Posts from 2014

• Body Matters by Shannon Schaefer (1/1/2014)
  ...ed all through with yearning and will. The creator inhabits created form. There is no room for metaphor here; flesh on God is no parable, no allegory. Make no mistake: this is body, like yours, like mine, mystery as intimate as your own face. What difference does it make for flesh to mean flesh? How much would it matter if the scriptures said instead, “the Word became soul and lived among us?”...
• The Rupture of Impossibility by Jim McCoy (1/9/2014)
  ... First, the trance of things vile, repugnant, unclean; animals strictly and expressly forbidden by the purity code. Peter’s visceral response showed that he had been formed by what he had inherited and had always believed to be God’s Law. Then, the “inwardly perplexed” journey to Caesarea and the entrance into Cornelius’ household. Even to get to this point, Alison says,...
• Seek and you shall... by John Jay Alvaro (1/15/2014)
  ...-- First Psalm 40. This is one of those lovely/troubling imprecatory psalms. "Imprecatory" means "to curse or pray evil upon another," a definition which makes these passages difficult to preach. In 1983, U2 wrote their <em>War </em>album. On the last night of recording, they were about to be run off by the studio manager. They needed one more song, so they quickly wrote and recorded a song ba...
• Whose You Are by Anna MacDonald Dobbs (1/21/2014)
  ... unsurprising that representatives from multiple denominations are housed inside the church. The description “sharing space” would be too strongly worded and ultimately inaccurate, for these six denominations have partitioned the churches down to the tile. Armenians are only allowed in a certain area, Orthodox in another, Catholics can process in a certain area for a determined amount of time, etc...
• The Risks of Baby Dedication by Ragan Sutterfield (1/29/2014)
  ...ny.”  Then this man says that you will find your own soul “pierced by a sword.”  A little blue or pink New Testament would hardly seem an appropriate gift after all of that. Jesus was certainly no normal child and that was marked by the extraordinary way in which he entered the religious life of his people.  Simeon and Anna saw in Jesus someone who came to save the world but also to disturb it....
• "Luminous Darkness" by Debra Dean Murphy (2/5/2014)
  ...love—indeed to make us love them in the first place.) Hoffman was an actor of astonishing intuition and virtuosity. As <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/feb/03/philip-seymour-hoffman?CMP=fb_gu">one writer put it</a>, “he could nail a part in one punch, summoning the richness of an entire life in the smallest gesture.” It would be tempting to narrate Hoffman’s all too brief life and ...
• Groaning and Flourishing: Gathered by Our Creator's Care by Ragan Sutterfield (2/5/2014)
  ...damage done is beyond calculation and it will take years to know the full effects. These examples are just to name some of the ways in which creation is groaning in pain and eager longing for God's Kingdom to arrive <!--more-->against the empires of death and greed. The church is called to so much more than green teams and bulletin recycling. We are called to seek the flourishing of creation as we...
• Why Grace Doesn't Fit on a Bumpersticker by Erin Dufault-Hunter (2/15/2014)
  ...t. I can’t count how many times my own hot-headedness and quick tongue get the better of me. How many of you, like me, have been a jerk to another – especially a family member who may not be so “into” the faith – and get the sarcastic response, “Oh, so that’s how Christians act, eh?” or “Boy, your hypocrisy is really inspiring me to follow Jesus!” And thus this short phrase challenges anyone – Chr...
• Northwest Ekklesia Project Gathering 2014 by Ekklesia Project (2/19/2014)
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• Bonds Unbroken by Brian Volck (2/19/2014)
  ... comes more from the inside and I feel most true is this: I am a sinner whom the Lord has looked upon.” Perhaps you, like me, take heart at these words, which sound like the fruit of hard experience, not the stale repetition of some pretty formula. Perhaps you, like me, know the wounds – many of them meticulously concealed – of broken relationships, the compounded result of a willful and persi...
