Wild Lectionary: The Prodigal Parent

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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

  1. spending money or resources freely and recklessly; wastefully extravagant. wasteful,extravagant,spendthrift, improvident, imprudent, immoderate, profligate, thriftless, excessive, intemperate, irresponsible, self-indulgent, reckless, wanton
  1. having or giving something on a lavish scale.

generous, lavish, liberal, unstinting, unsparing, bountiful Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: The Prodigal Parent” →

KICKED & PRODDED by the SPIRIT

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, Race, Identity, and History, Subverting Empire, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Descending, Front CoverBy Oscar Cole-Arnal (Oz)
A review of Descending Like A Dove: Adventures in Decolonizing Evangelical Christianity By Tommy Airey

As of April 4, 2018 I have lived a half century pilgrim’s existence hounded, kicked and prodded by the Spirit through weird and wonderful emissaries thereof.  Of course, she had to act this way, precisely because I am of that abominable character best described as a white old fart privileged male—you know that demographic who helped give our world the gifts of Donald Trump and Doug Ford.  So I say to the Spirit and her visitations to me—bring em’ on and more of the same.  Yes, as a young Lutheran pastor well on the road to pastoral and academic success in my first pastorate near Pittsburgh, my world became upturned by martyr’s blood, not my own, but that of Martin Luther King Jr.  With his shed blood pouring from Memphis into my heart, my family and I vowed to disdain our privileges and realign our lives after his model.  So we became civil rights and antiwar activists, strong supporters of Cesar Chavez’ boycott—going to jail, facing baton-wielding cops, having anonymous life threats and ending my paid vocational career in Waterloo, Ontario teaching Church History at the Lutheran Seminary there.  Since retirement, I remain active in a local group called the Alliance Against Poverty. Continue reading “KICKED & PRODDED by the SPIRIT” →

Sermon: An Oak, a Fig Tree, and a Burning Bush

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oakBy Lydia Wylie-Kellermann, homily at Day House Catholic Worker on March 24, 2019

Exodus 3:1-8, 13-15
Luke 13:1-9

It took me a while to get my hands deep enough into this Gospel to feel the unsettling force. At first, the reading seemed simple. The disciples ask Jesus about current events in their time, about people who had been killed, and asked if it was their own fault. Jesus declares with clarity, “NO! But if you don’t turn away from sin, it will happen to you.” This logic didn’t seem quite right to me.

Reading the text within a circle of community earlier this week, allowed the current events of Jesus’ time to morph into our own. Continue reading “Sermon: An Oak, a Fig Tree, and a Burning Bush” →

Taught By The Trees

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological Animation4 Comments

Kim RedBy Kim Redigan, a teacher, organizer and author in Detroit, Michigan

*This is the 13th installation of a year-long series of posts 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.

There was an April day in a small West Bank town when a group of us serving on a peace team witnessed ancient olive trees ripped from the ground by a confluence of machines and the military – an act of violence that literally drove us to our knees in grief.

Years later, I danced among the olive groves in a small village in Greece with my great-aunt Demetra where ancestral trees brought me home to myself, awakening something deep down inside that speaks truth older than history. The same brilliant Mediterranean sun throbbing against a canvas of brilliant blue, the same terraced hills that undulate like patterned green blankets rolled out by Mother Earth, the same brown ground that feels solid and familiar under the feet. Continue reading “Taught By The Trees” →

The Real Substantive Issue

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IlhanAn excerpt from the article “How targeting Ilhan Omar instead of white supremacy furthered both anti-Semitism & Islamophobia” at BlackYouthProject.com by Su’ad Abdul Khabeer, Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, Margari Hill, Rakel Joseph, and Asha Noor:

The false charges of anti-Semitism divert public attention away from the real substantive issue at hand: human rights abuses by the Israeli government in Occupied Palestine and Israel itself. According to the UN Human Rights Council, over 6,000 unarmed Palestinian demonstrators, including children, journalists and medical personnel, were shot by military snipers during the “Great March of Return” protests in Gaza in 2018. Continue reading “The Real Substantive Issue” →

Sitting Together in the Darkness

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BayoFrom Bayo Akomolafe of The Emergence Network:

This time, which some call the Anthropocene, disturbs the idea that we can summarily understand everything that is going on, or that such a venture is even desirable. We can study patterns and notice dynamics, but we can also exercise care and be humble about the reach of language and rhetoric – knowing that (as the Yoruba say) “wisdom is like a baobab tree; one cannot fully embrace it.” Continue reading “Sitting Together in the Darkness” →

I Am

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, Cloud of Witnesses, Subverting Empire2 Comments

Aireys, Early 20sBy Tommy Airey

Note: this was homework assigned by Dr. Lily Mendoza to a beloved community of ethno-autobiographical faith resisters in Detroit, Michigan

I am Southern California branded, but DNA stranded in a blue-eyed tribal scandal, maybe Goth or Vandal—or even a Saxon and Celtic quarrel from long long long ago.

I am the wandering whiteness of Cain, against-the-grain Abraham resisting an abiding city, the peregrini pilgrimage, the wonder voyage, the sign of the cross, always in process. Continue reading “I Am” →

Offer vulnerable words to one another: A Book Review

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dee deeA 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” →

Belovedness

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological Animation1 Comment

Will O'BrienBy Will O’Brien (right), director of the Alternative Seminary in Philly, PA

*This is the 12th installation of a year-long series of posts 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.

Many decades into a vocation of trying to faithfully engage in movements for social justice and peace, I am coming to sense more and more the powerful and radical truth in the simple phrase from the First Letter of John, “God is love” (1 John 4:8). I am utterly convinced that all systematic theologies, all ethics and morality, all spiritualities are subsumed into this daring assertion: God is love. All of the created order is a miracle of love. The human adventure over millennia is the struggle to know and live out our belovedness. The mystery of sin is ultimately the failure to love or to experience belovedness. Jesus the Anointed One embodies love and invites us to a path of love. Continue reading “Belovedness” →