Posts from 2012

• Out in the Wilderness by C. Christopher Smith (1/3/2012)
  Mark 1:4-11 First Sunday after the Epiphany The Gospel of Mark opens with a brief telling of the story of John the Baptizer. What are we to make of this crazy fellow who lives out in the wilderness, wears clothes made of camel hair and eats locusts and honey? For the first century readers of this Gospel, this language with which Mark describes John conjured up images of Elijah. “Just as a gaunt bearded face and a stovepipe hat would immediately conjure up the image of Abe Lincoln for those socialized into modern American mythology” writes Ched Myers, “so would John’s garb have invoked the great prophet Elijah for Mark’s readers.” John is a prophet in the same vein as Elijah, h...
• The Goon Priest by Jim McCoy (1/11/2012)
  Second Sunday after Epiphany Second Sunday in Ordinary Time 1 Samuel 3:1-20 John 1:43-51 I wonder what a rewrite of Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad would look like if the setting shifted from punk rock and public relations to church and public witness. What if someone could draw the unforgettable characters in ecclesial matters that Egan does with musicians? (They might have to tone down the bohemian debauchery a little bit). In Egan’s novel, the Bay Area punk band member confesses that her cohorts live privileged lives in h...
• The Far End of the Net by Jessie Larkins (1/17/2012)
  Third Sunday After Epiphany Third Sunday in Ordinary Time Jonah 3:1-5,10 Mark 1:14-20 Only one time in each three-year lectionary cycle do we get a chance to read the prophet Jonah (twice if you’re Episcopal or Catholic and following the lectionary). The entire story takes only 48 verses to tell, but by the time it’s done the reader has been taken on a whirlwind tour of the ancient world, explored the character of God, watched Israel wrestle with its calling to be a conduit of God’s grace for all of the nations rather than its terminus, and felt both sympathy and anger towards a self-centered prophet more concerned with his public standing as a...
• The Holy One of God by Janice Love (1/25/2012)
  Fourth Sunday after Epiphany Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time Deuteronomy 18:15-20 I Corinthians 8:1-13 OR I Corinthians 7:32-35 Mark 1:21-28 Here we are, halfway through this Epiphany season. In perusing through some of the Revised Common lectionary texts I noticed for the first time that we, the church, spend nearly this entire seven week season of Epiphany in the first chapter of Mark’s gospel. For a gospel that is very much about being on the move – forty times in sixteen chapters the Greek word for immediately/at once/then occurs – thi...
• Power Politics and the Politics of Weakness by Doug Lee (2/1/2012)
  Fifth Sunday after Epiphany Isaiah 40:21-31 Psalm 147:1-11, 20c 1 Corinthians 9:16-23 Mark 1:29-39 In this election year, the headlong scramble for power is front and center. Candidates, political parties, and super PACs climb over one another to gain access to the levers of power. Could it be that the church is little different in its craving for potency? Waning influence in American cu...
• Wade in the Water by Jake Wilson (2/8/2012)
  [image] 6th week of Epiphany Feb. 12, 2012 2 Kings 5:1-14 Psalm 30 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 Mark 1:40-45  Eighteen years ago, the Mississippi Annual Conference planted the next “mega church” in a small but rapidly growing community just ...
• Plastic Minds and Magic Eyes by Ragan Sutterfield (2/14/2012)
  Last Sunday After Epiphany (Year B) RCL 2 Kings 2:1-12 2 Corinthians 4:3-6 Mark 9:2-9 Not long ago my nephew was forcing me to find Waldo in page after page of busy scenes where somewhere there was a goofy guy in red and white stripes.  “Where’s Waldo”, “Magic Eye”--we love seeing games where we must pick out an image from visual confusion.  Perhaps this love comes from our history as hunters and gathers, w...
• Submerging Church by Ekklesia Project (2/21/2012)
  This blog by EP Endorser Lee Wyatt is running on the Slow Church website run by Chris Smith. Though we live (or have lived) in the age of the Emerging/Emergent Church, I have a different proposal for a new vision of church. I call it the Submerging Church! Am I serious, you ask? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe both. Read on and see what you think. The Submerging Church, as I see it, is radically subversive, relentlessly incarnational, and ruthlessly hospitable. It dives deeply into everyday life, sharing it with others, while at the same time questioning and critiquing the conditions of that life we share. Since this community lives from its center, the risen Jesus Christ, its boundaries are porous and permeable with arm...
• Living in a Material World: Lent and Our Bodies by Debra Dean Murphy (2/22/2012)
  Remember you are soil, and to soil you shall return. Gen. 3:19 The language of “spiritual journey” is commonplace in describing the season of Lent–the 40-day pilgrimage Christians undertake as they trek with Jesus from the wilderness to the garden to the garbage heap of Golgotha and beyond. [image]"Spiritual” in this context, as in almost every other, is so vague as to be not merely unhelpful but an actual obstacle to understanding what it is that Lent through the centuries has called Christians to. Generally, “spiritual” is meant to signal a concern with matters of the heart or the soul or the deepest self. More pointedly, it almost always springs from–even as it continu...
• Dead in the Water by Brian Volck (2/23/2012)
  First Sunday of Lent Genesis 9:8-17 1 Peter 3:18-22 Mark 1:9-15 Lent is wasted on the orderly, the continent, the well-behaved. Forego some trivial luxury if it makes you feel better, but do it on your own time, please. Lent is for those whose lives are a mess: an invitation, once again, to acknowledge the fragile illusions in which we place so much trust, to name the destructive power of our deep habits. The traditional practices of Lent – prayer, fasting, and almsgiving – were never meant to make good people better, much less make them more appealing to God. Lenten practices are ...
• Following Jesus One Step at a Time by Kyle Childress (2/29/2012)
  Second Sunday in Lent Mark 8: 31-38 This Second Sunday of Lent we come face to face with the hard news of following Jesus. Last week we read of Jesus in the wilderness facing Satan and wild beasts. That was hard, but that was about Jesus. This week there is no skirting the issue; Jesus is talking to us about what it means to follow him. This is hard and it’s about us. It’s interesting to notice in the paragraph introducing our particular passage that verse 27 says while “on the way” Jesus was talking with his disciples. This was not a lesson for which they had set aside time; no appointments or class schedules had been made. They were on the way, in the middle of following Jes...
• “The Kingdom Will Prevail” by Brent Laytham (3/1/2012)
  Mike Bowling preached this slow church sermon on Mark 4:24-34 I’ve never quite known what to make of Mark 4: 24-25: ²⁴And he said to them,  ‘Pay attention to what you hear; the measure you give will be the  measure you get, and still more will be given you. ²⁵For to those who have, more will be given; and from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.’ It never occurred me that Jesus is contrasting this popular wisdom (“what you hear”) — which basically amounts to “the rich stay rich and the poor stay poor” — with the parables in the verses that follow.  The popular wisdom will not remain true; God is at work transforming creation, but the transformation is a slow one that starts with the tinies...
• Anger in Church by Debra Dean Murphy (3/7/2012)
  [image]Third Sunday in Lent

