Category: Theological Animation

Eucharistic conventions: Why we practice these (somewhat) odd manners at the Lord’s Table

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Art as Resistance, Theological AnimationLeave a comment

SehestedBy Ken Sehested, the author/editor of prayerandpolitiks,org

When three of us began daydreaming about a starting a new congregation, during long hikes in the Blue Ridge Mountains in the first year of the new millennium, one of the things we immediately imagined was worship centered around communion, including placing the table in the center of our seating. Every Sunday—which is unusual in Protestant bodies. None of us were raised that way. This tangible ritual act—of re-membering in the midst of a dismembered world—is poignantly expressive of our theological vision. Continue reading “Eucharistic conventions: Why we practice these (somewhat) odd manners at the Lord’s Table” →

Only a Love Ethic

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Feminist/Womanist/Queer Liberation and Theology, Theological AnimationLeave a comment

WinkAn excerpt from the late theologian Walter Wink’s “Homosexuality and the Bible,” written more than two decades ago:

The crux of the matter, it seems to me, is simply that the Bible has no sexual ethic. There is no Biblical sex ethic. Instead, it exhibits a variety of sexual mores, some of which changed over the thousand year span of biblical history. Mores are unreflective customs accepted by a given community. Many of the practices that the Bible prohibits, we allow, and many that it allows, we prohibit. The Bible knows only a love ethic, which is constantly being brought to bear on whatever sexual mores are dominant in any given country, or culture, or period.
Continue reading “Only a Love Ethic” →

Wild Lectionary: Parting the Water or Crossing Over, The Trouble Remains

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment

IMG_2162.JPGBy Edward Sloane
Proper 26 (31)
Joshua 3: 7-17

The movement of crossing-over offers a theologically rich metaphor, but one that is not without troubles. The Israelites crossed-over the Red Sea and the Jordan River to establish a Promised Land; Jesus crossed over from death in the resurrection; the colonization of indigenous communities and the exploitation of more-than-human communities are the result of crossing oceans and bioregions; enslaved black bodies in the United States travelled the Underground Railroad to cross over into free territories; migrants cross borders seeking refuge from political, economic, and climate instability. Crossing over suggests a happy ending—we have arrived. Leaving behind a troubling, or unsatisfying, past, we are on our way to something better, perhaps even salvation. Depending on who tells the story and how, it is easy to read such crossings in multiple ways.   Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Parting the Water or Crossing Over, The Trouble Remains” →

Wild Lectionary: Who Is My Neighbor?

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment
P1260327(1)
Sacred Earth Camp youth catalogue species at Coleman Creek Credit: Devin Gillan

Proper 25 (30)
Twenty-First Sunday after Pentecost

Matthew 22:34-46

By Laurel Dykstra

In today’s Gospel when asked about the greatest of all the commandments, Jesus’ reply is simple, “love God, love your neighbor.” In Luke, this same exchange is followed by the question, “who is my neighbor?” which Jesus answers with the parable of the Good Samaritan. The story of upstanding citizens who fail to respond to suffering after an assault has obvious parallels for first world Christians confronted by climate crisis, species extinctions, and environmental racism. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Who Is My Neighbor?” →

A Harmless, Non-Offensive Ornament

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race, Theological AnimationLeave a comment

ConeFrom James Cone’s The Cross and the Lynching Tree (2013):

Unfortunately, during the course of 2,000 years of Christian history, this symbol of salvation has been detached from any reference to the ongoing suffering and oppression of human beings—those whom Ignacio Ellacuría, the Salvadoran martyr, called “the crucified peoples of history.” The cross has been transformed into a harmless, non-offensive ornament that Christians wear around their necks. Rather than reminding us of the “cost of discipleship,” it has become a form of “cheap grace,” an easy way to salvation that doesn’t force us to confront the power of Christ’s message and mission. Until we can see the cross and the lynching tree together, until we can identify Christ with a “recrucified” black body hanging from a lynching tree, there can be no genuine understanding of Christian identity in America, and no deliverance from the brutal legacy of slavery and white supremacy.

Truth Warriors and the Renewal of Vocation

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized1 Comment

IMG_0971By Bill Wylie-Kellermann, an excerpt from the newly released Principalities in Particular: a Practical Theology of the Powers .

The New York Times has begun to sell “truth.” Advertisements come to my email. You can read them in print. You can see them on TV: “The truth is hard. The truth is hard to find. The truth is hard to know. The truth is more important than ever.” (Even “The truth is: alternative facts are lies.”) Though I myself have railed against the paper and know it needs to be read critically as liberal or neo-liberal corporate media, I’m actually thinking of getting a real world paper subscription. The truth is, as a paper of record, I’ve relied on it in this writing.

Will the attacks on journalistic integrity, on mainstream news as fake news, on the media as the “enemy of the people,” actually prompt a yearning within the fourth estate for the renewal of the journalistic vocation? Continue reading “Truth Warriors and the Renewal of Vocation” →

Wild Lectionary: Judgment and Joy

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment
IMG_9963.JPG
Photo credit: Laurel Dykstra

Proper 24(29)
20th Sunday after Pentecost
Psalm 96

by Calvin Redekop

I love to return again to the Scriptures, to those visions seen by the prophets and apostles and singers of Israel about the “peaceful reign of God.” There is a strange concatenation of judgment and celebration in some of the Psalms, especially Psalms 96 to 99 and 104. Psalm 99 beings, “The Lord is king; let the people tremble!” In many Christian circles it is today politically incorrect to speak about God as king, as reigning, as judging, and instead God is portrayed as a morally nondiscrimination, indulgent Santa. Such and attitude represents the deliberate denial of a theme that runs through the Bible from beginning to end. “The Lord is king,” and one of the functions of a king was to be a judge, to dispense justice.

Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Judgment and Joy” →

Sermon: Wedding Feast

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized1 Comment

index.jpgBy Joshua Weresch
Sunday of Week 28 in Ordinary Time

I really don’t like today’s Gospel reading about the wedding banquet, from Matthew, chapter 22, but I am going to preach on it anyway, because it’s not about what I want but about what you need. I think we both need to hear this reading because it’s hard and difficult and—like the teacher said, tongue-in-cheek, when the student asked what they were doing in class that day—we are ‘working hard and suffering greatly, because life is pain’. I don’t like the reading because I don’t want to think that there are those who are not welcome to the feast, simply because they aren’t rightly dressed or don’t fit in whatever way. Continue reading “Sermon: Wedding Feast” →

Wild Lectionary: We Despised the Pleasant Land

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment
6863477149_86ff790b32_b
Fort McMurray Alberta Tar Sands, Kris Krüg CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Proper 23(28)
19th Sunday after Pentecost
Psalm 106

By Wes Howard-Brook and Sue Ferguson Johnson

When you tell the story of your, your family’s, or your community’s journey, what role does the land and its nonhuman creatures play?

Central to God’s promise to ancient Israel was a land to call their own, both as a people and as local families. In this week’s reading, Psalm 106 presents one of several biblical summaries of Israel’s relationship with YHWH, the land and its peoples. It is framed by “praise YHWH,” although the core of the psalm laments the people’s constant disobedience and forgetfulness. Throughout the psalm, the land is close at hand, beginning with deliverance from Egypt via the Red Sea, and continuing into the wilderness struggles. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: We Despised the Pleasant Land” →