I Was A Stranger

On January 30, 2017January 26, 2017 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological Animation1 Comment

From 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” →

Sojourners in Our Midst

On January 28, 2017January 29, 2017 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race, Theological AnimationLeave a comment

From the introduction to Ched Myers’ “A House For All Peoples? A Bible Study on Welcoming the Outsider” (2006):

There have always been two Americas: that of rich and poor, of inclusion and exclusion. The America of inclusion found expression in the ideal of “liberty and justice for all,” and has been embodied whenever Indian treaties were honored, and in the embrace of civil rights, women’s suffrage, or child labor laws. The America of exclusion, on the other hand, was articulated in a Constitution that originally enfranchised only white landed males and has been realized in land grabs, Jim Crow segregation, Gilded Age economic stratification, and restrictive housing covenants.

These two visions of America continually compete for our hearts and minds, not least in our churches. On one side are the voices of Emma Lazarus in her poem “The New Colossus” (“Give me your tired, your poor…”), and Martin Luther King Jr. when he preached “I Have a Dream.” On the other side are those of George W. Bush’s imperial politics and James Dobson’s “Focus on the Family.” Click HERE to read the whole article.

Wild Lectionary: Holy Fools

On January 26, 2017January 17, 2017 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment

4^th Sunday after Epiphany

1 Corinthians 1:18-31

by Tevyn East and Jay Beck, excerpted from Watershed Discipleship: Reinhabiting Bioregional Faith and Practice

The Catholic Feast of Fools was a day for liturgical dramas that dissolved church hierarchy, celebrated becoming a “Fool for Christ” (1 Cor) and enacted the Magnificat’s call to turn society upside down (Luke 1:52–53). This feast day was later suppressed by authorities lived on for centuries within medieval folk culture. Europeans eventually brought many such religious festivities to the New World under the common label “carnival.” Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Holy Fools” →

Wild Lectionary: Under the Cover of His Tent

On January 19, 2017January 17, 2017 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, UncategorizedLeave a comment

dsc02678-768x576 — Great American Backyard Campout photo credit: Chattahoochee Nature Center

3rd Sunday after Epiphany

One thing I asked of the Lord, that I will seek after: to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple.
For he will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble; he will conceal me under the cover of his tent: he will set me high on a rock.
Now my head is lifted up above my enemies all around me, and I will offer in his tent sacrifices with shouts of joy; I will sing and make melody to the Lord. -Psalm 27:4-6

By Sarah Thompson and Na’Taki Osborne Jelks, excerpted from Watershed Discipleship: Reinhabiting Bioregional Faith and Practice

Sarah: Connecting people to land connects us with one another, enabling us to re-knit kinship ties that were broken by enslavement. In the Diaspora, Black folks have had a primarily extractive relationship with the land, and later in industrial factories. We were seen as people whose worth was in our productive capacity, but beyond that, as disposable. It is easy to understand, therefore, why we have had an extractive relationship with one another, and use a lot of disposable things. But this cycle is spiritually devastating. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Under the Cover of His Tent” →

21 Running, Working, Experiential Definitions of Mysticism

On January 18, 2017January 18, 2017 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, Subverting Empire, Theological Animation1 Comment

From Matthew Fox’s The Coming of the Cosmic Christ (1988):

By exposure to each of these “definitions” the reader will begin to feel and make connections with his or her own mysticism, for the purpose of defining mysticism here is to elicit the mystic within each person…

Experience: a trust of the universe, a trust of what is and what occurs to us, yes, a trust of oneself
Non dualism: the end of alienation and the beginning of communion, the end of either/or relationships and the beginning of unity
Compassion: “the keen awareness of the interdependence of all living things which are all part of one another and involved in one another” (Thomas Merton)
Connection Making: by symbols, stories, myths, music and colors, form and ritual–we connect with one another’s deep and often unspoken experiences of life’s mysteries
Radical Amazement: awe is the opposite of taking life for granted
Affirmation of the World as a Whole: neither neutral nor bitter or cynical
Right-Brain: synthesis over analysis and verbalization

Continue reading “21 Running, Working, Experiential Definitions of Mysticism” →

Sermon: Born to Be a Light

On January 17, 2017 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized1 Comment

homrich-9 — Trial for the Homrich 9. Activists blocked trucks from turning off Detroiters’ water.

