All In

On June 28, 2019June 25, 2019 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological AnimationLeave a comment

By Wes Howard-Brook and Sue Ferguson Johnson, on this week’s Gospel passage (Luke 9:51-62)

*Originally posted June 2016 on radicaldiscipleship.net

“When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.”

This week’s Gospel offers some of the most challenging, urgently needed by us today messages found in Luke’s Gospel. It is a companion with next week’s Gospel, which directly follows this week’s passage. We will address them as a two-part unit in this and our next commentary. Continue reading “All In” →

Wild Lectionary: Guided by the Spirit

On June 27, 2019June 26, 2019 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, Subverting Empire, Theological AnimationLeave a comment

Third Sunday After Pentecost
Proper 8(13)

Galatians 5:1, 13-25

By Christy Thomson

I recently returned from a month-long work trip to Europe where I spent some time in Slovenia facilitating a training. My work as a trainer and mentor for ANFT (Association of Nature and Forest Therapy guides and programs) is rewarding, challenging and gives me ample opportunity to face the questions this week’s reading brings to mind; am I living in the Spirit? Do I allow the Spirit to be my guide? What does it look like/feel like to live in the Spirit?

If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit. Galatians 5:25 Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Guided by the Spirit” →

Trans Mountain Lament

On June 26, 2019June 21, 2019 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Art as Resistance, Just Peacemaking, Uncategorized, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment

Photo-by-vikki — Photo by Victoria Marie

By Rev. Dr. Victoria Marie (June 13, 2019)

The State says they want to make things right with First Nations
Yet their actions lead to more and more desolation
Reconciliation’s just a word to those who hold power
As policies continue to make relationships sour Continue reading “Trans Mountain Lament” →

Eco-ministry

On June 25, 2019June 20, 2019 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Uncategorized, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment

By Ric Hudgens

The first week of June I joined with fifteen other “ministers” for a six-day eco-ministry intensive. This retreat was sponsored by Ecology of Awakening and the Chaplaincy Institute and funded by the Riverstyx Foundation.

These sixteen religious leaders all recognized the need to re-hear our original calls to ministry. Our communities are anxious and fatigued. We minister among them in times of crisis, injustice, polarizing and sometimes paralyzing despair.

Can we embody a faith-rooted activism that protects the sacredness of the Earth?

If the Earth community is to flourish, if our future is to be regenerative, then we must change at a very core level. We need prophetic imaginations that affirm the whole of life and not merely promote our brand, or expand our tribe. Continue reading “Eco-ministry” →

Jesus and the Nice White Lady

On June 24, 2019June 17, 2019 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, Theological Animation4 Comments

By Nichola Torbett

*This is part of a series of pieces from contributors all over North America each answering the question, “How would you define radical discipleship?” We will be posting responses regularly on Mondays during 2019.

Then someone from the part of occupied Turtle Island known as the Midwest came to him and said, “Teacher, I want to follow you. I want to access that eternal life I have heard about–that rich, juicy, for-real life, and most of the time I feel like I’m walking around with a film of plastic between me and the world. My therapist says maybe it’s dissociation from when I was a kid…. Continue reading “Jesus and the Nice White Lady” →

Wealth Producing Maniacs

On June 23, 2019June 13, 2019 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological Animation1 Comment

Another one of Peter Maurin’s legendary “easy essays.”

1. When John Calvin
legalized money-lending at interest,
he made the bank account
the standard of values.

2. When the bank account
became the standard of values,
people ceased to produce for use
and began to produce for profits. Continue reading “Wealth Producing Maniacs” →

Deepen My Yearning

On June 22, 2019June 17, 2019 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Art as Resistance, Theological AnimationLeave a comment

By Steve Garnaas-Holmes (right), curator of Unfolding Light, a daily reflection rooted in a contemplative, Creation-centered spirituality, often inspired by his daily walk in the woods. To subscribe to Steve’s poems, click here.

Recently some stuff of ours got destroyed.
I’m discovering the innards of grief..
We were planning on giving the stuff away,
so it’s not the stuff I mourn, though it was valuable.
It’s what I’m discovering I need to let go of.
Attachment to what could have been— let it go.
Blame of those who destroyed it— let it go.
Shock at discovering a dark side of someone I trusted — let it go.
Anger at the powerlessness of badly wanting something back
I can’t get back.
Promising myself to stop rehearsing outrage… but I do.
Dashed hopes…work wasted… feeling violated…let it all go.
How many ways desire clings,
how many little pieces there are to letting go. Continue reading “Deepen My Yearning” →

A Scandalous Shock to the System

On June 21, 2019June 8, 2019 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological AnimationLeave a comment

By Wes Howard-Brook and Sue Ferguson Johnson, on this Sunday’s Gospel text (Luke 7:1-10)

*Originally posted on May 27, 2016.

All the dynamics of this week’s passage from Luke’s Gospel are “wrong.” For instance, how are we to imagine Jewish elders in Capernaum speaking on behalf of a Roman centurion? Further, they paint him as the primary patron of their synagogue. And not only this, but the centurion sends the elders to Jesus, at this point in Luke’s narrative, an itinerant preacher and healer with no official authority at all. Finally, Jesus praises the centurion for having a faith that Jesus has not found among the people of Israel. What could be going on here? Continue reading “A Scandalous Shock to the System” →

Wild Lectionary: Guerilla Exegesis

On June 20, 2019June 19, 2019 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized, Watershed Discipleship2 Comments

9781610974011 Pentecost 2C
The Demon Legion

By Obery Hendricks

An excerpt from “Guerilla Exegesis: ‘Struggle’ As A Scholarly Vocation,” Libertating Biblical Study (Cascade, 2011).

Guerrilla exegesis is transgressive. Irreverent. Asks questions: Silly Wabbit, how can the possessive demonic presence called “Legion” in Mark 5, the occupying presence tht wrought the bitter pathology of oppression in Mark’s community and sought to remain in possession of the country, not the man (v. 10), be anything but the Roman military? Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Guerilla Exegesis” →

Learning from Laughter and the Trees: An Armful of Bones

On June 19, 2019June 17, 2019 By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, Uncategorized, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment

By Lydia Wylie-Kellermann

I had never noticed how the melting snow of spring makes way for bones. One May morning, we wake early to walk the few acres of woods in the thumb of Michigan. Every few minutes, someone calls out “over here!” and we all rush over with our eyes on the composting leaves. A spine bone here. A skull there. Teeth still nestled in a jaw bone. A river otter? Fox? Racoon? Isaac tries to fit the bones back together in place and using his overly abundant 6-year-old animal knowledge attempts to determine the mysterious creatures. Later he will riffle through pages of his animal track books for further guessing. Cedar on the other hand just wants to fill his small arms with bones until he has so many he asks me to carry the extras. It’s not my first instinct to hold skulls in my hand with any delight or ease. Continue reading “Learning from Laughter and the Trees: An Armful of Bones” →