Epiphany C
Psalm 72
Matthew 2:1-12
By Laurel Dykstra
For Christians, and perhaps preachers especially, there is immense pressure to approach scripture with a foregone conclusion, to find and preach some Good News, whatever contortions to the integrity of self or text that might require. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Like Rain”
First Sunday after Christmas C
Psalm 148
By Laurel Dykstra
Salal + Cedar is the church that hosts and curates Wild Lectionary. We are in the middle of our fourth year as a community and this post marks the two-year anniversary of Wild Lectionary. Psalm 148, the praise hymn of all creation, is read every year on the first Sunday after Christmas and for Salal + Cedar it is an opportunity to reflect on the previous year. In 2018 we worked on restoring wildlife habitat on a trout and salmon stream, ran an environmental justice camp for youth, helped to midwife some emerging Wild Church projects, and continued in our resistance to the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project.
Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord from the heavens;
praise him in the heights!
Praise him, all his angels;
praise him, all his host! Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: From the Heavens and Earth”
Nativity of the Lord, Proper III C
Isaiah 52:7-10
Psalm 98
Hebrews 1:1-12
John 1:1-14
By Victoria Loorz
John 1, as a high Christological song, is selected for reading for Christmas this year, along with the triumphant Psalm 98 and Isaiah 52 (“God’s holy arm has gotten victory!”) and the extravagant Jesus praises in the opening of Hebrews (“the earth will fold up but you are the same and your years will never end!”). Placing them all together makes for a victorious vindication of Israel, a triumphalist celebration for honoring the holiday of the humility of the Nativity. I wonder if the irony occurred to the lectionary committees. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Cow Dung and Conversation”
Advent 4C
And Mary said,
‘My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour,
for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
His mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty. Luke 1:46-55
An excerpt from and urgent letter
By Kwok Pui-lan
Dear Elizabeth,
You may be surprised that I am writing you, since I don’t have much education and don’t often write. But I am so distraught and must ask your advice for you are much older and wiser than me… Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Dear Elizabeth”
Advent 3 C
Luke 3:7-18
By: Svinda Heinrichs
Predators often get a bum rap. “Brood of vipers,” John the Baptist calls the gathered crowds. Why is that such a bad thing? After all, vipers, that is, venomous snakes, just are what they are created to be, and do what they are created to do – use their poisonous venom to catch and subdue their dinner. As I am wont to say, “They’re just trying to earn a living.” Humans are right to be wary of them, but to call a group of humans a brood of vipers gives vipers a bad name! Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Of Vipers and Humans”
Advent 2C
Luke 3.1-6
By Wes Howard-Brook and Sue Ferguson Johnson
Just as the CNN and MSNBC cameras turn their lenses to the president and his people, God’s Word comes to an obscure group of folk whose hope is elsewhere.
We who read the pages of Radical Discipleship hardly need to be told that our hope is not in Trump or the Democratic Party or any of the professional purveyors of the imperial status quo. So it is not surprising to us to hear that in Luke’s time, the Word of God was heard not in Rome or Judea or elsewhere in the corridors of worldly power but in the wilderness.
Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Word of God in the Wilderness”
The First Sunday of Advent, Year C
December 2, 2018
By The Rev. Marilyn Zehr
Luke 21: 25-36
So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. Luke 21:31
The Kin-dom of God is near. It visits in the night like the spirit presence of the white-tailed deer. I go out early to search for fresh prints in the previous night’s early snows. Like the kin-dom of God, the deer are on the move. It’s rutting season. Their tracks tell me that the does and last year’s fawns move in groups. The lone tracks that cross these are the bucks seeking mates. I am not yet skilled or scent sensitive enough to notice the signs the bucks leave on branches to attract the does but I know it is so. When they mate the doe and buck “enact a ritual of motion, touch, sound and scent before coming together.” (p. 14, All Creation Waits, by Gail Boss and illust. by David G. Klein, 2016) All is now pregnant possibility unfolding just beyond my vision in the night. All I see of their restless urgency are the tracks in the morning snow.
Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Advent’s Procreative Urgency”
Reign of Christ
Proper 29 (34) B
Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14
Revelation 1:4b-8
By: Ron Berezan
I used to avoid apocalyptic scriptures like the plague. I’m beginning to rethink that.
For many years, I found the violent imagery, intense dualism and gnostic sounding anti-earth passages too hard to stomach. So I chose to ignore them – mostly. I’ll admit, there was always a tinge of guilty fascination, a bit like staring at an accident scene, even though I knew I really shouldn’t.
Proper 28(33)
26th Sunday after Pentecost
Daniel 12:1-3
Hebrews 10:11-14, (15-18), 19-25
Mark 13:1-8
By Rev. Dr. Victoria Marie
Today’s homily, like most of my homilies, is not merely to preach to you but to call myself to account. It is part of my ongoing aim to preach a message of hope in these times, when the life of our planet and peace in our world are under threat.
Proper 27(32) B
25th Sunday after Pentecost
Radical Discipleship 