Posts from 2016

The Kingdom Unleashed on the World by Joel Shuman (1/6/2016)
...mong a people long since accustomed to injustice and subjugation at the hands of series of imperial oppressors and collaborators from among their own leaders. The topic of conversation was not new in any absolute sense. Its roots were a thousand years old, and exchanges like it had emerged and reemerged over the years whenever things became grim and the people wondered whether the God of their anc...
Not Yet at the Wedding Banquet by Brian Volck (1/12/2016)
...l positions in direct contradiction to one another. That details of the wedding at Cana passage – an episode that appears only in John’s gospel and designated by the author as the first of Jesus’s signs – should be interpreted variously by different ecclesial traditions comes as no surprise. Traditions shape not only what we do and believe, but how we see, read, speak, and hear. What troubles ...
Transformative Worship by Timothy W. Ross (1/19/2016)
...Ezra, surrounded by fellow priests and Levites, processed through the throng, carrying the sacred text. After years of exile, God’s Word would be heard in Jerusalem. Ezra climbed onto the wooden platform and the congregation went silent. He opened the Book and a thrill ran through the crowd. People shouted, “Hallelujah! Bless the Lord!” Ezra prayed, perhaps remembering the ways that Israel ha...
The Unwelcome Word by Jana Bennett (1/28/2016)
...his scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” It has been fulfilled NOW. And NOW. And NOW. We discover that the year of Jubilee, the year of the Lord’s favor, isn’t only the Jubilee as we have it from Jewish law, where debts are forgiven and an unjust society is reordered, ever forty-nine years. When Jesus proclaims the word has been fulfilled, the Jubilee becomes now, and every moment. Th...
God, Presidents, and the Running of the World by Ekklesia Project (2/2/2016)
...es heavily, sometimes lightly; to see themselves as saviors of a sort, as those called to run “the greatest country in the world” and thus have a powerful hand in running the world. This seems laughable when it comes to the kind of servant leadership, the kind of counter politics that a crucified messiah asks of his followers. But it’s not funny. Especially when the religious rhetoric we’re hearin...
It's About Jesus by Kyle Childress (2/3/2016)
...e are two dramatic encounters when Jesus Christ is revealed for who he is: Jesus’ baptism back in Luke 3 and this transfiguration on the mountain. In this story, Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up with him on a mountain. He is praying and, as usual, they want to go to sleep, bored while Jesus is over there praying. Suddenly, Jesus’ appearance changes. He turns dazzlingly white. A brightne...
Identity Politics by Anna MacDonald Dobbs (2/10/2016)
...02/if-a-2016-candidate-is-citing-a-bible-verse-theres-a-good-chance-its-not-quite-right/">Some even cite Scripture (or attempt to) to make their case,</a> ostensibly as a proxy for shared identity and commitments with a desired bloc of voters. It’s not so different a scenario from the story that confronts Christians this time of year, every year on the first Sunday in Lent. Jesus is faced with...
Northwest Regional Ekklesia Project Gathering 2016 by Ekklesia Project (2/14/2016)
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A Long Obedience in the Same Direction by Todd Edmondson (2/16/2016)
...em>Sports Illustrated for Kids; now I simply check my Twitter feed), and listening to the so-called experts argue loudly about sports-related topics on ESPN and on various radio call-in shows. Last week, as the professional basketball season reached its halfway point and conversation began heating up around various players’ contracts and potential trade deals, I heard a lot of discussion ...
Gospel Politics by Ekklesia Project (2/19/2016)
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Danger: Holy Ground by Ragan Sutterfield (2/25/2016)
...ten it. There are cars, there are electrical sockets, there are long flights of stairs; there are hard things and sharp corners, there are choking hazards everywhere. The world is full of dangers and part of the process of growing up is learning the habits to avoid them. “Don’t put that in your mouth.” “Don’t put your finger in that socket.” “Look both ways before you cross the street.” “Watch ...
