Tag: Ched Myers

Bearing Witness at the End of the World

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological Animation1 Comment

By Ched Myers, a commentary on last Sunday’s Gospel

Today’s gospel text for the 23rd Sunday after Pentecost culminates Year C’s journey through Luke (next week’s “Reign of Christ Sunday” is a special feast day to close the liturgical year). It narrates the first half of the third gospel’s version of the “Synoptic Apocalypse” (Lk 21), which begins by portraying Jesus’ disciples, many of whom were up-country Galileans, as dazzled pilgrims encountering the grandeur of the “Holy” metropolis of Jerusalem for the first time (21:5).

Like rural folk visiting Washington DC for the first time, they were impressed (or perhaps just overwhelmed) by the imposing monuments and edifices of their nation, which conjured a visceral patriotism they assumed Jesus shared. We, too, inevitably experience moments of existential awe by our civilization, especially as powerfully represented by its built environment—whether civic, religious, industrial or military. We all dwell under the shadow cast by the self-congratulatory narrative of empire; it is so heroic and compelling that we become enamored with (or paralyzed by) the systems that rule over us, despite ourselves. “Wow!” they/we intone, “God bless America!”—then turn to Jesus to add plaintively, “right??”

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Salvation as Wealth Redistribution

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zaccheusBy Ched Myers, on Luke 19:1-10, re-posted from October 2016

First, as always, let’s put this Sunday’s gospel reading in its broader narrative context. The story of Zacchaeus represents the culmination of one of Luke’s important subplots: Jesus’ challenge to rich men (Gk plousios) to “turn their lives (and assets) around.” As pointed out in previous posts, this narrative strand forms the backbone of Luke’s “Special Section” (Lk 11-19), a pattern worth reiterating here (with links to my comments earlier this year):

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Hersistence

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Biography as Theology, Cloud of Witnesses, Feminist/Womanist/Queer Liberation and TheologyLeave a comment

By Ched Myers and Elaine Enns

 Note: The gospel reading for this Sunday, October 16, the 19th Sunday after Pentecost in the Revised Common Lectionary, is a poignant and amazing text focusing on the agency of women. We shared these reflections last month with pastors in the Greater Minneapolis Synod of the ELCA, and invite you to delight in this story of persistence that pertains both to our prayers and our politics. 

The story is introduced as a parable. Jesus tended to tackle tough issue by speaking in this particular rhetorical form, as did the Hebrew prophets before him. Unfortunately, most of our congregations still spiritualize this kind of grassroots pedagogy, typically understanding them as—see if you’ve heard this one before—”earthly stories with heavenly meanings.” Thus tales about landless peasants and rich land-owners, or lords and slaves, or lepers and lawyers—or persistent women—are lifted out of their social and historical context and reshaped into theological allegories or moralistic fables that are bereft of any political or economic edge—or consequence.  This functions to thoroughly domesticate the parable under our status quo, such that stories meant to challenge our preconceptions about the world are instead deployed by us to legitimate them. In this way, we effectively disarm one of the Bible’s most powerful rhetorical weapons, whose purpose is to rescue us from our domestication and dehumanization under that very status quo.  But what if parables were actually “earthy stories with heavy meanings” as Ched’s teacher Bill Herzog argued in his wonderful book, now a quarter century old, about Jesus as a pedagogue of poor communities?

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Sabbath Economics

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Sabbath Economics, Subverting Empire, Theological AnimationLeave a 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!

Easter as Mystical/Material Abundance

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By Ched Myers, comments on John 21 for May 1, 2022

I’ve long been fascinated with today’s gospel reading. The story is roughly parallel to Luke 5:1-11, and notably Luke places his version at the beginning of his narrative of Jesus’ ministry (in place of Mark’s call of the fishermen), while John puts it at the end of his gospel.  This tradition must have been strong in the early church, and seems to signal a restoration of divine abundance in place of the scarcity of the exploited fishery in defiance of official regulations. 

John brackets this story (21:1,14) with assertions that this was a “revelation /manifestation” (phaneroō, 6 times in John, e.g. 3:21); this is the final revelation. John places it at the “Sea of Tiberias,” a name only he uses in the N.T. for the Sea of Galilee” (see 6:1), which seems to emphasize the imperial renaming of the lake. In C.E. 14, Caesar Augustus died and Tiberius eventually became Emperor. To cultivate the new emperor’s favor, in C.E. 19 Herod Antipas began building a new capital city, which he named Tiberias in a bald demonstration of fealty. Right on the Sea of Galilee, this city was part of a new wave of Roman economic colonization.  Its primary function was to regulate the fishing industry around the Sea, the most prosperous segment of ancient Galilee’s economy, putting it firmly under the control of Roman and Herodian elites, who endeavored to control the industry for export markets. 

