Wild Lectionary

by

Wild Lectionary: Fully Human, Fully Divine, Fully Trans


frogBy Mary Ann Saunders

Exodus 34:29-35
Luke 9:28-43a

For me, as a trans woman, the Transfiguration feels deeply personal.

It’s not just that the word transfiguration simply means “a change of form”—which is something I know quite a bit about—nor is it simply that my experience and Jesus’ experience are consistent with the natural world. Creation, after all, is full of transfigurations: tadpoles become frogs, seeds become plants, some fish species change sex, caterpillars become butterflies (this last itself being a popular metaphor for gender transitions). We now even know that genetic information—supposedly immutable—can change over the course of our lives.

Continue reading →

by

Wild Lectionary: Whose Power and What For?

52474426_1163536123802532_4269623067648458752_n

7th Sunday After Epiphany
Genesis 45:3-11, 15

By Rev. Miriam Spies

Some commentators read this passage as a moment of reconciliation and forgiveness between family…or a story of redistributing food and wealth based on need, but the misuse of power and thinking we know the mind of God has harmful effects for Joseph’s family and for generations of people to come.

Continue reading →

by

Wild Lectionary: Seraphim, seed people and fish folk, oh my!: celebrating God’s kaleidoscopic web of life

circle of life

Circle of Life, Zane Saunders, 1993 Creative Commons

Fifth Sunday after Epiphany C
Isaiah 6:6:1-13
1 Corinthians 15:1-11
Luke 5:1-11

By Wes Howard Brook and Sue Furguson Johnson

This week’s readings reveal life springing forth from sky, sea and soil: seraphim speak to Isaiah, fish are netted by Simon Peter, and images of fleshy seeds of resurrection flow from Paul’s mouth (in the section of 1 Cor 15 that follows the lectionary passage). And if we listen a bit more closely, we can hear the usual lines that distinguish one creature from another blur and cross: Jesus promises that Simon will fish for people, while, for Paul, humans bloom and fruit like flowering trees. What might these criss-crossing images teach us about the intersectionality among living beings, in this realm and in the realm beyond the veil? Continue reading →

by

Wild Lectionary: Post 2016 Faith, Hope and Love

img_2625333Fourth Sunday After Epiphany
1 Corinthians 13:1-13

By Mark McReynolds

Since the 2016 US elections, I have found environmental news both sad and enraging. I’ve been angered by the near theft of public land for extractive use and how “natural resource” industry lobbyists are now in charge of our federal land. Drilling for oil off the coast of California and in the middle of critically needed Sage Grouse habitat (surely messing up both) to enrich already rich oil companies is approved without even a nod to our changing climate. Reading of such news leads me to unloving thoughts.

Continue reading →

by

Wild Lectionary: Wild Christ—Cosmic Christ

earth-global-globe-87651Third Sunday after Epiphany C
A Gaian reading of 1 Corinthians 12:12-31

By Valerie Luna Serrels

12:12 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.

12:13 For in the one Spirit we were all created into one body – Jew or Gentile, all faith traditions or no faith traditions; of all genders; of all languages; of all colors  – black, brown, white skin, green and multi-colored scaly skin, fur, feathers, stems, flowers and roots; two-legged, four-legged, multi-legged, legless, winged, finned, and rooted; All creatures, minerals, and elements of land, sea and sky; Continue reading →

by

Wild Lectionary: Married to the Land

315093_10150333054956366_927635786_n

Vikki Marie has been listening to and collaborating with Indigenous people for many years, here she is with Western Shoshone leaders at the Navada Desert Test Site in 2011.

Second Sunday after Epiphany
Ordinary Time C
Isaiah 62:1-5
1 Corinthians 12:1-11
John 2:1-11

By Rev. Dr. Victoria Marie

Today’s readings speak to me of several related themes God’s love and God’s love of justice; our gifts and the gifts of others; to use our gifts in the service of the Creator; and, of our need to remember to trust and have faith. In this homily(-starter), I wish to plant seeds for reflection through giving snippets of my thought on the readings. Continue reading →

by

Wild Lectionary: Song of the Baptizer

43176273425_c82227ae91_o

Photo by Tim Nafziger

Baptism of the Lord C

Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

By Jay Beck and Tevyn East

we must rid our lives of the participation
in the greed driven schemes of these corporations
who are pushing and forcing the privatization
of the river of life, causing evaporation, (desertification)
leaving us choking on hot dry frustration. Continue reading →