Dirt Clods for Love

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological AnimationLeave a comment

By Nichola Torbett, a sermon re-posted from The Longing is the Compass (September 6, 2022)

I was honored to preach the following sermon at Skyline Congregational Church, UCC, on September 4, 2022. The focus scripture was Luke 14: 25-33.

That subtitle comes from a quote from Carl Jung, from a part of his Red Book in which he was describing his spiritual journey. He says, “In my case, Pilgrim’s Progress consisted in my having to climb down a thousand ladders until I could reach out my hand to the little clod of earth that I am.”

[Invite people to visualize this in a little guided meditation–descending the ladders, the clod of earth that is myself. Notice sensations in the body, emotions (grief? fear? relief?), resistance.]

I think this “dirt clod” image provides us with a key to this very challenging text from the gospel of Luke.

Continue reading “Dirt Clods for Love” →

The Way Costs Exactly Everything

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BabelBy Wes Howard-Brook & Sue Ferguson Johnson, a commentary on this weekend’s Gospel text, re-posted from September 1, 2016

It is no mystery who Luke’s audience is in this week’s Gospel (14.25-33): “For which of you, intending to build a tower (Gk, purgon)…” (14.28). Clearly, this is not a building plan envisioned by landless peasants, lepers and other poor and marginalized people. Luke is speaking here to the young elite of the Roman Empire, seeking to instill in them the cost of rejecting their imperial formation and choosing Jesus’ Way of discipleship. Continue reading “The Way Costs Exactly Everything” →

We are Jackson

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Watershed DiscipleshipLeave a comment

A message from We the People of Detroit.

The Mississippi Rapid Response Coalition (The Coalition), led by the People’s Advocacy Institute, the Mississippi Poor People’s Campaign, Immigrant Alliance for Justice and Equity, One Voice, MS, Alternate ROOTS, Mississippi Moves, Operation Good, Strong Arms of Mississippi and over thirty partner organizations, are working diligently to meet the clean water needs of the communities directly impacted by the deteriorating infrastructure in Jackson, Mississippi. After more than five decades of neglect by the State, residents in older cities, like Jackson, have been forced to carry the financial burden of fragile infrastructure and have been exposed regularly to the health risks associated with the need for constant repair. In 2021, residents were under a boil water alert for at least 225 days. In 2022, boil water requirements continue to plague an already resource constrained population. These water woes not only impact the quality of life for Jackson’s residents, they also impact Jackson’s economy (schools, businesses, etc.), further strangling an already under-resourced city.

Consider making a donation.

An Open Letter to Brittney Griner

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race, Subverting EmpireLeave a comment

By Robert Jones, Jr., the author of the New York Times bestselling novel The Prophets, re-posted from his website Son of Baldwin (August 4, 2022)

Dear Sister Brittney,

Had you been properly valued in your own country, it would have been unnecessary for you to travel to another. But here, in the land of the “morally superior” but severely degenerate, to be all Black, woman, lesbian is to be thrown a spite that you never asked to receive. For them, it is like: How dare you not be delicate, docile, diminutive, domesticated, dainty; not wait for some man to throw down his coat over a puddle so that you might giggle as you stepped on it, careful not to get your feet wet. They cannot feature you, Sis. Or how you can defy gravity and so there is no need for some white knight to guide you pass waters that you could leap over in your fucking sleep.

To keep reading click here.

Living The Gospel Revolution

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological AnimationLeave a comment

Another compelling offering from The Alternative Seminary…

The Sermon on the Mount: Living the Gospel Revolution in Our World Today

EIGHT-WEEK ONLINE CLASS

Thursdays, September 15 – November 10

7:00 – 9:00 pm EST

(NOTE: No class on October 20)

The times we live in seem apocalyptic – war and violence, political extremism and rising authoritarianism, staggering disparities of wealth, ecocide.  Meanwhile, much of the church in the United States (and around the world) is increasingly succumbing to a militant and dangerous Christian nationalism.

Continue reading “Living The Gospel Revolution” →

Sabbath Economics

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Sabbath Economics, Subverting Empire, Theological Animation1 Comment

By Ched Myers (above, at the US/Mexico border), a commentary on Luke 12:13-21, reposted from the BCM July 2022 E-News

Note: The comments (and slides) below were crafted for the Los Angeles Catholic Worker community this month. The lectionary reading for the 8th Sunday in Pentecost (July 31st) features the unequivocal, doesn’t-mince-words Jesus offering a warning tale about persons and systems. Those of us who come from economic and social privilege should pay special attention to this passage. So we offer this piece (part of my new book project entitled Jesus against Plutocracy: Sabbath Economics in Luke’s Gospel)…

When we approach this text we need to acknowledge that economics is exceedingly difficult to talk about in most of our churches, more taboo than politics or sex. Jesuit theologian John Haughey summarized the dilemma. Yet no aspect of our individual and corporate lives is more determinative of our personal and political world than economics—and few subjects are more frequently addressed in our scriptures.

To read the rest, click here!

Chronofeminism

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, Subverting EmpireLeave a comment

By Bayo Akomolafe, re-posted from Facebook (08.14.22)

I’m of the Yoruba people of West Nigeria and some parts of West Africa. We don’t think of time as an arrow of God flowing from a fixed past through the elusive present, and to an always fugitive future. That notion of time being a straight line is missing from our cosmology. Time is slushy. It’s not even cyclical. It’s slushy— it falls in on itself. It’s rhizomatic. And in this sense, the past is yet to come (to quote Karen Barad); the past is not yet done; the future has already happened. This notion of time is melty and trickly. Sugary and sticky. It is what allows us to face ancestry as a serious matter in civilizational endings. It’s the invitation for us to sit with the past—with the crack of time—and do other kinds of work there.

Continue reading “Chronofeminism” →