• Doing Well to Remember, Remembering to Do Well by Mark Ryan (2/26/2014)
  ... “utilitarian consciousness”—related to the objects on which my gaze (restlessly) rests—mostly corporate logos for hotel chains, personal injury lawyers, and the occasional public health message “1 out of 5 American children suffers from…” I must admit to being a little shocked and embarrassed when I came across this particular billboard, somehow not apropos in the environment. Do you REALLY ne...
• Asking the Hard Questions by Kyle Childress (3/5/2014)
  ...ey will be given a free steak dinner and the chance to win one of 25 handguns, long guns and shotguns. The goal is to “point people to Christ,” says a church sponsoring the event, and the Kentucky Baptist Convention said 1,678 men made “professions of faith” at about 50 such events last year, most of them in Kentucky. Is anyone asking any questions about this?<!--more--> My friend, Pastor...
• The Womb of the Church by Shannon Schaefer (3/11/2014)
  ...ssover, after all, and the temple at that. A repeat of such antics would be deeply shaming. Or perhaps the dark is more than simple night, and Nicodemus wants in, closer to the power he sees in the signs. Something real is at work in Jesus, something light, something that looks like God. Perhaps, he comes for a little of both.<!--more--> Nicodemus begins, "We know that you’re from God, be...
• Break in the Cup by Jim McCoy (3/20/2014)
  ... we have to do is find that one person who will make us forever happy, and how hard could that possibly be? <iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/CkBb6ghk7v0?rel=0" frameborder="0" width="400" height="225"></iframe> The couple in the song have the dreamy-eyed notion that the nectar of their love should slake every possible thirst. As a result, they drive each other crazy because they fail to ...
• Nearly there... by Ekklesia Project (3/29/2014)
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• God and Graves by Anna MacDonald Dobbs (4/2/2014)
  ...Jesus is on his way to the house. John tells us that Mary and Martha independently greet Jesus with the same statement, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” The underlying expectation – healing illness to prolong life - is the same that we often bring to modern medicine. In Mary and Martha’s case, it’s a reasonable expectation that Jesus could have doctored Lazarus. He ...
• The Walking Dead and Waking Saints by Ragan Sutterfield (4/10/2014)
  ...  What I barely remembered though was this verse: “The tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised. After his resurrection they came out of the tombs and entered the holy city and appeared to many” (27:52-53; NRSV). In a pop culture that is obsessed with zombies it is hard not to imagine this scene as a clip from “The Walking Dead.”  I can see the str...
• What Is There To Say? by Debra Dean Murphy (4/15/2014)
  .... (There are worse things). They may smirk. They may sleep. They may pity your benighted ignorance. <em>What is there to say?</em> You have to preach to those who are curious but who would never let on that the story of Jesus’ rising from the dead sometimes keeps them up at night. They have a healthy dose of the same skepticism as the group above, but unlike them, they have a hunch that truth c...
• Shame, Scars, and Resurrection Hope by Erin Dufault-Hunter (4/26/2014)
  ...led keloid tissue, so that what for others would certainly not have even left a mark becomes an evident reminder of my chronic klutziness – and my body’s tendency to embarrassingly proclaim my history, to tell tales about how I what I have done or had done to me. As I reflected on these texts, I puzzle over this encounter with the risen Christ and the disciples. I have always thought Thomas ge...
• A Same Kind of Different by Brian Volck (5/1/2014)
  ...homas learns that even if doors can’t stop Jesus, the scars of his execution abide. Cleopas and his companion are clueless until they recognize Jesus “in the breaking of the bread.” For all of those – including me – who come after the original disciples and know no Jesus except as the resurrected Christ, there’s a particular sweetness in today’s gospel, as there was in last week’s Thomas story...
• Coming In, Going Out by Mark Ryan (5/7/2014)
  ... theologian, neighbor and coach does not end with how it makes me feel…” Rather, he avers, social desire seeks connection with others in a metaphysical framework that orients us socially, makes us whole in community. The Communion of Saints, he claims, embodies the kinship, with others and God, that grounds us cosmically. McCarthy’s words seem to me an explication of these terse few lines from ...
