18th Sunday after Pentecost Proper 24(29)
Luke 18:1-8
By Caitlin Reilley Beck
I know another story about praying, persistence, not losing heart and an unjust judge. It is happening here, on Coast Salish territory, and it is still happening. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Justice by Annoyance”
By Laurel Dykstra, printed in Geez 54: Climate Justice
Salal + Cedar is a Wild Church community in the lower Fraser Watershed. Our Eucharistic prayer and our outdoor worship are active reminders that we do not practice our discipleship and celebrate our sacred meal in First Century Palestine nor on “England’s pleasant pastures” but among a little lifeboat of companions on the territory of the Coast Salish People at a time of global climate crisis.
Our Eucharistic prayer names the creatures – plants, animals, waterways, of our bioregion. Under our creative-commons-take on liturgy as the work of and for the people – you are welcome to borrow and adapt this prayer to your work and biome. In return please credit us, note that you have made changes, and make a financial contribution to Indigenous land defenders near you. Continue reading “Watershed Eucharist”
Proper 23(28) C
Luke 17:8-11
Psalm 66:1-12
He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. (Luke 16.16)
The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.” (Luke 18.11)
By Wes Howard-Brook and Sue Ferguson Johnson
Gratitude is a hot topic these days. Along with “mindfulness,” “self-care,” and other practices frequently promoted in books, apps and videos, gratitude has been “discovered” by people longing for relief from the anxieties and confusions of corporate capitalist culture and its desecration of life. But this week’s Gospel calls us to consider: for what, exactly, are we grateful?
Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: For What Do We Give Thanks?”
Proper 22, Year C
By Ragan Sutterfield
A couple of weeks ago I went on a birding tour of Monterey Bay. My guide on the trip was Debra Shearwater, a legend in the bird watching world, who has guided birders through those waters for over forty years. It was her birthday and it was the last season she would be leading pelagic tours.
As we watched the shearwaters, albatrosses, and murre’s of the bay, Shearwater told us about the changes she had seen. The water, she said, has changed color over the years. The krill populations have crashed and so fewer Blue Whales are seen. Over the last nesting season, large numbers of ocean-going birds had complete nesting failures, many of them not even bothering to lay eggs. “Go see them while you can,” she said, “especially the Northern birds, they are disappearing quickly.”
Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Hope in Worthless Places and Common Life”
Proper 20(25) C
By Laurel Dykstra
Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then has the health of my poor people not been restored? Jeremiah 8:22
Jeremiah’s exile lament uses the language of health and healing to speak of a return to faithfulness. The phrase has become an expression for a universal cure.
Proper 16(21)C
By Zoë Tobin Peterson
I call Heaven and Earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live. Deuteronomy 30:19
Growing up in Vancouver, a “green city,” I have been at the forefront of a shift towards choosing life. A shift towards environmental consciousness; but consciousness isn’t always enough. We can say we choose life all we want but until there is action behind it nothing is going to change. Our reasons for action matter as well, as they determine the proportions of the actions we take. If our intentions are to save the world for our generation alone, long-term changes just aren’t going to be made. Are we choosing life out of spite? Necessity? Validation? Love? Or are we acting because we see the Earth as more than just a witness?
Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Choosing Life in the Context of Climate Change”
Proper 16 C
Jeremiah 1:4-10
By Rachael Bullock
The word of the Lord came to me, saying,
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
before you were born I set you apart;
I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”
“Alas, Sovereign Lord,” I said, “I do not know how to speak; I am too young.” Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Agency, Age, and Attentiveness to Power”
Proper 15(20) C
Jeremiah 23:23-29
Hebrews 11:29-12:2
Luke 12:49-56
By Rev. Dr. Victoria Marie
Recently, I had the honour of participating as the resident elder in the Sacred Earth Camp for youth, a project of Salal + Cedar Watershed Discipleship Community. The lectionary readings, in light of the Camp experience, motivated me to revisit and reflect on certain current truths and issues of concern. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Prophets False and True”
By Wes Howard-Brook and Sue Ferguson Johnson
Proper 14 (9) C
Solomon offered as sacrifices of well-being to the LORD twenty-two thousand oxen and one hundred twenty thousand sheep. So the king and all the people of Israel dedicated the house of the LORD.
—1 Kings 8.63What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the LORD; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats. When you come to appear before me, who asked this from your hand? Trample my courts no more; bringing offerings is futile; incense is an abomination to me.
—Isaiah 1.11-13I will not accept a bull from your house, or goats from your folds.
For every wild animal of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills.
I know all the birds of the air, and all that moves in the field is mine.
“If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and all that is in it is mine.
Do I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats?”
—Psalm 50.9-13
Proper 13(18) C
Hosea 11:1-11
By Laurel Dykstra
Today’s lectionary passage from Hosea is a potent cocktail that mixes parental love and anger with political violence and nature imagery. More broadly and more problematically, the prophet’s oracles:
Radical Discipleship 