Wild Lectionary: It’s not about the bread

On July 26, 2018 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment

raspberry Proper 12 (Year B)
July 29, 2018
John 6:1-21

By The Reverend Marilyn Zehr

Jesus said, “Make the people sit down.” Now there was a great deal of grass in the place; so they sat down, about five thousand in all. Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted. When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, “Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.”

Funny story, true story: As I write this I am at a large Church Conference as a “guest,” where on Sunday, I heard an inspiring sermon on the feeding of the multitude story as told by Mark. After worship and communion where we shared a morsel of the Bread of Life dipped in grape juice, we eventually found our way to the cafeteria for lunch. As a “guest” for a couple of days I had not purchased a meal plan and so was hoping to purchase a random ticket for lunch. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: It’s not about the bread” →

Jesus is our Messiah because He Broke Laws

On July 24, 2018July 26, 2018 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized1 Comment

Shared with us from Friendly Fire Collective.

At the beginning of the 2016 version of The Magnificent Seven, the mine owner Bartholomew Bogue gives a pseudo-sermon to the townspeople of Rose City who do not want to give him their land. He tells them that, in America, democracy is equated with capitalism and capitalism with God. Therefore, by resisting him, they were standing in the way of democracy, progress, and even God. After this blasphemous sermon, he and his men burn the church the townspeople met in. Continue reading “Jesus is our Messiah because He Broke Laws” →

Gifts on the Shelf: An invitation to a children project

On July 23, 2018July 17, 2018 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Art as Resistance, Race, Identity, and History, UncategorizedLeave a comment

20180717_133052 By Lydia Wylie-Kellermann

While I waited for my kids to fall asleep, I looked through their bookshelf nurtured by the stories and creativity that rests beside them. There, untouched, were the biographies, the history, the celebrations of protest. These ones always seemed to be neglected when the choices were made with options of talking mice, farting dogs, or gigantic excavators.

I want these stories read and loved. I want them to become part of the fabric of their ancestral history….a movement ancestry. To learn these stories by heart. I want movement history learned as a way to help these boys navigate the scary world they are growing up in. I needed to figure out how to honor the stories and bring the out with gifted anticipation. I needed to create ritual and tradition around them. Continue reading “Gifts on the Shelf: An invitation to a children project” →

Wild Lectionary: A Contrast of Economies

On July 19, 2018August 12, 2018 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment

wild lectionary.png Ninth Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 11(16)

By Rachael Bullock

Psalm 23:1-3
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters;
he restores my soul.

If you haven’t noticed, the conversation around fossil fuels can often be a fairly tense one. This is especially true as political discourse in North America becomes increasingly polarized. As I’ve listened most recently to arguments about Kinder Morgan’s pipeline, oil sands in Alberta, the future of environmental policies, I notice that the general arguments in favour of nonrenewable energy rests on the assumption that there is not enough – in general, not just economically. This makes sense given that when discussing “environmentalism” or any other subject, it is never simply a conversation “about the facts”. Rather, it becomes a dialogue in which participants are often not even aware that underlying life experiences, societal messages, and driving ideologies are brought into play. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: A Contrast of Economies” →

Review of Dianne Bergant, A New Heaven, a New Earth: The Bible and Catholicity

On July 17, 2018July 19, 2018 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Uncategorized, Watershed Discipleship1 Comment

book By Wes Howard-Brook

Readers here of the “Wild Lectionary” series hardly need to be convinced of the Bible’s deep concern for all of God’s good creation. Our shared journey through the Scriptures from the perspective of Earth and her creatures has brought forth beautiful, poignant and powerful reflections on our own broken relationship with creation and the path to mutual healing.

But as we also know, humanity as a whole continues to run roughshod over the planet as if the constant alarm bells of record-breaking heat, storms and drought were not audible over the din of commerce and headphoned distractions. People who identity as “Christians” often lead the charge of climate denial and rejection of God’s love for creation. For such people, Dianne Bergant’s solid, steady, gentle overview of the Bible’s message of ecojustice may be just what is needed to shift perspective enough to join the movement to transform and to heal our relationship with creation. Continue reading “Review of Dianne Bergant, A New Heaven, a New Earth: The Bible and Catholicity” →

Trayvon Martin, the Legacy of Lynching, and the Role of White Women

On July 16, 2018 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

melanie-5-25-15 By Melanie S. Morrison. Re-posted from LivingFormations.