• Trusting the Way by Kyle Childress (5/14/2014)
  ... just shared this meal with him and watched him kneel and wash everyone’s feet. They’re shocked to hear that one of them is a betrayer and they’re highly aware that outside the doors of their small room, the powers are organizing to put a stop to their small movement that only a few days before looked like it might become a successful revolution. Now, things look dire. To top it all, Jesus tells t...
• A Glory that Breathes Life by Shannon Schaefer (5/23/2014)
  ...s learning. “What baby?” you ask. There is a fountain, a passion circulating. I’m not saying this well, because I’m too much in the scatterbrain sweetness. Listen anyway. It must be said. There are eyes that see into eternity. A presence beyond the power and magic of shamans. Let that in. Sink to the floor, full prostration.</em> - Rumi ("Scatterbrain Sweetness" i...
• Passages by Jim McCoy (5/30/2014)
  ...e in Christ Jesus? And what does that look like?” (<em>Free To Be Bound: Church Beyond the Color Line</em>, p. 61). Given the demographics of the part of the county where I live in western North Carolina, I could be totally absorbed in congregational life and never even have to consider that question. In fact, by exhorting my flock to become more involved in “church” as it’s commonly understo...
• A Quieter Pentecost by Brian Volck (6/6/2014)
  ...rn from and discern with sponsors and other members of the church community they hope to become part of. My home parish takes this seriously. While the rite is meant to lead to reception into the church at the Easter Vigil, there’s no rushing, no shortcuts, no simply going with the flow. The rigor and probing reflection often make me wish I hadn’t completed my own initiation so young. <!--more-...
• Life Together by Anna MacDonald Dobbs (6/10/2014)
  ...ing a particular part of the meal. At the first stop, you enjoy appetizers and drinks, for example. The host at stop number two has prepared a main course, and stop number three features dessert. A plan is helpful to ensure a coherent and palate-pleasing experience. The menu at each home should stand on its own, but also complement, build on or reference the others. Welcome to a delectabl...
• A What or a Who? by Ekklesia Project (6/11/2014)
  ... which dramatically changes everything is a “what” or a “who.” For Christians, even those entranced by the bewitchments of technological change, the answer must finally be who — for we know that grace and truth have come through Jesus Christ (John 1:17), not the latest technological revolution, no matter how remarkable. </blockquote> Read the rest <a href="http://www.catalystresources.org/t...
• Hating the Godfather by Ragan Sutterfield (6/19/2014)
  ...heir own, an import of Sicilian semi-feudalism where powerful families are essentially rulers of small fiefdoms—thus the idea of the godfather. Michael wants to live a more Americanized life with an American girl.  He wants to be a part of a different kind of social order than the one in which he was raised.  And yet the whole drama of the film is the dissolution of this ideal.  Michael is draw...
• "Oh, Jesus Christ, Is It You Again?" by Debra Dean Murphy (6/25/2014)
  ...ial on their part—nor on mine now as a Catholic. Any given group of parishioners at any given mass is not following a script about how to treat newcomers to the liturgy. And I don’t mean to suggest an absence of warmth or kindness; I’ve never experienced that in a Catholic church and I hope I’ve never communicated it. But I do think that the Eucharist—week after week, year after year—trains worshi...
• (Mis)Remembered Words by Brian Volck (7/4/2014)
  ...esus’ “pure principles.” When he was done with his editing, Jefferson wrote, “There will be found remaining the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man. I have performed this operation for my own use, by cutting verse by verse out of the printed book, and arranging the matter which is evidently his, and which is as easily distinguishable as diamonds in a du...
• Wasteful Miracles by Brian Volck (7/10/2014)
  ...t, and it’s not easy to stop doing what you’re really good at. A modern variant of the “that’s nice, but it doesn’t apply to me” excuse stresses how different our lives are from those of first century peasants. Farmers, shepherds, and fishermen are, for many of us, abstractions invisibly at work somewhere beyond our personal experience, black boxes in the grocery store supply chain, while the ...
