrath. And because God is holy, we think God cannot be connected in any way to unrighteousness. Continue reading “Blackness In and Of Itself Became Criminalized” →

Too Big—and Failing! Jesus’ Cure for Affluenza

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Sabbath Economics, Subverting Empire, Theological Animation1 Comment

DropsyBy Ched Myers, on Luke 14:1-14

Note: This is part of a series of weekly comments on the Lukan gospel readings from the Revised Common Lectionary during year C, 2016. This week’s gospel text is related to last week’s; see the background comments for last week here. Much of the post below is adapted from a sermon given at Downers Grove (IL) First United Methodist Church on 10/10/10.

Luke 14:2-6 is unaccountably skipped over in the lectionary. Yet it is profoundly germane to last week’s reading, and moreover introduces the theme of the whole sequence through 14:24: namely, the issue of how social power and privilege is mirrored in meals, and what to do about it. So I strongly advocate re-instating this beginning episode as part of this Sunday’s gospel. Continue reading “Too Big—and Failing! Jesus’ Cure for Affluenza” →

Wild Lectionary: Invitation to Humility – Invite Grasses

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Children learning about biodiversity and native plants at New Life Lutheran’s summer gardening camp. Photo by Greg McCord

Twelfth Sunday After Pentecost,
Proper 17 (22)

Luke 14:1, 7-14
By Carmen Retzlaff

14:11 For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
—
14:13 But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.
14:14 And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

In Central Texas, one of the signs that a local naturalist has slipped over the edge, into the rocky and nerdy social territory,  is when they fall in love with native grasses. First they will just marvel at the indigenous bunch grasses. They’ll recognize a healthy grassland, where these compact plants take just the compact space they need, and allow for biodiversity, as opposed to invasive grasses, which blanket the earth and keep other things from growing. The grass-enamored naturalist will smile when they see patches of side oats grama or bushy bluestem, knowing how deep the roots extend into the clay and limestone, pulling precious rainwater into acquifers. They’ll be mesmerized by the sight of swaths of purple-tinged seep muhly. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Invitation to Humility – Invite Grasses” →

Salted the Nile with her Tears

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized1 Comment

By Kelley Nikondeha, o

Salted_the_Nile_with_Her_Tears_800_533_90
: “Striated Heron,” Nile River, Luxor, Egypt, Becky Matsubara CC, flickr.com/beckymatsubara.

riginally printed in Geez magazine on Mothering.

A cry broke the early morning silence and interrupted the royal daughter’s bath.

Already knee-deep in the river, she knew instantly that it was a Hebrew baby. On the opposite shore a mother, exhausted from the crossing, dragged her wet body out of the river and collapsed – arms now empty.

As an adopted child, I grew up mesmerized by Moses with only a cursory interest in his mothers. Sunday school lessons didn’t help, offering a sentimentalized characterization of these women – the one who let go and the other who saved the boy through adoption. But as I grew, so did my understanding of the mothers. I learned their story existed against a socio-political backdrop complete with hard edges and harder choices. Continue reading “Salted the Nile with her Tears” →