  John 2:13-22 (25)

    "The gesture in the temple is all the more poignant and prophetic when we imagine it executed by a man too slight to carry his own cross without assistance, a man whose idea of a workout is a forty-day fast."

  Garret Keizer, What Space Must the Church Occupy? by Ekklesia Project (3/10/2012)

  by Craig Wong  [image] At a 50th birthday party my dear wife recently threw for me, Pastor Bill Betts waxed eloquent about the “Greek, Roman, and Jewish phases of our lives.” The first phase swirls with lofty idealisms…dreams about our future and the world we hope to change. The second is where we take on the world with concrete energy, striving to make our mark. It is in the Jewish phase, however, when we realize that, when all is said and done, it is our friendships, family traditions, how we’ve lived our lives with one another that ultimately matters. Bill’s words provided food for thought for many of us that day. While I’m still somewhere in the seco...
• Naked Intent by Brian Volck (3/14/2012)
  Fourth Sunday of Lent 2 Chronicles 36:14-23 OR Numbers 21:4-9 Ephesians 2:4-10 John 3:14-21 OR John 6:4-15 I am Nicodemus: scared, grasping in the dark for certainties. For all my learning and skills with words, a disgraced Samaritan woman gets Jesus faster and wastes no time in spreading the news. (see John 4) Is it because I, scared of what people will think, prefer coming at night, tripping over words and their meanings? Maybe you know how that feels. Maybe you’re Nicodemus, too....
• The Problem with Rowan Williams by Ekklesia Project (3/21/2012)
  [image]From Australian theologian Ben Myers who writes at the blog Faith and Theology: It is often said that Williams is an unusual churchman - too scholarly, too ponderous, too sensitive to complexity - but it should equally be said that he is an unusual scholar. Although he has made important contributions to several academic disciplines - not only theology but also history, political philosophy and literary criticism - his deepest commitment has always been to the cultivation of community rather than to any particular intellectual project. If his critics complained that he was an unusually ...
• The Deep Hope of Easter by C. Christopher Smith (3/22/2012)
  Fifth Sunday of Lent Jeremiah 31:31-34. What is the new covenant that God has made in Christ and what does it mean for our life in Christ today? This question is an essential one raised by today’s Old Testament text.  The ways in which Christians have answered this question through the centuries have often led to anti-Semitic attitudes and oppression of the Jews.  The gist of the reasoning has been that the Jews screwed up and God had to start over from scratch and now the Christians are the people on whom the blessing of God rests (and, of course, the Jews are outsiders, heretics and the ones who had Jesus crucified, and thus worthy of having all manner ...
• The White Savior Industrial Complex by Ekklesia Project (3/22/2012)
  [image] Teju Cole is the author of Open City, which won this year's PEN/Hemingway Award and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. He expounds on the sentiments behind his tweets regarding the Invisible Children / Kony 2012 videos at The Atlantic website.