• Something to Do by Mark Ryan (7/16/2014)
  ...of full time work for two years. To get this job was a homecoming: I was now “Lecturer in Christian Ethics” at a good university. What’s more, in coming to this position I am being welcomed by friends—friends associated with the EP, as it happens. Who I am, what I have to offer, has been affirmed by persons who know something of me. Given the specific nature of the position, I was being affirm...
• The Greatest of All Shrubs by Kyle Childress (7/23/2014)
  ... be a cedar, about as big a tree as existed in the ancient Middle East. But a shrub? What’s going on here, Jesus?”<!--more--> We American Christians tend to think of God’s kingdom a bit more triumphantly than a mustard bush. Surely, God’s Reign has more substance to it than comparing it to shrubs and bushes and the smallest of all seeds? Mustard bushes are small and squatty. Furthermore, they d...
• Questions for a Picnic by Brian Volck (7/30/2014)
  ... from having our dependence on the grace and love of another made so obvious, so public? Why was the story of the feeding of the five thousand (“not counting women and children”) so important to the early church that it appears in all four gospels, with a reprise – for four thousand – in Mark and Matthew? What are we to learn from such unexpected abundance? Why are being taught and being fed c...
• Rocking the Boat by Debra Dean Murphy (8/5/2014)
  ...ve been following a blog debate over at <a href="www.theolog.org">www.theolog.org</a> [ed. note - this blog is now part of <a href="http://www.christiancentury.org/blogs" target="_blank">http://www.<wbr>christiancentury.org/blogs</wbr></a>] between a scientist of some sort, hostile to religion generally and Christianity particularly, and a pious defender of the faith. In my view, neither has been ...
• Junk-yard Dog by Shannon Schaefer (8/13/2014)
  ...ccer for all of three weeks, eight year olds, and her mom had struggled to consistently get her to practices and games. So my assistant, a dear man and veteran coach, but living in a place where such ignorant terms of endearment (or not) were still somewhat culturally accepted, had offered to give her rides to practices and games. She was from the “wrong” side of town, he told me. He worried a...
• Airbnb, Hospitality, and the Gift Economy by Ekklesia Project (8/14/2014)
  ...re room for a guest to crash in, now we rent it out. Where previously we might have offered an unused desk space in our office for a friend needing a place to work, now we list it and charge by the hour or by the day. Where previously (in antiquity, it seems…) we might have given someone a lift if we were headed their direction, now we charge for a Lyft. Interestingly enough in Lyft’s case, what s...
• Tilling and Keeping: A Report on Gathering 2014 by Ragan Sutterfield (8/18/2014)
  ...nary speakers guided our conversations at the gathering.  First was Norman Wirzba, who renewed our understanding of the very good creation and called us away from the language of “nature” that obscures our view of a world to which God has already given value.  Second, was Ched Myers who called us to learn our watersheds and place our discipleship within our local ecosystems. Third, we heard from P...
• The Self Under Attack by Mark Ryan (8/19/2014)
  ...only in conversation with others, though this is an important part of the process. We are also involved in a “self-conversation,” as the story of our lives will often be an uneasy weaving of various threads. These threads are born out of the transitions of our attachments and allegiances over time. Moreover, some new threads will be defined by overcoming earlier ones—i.e., the new, fit, and produc...
• Life Threatening by Jim McCoy (8/29/2014)
  ...sis, that phrase is also a not-so-welcome description of a very prevalent misunderstanding of discipleship.  Serious, earnest, studious?  Certainly.  But life threatening?  That’s just not in our frame of reference. So what of Jesus’ words about crosses and losing our lives?  The usual reading strategy, most often unspoken, is to assume that Jesus was “a special case,” or that the things Jesus ...
• Minding Our Own Business by Joel Shuman (9/3/2014)
  ...saying or doing anything that might hurt another’s feelings or create an unhappy tension between us. I am far too captive to and dependent upon the esteem of others. I want not just to be respected, but liked – by just about everyone. My past is strewn with occasions where I allowed another’s offense against me or someone else to slide simply because I didn’t care to suffer the discomfort of c...
