Category: Theological Animation

Are You Willing to Follow Dr. King Today?

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BarberSome highlights from Rev. William Barber’s 50-minute speech delivered on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in Tennessee.

We do not celebrate martyrs. You join them.

MLK Jr. preached, but we make a dangerous mistake that his words were just soaring oratory. He preached civil disobedience and he preached a movement to challenge the demons of Jim Crow.

Not only in sanctuary…but he preached and acted in the streets of the nation.

If … it doesn’t lead to the liberation of the sick, poor and oppressed — then preaching is just words with no action,

People love dead prophets, but the question is, “Are you willing to follow Dr. King today?”

Wild Lectionary: Roots and Stories

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Wangari Maathai mural in the Lower Haight. Photo by Phil Dokas.

Lent 1

Deuteronomy 26:1-11
Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16
Romans 10:8b-13
Luke 4:1-13

By Rev. Dr. Victoria Marie

As I reflected on today’s readings, the theme they seemed to weave together is to begin Lent by reviewing our stories. With the First Reading, in which the writers of Deuteronomy are giving the reader a sort of Last Will and Testament of Moses, God’s people are reminded of their history and God’s presence in it. They are told to recount that history in ritual and celebration. We are also being reminded to reflect on our personal intergenerational stories. Who were our ancestors? How was God with them as they journeyed? How do their stories impact your story? How has God’s presence in all of our stories led us to where we are today: physically, socially, emotionally and spiritually? The First Reading reminds us to ponder these questions as we reflect on our stories. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Roots and Stories” →

A Wild, Ragged Figure

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Ric HudgensBy Ric Hudgens

*This is the tenth installation of a year-long series of posts from contributors all over North America each answering the question, “How would you define radical discipleship?” We will be posting responses regularly on Mondays during 2019.

What is radical discipleship?

I’m in bed recovering from a stroke. I have dramatic weakness on the right side of my body. I can only walk with assistance. I talk slowly and softly. It is difficult for me to write. I am poor in physical strength, but rich in friends and strong in faith. Maybe I’ll be back to normal some day; or maybe it’s time for me to find a new normal. Continue reading “A Wild, Ragged Figure” →

Wild Lectionary: Fully Human, Fully Divine, Fully Trans


On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Feminist/Womanist/Queer Liberation and Theology, Theological Animation, Uncategorized, Watershed Discipleship2 Comments

frogBy Mary Ann Saunders

Exodus 34:29-35
Luke 9:28-43a

For me, as a trans woman, the Transfiguration feels deeply personal.

It’s not just that the word transfiguration simply means “a change of form”—which is something I know quite a bit about—nor is it simply that my experience and Jesus’ experience are consistent with the natural world. Creation, after all, is full of transfigurations: tadpoles become frogs, seeds become plants, some fish species change sex, caterpillars become butterflies (this last itself being a popular metaphor for gender transitions). We now even know that genetic information—supposedly immutable—can change over the course of our lives.

Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Fully Human, Fully Divine, Fully Trans
” →

Like a Radish

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological Animation2 Comments

Screen Shot 2019-02-06 at 9.39.24 AMBy Kyle Mitchell

*This is the ninth installation of a year-long series of posts from contributors all over North America each answering the question, “How would you define radical discipleship?” We will be posting responses regularly on Mondays during 2019.

The word discipleship reminds me that the way of the Jewish rabbi named Jesus is grounded in a posture of discipline and learning. For those of us whose native religious tongue is Jesus language, discipleship is the main way that we express our faith in the world. We never “arrive”, but are always growing, maturing, discerning, listening, and learning. We make the road by walking. Continue reading “Like a Radish” →

A Vision

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CornelAn excerpt from The Sun Magazine’s interview with Dr. Cornel West.

Fluidity doesn’t necessarily mean subversion. You can be highly fluid and just come up with creative ways of adjusting to or reproducing the status quo. Fluidity and flexibility are important, but to transform society you need more than that. You need a vision. You need a different way of looking at the world. That’s where the Hebrew prophets and the legacy of Jerusalem come in. The words of Isaiah, Micah, and others authorized an alternative vision of the world. Continue reading “A Vision” →

Wild Lectionary: Whose Power and What For?

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7th Sunday After Epiphany
Genesis 45:3-11, 15

By Rev. Miriam Spies

Some commentators read this passage as a moment of reconciliation and forgiveness between family…or a story of redistributing food and wealth based on need, but the misuse of power and thinking we know the mind of God has harmful effects for Joseph’s family and for generations of people to come.

Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Whose Power and What For?” →

Death is All They’ve Got to Stand On

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological Animation1 Comment

Screen Shot 2019-02-15 at 9.26.01 AMBy Rev. Bill Wylie-Kellermann (right)

*This is the 8th installation of a year-long series of posts from contributors all over North America each answering the question, “How would you define radical discipleship?” We will be posting responses regularly on Mondays during 2019.

If you would be my disciples… take up your cross and follow me.

I am so glad for this beloved mosaic, a series piecing together the shape of radical discipleship in our moment (plus the history we stand upon and with). The calls to the discipline of Jesus are here rooted in spirit, heart, earth, watershed, creaturehood, beauty, community and the stories of a Way incarnate. Continue reading “Death is All They’ve Got to Stand On” →

For What Do We Hope

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Ken SehestedBy Ken Sehested (right with grandchildren), whose fluency tends toward poetic expression, in response to our 2019 question, “What is your definition of radical discipleship?”

 “Always be ready to make your defense to anyone
who demands from you an accounting for the hope
that is in you: yet do it in gentleness and reverence.”
—1 Peter 3:15-16

To your feet, you pilgrims of faith’s long journey! Stand and pledge your allegiance to that nation-supplanting Realm to come.

For what do we hope?

We hope for the Beloved’s Promise to overtake the world’s broken-hearted threat. Continue reading “For What Do We Hope” →

Wild Lectionary: Seraphim, seed people and fish folk, oh my!: celebrating God’s kaleidoscopic web of life

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized, Watershed Discipleship1 Comment
circle of life
Circle of Life, Zane Saunders, 1993 Creative Commons

Fifth Sunday after Epiphany C
Isaiah 6:6:1-13
1 Corinthians 15:1-11
Luke 5:1-11

By Wes Howard Brook and Sue Furguson Johnson

This week’s readings reveal life springing forth from sky, sea and soil: seraphim speak to Isaiah, fish are netted by Simon Peter, and images of fleshy seeds of resurrection flow from Paul’s mouth (in the section of 1 Cor 15 that follows the lectionary passage). And if we listen a bit more closely, we can hear the usual lines that distinguish one creature from another blur and cross: Jesus promises that Simon will fish for people, while, for Paul, humans bloom and fruit like flowering trees. What might these criss-crossing images teach us about the intersectionality among living beings, in this realm and in the realm beyond the veil? Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Seraphim, seed people and fish folk, oh my!: celebrating God’s kaleidoscopic web of life” →