By Bill Wylie-Kellermann, Saint Peter’s Episcopal Detroit, Epiphany 2, January 15, 2017

Isaiah 49:1-7
Psalm 40:1-11
1 Corinthians 1:1-9
John 1:29-42

Our readings for today echo those of last week. Again we have reference to John, to the baptism of Jesus, the dove alighting upon him, AND again beside it a Servant song from Isaiah.

There is a striking commonality of Second Isaiah and John: both have central figures whose identity is hard to pin down. In the gospel of John it is the “beloved disciple,” identified only by that name. Is this a cipher for John himself, for his beloved community? Is there an historical referent? Even another character in the story? Or is this a narrative figure with which we, as readers, may identify, a call to discipleship by another name? Continue reading “Sermon: Born to Be a Light” →

Sermon: Epiphany under Empire: Remembering Resistance

On January 10, 2017January 4, 2017 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, UncategorizedLeave a comment

3-kings By Ched Myers

Caspar, Melchior, Balthasar, behütet uns auch für dieses Jahr, vor Feuer und vor Wassergefahr. (“…protect us again this year from the dangers of fire and water.”)

— prayer uttered during the traditional German feast of the Three Kings

The origins of the Feast of the Epiphany are historically complicated and ecclesially disputed. We might think of it as a kind of peace offering from the Western to the Eastern Church, given the latter’s (surely older) January 6^th date for the Feast of the Nativity. The Twelve Days of Christmas, in turn, represent a bridge between the two traditions, straddling exactly our celebration of the New Year. Continue reading “Sermon: Epiphany under Empire: Remembering Resistance” →

EPIPHANY: Light to the Powers

On January 6, 2017December 23, 2016 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Excerpt and reflection from Bill Wylie-Kellermann’s Seasons of Faith and Conscience: Explorations in Liturgical Direct Action

Among the liturgical ironies of Epiphany is that the date of this ancient feast should be rooted in a heresy and then subjected to the interests of Roman imperial manipulation.

There were many gnostic approaches to Jesus, all tending to assault the integrity of his person. He wasn’t human,he only ‘appeared’ to be. He floated through life, his feet barely touching ground. Or,as some had it, the divine spirit swooped down on him at a certain point, occupying his body and slipping away just before the agony of the crucifixion. In short, he never died. Nor was he ever born. Against such the creeds,indeed the scriptures themselves, avail. Continue reading “EPIPHANY: Light to the Powers” →

Wild Lectionary: Water is Life

On January 5, 2017January 4, 2017 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment

image-11-3-16-at-1-30-pm — Photo caption: water protectors in the Cannonball River Photo credit: resistmedia

Baptism of the Lord
January 8, 2017

Laurel Dykstra, priest in charge of Salal + Cedar, a watershed discipleship community in Coast Salish Territory near Vancouver BC, and Steve Blackmer, priest at Church of the Woods in Canterbury, NH discuss the readings for January 8.

Steve: There’s so much here but what stands out to me is water, living, real water.
Laurel: What do you mean by “real water”?
S: Real water as opposed to tame water that is contained in the font, sometimes even covered up with a lid, the water itself is tamed and the act of baptism is tamed. But this is actual flowing water. You can imagine Jesus—not a casual surfacing but a splashing, bursting forth! In the psalm the voice of the LORD over mighty waters, powerful and present there’s a sense of divine power. It makes oak trees writhe, that is not a tame God but something wild and untamable.
L: Let’s look at the readings verse by verse. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Water is Life” →

Mary, Our Theologian of Hospitality

On January 4, 2017January 3, 2017 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological AnimationLeave a comment

By Isaac Villegas, Chapel Hill Mennonite Fellowship

Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart (Luke 2:19).

Her heart. We glimpse Mary’s heart in our Bible passage today. A glimmer of her inner life, of what she thinks about, of what will flash through her thoughts over the years, the thirty-three years, as her child grows from infant in the manger to man on the cross.

It’s worth taking our time here, with this verse, with Mary and her heart, because this is a surprising moment in the ancient world—a world dominated by men, where men do all the writing and thinking. So it’s surprising for a piece of literature to tell us that women have thoughts. I know that sounds strange to say—so crazy to think back to a time when men didn’t think it worthwhile to consider the possibility that a woman could have thoughts, thoughts worth pondering, thoughts worth sharing. The ancient world, the Western tradition, is notorious for considering women as more bodily than brainy, more suited for earthly concerns than to have time for thinking, for knowledge, for contemplation and speculation—for theoria, as the ancient philosophers would call it. Continue reading “Mary, Our Theologian of Hospitality” →

Radical Discipleship

Category: Theological Animation