• Forgiven to Forgive by Anna MacDonald Dobbs (9/10/2014)
  ...onal tips and warnings like “forgiveness is hard!” These sites, in addition to others of the self-help variety, commonly extol using forgiveness as a way to better your own physical and emotional health, with the bonus of decreasing stress and potentially increasing your life span. Forgiveness is 100% about you. This week’s parable in Matthew offers a corrective to this stunted understanding of...
• The Quality of Mercy by Stephen Fowl (9/15/2014)
  ...me from; they do not believe that Moses or God can provide; they are uncomfortable with having to rely on God. Alternatively, if you opt for the reading from Jonah, God gets slammed by Jonah for being merciful to the Ninevites; for treating them better than they deserve; for being steadfast in love: Complaints for not providing enough, complaints for providing too much. Jonah is probably tied ...
• The Unfairness of God’s Justice by Brian Volck (9/27/2014)
  ... creation myth for Rawls’ social contract. Rawls asks his reader to imagine a meeting where all parties choose a common social structure from behind a “veil of ignorance.” No one knows his/her/its origin, history, gender, ethnicity, class, religion, talents, abilities, or conception of the Good. This artifice, Rawls believes, forces participants to choose the basic rights and duties of citize...
• Fruit of the Vine, Work of Human Hands by Shannon Schaefer (10/1/2014)
  ... parable and interpretation raises a number of compelling questions for the church. Knowing the story as we do, it is perhaps understandable for us to look at Jesus’ interpretation of the parable of the wicked tenants as a prophecy foretelling the opening of the kingdom of God to the Gentiles. While this isn’t perhaps an invalid interpretation, it is one that allows us, as the church, to be bystan...
• Deadly Distractions by Mark Ryan (10/9/2014)
  ...eligious authorities in the temple have passed from indignation to aggression. Only fear of the crowds is holding them back. (Mt 21:46) “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son.” The king giving the banquet, we read, had a special guest list. However, even though the invitation is urgent, the select group will not be bothered to come. Some, react ...
• They Cried to the Lord by Jim McCoy (10/17/2014)
  ...orship is that the words of the texts will not only say something, but also do something. Paul Simon’s song “Wartime Prayers” helps bridge that divide. Simon, who admits he is as surprised as anyone at how God keeps showing up as the subject of his songs, has the poet’s gift of speaking in image rather than in proposition. He also unashamedly joins the chorus of the needy. <iframe src="//www.yo...
• Priests at Every Elbow by Kyle Childress (10/21/2014)
  ...d with the Gospel,’ so that we have imparted ‘to you not only the gospel of God but our very selves.’ These are not exactly expressions of humility. What would you think if Kyle said that of himself? ‘God has entrusted me with the Gospel so that my very self makes present God to you. Indeed, if I fail in the ministry then all our salvation is in doubt.’ I suspect you would think if Kyle expressed ...
• Do As They Say, Not As They Do by Joel Shuman (10/28/2014)
  ...me mostly flat and uninspired. And then, as sometimes happens, things became just a bit clearer. I was first awakened to the possibilities offered by the texts when I read Kyle Childress’s bLogos post from last week, which focused on that week’s epistle (1 Thessalonians 2:1-8, the verses immediately preceding today’s epistle lesson). Serendipitously for Kyle, and by extension, for me, this pass...
• Party Prep by Anna MacDonald Dobbs (11/5/2014)
  ... (…and my self-awareness about asking for approval about my self-awareness. This is getting very meta.). Imagine reading the Gospel text this week about the Kingdom of Heaven from my perspective. Long story short, it 100 percent stresses. me. out.<!--more--> There are 10 bridesmaids. Five are wise and five are foolish. Five take extra oil with them for their lamps while they’re waiting ...
• Enter Into the Lord's Joy by Stephen Fowl (11/11/2014)
  ...ught of Christianity as little more than a religion whose adherents’ faith is based on the fearful desire to avoid some future judgment by God. Although Christians have from time to time evangelized the world by calling people to believe in order to be saved from God’s coming judgment, these passages cannot easily be enlisted in such a project. Strikingly, the readings from Zephaniah and Matt...