  I disagree with the approach taken by Invisible Children in particular, and by the White Savior Industrial Complex in general, because there is much more to doing good work than "making a difference." There is the principle of first do no harm. There is the idea that those who are being helped ought to be consulted over the matters that ...

• Slowing Down and Reflecting Cross-generationally by Ekklesia Project (3/26/2012)
  [image] Jason Fischer reflects on Slow Church: "...I find it appropriate to confess that as a youth and family director my divided heart has been tempted to compare the programs I have created at church against those in other churches. The youth directors over at the other church always seem to have so many kids, small groups, and elaborate worship services while I struggle to keep cranking out the multitude of marginally-attended events at my own congregation. Maybe Pastors have been double-minded in this w...
• A Token Performance by Jim McCoy (3/28/2012)
  Palm Sunday Passion Sunday Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29 Mark 11:1-11 Hang on to the wheel for the highway to hell needs chauffeurs for the powers that be - Mark Heard, “Rise from the Ruins” Early in my years as a pastor, I was conscripted to be in a pageant as part of a gathering of area churches. Several of us chosen ones wore either a crown of rejoicing, a crown of righteousness, a crown of glory, or a crown of life. As the appropriate Scripture...
• Reading the Bible with Trayvon Martin by Ekklesia Project (4/2/2012)
  [image]Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove reflects on the murder of Trayvon Martin and the practice of reading Scripture--and being read by it--in Christian community. The constant stream of news this week about Trayvon Martin has re-ignited a national conversation about race–a conversation that has been, in my estimation, neither this public nor this intense since the controversy surrounding President Obama’s former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, during the 2008 presidential campaign. The deep pain at the center of this conversation reveals a wound that we often try to hide, despite the fact that it will not go away. Our history of race-based slavery colors eve...
• Risen Indeed by Joel Shuman (4/4/2012)
  Easter Sunday John 20:1-18

  Death is the peak of all that is contrary to God in the world, the last enemy, thus not the natural lot of man, not an unalterable divine dispensation. … Peace cannot and must not be concluded just here in such a way as to establish a spiritual-religious–moral Kingdom of God on earth, while forgetting the enemy. There is peace only in prospect of the overcoming of the enemy.

  -Karl Barth I recently accepted an invitation to write an encyclopedia article on death and dying, and I wonder if I am up to the task. In particular, I wonder if I have it in me to tell the truth about death. The fact is death intrigues me even as it scares m...
• "My Lord and My God" by Janice Love (4/12/2012)
  Second Sunday of Easter Acts 4: 32-35 I John 1:1 – 2:2 John 20: 19-31 Wow! The texts for this second Sunday in our most important, celebratory season are powerful and their theme is easy to detect: testimony, declaration, proclaim, witness. My colleague and friend, Ed Searcy, re-discovered in his doctoral studies that the root for the word “testify” is “testes” and comes from the practice of requiring men to cover their clothed genitals with their hand as they swore that what they were about to say was “the whole truth and nothing but the truth”. The implication being...
• Taste and See by Jake Wilson (4/20/2012)
   

  Third Sunday of Easter

  Acts 3:12-19 Psalm 4 1 John 3:1-7 Luke 24:36b-48 The cover story for the April 16, 2012 issue of Time Magazine was entitled “Rethinking Heaven.”  In the article, the author contrasted the popular conceptions of heaven (as most recently found in the popular book “Heaven is for Real”) with more full bodied accounts of the afterlife as recently put forward by N.T. Wright and others.  Most people within the average congregation think of the afterlife and heaven as a realm filled with disembodied souls all hugging and congratulating each other on their arrival.  This is the place where we walk down streets of gold with our long deceased Aunt Sally and where God sits in...
• The Patron Saint of the Tongue-Tied by Doug Lee (4/24/2012)
  Psalm 118:1-29