*Five years ago , George Zimmerman was exonerated for the killing of Trayvon Martin. Three years ago today, Sandra Bland was found dead in a Waller County Texas jail cell. Just this week the Department of Justice announced a re-opening of its investigation into the lynching of Emmett Till. It is in this context we share this piece. Melanie S. Morrison reflects on legacies of lynching and the particular roles white women and cultures surrounding white womanhood have played in the killing of Black people and the failure of any system to hold anyone responsible. Morrison reflects as she simultaneously steeps herself in the courageous legacy of Lillian E. Smith, as an exceptionally rare white southern woman who dared challenge white supremacy and who knew all too well the role white women and white “liberals” play in sustaining it. We have much history to reckon with as we seek to do our work today. -Jennifer Harvey

Some problems we share as women, some we do not. You [white women] fear your children will grow up to join the patriarchy and testify against you; we [black women] fear our children will be dragged from a car and shot down in the street, and you will turn your backs on the reasons they are dying. – Audre Lorde

I had returned to the Lillian E. Smith Center for the Arts in the mountains of North Georgia for three weeks of solitude in July 2013. I hoped to make significant headway on my research and writing about the intergenerational legacy of lynching and how this reign of terror remains largely unacknowledged by the descendants of its white perpetrators. Continue reading “Trayvon Martin, the Legacy of Lynching, and the Role of White Women” →

Wild Lectionary: Baptized in Dirty Water

On July 12, 2018 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized, Watershed Discipleship1 Comment

08b16ba9-5421-4489-912d-90b3f2b9ff43 Proper 10(15) B
By Tevyn East and Jay Beck

Some were saying, “John the baptizer has been raised from the dead.” Mark 6:14

No shape. No symbols. Everything fluid. Everything wind and water.
God created chaos.
Swirling swamp potential of formlessness.
Only out of this swirling chaos can any creation be born.

I see.
I hear.
I feel. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Baptized in Dirty Water” →

Rekindled by Ritual

On July 10, 2018June 29, 2018 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological Animation, Uncategorized1 Comment

By Joyce Hollyday

How to hold the heartbreak and the outrage? Hundreds of babies and toddlers, schoolchildren and teenagers wrenched from the embrace of their parents, many now sobbing inconsolably in immigrant detention centers—some unbelievably lost in the system. My friend Rosalinda, who used to earn just pennies an hour working in a U.S. factory on the Mexican border, who had a nephew who was murdered there, felt a need to tell me her own family’s story of escape from desperate poverty and rampant violence. She related a harrowing saga of vulnerable hiding places, grueling river and desert crossings, capture and release by Border Patrol agents, and a second attempt—all endured so that her children might have safety, enough food, and the chance to grow up. It is unimaginable to think that they might have been stolen from her here. Continue reading “Rekindled by Ritual” →

A Prayer for this Disaster

On July 9, 2018June 29, 2018 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, UncategorizedLeave a comment

36361372_10160523878850174_6146160486191726592_o — Photo by Meg Marshall

By Micah Bucey

You are trying to kill our joy,
But you have no idea
How strong disaster makes us.

Joy is permanent, not temporary or erasable,
As it seems civil rights are.
Joy is sturdy, not weak and shifty,
As it seems our leaders are.
Joy is deep, not shallow or fleeting,
As it seems our democracy is.

Continue reading “A Prayer for this Disaster” →

Wild Lectionary: Wild and Unpredictable Incarnate Word

On July 5, 2018July 4, 2018 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized, Watershed Discipleship1 Comment

Proper 9 (14) B
^7th Sunday after Pentecost
Mark 6:1-3

By Holly Rockwell

Jesus left that place and went to his hometown . . . he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astounded. They said, “Where did this man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been given to him? What deeds of power are being done by his hands! Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joseph and Judas and Simon. Aren’t his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him.

“Where did this man get all this?”

The townspeople hear and comment on Jesus’ wisdom, note his healing power, and are “astounded.” And still they are blinded by what they think they already know. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Wild and Unpredictable Incarnate Word” →

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