• Learning to Live Like Sheep by Brian Volck (11/18/2014)
  ... spirit whenever I return. It was in the high desert of the Navajo Nation that I awakened to the practical significance of images so resonant for the desert-dwellers who wrote the Bible. To see a line of cottonwoods, their green leaves trembling in the faintest desert breeze, proclaim how deep roots find life-giving water, is to know the faithful confidence of “a tree planted by a river.” (Psa...
• Sanctification and Time by Ekklesia Project (11/19/2014)
  ...ef="http://dev-ekklesiaproject-org:8080/about-us/meet-the-ep/phil-kenneson/">Phil Kenneson</a> discussed the church and rest in a talk (among other practices) at the EP Slow Church gathering and in his pamphlet, both titled "Practicing Ecclesial Patience" which you can <a href="http://dev-ekklesiaproject-org:8080/the-gathering/2012-slow-church-and-fast-friends/schedule-gathering-2012/plenary-sessi...
• Year B links by Ekklesia Project (11/24/2014)
  ...e, Mark Ryan, John Jay Alvaro, Danny Yencich, Jenny Williams and Heather Carlson. A pdf file of the complete reflections can be <a href="http://dev-ekklesiaproject-org:8080/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/EP-collection-Year-B.pdf">downloaded here. </a> <strong>Advent-  1: </strong><a href="http://dev-ekklesiaproject-org:8080/blog/2008/11/come-lord-jesus/">2008</a>, <a href="http://dev-ekklesiapro...
• Learning to Squint by Kyle Childress (11/26/2014)
  ...e looked at everything. Walker Percy, tells in his novel <em>Love in the Ruins</em> and its sequel novel <em>The Thanatos Syndrome</em> about a small, remnant church out in the woods of Louisiana. They are fragile and exiled from the mainstream, conventional and successful American church. They have a small AIDS clinic where they care for the sick and dying and care for each other. Their pri...
• Take Comfort by Mark Ryan (12/4/2014)
  ...in the later stages of planning. Our habit of pondering how good it would be to reach out to the lonely has not yet become a skill for making it happen. Or, perhaps, such skills are subject to perpetual atrophy. It may be that my Thanksgiving dinner, however sumptuous, unsettled me because of what I was bringing to the table. Instead of the labor of lovingly preparing food together with others,...
• Like Those Who Dream by Shannon Schaefer (12/12/2014)
  ...challenge of entering into Advent as a season of waiting and crying out for the presence of God in our midst. The first Sunday of this season came just days after the most recent occasion for protests in Ferguson, MO and with those waiting for justice, we could stand in solidarity and cry like the first line from the Isaiah text for that week, “O that you would rend the heavens and come down, s...
• What Sort of Greeting? by Jim McCoy (12/19/2014)
  ... important announcement.’ A mysterious messenger breaks into the life of a young, poor, unmarried woman, telling her she will have a baby. About the baby, Gabriel said, “He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David.”<!--more--> Suddenly Mary has a primary role to play in God’s age-old love story. God had made ...
• Looking for the Redemption of Jerusalem by Joel Shuman (12/23/2014)
  ...e credit card induced hangover that invariably follows our annual orgy of consumerism; and our habitual rush always to look ahead to whatever’s next (there’s New Year’s Eve revelry to be planned, after all) – this week’s texts invite us to linger for a moment, and maybe take seriously the character and magnitude of what God has done and (believe it or not) continues to do through the Word made fle...
• Nativity Politics by Debra Dean Murphy (12/31/2014)
  ...child.</em> <em>Your home is a checkpoint now.</em> <em>Your home is a border town.</em> <em>Welcome to the brawl.</em> <p align="right"><a href="http://vimeo.com/33839990">“Song of the Magi,” Anaïs Mitchell</a></p> They are as familiar as any in the cast of characters that make up the mash-up we know as the Christmas Story. The “wise men from the East” in Matthew’s gospel join the shepher...