  Acts 4:1-20

  Healing the lame (last week’s text from Acts 3) may lie far beyond our abilities. But is Peter and John’s courageous speech to the authorities any less miraculous for us? The church’s speech in our pluralistic setting is increasingly muted and indistinct. Sure, the constitution guarantees freedom of speech, but that “freedom” works out to be only operable in acceptable times and places: Sundays mornings within a self-identified arena of worship, but not Monday mornings in the workplace or classroom. Our kids’ elementary sc...
• CFI and Slow Church by Ekklesia Project (5/2/2012)
  reflections by Todd Edmondson Every community has its own language. Any time a group of like-minded people comes together to discuss what is important to them, it is critical that each person understands what another is saying. They develop a kind of shorthand among themselves, and cultivate ways of sharing information, interests, and convictions that are particular to that group. A gathering of accomplished cooks can exchange recipes and discuss culinary technique with one another without much effort. Experts in auto repair can discuss parts and technical procedures in ways that elude the layperson. To enter into the conversation requires a grasp of the language that is employed. The same is true for the church. It is not that we, as disciples of Jesus, consciously seek to u...
• Slow and Abundant Faithfulness by Jenny Williams (5/2/2012)
  In the mid-2000s, I served two small-membership United Methodist churches in small towns in West Virginia.  One of those churches served as a pilot congregation for the CFI process.   About 15 people in a church of 45 active members committed to a two-year engagement with the CFI material.  Of the five pilot congregations, ours was probably the least educated, and we were able to navigate the material very well. As the introduction to CFI states, the curriculum is intended to be a scaffolding on which conversations can hang.  CFI studies provide a congregation with language to have discussions about the purpose of being a called-out people.  I was amazed to watch how discussions about formation and Christian practice aided this congregation in their faithfulness, both as indi...
• Believe It or Not by Ragan Sutterfield (5/3/2012)
  Acts 8:26-40 1 John 4:7-21 John 15:1-8 Monday evening as I was sitting down to read the lectionary for this Fifth Sunday in Easter, NPR carried a story that has haunted me since.  It was the testimony of a Methodist pastor, Teresa MacBain who found that she could no longer believe in God.  Her reasons were classic—the problem of evil, etc.  For a time she continued in her role as a minister—albeit a faithless one.  The cognitive dissonance eventually led her to “come out” as an atheist at convention of non-believers.  The video...
• Show Us the Way by Brian Volck (5/10/2012)
  Acts 10:44-48 1 John 4:7-10 OR 1 John 5:1-6 John 15:9-17 (The following lectionary reflection was published in bLOGOS three years ago, commenting on the same gospel text. Except for a few minor alterations, it appears as it did then. The photo is of Rutilo Grande.) On March 12, 1977, Fr. Rutilio Grande, SJ, and two companions were assassinated as they drove toward evening mass through the fields near El Paisnal, El Salvador. Fr. Grande knew where he was going. During his five years as parish prie...
• Assembling in the Spirit by Debra Dean Murphy (5/23/2012)
  Pentecost Acts 2:1-21 “When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.” Acts 2:1 [image]I was going to title this post “The Summer of Our Discontent.” For various denominational bodies, late spring and early summer are seasons for gathering “all together in one place.” United Methodists conference together, Episcopalians and Baptists convene, and Presbyterians generally assemble (or assemble generally). Long-time participants in these gatherings and others like them might say, with a cyn...
• The Way the World Works? by C. Christopher Smith (5/29/2012)
  First Sunday after Pentecost Trinity Sunday Romans 8:12-17 John 3:1-17 Two of our scripture passages for today – the story of Nicodemus from John 3 and Paul’s admonition to the church in Rome from Romans 8 – wrestle with the nature of spirit and flesh.  Throughout the history of the Christian tradition, interpretation (or mis-interpretation) of passages like these has led many Christians into the sort of gnostic dualism that condemns the flesh and elevates the spirit. In recent years, a subtle sort of Christian Gnosticism – that literary critic Harold Bloo...
• Feasting Michael Sattler by Ekklesia Project (6/1/2012)
  Julia Smucker reflects on another, much needed, sign of hope: "On this anniversary of the 1527 martyrdom of Swiss Anabaptist leader Michael Sattler, his witness is being commemorated in a new way: not for the heroism or heresy (depending on who you ask) of breaking with the Catholic Church, but for his uncompromised commitment to social justice and nonviolence that now serves as a rich foundation for bridging the Anabaptist Mennonite and Catholic Benedictine traditions." Read the rest here....
• And So We Speak by Janice Love (6/8/2012)
  2nd Sunday After Pentecost 1 Samuel 8:4-11, (12-15), 16-20 Psalm 138 2 Corinthians 4:13 – 5:1 Mark 3: 20-35 We are in the after season now, after the great cycle of Jesus’ anticipation, life, death, resurrection and the birth of his church, after Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent and Holy Week, Easter and Pentecost. In the light of our travel once again around the life of the Son that gives us life, we pick up the continuous reading through of our Scriptures. And we find Paul speak...
• Eyes to See by Jessie Larkins (6/13/2012)
  Third Sunday after Pentecost Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time 1 Samuel 15:34-16:13 2 Corinthians 5:6-17 Mark 4:26-34 In an era with a six billion dollar election cycle and more than 90% of elections won by the candidate with the most money, these understated stories of anointed shepherd kings and mustard shrub kingdoms make little sense to our calloused senses. The prophet Isaiah warned, and Mark quotes just prior to the telling of these parables, that people would “look, but not perceive, and may indeed listen, but not understand” (Mark 4:12). ...
• Preaching the Terrors (and Wonders) by Jim McCoy (6/21/2012)
