Salal + Cedar + Watershed Discipleship

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Just Peacemaking, Subverting EmpireLeave a comment

Salal and CedarRe-posted from the website of KAIROS Canada, uniting Canadian churches and religious organizations in a faithful ecumenical response to the call to “do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8).

While the just transition to a clean energy economy requires new technology and new ways of understanding our planet, it also calls on us to embrace new ways of knowing one another; to living in right relations with each other and with the earth. Salal + Cedar is a ministry located in Coast Salish territory which is supporting Christians on this path. Salal + Cedar is part of a growing movement across North America called Watershed Discipleship. This movement seeks to reconnect people to the creation-values at the core of Christian tradition and explores ways for communities to reconnect with the land and water, and all living things of a particular place. For Salal + Cedar this means seeking transformative encounters with the species and geography of the Salish Sea basin and Fraser River watershed. A watershed is an area of land where precipitation and surface water flow to a single body of water. Because we are all part of a watershed, no matter where we live, we can all have these encounters in our own watersheds. Continue reading “Salal + Cedar + Watershed Discipleship” →

Brave Space

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological Animation1 Comment
Screen Shot 2018-11-13 at 4.31.09 PM
PC: Michael Raymond Smith

By Micky ScottBey Jones, re-posted from her website here   

Together we will create brave space

Because there is no such thing as a “safe space”

We exist in the real world

We all carry scars and we have all caused wounds.

In this space

We seek to turn down the volume of the outside world,

We amplify voices that fight to be heard elsewhere, Continue reading “Brave Space” →

Wild Lectionary: Apocalypse

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized, Watershed Discipleship1 Comment

fireReign of Christ
Proper 29 (34) B

Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14
Revelation 1:4b-8

By: Ron Berezan

I used to avoid apocalyptic scriptures like the plague.  I’m beginning to rethink that.

For many years, I found the violent imagery, intense dualism and gnostic sounding anti-earth passages too hard to stomach. So I chose to ignore them – mostly. I’ll admit, there was always a tinge of guilty fascination, a bit like staring at an accident scene, even though I knew I really shouldn’t.

Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Apocalypse” →

We Need a Moral Breakthrough

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Cloud of Witnesses, Subverting Empire, Theological AnimationLeave a comment

BarberAn excerpt from Rev. William Barber’s address presented before the 74th Union for Reform Judaism Biennial convention on December 6, 2017.

We are here tonight, and 62 years ago would have been the fifth day of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Today, when the prophetic actions of Rosa Parks like Shiphra and Puah in the Bible, chose to challenge the Pharaoh of Jim Crow. She sat down and birthed a movement on a stage that produced a prophet like Moses named Martin. She sparked a nonviolent revolution. Continue reading “We Need a Moral Breakthrough” →

Nuestros Sueños

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race, Identity, and History, Subverting Empire, Uncategorized1 Comment
immigration
By Julia Jack-Scott

By Liza Neal

“Nuestros sueños no se detendrán incluso en la muerte.”  Our dreams will not stop even in death.

These words are painted on the Mexico side of the Border Wall.  It could have been carved on the Mayflower.  Half the Pilgrims that traveled to the “new world” died. The rest would have died if not for the mercy of the Wampanoag, who were repaid with disease, indoctrination, and their leader’s head on a spike displayed next to the Pilgrims’ crops. Continue reading “Nuestros Sueños” →

Come, you whose lamps are blazing

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, UncategorizedLeave a comment

index.jpgBy Kat Friesen

Gathering

Come, you whose lamps are blazing,
and come, you whose lamps are dim.
Come, salty ones, and come,
you whose lives are feeling bland.
Come worship the One who was, and is, and is to come,
our God who restores our lamps with oil,
our God who renews our saltiness,
so that together we may be a city alight with praise,
a city that makes known the Glory of the Lord!

Confessing/reconciling

God who sees the needs of the oppressed,
We confess that our piety, our prayers and our habits are empty without justice.
God who hears the cries of the workers, of the homeless, of the hungry,
We confess our fear of risk, our fear of being made vulnerable
in the face of so much need.
Assure us again of Your healing in our weakness,
of Your abundance in our sharing and in our receiving.

Counter-Recruiting for the Politics of Nonviolence

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological AnimationLeave a comment

BindingComments on this week’s Gospel text (Mark 13:1-8) from Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus (1988), the commentary from Ched Myers, celebrating 30 years of prophetic utterance. 

The images Mark uses in 13:7f.–wars, famines, earthquakes–are all virtually generic to apocalyptic literature. One need only consult contemporaneous apocalyptic literature such as John’s Revelation, 4 Ezra, the Assumption of Moses, or the Qumran war scrolls. At the same time, these events could be correlated to contemporaneous history. “Rumors of war” aptly characterizes and describes the way in which news regarding the seesaw political events of 68-70 C.E. would have circulated around Palestine. Was the siege coming? Were the Romans withdrawing? “Kingdom rising against kingdom” might have referred to the wavering fortunes of Rome in 67, embroiled in a civil war and fearing a Parthian invasion. Major natural disasters were also part of contemporaneous history, such as the famine (which hit Palestine especially hard) of the early 50s C.E., or the earthquakes and volcanic eruptions that destroyed Laodicia and Pompei in 61-62 C.E. Both Mark and his opponents could–and did–appeal to the “plurivalent” (multi-referential) nature of apocalyptic symbolics in making their respective cases. Continue reading “Counter-Recruiting for the Politics of Nonviolence” →

Aftermath of the Great War’s Armistice

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Just Peacemaking, Subverting EmpireLeave a comment

ArmisticeBy Ken Sehested

The Resurrection is the Beloved’s own
Armistice, intimate seal on ancient covenant,
when the rain’s own bow arches in the flood’s
aftermath as divine reminder, animus receding
by act of divine contrition:

Never again. Never again.*
No longer will Heaven respond with drowning
contempt over earth’s profaning habit. Divine
remorse calls out for creaturely requite. The
soil itself destined for fertile bounty’s return. Continue reading “Aftermath of the Great War’s Armistice” →

Wild Lectionary: Hope in Difficult Times

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment

2018-11-18-Clipped-Photo-by-Larry_Howell.jpgProper 28(33)
26th Sunday after Pentecost

Daniel 12:1-3
Hebrews 10:11-14, (15-18), 19-25
Mark 13:1-8

By Rev. Dr. Victoria Marie

Today’s homily, like most of my homilies, is not merely to preach to you but to call myself to account. It is part of my ongoing aim to preach a message of hope in these times, when the life of our planet and peace in our world are under threat.

Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Hope in Difficult Times” →