Wild Lectionary: Agency, Age, and Attentiveness to Power

69204377_943906822622582_9211619679188025344_n
Photo from Salal and Cedar

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”

Wild Lectionary: Prophets False and True

20190810_123639-Turtle-Valley02Proper 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”

Wild Lectionary: “I do not delight in the blood of bulls!”- God’s Invitation to Participate in Prophetic, Poetic Proclamation

flock of geeseBy 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 8.63

What 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 1.11-13

I 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

Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: “I do not delight in the blood of bulls!”- God’s Invitation to Participate in Prophetic, Poetic Proclamation”

Wild Lectionary: Trembling Birds

3787980398_cbf23f841c_b
 Pigeon Pair by Hal Trachenberg, Creative Commons

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:

  • imagine religious fidelity and commitment to justice, as sexual fidelity within patriarchy
  • conflate non-monogamy and sex commerce
  • assume that sexual violence (reparative rape) is a husband’s prerogative
  • equate military violence and invasion with divine judgement.

Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Trembling Birds”

Wild Lectionary: Swimming in the Wastestream

for wild lectionary.jpeg
Photo credit: Laurel Dykstra

Proper 12(7) C

By Lini Hutchings

O God, come to our aid.
O Lord, make haste to help us.
Glory be to the One who is making the heavens and the earth
and to the One who comes in solidarity to heal all division,
and to the One who sustains us in the Spirit,
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end.
Amen. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Swimming in the Wastestream”

Wild Lectionary: Remembering to listen in turbulent times

Remembering-to-Listen
Remembering to Listen, Trans Mountain Pipeline route Burnaby, BC

Proper 11(16)

Genesis 18:1-10a
Colossians 1:15-28
Luke 10:38-42

By Rev. Dr. Victoria Marie

When I first looked at these readings, it was the day when the UN High Commission on Refugees released the latest figures. “An unprecedented 70.8 million people around the world have been forced from home. Among them are nearly 25.9 million refugees, over half of whom are under the age of 18.” The agency also reported that “There are also millions of stateless people who have been denied a nationality and access to basic rights such as education, healthcare, employment and freedom of movement.”

Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Remembering to listen in turbulent times”

Wild Church: Plumb Lines and Prophets

processed with darktable (www.darktable.org)
Greta Thunberg by Stephane P cc

Proper 10(15) C

Amos 7:7-17

By Matthew Humphrey

“See I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people.”

So Amos prophecies in today’s lectionary reading. This shepherd-turned prophet emerges from South of the Border to unleash a fiery word upon Israel and King Jeroboam. Like Hosea before him, he professes, “I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet’s son; but I was a shepherd, and a dresser of sycamore-trees.” This location that makes him the choice instrument of God’s word to Israel. Continue reading “Wild Church: Plumb Lines and Prophets”

Wild Lectionary: Guided by the Spirit

TreeThird Sunday After Pentecost
Proper 8(13)

Galatians 5:1, 13-25

By Christy Thomson

I recently returned from a month-long work trip to Europe where I spent some time in Slovenia facilitating a training. My work as a trainer and mentor for ANFT (Association of Nature and Forest Therapy guides and programs) is rewarding, challenging and gives me ample opportunity to face the questions this week’s reading brings to mind; am I living in the Spirit? Do I allow the Spirit to be my guide? What does it look like/feel like to live in the Spirit?

If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit. Galatians 5:25 Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Guided by the Spirit”

Wild Lectionary: Guerilla Exegesis

9781610974011Pentecost 2C
The Demon Legion

By Obery Hendricks

An excerpt from “Guerilla Exegesis: ‘Struggle’ As A Scholarly Vocation,” Libertating Biblical Study (Cascade, 2011).

Guerrilla exegesis is transgressive. Irreverent. Asks questions: Silly Wabbit, how can the possessive demonic presence called “Legion” in Mark 5, the occupying presence tht wrought the bitter pathology of oppression in Mark’s community and sought to remain in possession of the country, not the man (v. 10), be anything but the Roman military? Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Guerilla Exegesis”

Wild Lectionary: First Peoples Day Reflections

Metis-elder-Ken-Pruden4-7028-1024x681(1)On June 21 Canadians celebrate National Indigenous Peoples Day and many churches observe a day of prayer. Rene Inkster reflects on the readings appointed for the Anglican Church.

Isaiah 40:25-31
Psalm 19
Philippians 4:4-9
John 1:1-18

I pray that my words will be acceptable to You, Creator; and to the people who read them.

Psalm 19:7-9

The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple; the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes; the fear of the Lord is clean; the ordinances of the Lord are true, and righteous altogether.

Bowsur, tawnchi, hello. I am a mixed blood person, born in Regina, Saskatchewan and also a Canadian history researcher. My name is Rene Inkster. I honour my Cree, Scottish and Métis heritage. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: First Peoples Day Reflections”