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A Divine Summons

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By Ched Myers, a sermon to St. Michael’s Episcopal Church, Goleta Slough Watershed/Chumash Territory, CA, 5th Sunday in Epiphany, Feb 6, 2022

Luke 5:1-11 powerfully stitches together two gospel traditions: the miraculous catch of fish also found at the end of John (21:1-14), and the call of the fishermen which also occurs at the beginning of Mark (1:16-20). Let’s look at both themes, each so important to the vocation of followers of Christ.

Jesus’ encounter with working fishermen on the shores of Lake Galilee is typically romanticized in our churches: Oh, how quaint, fishermen! But this is a trivialization. No, this scene communicates defiance and delight, resistance and renewal—the same energy that fueled the painting of that new mural of the Goleta Slough here at the church, just completed by our friends Dimitri Kadiev, Rufo Noriega and Joshua Grace (right), which we are celebrating today.

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The Nazareth Sermon as Jubilee Manifesto

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation4 Comments

Nazareth 2

By Ched Myers, for the 3rd Sunday of Epiphany, reposted from Jan 24, 2016 (Luke 4:14-21)

The setting of this famous story is significant. The obscure village of Nazareth has already been well established in Luke’s narrative as the home place of Jesus’ childhood, from Gabriel’s annunciation (1:26) to the Holy Family’s comings and goings (2:4; 39; 51), to the phrase in this week’s lection “where Jesus had been brought up…” (4:16a). Continue reading “The Nazareth Sermon as Jubilee Manifesto” →

Kings vs. Kids

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological Animation1 Comment

magiBy Ched Myers, for The Feast of the Holy Innocents and Epiphany (Matthew 2), re-posted from 2016

This reflection offers biblical context for two feasts of the Christian church: one minor (Feast of the Innocents, Dec 28, 2016) and one major (Epiphany, Jan 6, 2017). These two holy days commemorate the narrative of Matthew 2 (though in reverse chronological order), which we read in Year A. In fact, the “Twelve Days of Christmas”—when re-interpreted through the lens of these two feasts—can truly be a gift to us, if an importunate one.  These counter-narratives provide a much-needed corrective to the holiday season’s saccharine sentimentality and cacophonous commercialism, and equally to unreflective year-in-review rituals and banal New Year’s resolution-making. For they demand that we re-center our lives around the testimonies of those who are at risk in a world of imperial violence.  Continue reading “Kings vs. Kids” →

Anchoring the Gospel Story in the Real World

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized1 Comment

JordanBy Ched Myers, the co-director of Bartimaeus Cooperative Ministries (if you’ve been inspired and challenged by Ched’s posts this year following the lectionary, consider making an end-of-the-year donation to BCM, day in and day out, doing the work of radical discipleship)

Note: This is reposted from Ched’s occasional comments on the Lukan gospel readings from the Revised Common Lectionary during year C, 2015-16.  

The second and third Sundays of Advent focus on the ministry of John the Baptist, first locating him in the wilderness (2. Advent), then focusing in on his prophetic message (3. Advent). Following on his infancy (and young childhood) narrative about Jesus, Luke commences the gospel story proper. More than the other N.T. evangelist, Luke anchors his story in real political space, signaling that we ought not be afraid to do the same.
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The End of the World

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation2 Comments

Arch of TitusBy Ched Myers, for the 25th Sunday in Pentecost (Mark 13:1-8)

Note: This is the last of a series of Ched’s brief comments on the Markan gospel readings from the Revised Common Lectionary, originally posted during year B, 2015. 

The final two Sundays in Ordinary Time and the first two Sundays in Advent comprise what I call the “apocalyptic season of turning” in our church calendar. Traditionally the gospel readings speak of the end of the “old order” and the coming of a new world anticipated in Christ. This is appropriate not only as a transition into a new liturgical year and lectionary cycle, but also as a reminder that “in Christ there is a new creation; the old has passed away; behold, the new has come!” (II Cor 5:17).
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