Easter 3C
John 21:1-19
Bring some fish you have caught and come and have breakfast
By The Rev. Marilyn Zehr
This week I loved reading the resurrection story of barbequed fish and bread on the beach through Joanna Macy’s three narrative lens of business as usual, the great unraveling, and the great turning. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Raised for the Great Turning”
Easter 2(B)
John 20:19-31
By Laurel Dykstra
“Doubting Thomas” it’s the name we call someone who demands hard evidence, who won’t accept what we say or who doesn’t share our beliefs.
There are all kinds opportunities in the church use that name against someone. All sorts of differences in the beliefs of faithful Christians: angels, auras, miracles, marriage, dinosaurs, women disciples, Adam and Eve, Noah, what prayer is, what happens during a sacrament, what salvation means, what parts of the creeds we say with confidence and, perhaps most pertinent here, how we understand the resurrection. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Thomas, Bodies, Touch, and Violence”
Easter Year C
Luke 24:13-35
A café in Toronto is to us, what the town square was to locals and travelers alike in villages in first century Palestine. Taking a quick detour from my compulsive list of daily activities, I deke into the café at the corner of King St. East and Jarvis. Filled with other delightful misfits and strangers I find solace in their company. As I snuggle up onto the only remaining seat on a bench with my earl grey tea, a young woman smiles at me.
Breaking news at the top of the hour is alarming: “The former Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould and the former Minister of Indigenous Relations Jane Philpott have been removed from the Liberal Caucus!” My neighbor and I begin to talk. A woman at another table is moved by our animated conversation: “What has happened?” she presses. Seemingly the only three in the café that know the events of late, our debate begins. We agree, at the heart of the “SNC-Lavalin” matter is not just a personal misunderstanding, but rather the power of corporations to define the overarching political and economic landscape above public interests. I am ever more incensed with the reality of corporate power when the news continues with the coverage of Canada’s climate change. The report is “beyond grim.” It warns that Canada’s climate has been warming at roughly twice the rate of the rest of the world! In Northern Canada, it’s even higher.” As our communal lament continues, a man with his back turned to us as he leaves, snaps: “I am tired of this conversation they should just move on, this is the way the world is.” His aggressive afront is disheartening, even as he leaves without the respect of listening. It’s the deadening silence from so many others who remain fixed to their phones though, that fuels my disappointment more. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Disappointment as Easter Hope”
Geez magazine has a Call for Pitches out on Climate Change. We hope that with Geez’s new move to Detroit that there will be a powerful mingling of RadicalDiscipleship and Geez communities. We encourage you to submit a pitch.
Deadline May 10, 2019
“Adults keep saying ‘We owe it to the young people to give them hope” But I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel everyday. And then I want you to act…I want you to act as if your house is on fire. Because it is.”
~Greta Thunberg, 16 year-old Swedish climate activist
“Mother Nature — militarized, fenced-in, poisoned — demands that we take action.”
~Berta Caceres, Indigenous Honduran activist, assassinated in March 2016
This isn’t an issue about the science. This isn’t an issue that debates just how many years human beings have left on the planet. We know the science is out there and that it is dire. This is an issue about how we live in its midst. Continue reading “Call for Pitches: Climate Change and Climate Justice”
Lent 5C
John 12:1-8
By Ragan Sutterfield
The current level of atmospheric carbon is just above 411 parts per million–a level that is catastrophic and rising. While little has been done, the efforts of most institutions both governmental and non-governmental have treated the problem like a math equation. Cut fossil fuels by X amount. Increase forest carbon sinks by Y. Problem solved. But the problem has not been solved any better than the problem of a person who counts calories but does not trust in the goodness and value of their own body. We have failed to recognize that carbon is not the problem; that it is only the symptom of an underlying disease of our habits and hearts, a matter of our affections more than arithmetic.
Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Affection vs. Effectiveness”
By Judy Steers
“They brought the colt to Jesus, threw their cloaks on it and put Jesus on it. As he went along, people spread their cloaks on the road. When he came near the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen: ‘Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!’ ‘Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!’ “
Luke 19 36-38
I’ll reveal my age perhaps when I relate the story of Palm Sunday in the church where I grew up. The day beforehand, the women of the altar guild would gather with their daughters (we were all between 9 and 15 years old) to practice the art of turning large bundles of green palm fronds into crosses. We would make probably a couple of hundred and put them in water to keep fresh until the Sunday morning. The best branch was saved to be displayed behind the cross at the high altar. The palms came to us in large shipping crates, wrapped in damp cloths. It felt like an honoured task, and I can still hear the satisfying scchickkk sound of the woody edges being split and peeled away from the supple inner part of the palm leaf which was pliable enough to bend and fold into shape. I had never of course seen a palm tree and it was mysterious and exotic to handle these stiff, pale green fronds. There is a huge nostalgia in this, and I taught my own children and many Sunday School kids over the years to make them. Continue reading “Wild Liturgy: Coats and Branches”
Lent 4C
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
By Carmen Retzlaff
Luke 15:30 But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’
Luke 15:31 Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.
Luke 15:32 But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.’
prod·i·gal
adjective
generous, lavish, liberal, unstinting, unsparing, bountiful Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: The Prodigal Parent”
A review of The Soulmaking Room by Dee Dee Risher
By Lydia Wylie-Kellermann
When Dee Dee Risher’s book first came out in April 2016, I quickly posted an interview with her on RadicalDiscipleship.net to promote the book. I was already thirty pages in and in my short introduction, I swore that while reading books had fallen out of my life due to sleepless toddler nights, I would finish this book! Continue reading “Offer vulnerable words to one another: A Book Review”
Lent 2C
Luke 9:28-43
By Lucy Price
Matthew, Mark and Luke all contain seizures and demons in the same sentence and some even translate the word to epilepsy. Lunatic and moonstruck are closer to the original translation, but in any case growing up in the church as a person living with epilepsy, hearing the story of the boy brought to Jesus for healing left me with a knot in my stomach and a lump in my throat. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: The Boy with Epilepsy- Listening Again”
Lent 1
Deuteronomy 26:1-11
Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16
Romans 10:8b-13
Luke 4:1-13
By Rev. Dr. Victoria Marie
As I reflected on today’s readings, the theme they seemed to weave together is to begin Lent by reviewing our stories. With the First Reading, in which the writers of Deuteronomy are giving the reader a sort of Last Will and Testament of Moses, God’s people are reminded of their history and God’s presence in it. They are told to recount that history in ritual and celebration. We are also being reminded to reflect on our personal intergenerational stories. Who were our ancestors? How was God with them as they journeyed? How do their stories impact your story? How has God’s presence in all of our stories led us to where we are today: physically, socially, emotionally and spiritually? The First Reading reminds us to ponder these questions as we reflect on our stories. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Roots and Stories”
Radical Discipleship 