The Third Sunday in Lent
John 4
By Sue Ferguson Johnson and Wes Howard-Brook
John 4 is like a kaleidoscope. From one angle, it is a story about Jesus’ gender-inclusive invitation to dis-cipleship. Turn it slightly and you can see Jesus seeking to heal a hostile history between Samaritans and Judeans. From yet another angle, it speaks to the question of authentic worship. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Love Flows Like a River”
Day 15 of our Lenten Journey through Dr. King’s “Beyond Vietnam” speech.
So they go, primarily women and children and the aged. They watch as we poison their water, as we kill a million acres of their crops. They must weep as the bulldozers roar through their areas preparing to destroy the precious trees. They wander into the hospitals with at least twenty casualties from American firepower for one Vietcong-inflicted injury. So far we may have killed a million of them, mostly children. They wander into the towns and see thousands of the children, homeless, without clothes, running in packs on the streets like animals. They see the children degraded by our soldiers as they beg for food. They see the children selling their sisters to our soldiers, soliciting for their mothers.
What do the peasants think as we ally ourselves with the landlords and as we refuse to put any action into our many words concerning land reform? What do they think as we test out our latest weapons on them, just as the Germans tested out new medicine and new tortures in the concentration camps of Europe? Where are the roots of the independent Vietnam we claim to be building? Is it among these voiceless ones?
———————
A Lenten liturgy from Exodus 17:3-7 and John 4:5-42 from Atlanta-based UCC pastor Julius Jessup Peterson (photo above):
Call to Worship:
Leader: We are called in this time to remember and to anticipate.
People: We can’t see through the fog around us, we are without water, and the fruit of our land is filled with disease.
Leader: We are called to remember that salvation is liberation from the fear of death, and sin is separation from you.
People: Violence has divided us, neighbor against neighbor, loved one against kin, we have lost our way. Continue reading “These Voiceless Ones”
Notes for Lent 2, By Laurel Dykstra
Genesis 12
In these four verses two words, rough synonyms, eretz and adamah, are used for land
Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Heaven and Earth, Sun and Moon, Mountain and Cloud”
Rev. Rebecca Stelle, Church of the Covenant, Lynchburg, VA
Sunday February 26, 2017
Matthew 17:1-9
I adored Gordon, my spiritual teacher and mentor, and I would have willingly followed him up a mountain. But if instead of saying, “Becca, we are going to be developing new forms of church life through which the Spirit can end poverty,” Gordon had said, “Becca, I will be arrested, suffer torture, die at the hands of church leadership and then rise again on the third day,” I can’t imagine what my reaction would have been. Without a context for that kind of comment, my adoration would not have translated to comprehension, and certainly not to collaboration. I’m glad he didn’t say it. Continue reading “Sermon: On Not Taking Up Crosses”
Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time
(many churches observe the Transfiguration this Sunday)
Isaiah 49:8-16
1 Corinthians 4:1-5
Matthew 6: 24-34
By Reverend Dr. Victoria Marie
Today I’m just going to touch on a few points in the Gospel reading in the hopes that they stimulate more thoughts and questions for all of us. To set the stage, look at the unrestrained resource extraction, our addiction to fossil fuels, and the consumerism that threatens to consume us and the earth. Yet, we all have to earn a living and unfortunately, some people have no other choice but to work for industries and systems that are killing us. We have been drafted into a system where we are trying to serve God but are enslaved by wealth; quite a dilemma! Upton Sinclair wrote, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: A Way Without Fear”
Sarah Thompson, director of Christian Peacemaking Team, preaches on Martin Luther King Day at College Mennonite Church.
Sarah’s sermon begins at 46:15 minutes.
Seventh Sunday After the Epiphany
“When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest. You shall not strip your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the stranger: I am YHWH, your God.” (Lev 19.9-10)
By Wes Howard-Brook and Sue Ferguson Johnson
More than any other biblical text, the book of Leviticus claims to express the direct voice of YHWH. Of the 160 uses of the phrase, “I am YHWH” in the Hebrew Bible, 49 uses are in Leviticus. And yet, the book may be among the least respected or understood scriptural texts. It is to this very chapter in Leviticus that Jesus turns when asked about the greatest commandments. Just a few verses down from the quote above we find: “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD” (Lev 19.18; cf. Mk 12.31). Indeed, not only Jesus, but also Paul and James—made into opponents of each other in the post-Reformation culture wars—cite Lev 19.9 as central to discipleship (Rom 13.9; Gal 5.14; James 2.8). Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: The Very Edges of Your Field”
From the Intro to Rev. William Barber’s recent Op-Ed:
President Trump’s first appearance at the National Prayer Breakfast met awkward silence on Thursday (Feb 2) as he began his comments by touting ratings when he was on “The Apprentice.” Unpracticed in the public performance of piety, the candidate who was praised for “telling it like it is” made even his white evangelical base momentarily uneasy as he demonstrated the impotence of their religion to overcome his narcissism. Excused as a “baby Christian” during his campaign, the teen-like Trump continues to expose the hypocrisy of white evangelicalism. Continue reading “Prophetic Moral Challenge”
An exclusive RadicalDiscipleship.Net interview with Ryan Newson, professor of religion, philosophy and ethics at Campbell University. He is the author of Radical Friendship: The Politics of Communal Discernment, coming out on April 1.
RD: Describe how this project started.
RN: This project began during my doctoral studies when I was immersed in Anabaptist theology and political theology, respectively. As I read Anabaptist theologians in depth, I was drawn to a communal form of reasoning about spiritual and moral questions that seemed to haunt that tradition—always lurking even if it was not always perfectly implemented. This picture of radical disciples drawing near one another in order to figure out what God would have them do, or who God would have them be, was magnetic. It reminded me of the form of Christianity that had always appealed to me, and that I had seen practiced by house churches in Camden, NJ, and New Monastic communities in Durham, NC, and Catholic Worker communities in Silk Hope, NC. In particular, I was attracted to the way in which this practice had the potential to guide communities into new waters without fear, acquiescence, or retreat. It certainly carried much more power, it seemed to me, than the way many of my fellow Christians approached questions of discernment: through a wooden, legalistic application of scripture. Continue reading “Radical Friendship”
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”
Radical Discipleship 