  I Samuel 17:32-49 Psalm 9:9-20 Mark 4:35-41 Barbara Brown Taylor says there comes the “time in every preacher’s life when the queasy-making parts of the Bible can no longer be ignored, when it is time to admit that the Bible is not a book about admirable people or even about a conventionally admirable God. It is instead a book about a sovereign God’s covenant with a chosen people.” The Bible, she claims, “is as full of holy terrors as it is of holy wonders,” and while we’d like “to approach the terrors as stray bullets outside God’s plan,” the fact is that we cannot avoid either the terrors or the wonders w...
• The Encounter More Than the Cure by Brian Volck (6/26/2012)
  Fifth Sunday after Pentecost Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Wisdom 1:13-15, 2:23-24 OR 2 Samuel 1:1,17-27 Psalm 30 OR Psalm 130 2 Cor 8:7,9,13-15 Mark 5:21-43 Last year, the British Humanist Association (which lately has become, among other things, a cheer squad for Richard Dawkins) began an ad campaign on city buses in UK with signs declaring, “There probably is no God, so relax and enjoy your life.” This led, as the BHA no doubt intend...
• The Anguish of Imperfect Communion by Ekklesia Project (6/28/2012)
  by Julia Smucker For about the past five years, I have been a participant in the Mennonite/Catholic ecumenical movement known as Bridgefolk – first as a Mennonite drawn toward communion with the Catholic Church but also strongly connected to my ecclesial heritage, and now as a Catholic seeking to maintain that connection with the church that formed me.  I had agonized over the choice I was presented with in the unavoidable reality that joining with one communion would mean breaking with another, and wondered whether I could do so without it being tantamount to a rejection, a cutting off of my roots.  And then I discovered a group of people who had been agonizing over this division for years before me.  In the many honest and in-depth discussions I’ve been a part of since, it’s been clea...
• Rethinking “Rethink Church” by Ekklesia Project (7/3/2012)
  "You have to include the story of Christ for being in a Christian community to result in any kind of personal conversion into Christian discipleship. Church has to be more than just “making a difference” and “finding a place where you fit.” When you make church inoffensive by cutting out the story of Jesus that makes church what is, you have also made church uncompelling as a result." Morgan Guyton, Rethinking "Rethink Church"....
• Amazing Jesus by Janice Love (7/4/2012)
  Sixth Sunday after Pentecost Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time 2 Corinthians 12: 2-10 Mark 6: 1-13 Things move quickly in the gospel of Mark. There is hardly enough time to even grab a bite to eat (3:20, 6:31). Reading from Mark now, with its piling up of events one upon the other, is perhaps counter-intuitive to our summer in the Northern Hemisphere when we try to slow our lives down to take advantage of the (hopefully) more pleasant weather. Already here in just the 6th chapter, however, Jesus, stepping onto the stage fully grown, has been baptized, called his disciples, been proclaiming the good news a...
• The Banquets of Two Kingdoms by Ragan Sutterfield (7/11/2012)
  Proper 10 (B) Mark 6:14-29 Psalm 85:8-13 This is what repentance is about.  It is a call to renewal—turning from the fallen, petty kingdoms East of Eden to the love, peace, and abundance of the Kingdom of God.  This is a reality that we can begin to live into now, but to do so we must switch our allegiances and become members of another kingdom—the Kingdom of Life against the Empire of Death. Just before our gospel reading this Sunday (RCL) we witness Jesus sending his disciples out to proclaim this Kingdom of Life, completely without any supplies or tools of coercion.  The ...
• Our Weak God by Matthew Morin (7/14/2012)
  [image]From a recent sermon preached by EP endorser Matt Morin, in keeping with our Slow Church theme . . . . Mark 6:1-13; 2 Corinthians 12:2-10 Milwaukee Mennonite Church July 8, 2012 The scene in today’s gospel passage begins with Jesus entering the synagogue in his hometown of Nazareth. According to Mark, this is not the first time that Jesus has attempted to teach in the synagogue. In Mark 1, Jesus does so, but his teaching is interrupted by a demonic spirit. In Mark 3, Jesus’s actions in the synagogue anger some of his rivals, who in turn begin plotting ways to kill him. And, as you just heard i...
• The Shepherd Who Feeds Us by Debra Dean Murphy (7/17/2012)
  Jeremiah 23:1-6; Psalm 23: Ephesians 2:11-22; Mark 6:30-34; 53-56 Eighth Sunday After Pentecost Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time There is striking beauty in the appointed texts for this weekend. And there are shepherds. And the shepherds are beautiful. ...
• Between the Narrative and the Psalm by Jim McCoy (7/25/2012)
  Ninth Sunday After Pentecost Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time 2 Samuel 11:1-15 , Psalms "I started to believe that I was special and became increasingly egocentric and narcissistic… I made a serious error in judgment and conducted myself in a way that was disloyal to my family and to my core beliefs. I had a liaison with another woman. I was painfully honest with my family and I asked my wife’s forgiveness. I have been stripped bare…." - John Edwards, August, 2008 ...
• Discerning What Displeases the Lord by Kyle Childress (7/31/2012)
  Tenth Sunday After Pentecost Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time 2 Samuel 11: 26 - 12: 13a Our Old Testament lesson brings us to one of the most dramatic moments in this extraordinary narrative of David when he is confronted by Nathan the prophet. It is high drama in this narrative and it is a high drama in the history of prophetic speaking truth to power. David stole Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba, committed adultery with her, and then when it was discovered that Bathsheba was pregnant, he used his power to have Uriah killed by the Ammonites. The last sentence of chapter 11 says, “But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord.” The next sentence, which begins chapter 12, says, “...
• There is No They by Ekklesia Project (8/6/2012)
  Author and blogger J.R. Daniel Kirk brings this helpful reminder to the church:

  When you are part of a church, especially in leadership (but not only then), there is no “they” who will or will not do something. In those moments when what needs to be done butts up against the policy, or when what they’ve done embarrasses us, deferring to “them” is not going to convince the person in front of you that you are not part of that “them.” That person will only be convinced that you are different when you act, when you do what is right.

  Read the full post....
• The Mystery of Agency by Mark Ryan (8/8/2012)
  Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost 2 Samuel 18:5-9, 15, 31-33 In this week’s Old Testament reading, we come to the climax of Absalom’s rebellion against his father, David, and the culmination of David’s own actions as King of Israel. Here we find David’s character – his weaknesses and his strengths – summed up. The story line follows David’s displacement from Jerusalem, the espionage and strategy leading to war against Absalom, and the King’s return. The lectionary highlights David’s disposition toward his son and the seemingly inevitable course of violence. David’s desire for his son to be spared in the imminent attack upon his forces echoes his willingness for reconciliation following Absalom’...
• Reading Around the text by John Jay Alvaro (8/15/2012)
  Twelfth Sunday After Pentecost Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time 1 Kings 2:10-12, 3:3-14 Ephesians 5:15-20 John 6: 51-58 The Lectionary is a mixed bag. No preacher wants to rely on the tyranny of the urgent to choose a text. No one wants to close their eyes, flip open the Bible and point a trembling finger to the page, praying that they do not land on Hebrews or Paul's words for women in worship. The Lectionary mitigates that risk, and a host of other dangerous tendencies, by laying out readings in coherent and thoughtful units. But sometimes the preacher must interro...
• Choose Wisely; Remember Well by Ekklesia Project (8/19/2012)
  Thanks to a campaign organized by Mennonite pastors, there's reason for those of us in the United States to look forward to November 6 as something more than the official end of a nasty and dispiriting secular political cycle: whatever you choose to do on Election Day in the US, take time to consciously celebrate the unifying communion of and in the Body of Christ. Among the goals of this Election Day Communion Campaign is "...to build unity in Christ despite theological, political, and denominational differences." Commenting elsewhere, Julia Smucker echoes the campaign's recommendation that readers celebrate the Eucharist on US Election Day, ...
• The Eucharist and the Hollow Place by Danny Yencich (8/20/2012)
  Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time Joshua 24:1-2, 14-18 John 6:56-69 At the center of Christian worship is, and always has been, a meal – the Eucharist. In the Eucharist, the times coalesce: at the moment of communion, salvation history and future hope meet in the holy now. Those who take this meal, who eat this flesh and drink this blood, take in a meal at once like and unlike the meals of their ancestors. It is bread, it is wine, yet it is somehow so much more, for as Christ himself says, it is also eternal life. At the center of Christian worship is this meal, and this meal is the future hope of eterna...
• The Heart of the Matter by Heather Carlson (8/30/2012)
  Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23 The Pharisees have travelled from Jerusalem out to the region of Lake Galilee to find Jesus, but this is not a spiritual pilgrimage. We quickly discover they have come to find fault: "Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?" Isn't it interesting that the accusation is not leveled at Jesus himself, whom we might assume was performing all of the rituals the Pharisees were so focused on? But, before we get to Jesus' response, we need to pause and really hear the Pharisees. I know my Sunday school education taught me these fi...
• Hearing and Obeying by Brian Volck (9/5/2012)
  Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time Isaiah 35:4-7A James 2:1-17 Mark 7:24-37 My mother – who, while alive, would have been mortified to be called a saint – often told us how God spoke to her in her prayers. She said so without irony or apparent metaphor, nor did she claim special standing, privilege, or insight. In fact, she gave no reason to believe her experience wasn’t available to every praying person. Furthermore, she never claimed to speak for God to others and, as far as I could tell, God’s speaking to her was more important than the words themselves, if...
• Rebuked by Janice Love (9/15/2012)
  Sixteenth Sunday After Pentecost Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time Proverbs 1: 20-33 Mark 8: 27-38 Ah, it has finally begun to cool off where we live. There is a hint of autumn crispness in the air. The new school supplies are bought and our son has begun grade four. In the lectionary we have been learning too – what might be new things about Jesus for us, if we have been paying attention in class. Like how even Jesus is a little surprised to find himself debating with a Gentile woman, who is seeking healing for her daughter, and opening the hearing and speaking of a Greek man. A Jesus surprised about the direction his mission is taki...
• Being Church: Reflections on How to Live as the People of God by Ekklesia Project (9/17/2012)
  Ragan Sutterfield reviews John Alexander's book for the Englewood Review of Books:

  "The job of the church, the most significant work we have to do, is to love one another, celebrate and welcome one another’s gifts, and be Christ’s body in the world. Of course we all know that most churches are nothing like this...Why is it so hard for us to be church?"

