The Prophetic Script

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bartBy Ched Myers, for the 2nd Sunday of Lent (Luke 13: 31-35

Note: This is part of a series of Ched’s occasional comments on the Lukan gospel readings from the Revised Common Lectionary during year C, 2016.

More than any other gospel writer, Luke portrays Jesus as using Israel’s prophets for his own interpretive lens. This theme stretches across the whole arc of Luke’s story, from its beginning where the coming promise of redemption comes “through the mouth of God’s holy prophets from of old” (1:70) to the Emmaus road epilogue, which stresses this traditions as a hermeneutic key to the problem of suffering: “Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets he interpreted to them the scriptures” (24:25-7; 44f). Continue reading “The Prophetic Script” →

What “Empire” Adds

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If Not EmpireBy Berry Friesen, originally posted to his blog on February 1, 2016

Does the word “empire” enter your conversations with friends, colleagues and family members?   Is it used in your place of worship?  Do you see it in the articles and books you read, the videos you watch?

When “empire” is part of your lexicon, here’s what also becomes part of your analytical framework.   Continue reading “What “Empire” Adds” →

Harboring Hope

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immigrant-rights-now1By Joyce Hollyday

Amid our usual array of alternative-Christian-chic denim and earth-tone fleece, 4-year-old Angelita sparkles like a gem. Her hair is braided with colorful ribbons, and she’s wearing what I presume is her Christmas outfit: a bright sweater patterned with bold red flowers, a black velvet skirt, and shiny patent leather shoes.

A couple that is part of Circle of Mercy, my faith community, has agreed to care for Angelita and her older brothers if her parents are forcibly sent back to Guatemala. As we hear the details of the legal arrangement, Angelita sits in her father’s lap, snuggling against his chest. It’s a bittersweet gift, I think, as Angelita’s mother tearfully expresses her gratitude. Continue reading “Harboring Hope” →

Weeds as a Model of Healing Broken Places

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KyleMitchBy Kyle Mitchell

Having worked on an urban vegetable farm for the past 3 years, I’ve had the chance to encounter lots of things we affectionately call weeds. They mostly get a bad rap for stealing water, nutrients, and sunlight from the cultivated plants. They can certainly do this.

However, being a metaphor person, I’m constantly thinking about what things mean in my life. I first encountered weeds with an almost militant mindset. Continue reading “Weeds as a Model of Healing Broken Places” →

The Suicide of the Liberal Church

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HedgesSome highlights from Chris Hedges’ recent piece on the liberal church in America:

The self-identified religious institutions that thrive preach the perverted “prosperity gospel,” the message that magic Jesus will make you rich, respected and powerful if you believe in him. Jesus, they claim, is an American capitalist, bigot and ardent imperialist. These sects selectively lift passages from the Bible to justify the unjustifiable, including homophobia, war, racism against Muslims, and the death penalty. Yet there are more students—2,067—at the evangelical Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary alone than at the divinity schools and seminaries of Yale, Harvard, Union, Vanderbilt and Chicago, whose combined enrollment is 1,537.  Continue reading “The Suicide of the Liberal Church” →

Empire Cracking: Reflection from Joanna Shenk

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joannaThis interview was taken by Lydia Wylie-Kellermann as part of a writing project for Geez Magazine entitled “She is Breathing: Listening for Another World and an End to Empire.” It was published in the Winter Issue.

Lydia Wylie-Kellermann: Where are the moments for you where you are beginning to see a crack in the empire? Where is resurrection alive and being practiced? What is the story that lingers on your heart and keeps you moving forward? Is this the moment we’ve been waiting for? Is another world being birthed before our eyes?

Joanna Shenk: This spring and fall our congregation is engaging in a two-part learning process. In the spring we took a couple months on the theme of Recognizing Structural Sin/Injustice. Continue reading “Empire Cracking: Reflection from Joanna Shenk” →

Jesus on a Wilderness Vision Quest

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JesusTemptationBy Ched Myers, 1st Sunday in Lent (Luke 4:1-13)

Note: This is part of a series of Ched’s occasional comments on the Lukan gospel readings from the Revised Common Lectionary during year C, 2016. For a longer version of this reflection and a close look at each of the temptations, see http://www.chedmyers.org/sites/default/files/02-4-Pb%2C%20Jesus%20Wilderness%20Temptations%20as%20Vision%20Quest.pdf.

The church traditionally inaugurates Lent by reflecting on the “wilderness temptations” of Jesus. In preparation for his mission, Jesus follows a mysterious yet compelling calling to radical wilderness solitude. He fasts. He lives in the wild. He wrestles with spirits. (Above: Ivan Nikolaevich Kramskoy, “Christ in the Wilderness,” 1873.) Continue reading “Jesus on a Wilderness Vision Quest” →

Living in the Tension

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Zadar
Photo: Michael Smith

By Tommy Airey

So many of us wake up in the morning and eat a breakfast of food we don’t believe in and then drive a car we don’t believe in to a job we don’t believe in. We do things that we know are wrong, day after day, just because that’s the way the system is set up, and we think we have no choice. It’s soul-devouring.
Kathleen Dean Moore, Professor of Philosophy at Oregon State University

A hundred days after the U.S. military drone bombed a hospital in Kunduz, killing 42 patients and doctors, and about an hour after I filled up my car for $1.53/gallon, Rev. Peterson shot me an anguished text:

How does one live in an oppressive system but not be of it? My clothes bare the label of oppression. My little retirement fund bares the gains/losses of corrupt capitalism.

For all of us with some semblance of privilege, working tirelessly for church renewal and social change, this is the question. We live in The Tension, a stressful, uncomfortable, inconvenient space often bombarded by guilt, shame, anxiety, fear and exhaustion. Continue reading “Living in the Tension” →

Grandma Drone Resister Appealing While being Remanded to Prison

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(Press Release) Mary Anne Grady FloresHancock drone resister and grandmother Mary Anne Grady Flores will be taken into custody on Tuesday, January 19 at the Town of DeWitt Court at 5400 Butternut Drive, East Syracuse, NY. Her lead Attorney, Lance Salisbury, will speak at the 4:30pm press conference at the court. Grady Flores appears before the court at 5pm.

On May 16, 2014, Grady Flores was convicted of violating an order of protection while taking pictures of eight Catholics nonviolently protesting the US drone assassination program at the Hancock Air Base in DeWitt, New York on Ash Wednesday, February 13, 2013. DeWitt Judge David Gideon sentenced Mary Anne to one year in prison and fined her $1000, but she was released on bail while her appeal was pending.  All eight Catholic drone resisters arrested that Ash Wednesday were acquitted, by a judge who asserted that the protesters intended to uphold law, not break it. Continue reading “Grandma Drone Resister Appealing While being Remanded to Prison” →