All Saints Day –Year B
Revelation 21:1-6a
By Dan Epp-Tiessen
Then I saw a renewed heaven and a renewed earth, for the old order of things had passed away. And the sea was no more—the sea that brought colonizers’ ships, soldiers, guns and diseases, and their slaves, and their dreams of wealth, plunder and domination. The sea which was used to strip Turtle Island of its riches—its furs, lumber, fish, agricultural goods, silver and gold—will no longer be available as a highway of exploitation.
Proper 24 (29)B
22nd Sunday after Pentecost
Job 38:1-7, 34-41
By Wendy Janzen
The the first reading and Psalm for this Sunday are both creation texts – passages that describe God’s amazing work in creating the cosmos. The text from Jobs is part of the longest passage in the bible about more-than-human creation (Job 38-42). It is written in exquisitely beautiful poetry, and it is God’s rhetorical answer to Job’s probing questions about God’s justice – why bad things happen to good people. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Wild God, Wild Beauty”
Proper 23(28) B
21st Sunday after Pentecost
Mark 10:17-31
By Wes Howard-Brook and Sue Ferguson Johnson
This week’s Gospel from Mark is a familiar one, in which a rich man comes to Jesus seeking the path to inheriting “eternal life.” As Ched Myers noted three decades ago now (!), the key to the story is the “ringer” command Jesus adds to the familiar ones from Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 6: “You shall not defraud [Gk, apostereō].” Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Money Doesn’t Grow on Trees!”
Proper 22(27) B
20th Sunday after Pentecost
Genesis 2:18-24
Psalm 8
Hebrews 1:1-4, 2:5-12
Mark 10:2-16
I find this weeks’ lectionary difficult to read because more than one of these passages have been used violently… or are used violently. Let’s be honest: These passages have been used to justify the oppression and rape of nature, to reinforce patriarchal dominance, to ostracize divorced persons, and to clobber queer people with hate, asserting they are not a part of God’s original design. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Three Stories”
Renewing Corporate Memory for our Ecological Dark Night
Proper 21(26) B
19th Sunday after Pentecost
By Jason Wood
Psalm 124
One of the things I’ve struggled the most with in singing contemporary worship songs is the almost exclusive focus on “me.” If you grew up like I did in a variety of evangelical churches, we tended to sing a lot of songs about how “I could sing of your love forever,” or how God “set me free,” or “here I am to worship.” And I really don’t mean to bash that, because there’s a lot that’s beautiful about reminding ourselves of the deeply personal and intimate love of God. The Christian faith proclaims: God does love me, and because of that I can live a transformed life. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Singing to Remain”
18th Sunday After Pentecost
Proper 20 (25)B
Proverbs 31:10-31
By Caitlin Reilley Beck
A capable wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels.
The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain.
She does him good, and not harm, all the days of her life.
Proverbs 31:10-11
This passage makes it clear who is writing Scripture and who isn’t. It reads like the vision board of the patriarchy, and capitalism for that matter, though it doesn’t originate in this economic system. According to this reading, the dream is to have a wife who will do a thousand different things – truly she is one who works to “have it all.” Except, surprise, surprise, she only gets “a share in the fruit of her hands” (31:31). If this is the Bible’s job posting for being a wife in a straight, monogamous marriage, it could use some workshopping because it is not very appealing. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: What is a good wife anyways?”
16th Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 18(23) B
Proverbs 22
By Robert O. Smith
Proverbs of the elders. Received wisdom. The common sense of the ages. Men speaking to men, warning of loose women. Disjointed aphorisms, speaking against the Other, made know to us today.
15th Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 17(22)B
Song of Solomon
By Cheryl Bear
he said, oh lovely one
follow my deep, ancient footprints
you will find me
you will track me until i catch you
i will always stand up for you
you remind me of a spirited young appaloosa
no fence can hold you
you’re blinding, dazzling
like trying to look at a river
flashing with sunlight Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: No Fence Can Hold”
Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 16 (21) B
Psalm 84:1-3
How lovely is your dwelling place, O LORD of hosts!
My soul longs, indeed it faints for the courts of the LORD; my heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God.
Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, at your altars, O LORD of hosts, my King and my God.
By Celina Medrano-Miller
As I write this, I sit on the earth, of the traditional and ancestral territory of the Tsleil-Waututh, Squamish and Musqueam Nations.
I was born on this unceded territory, under the name for the new city which was built, called Vancouver.
My parents both migrated here separately… Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Nature as Divine Dwelling Place”
Thirteenth Sunday After Pentecost
Proper 15(20)B
Ephesians 5:15-20
John 6:51-58
By the Reverend Doctor Victoria Marie
There is a disconnect between my Roman Catholic tradition’s interpretation of today’s gospel and an interpretation that would be more indicative of the inclusive holistic teachings of Jesus. I think the second reading from Ephesians gives us an insight to the gospel, including today’s passage. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Be Careful How You Live”
Radical Discipleship 