  Read the full review....
• A Hard, Simple Truth by Ragan Sutterfield (9/19/2012)
  James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a Mark 9:30-37 For the past few weeks my wife, 9 month old daughter, and I have been on the road.  Somehow or other it worked out that September was a month where we had several out of town engagements and we decided that rather than travel back and forth we’d make one month long trip of it, visiting friends along the way, and making a quick beach trip in between engagements.  Traveling is one of those tricky things that depends on your perspective.  On the one hand it can be an incredible experience of seeing new places, embracing the beauty of creation, and catching up with old friends.  On the other it can be a painful disruption of sacred routines, full of st...
• How Much is Enough? by Kyle Childress (9/25/2012)
  Eighteenth Sunday After Pentecost Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time Numbers 11: 4-35 Mark 9:38-50 Years ago in a cartoon in the Houston Chronicle, in the first frame was a man, obviously an American middle-class male, standing next to his car, saying to it, “Because of you, the air is foul. The globe is warming.” In the next frame, the man is pumping gas into the car saying, “Because of you I’m entangled in the affairs of countries that cause me headaches.” Next frame, while he is slumped in his seat in bumper-to-bumper traffic, “Because of you our central cities are empty and I waste half my life in traffic to the burbs.” Next frame, kids are...
• Why World Communion Sunday Is a Bad Idea by Debra Dean Murphy (10/2/2012)
  The origins of this Protestant observance reveal the best of intentions. But for at least three reasons, continuing to set aside the first Sunday in October to highlight the Church's signature rite is not a good idea. One: Observing something called “World Communion Sunday” one day of the year communicates the idea that the Eucharist is special. But if Holy Communion really is the Church's signature rite, if it is indeed that which makes the Church what it is, then "special" is exactly what it is not. We don't think of the air we breathe as "special," the breakfast we eat as "special." These things are gifts, of course--breath and food--but it is in their given...
• Strange New World by Jim McCoy (10/11/2012)
  Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time Amos 5:6-7, 10-15 Hebrews 4:12-16 Mark 10:17-31 "What house is it to which the Bible is the door? What sort of country is spread before our eyes when we throw the Bible open?" -Karl Barth The Lord God Almighty through the prophet Amos: “Seek me and live…. Seek the Lord and live…. Seek good and not evil, that you may live; and so the Lord, the God of hosts, will be with you.” Check. Got it. Now what? Right away Amos makes...
• A Right to an Answer? by Mark Ryan (10/17/2012)
  Job 38:1-7 Do we have the right to an answer from God? In the past few weeks the Old Testament readings have taken a quick trip through Job. It began, somewhat strangely, in Job 2 where Satan convinces God to allow him to attack Job’s body, having previously decimated his property. Such an attack is necessary to test Job’s righteousness, while God protect Job’s life commanding Satan not to kill him. This is part of the prologue of the book. Scholars divide it into a prologue, followed by the “poetic dialogues” between Job and his friends (chs 3-31), the “Elihu speeches” (chs 32-37) and two speeches by God each followed by a response by Job (38.1-42.6). An epilogue (42.7-17) brings the book to a close. ...
• Home is Often a Troubled Place by John Jay Alvaro (10/24/2012)
  Jeremiah 31:7-9 Jeremiah offers a compelling vision: the people together, a great company, coming home. But the picture is all wrong. They seem to be marching triumphantly like a military party coming back from war. They move along the banks of the water in plain sight. But this is no army. This is a bunch of worn down and broken nobodies. And they seem to know it. They walk back home through a curtain of tears. Forget those translations that say they come home with “tears of joy” (Jeremiah 31:9, CEB, NLT). The text does not say that. It simply says that they were weeping. The return home is imaged in sadness. They are anxious travelers. They are totally vulnerable. The women are having babies beside the streams. The blind folks are still i...
• First Things First by Heather Carlson (10/31/2012)
  Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time Psalm 146 Mark 12:28-34 "I met those of our society who had votes in the ensuing election, and advised them: 1) To vote, without fee or reward, for the person they judged most worthy. 2) To speak no evil of the person they voted against. 3) To take care their spirits were not sharpened against those that voted on the other side." -John Wesley, October 6, 1774 On most Christian calendars, this Sunday is the 23rd after Pentecost. Those with longer historical roots may also mark November 4 as All Saint's Sunday. I suspect, however, in many a preacher and ...
• The Lord Upholds the Orphan and the Widow by Danny Yencich (11/5/2012)
  Twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time Ruth 3:1-5; 4:13-17 OR 1 Kings 17:8-16 Psalm 146 Hebrews 9:24-28 Mark 12:38-44 Christian history teaches us many lessons, chief among them that the church has an on-again, off-again relationship with economic justice and the prophetic proclamation of Jubilee. The church does justice in fits and starts, it seems. We started off particularly strong, with the Messiah coming onto the scene and announcing the Reign of ...
• Living into the Mystery by Brian Volck (11/14/2012)
