Ready for Silence

On December 3, 2016December 1, 2016 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized1 Comment

By Madeleine L’Engle

Then hear now the silence
He comes in the silence
in silence he enters
the womb of the bearer
in silence he goes to
the realm of the shadows
redeeming and shriving
in silence he moves from
the grave cloths, the dark tomb
in silence he rises
ascends to the glory
leaving his promise
leaving his comfort
leaving his silence
So come now, Lord Jesus
Come in your silence
breaking our noising
laughter of panic
breaking this earth’s time
breaking us breaking us
quickly Lord Jesus
make no long tarrying
When will you come
and how will you come
and will we be ready
for silence
your silence

The Rim

On December 2, 2016November 17, 2016 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized2 Comments

silver-rim —Rose Marie Berger

The meaning is in the waiting. —R.S. Thomas

Like a silver goblet, Advent
slips round again passing through heat

and the End of Days a darkness
too searing for the lip. Smiths

engrave the old year beneath
the rim. Tradition keeps memory

gradual. The pedestal base round
as the new year full of what lies

ahead. Is it hope? Or simply
the exodus of this generation
into the flames of the one coming.

The Evangelexit Strategy

On November 30, 2016September 16, 2017 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation2 Comments

By Tommy Airey

We shall not cease from exploration.
And at the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
T.S. Eliot

Orange County, CA

Eighty-One Percent of white Evangelical Christians voted for Donald Trump earlier this month. This awfully revealing statistic, and my month-long visit to Southern California suburbia, has given me reason to reflect on the white Evangelical Christianity that “saved me” when I was ten, kept me pure in adolescence and then socialized me into early adulthood. It was a passionate faith that I eventually had to unfriend after going on a journey of questioning, praying and studying the deeper, more complex realities of life in both the world and the church. Continue reading “The Evangelexit Strategy” →

Advent 1 Sermon

On November 29, 2016November 29, 2016 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized2 Comments

Advent marks the beginning of a new church year. Radicaldiscipleship also begins a new tradition for the year of posting sermons following the lectionary readings. It is a chance to honor the work of pastors who are part of this circle of radical disciples who spend each week examining the readings and the times.

Sermon by Bill Wylie-Kellermann
Advent 1 November 27, 2016, St. Peter’s Episcopal, Detroit

Isaiah 2:1-5
Psalm 122
Romans 13:11-14
Matthew 24:36-44

Advent is certainly the favorite liturgical season in our family. My own as well. We embrace the holy in candle-lit darkness as in our Taize services beginning tomorrow evening. In fact, in our household we light the wreath and sing on the eve before – kind of like a Jewish Shabbat service beginning the day at sundown. It’s the hour of prophetic promise. We anticipate the dawn and wait. There is a wakefulness in the dark, like a stiff cold breeze on the face. The stripped down sparseness of the season is so welcome a counter to the commercial shopping season of frenzied anxiety. Not to denigrate gift giving, but to deepen the gift, I commend it more as a season of gift making, than gift buying. In those crafts and constructions are a place for prayer. Continue reading “Advent 1 Sermon” →

Cider Blessing

On November 25, 2016November 10, 2016 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized, Watershed Discipleship1 Comment

cider press.jpg Written by Kate Foran as a wedding blessing this fall.

On this day you invite your beloveds to the feast,
provide meat and drink to do justice to the harvest.
As you attended to every detail of this celebration,
you had a vision of serving the season’s cider
pressed and unfiltered
in the old way–beginning to bubble,
hospitable to the wild yeasts–
the bouquets of microflora that are our ancestors and guests,
making life from decay, enacting everyday Cana miracles.
Generations of households have observed
the domestic mystery of cider, preserving the yield of the trees
in a draught more common and reliable than water. Continue reading “Cider Blessing” →

Confronting Empire with the Word

On November 17, 2016July 28, 2017 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation3 Comments

By Wes Howard-Brook and Sue Ferguson Johnson

As I watched in the night visions, I saw one like a human being coming with the clouds of heaven. And he came to the Ancient One and was presented before him. To him was given dominion and glory and kingship, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not pass away, and his kingship is one that shall never be destroyed.” (Daniel 7.13-14)

The final Sunday of the church year celebrates the feast of Christ the King. It is at once a redundant and a confounding claim: Greek christos translates Hebrew meshiyah, meaning “anointed,” marking a person as a king (or priest, in some Jewish traditions). That is, the very label “Christ” for Jesus suggests royal authority. Yet many today reject the image and language of “kingdom” in relation to the nonviolent Jesus, preferring the wordplay, “kindom.” While we certainly embrace the image of the discipleship community as one, big family of faith, we believe that something crucial to who Jesus is—and who we are as radical disciples—is lost when we abandon the notion of God’s “kingdom.” Continue reading “Confronting Empire with the Word” →

Pâstâhowin: The Cosmic Consequences of Breaking Covenant

On November 10, 2016November 10, 2016 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation1 Comment

By Ched Myers

Note: This is Ched’s last post in a series of weekly comments on the Lukan gospel readings from the Revised Common Lectionary during Year C, 2016. Thanks to RadicalDiscipleship.net for hosting these gospel commentaries over these last couple of years!

On the day after the election, we awake to an America dominated by what Van Jones (on election night) called “whitelash.” How resonant, then, is Sunday’s gospel:

“The days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down….” (Lk 21:6); and

“By your endurance you will gain your souls.” (21:19)

Continue reading “Pâstâhowin: The Cosmic Consequences of Breaking Covenant” →

Worship & Power

On October 26, 2016October 27, 2016 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Cloud of Witnesses, Theological Animation1 Comment

The legendary Vern Ratzlaff (right), Canadian Mennonite pastor and professor, was sporting his 5-inch beard long before practically every American white guy under 35 started growing theirs. Vern is spending free time at his outpost in Saskatoon reading dense anti-imperial theology and preparing sermons for Sundays at the rural church he’s been the interim pastor for the past decade. This is an excerpt from a paper entitled “Worship and Power” that he wrote for the Baptist Peace Fellowship a few years ago: Continue reading “Worship & Power” →

Happy Day

On October 24, 2016October 6, 2016 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Art as Resistance, Biography as Theology, Theological AnimationLeave a comment

By Ric Hudgens

Chicago thirty years ago
Hot August night
Apartments stacked close
No air conditioning
Everyone’s windows up
Taverns close at 3 am
Patrons weave their way home
Sound slides through night air
“O happy day, O happy day”
One voice ascends in a boozy baritone
“When Jesus washed . . . “
A one man marching choir
“ . . . My sins away.”
Heat, sweat, volume keep everyone awake
“O happy day, O happy day.” Continue reading “Happy Day” →

Praying Ourselves Down From Our Privileged Perch

On October 19, 2016July 28, 2017 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological AnimationLeave a comment