Tag: Year B

Wild Lectionary: Woven in the Depths

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Womb_2_Kovil_BG
Womb 2 Kovil BG Photo Credit: Fillipov Ivo, Creative Commons

Epiphany, Year B
Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18

By Ragan Sutterfield

E. Stanley Jones once wrote that if there is an instinct in the human heart to conceal there is also a deeper instict to reveal” (Victory Through Surrender). And yet, our culture keeps from authentic disclosure. We are invited, instead, to a kind of performative exposure, a way of revealing that also hides. We want to be known and seen but we do not trust those who might see us. We are afraid of what might happen if we are known, fully, authentically. So we manufacture disclosure on Facebook, hoping that in the commiseration of comments or praise of likes we will achieve what we are afraid to risk through a real openness. It is disclosure at the surface rather than at the depths.

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Wild Lectionary: Mary, Hildegard and the anawim

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IMG_2855Advent 4B

Luke 1:26-38, 46b-55

You have deposed the mighty from their thrones and raised the lowly to high places. Luke 1:52

By The Reverend Marilyn Zehr

I met her this afternoon when I went for a walk. She was throwing the ash from her woodstove onto the snowy road just outside her front door.

“Helps the cars get traction,” she said. “You’re the new minister aren’t you? Want to come in and see my Christmas decorations?” Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Mary, Hildegard and the anawim” →

What Does it Mean that Jesus “Apprenticed” with John the Baptist?

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Christ

Re-posting this Lectionary reflection from 3 years ago on radicaldiscipleship.net written by Ched Myers.

John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.
Mark 1:4-5

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Wild Lectionary: Learn from the Fig Tree

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Theological Animation, Uncategorized, Watershed Discipleship3 Comments

PhotoAdvent 1B

Isaiah 64:1-9
Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19
1 Corinthians 1:3-9
Mark 13:24-37

By Jessica Miller

Many years ago, on a prairie in Michigan, I became a student of the landscape. Officially, I tracked phenology, or the study of seasonal phenomena. Mostly I would wander the tall grass, seeking changes in the flowers. Who is blooming? Who is senescing? Whose shoots are green and growing? Some days would be punctuated by the commanding, haunting, rolling trumpet-call of sandhill cranes. The sound yanked my head up out of the grass and up to the sky. Where were they coming from? Where were they going? Learning the birds and plants and just a tiny fraction of the invisible strings that tie them to the world (the temperature, the direction of the wind, the rising and setting of the sun) taught me how to listen to the Spirit. Where does she come from? Where is she going? You can never know for sure, and yet you can become familiar with her flight-paths. Continue reading “Wild Lectionary: Learn from the Fig Tree” →

Challenging the Status Quo: Jesus Contests Scribal Authority

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Healing_of_the_demon-possessedBy Ched Myers, Fourth Sunday in Epiphany (Mk 1:21-28)

This is an ongoing occasional series of Ched’s brief comments on the Markan gospel readings from the Revised Common Lectionary during year B.

The first major narrative section of Mark’s gospel begins (1:16) and ends (4:36) by the shores of the Sea of Galilee. In it Mark paints a portrait of Jesus’ public ministry in and around the Galilean city of Capernaum. This series of episodes exhibits the three essential characteristics of Jesus’ mission: the healing and exorcism of marginalized people, the proclamation of God’s sovereignty and the call to discipleship. These practices result in escalating confrontations with the local authorities, culminating with open conflict in 3:1ff.
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“Let’s Catch Some Big Fish!” Jesus’ Call to Discipleship in a World of Injustice

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FishermenBy Ched Myers, Third Sunday in Epiphany (Mk 1:14-20)

This is an ongoing occasional series of Ched’s brief comments on the Markan gospel readings from the Revised Common Lectionary during year B.
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The Sea of Galilee is the ecological and social setting of the first half of the gospel of Mark. A large freshwater lake about seven miles wide and 13 miles long, its shore is dotted with villages connected with the local fishing industry, the most prosperous segment of Galilee’s economy. The lake (also called Sea of Genneseret, Lake Kinneret or Lake Tiberius) is fed by the Jordan River, which flows in from the north and out to the south. Some 209 meters below sea level, it is the lowest freshwater lake on Earth. Due to this low-lying position in a rift valley, the sea is prone to sudden violent storms, as attested in the gospel stories.
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Baptized Into Our Bioregion

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the-Baptism-of-JesusBy Ched Myers of Bartimaeus Cooperative Ministries, hosting the Festival of Radical Discipleship in mid-February in Oak View, CA:

Yesterday, the First Sunday after Epiphany, was the Feast of Jesus’ Baptism. In the gospel reading, a particular preposition is used in refrain in Mark 1:9-12. Everyone else is baptized by John in the Jordan, but Jesus is baptized into the river (Gk, eis ton Iordanēn). Then that wild bird descends onto or into Jesus (eis auton). And right after this, Jesus journeys deep into the wilderness (eis tēn ‘eremon), on his “vision quest.”
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