  Twenty-fifth Sunday after Pentecost Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time
 Daniel 12:1-3 OR 1 Samuel 2:1-10 Hebrews 10:11-25 Mark 13:1-8 OR Mark 13:24-32 It’s November, the closing weeks of the liturgical year, when those in the northern hemisphere see what had recently appeared so green and full of life now wither and die. We see signs in the trees and know that winter is near. For those in the United States, it is also post-election season. Despite the predictable posturing of winners...
• So It Is To Be. Amen. by Janice Love (11/21/2012)
  The Reign of Christ Revelation 1: 4b-8 John 18: 33-37 Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come… The most frequent command of the Bible is “to be not afraid!” It is the first thing Angels say when they arrive with the divine, demanding messages they have been charged to deliver. Joseph says it to his brothers in forgiving them, Moses says it to the Israelites, God says it to Joshua and numerous times to Jeremiah, Isaiah sings to God that he will not be afraid. Jesus says it the most - to his disciples and to those he heals. I remember once making this claim to a group of youth I was training ...
• Preparing for Disaster by Ragan Sutterfield (11/28/2012)
  First Sunday of Advent, Year C (RCL) 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13 Luke 21:25-36 We’ve become all too familiar with disasters and the whole genre of reporting them (is there a disaster TV cable channel yet?).  The reporter, looking like some alien that dropped from the sky, surrounded by a landscape of devastation. There are the stories about hope, the stories about good neighbors, the stories about this or that agency not doing enough, and then there seems to always be the guy who didn’t see it coming.  The “I was just going to wait it out” kind of guy.  You have to wonder about those people—every siren is going off, the new c...
• Outside the Inn-siders by Kyle Childress (12/5/2012)
  Second Sunday of Advent Luke 3: 1-6 The word of God came to John out in the wilderness, so says Luke. After giving us the names and offices of the powerful in his day – Tiberius Caesar, Governor Pontius Pilate of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, Philip tetrarch of Ituraea and Trachonitis, Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, and Annas and Caiaphas the high priests – Luke says the word of God comes to none of them. Bypassing the centers of power, the word comes to one outside. This is no small thing with Luke. In the previous chapter, the well-known and much beloved Christmas story of Luke 2, Mary and Joseph are told there is no room in the Inn and they must go outside, to somewhere else to h...
• This is Good News? by Debra Dean Murphy (12/12/2012)
  The Third Sunday of Advent Zephaniah 3:14-20 Philippians 4:4-7 Isaiah 12:2-6 Luke 3:7-18 Gaudete in domini semper. These words from this week's lectionary epistle are also the text of the introit of the mass for the third Sunday of Advent. Thus on Gaudete Sunday, when Advent's sober mood is broken a little and t...
• A Multitude of Ruptures by Jim McCoy (12/19/2012)
  Fourth Sunday of Advent Luke 1:46-55 "A Christian’s authenticity is shown in the difficult hours…. And by difficult hour, I mean those circumstances in which following the gospel supposes a multitude of ruptures with the tranquility of an order that has been set up against or apart from the gospel." - Oscar Romero, The Violence of Love The word “preachy” has never been a complimentary term, even less so these days. The ministers rightly highlighted in the national news who have been doing their vital and admirable work are described as “compassionate, not preachy.” Those of us who not only have to preach but believe we should preach have been faced with how in God’s name do we ...
• Rebuke as Generous Invitation by Matthew Morin (12/21/2012)
  In his book titled “The Beginning and the End of Religion,” Nicholas Lash invites us to look upon the world. “Summon up quietly,” he says, “with such clear-sighted courage as you can, all the cumulative evidence- from the depths of each one's psyche to the centre of our politics; from the arbitrary and sporadic barbarism of our wars and cities to the well-oiled structures of rapacity and greed we call world trade- which suggests that the answer to the question is: 'there is indeed, only power; and violence is master of us all'.”1 Perhaps violence really is what makes the world go ‘round. Surely, the events of the past week make it difficult to argue otherwise. Moreover, at first glance, today’s readings from Scripture don’t seem to be much help. “The Lord God is in your mi...
• Holy Families? by Mark Ryan (12/26/2012)
  I Samuel 2:18-20, 26 Col 3:12-17 OR Col 3:12-21 Luke 2:41-52 I have been claimed both as a member of an unhappy family and of a happy family. The unhappy one I was born into and the happy one I was adopted into through marriage. I am speaking of natural families here. As my family of origin was stricken by a failed marriage, I have a hard time believing that the distinction between happy and unhappy families is not a deep and important one. Perhaps Tolstoy meant to respect this important distinction when he wrote that “Happy families are alike; every unhappy ...
• Previous Year C links by Ekklesia Project (12/31/2012)
  [image]We've been doing bLOGOS long enough that we are now posting our second set of Year C lectionary reflections. We'll have new posts every week, and there will be links to the previous posts, but here's the complete list of links for those planning ahead.Year C Advent 1 http://dev-ekklesiaproject-or...