Becoming Home by Shannon Schaefer (3/2/2016)
...ot of bravery.” A friend and I had spent the afternoon in the sun and the breeze talking about relationships, and after, I’d had this dawning vision that perhaps she was worthy of more love than she was allowing herself to hope for. So hours later, through a bit of trembling, I told her so. And her response was one so resonant with my own experience, so human, so all of us. Sometimes to hope...
I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? by Stephen Fowl (3/8/2016)
...immanent defeat of Babylon. From there, today’s reading begins with an allusion to God’s deliverance of the Israelites and the defeat of the Egyptians at the Red Sea. Although this is Israel’s climactic moment of redemption and liberation, Isaiah admonishes readers not to dwell on past acts of redemption – as wonderful as those were. Something new is about to happen. Isaiah’s audience is challenge...
The Death of Jesus by Stephen Fowl (3/15/2016)
...illboards for the empire’s power. From the perspective of the Romans, Jesus’ death on the cross was simply one more occasion for the empire to announce that if you disrupt things, and even if we think you might disrupt things, we will crush you and display you as an example to others. Pilate’s cowardice in this matter shows that he, too, has learned the lesson that the empire’s securi...
Resurrection and the Way by Joel Shuman (3/22/2016)
...s and other church leaders must attempt a precarious balancing act, looking to incentivize attendance among non-churchgoers with perquisites and simplify the liturgy and sermon to make them more “relevant,” or at least friendlier to the uninitiated, while simultaneously offering the faithful just enough of the tradition via readings and hymns to make them feel like they’d been to church. Such ...
Belief, Bodies, and Freedom by Jana Bennett (3/30/2016)
...rected in our memory.” Others have suggested that there’s no need – not really – to believe in the risen Lord. What matters is that we follow his message, more or less to love each other. I think our particular difficulties with the resurrection, as 21st century people, stem from the ways we understand our bodies. We think we can do things to our bodies – real, powerful things, and that we are ...
When the Wars Are Done by Jim McCoy (4/8/2016)
...ms simpler when the wars are done. Jackie Robinson was a focus. At big, dark Number 42, forces converged: white hatred for his black pride, for his prophetic defiance and simply for his color, contested with black hope, the same black hope which Southern whites said did not exist (Boys of Summer, emphasis mine). </blockquote> “The past always seems simpler when the wars are ...
Learning to be Sheep by Brian Volck (4/13/2016)
...ding a flock (the latter a frequent stand-in for the people of Israel) recurs often. In the Old Testament, shepherd imagery may point to God, the promised Messiah, or human leaders appointed by God: prophets, priests, and kings. Some of those human shepherds are said to have scattered their sheep, as in <a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=327505663">Jeremiah 23:1-6</a> and <a href="http://bible.o...
Love = Obedience by Timothy W. Ross (4/21/2016)
...nessee, it’s illegal for a driver to be blindfolded while operating a vehicle. In Indiana, it's against the law to shoot open a can of food. In Kentucky, it's a crime to use a reptile during any part of a religious service. Many Christians are big on rules. It’s common in my community to see Ten Commandment signs posted in driveways. Don’t you find it a little odd that the one religiou...
Don't Be Afraid by Debra Dean Murphy (4/26/2016)
...org/bible/readings/050116.cfm">Revelation 21:1014, 22-23 </a>(LM) <a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=John+14:23-29&vnum=yes&version=nrsv">John 14:23-29</a> “When love has entirely cast out fear, and fear has been transformed into love, then the unity brought us by our savior will be fully realized, for all [people] will be united with one another t...
Improvisational Gospel by Kyle Childress (5/3/2016)
...essness and we take that and improvise, transpose, and turn it into something for God’s glory. This is the meaning of worship and witness. Acts 16 is a story about this kind of improvisational singing. Here is a story of two people who knew the improvisational power of the gospel. Paul and Silas are in Philippi when this possessed girl starts following them around shrieking at th...
What Wishes Pentecost to Be? by Anna MacDonald Dobbs (5/12/2016)
... the dangers in approaching Pentecost with a question that directs us to focus on what we do to a subset of other people is the assumption that we can identify the needy neighbor. Once you’ve pegged somebody who “needs,” it’s remarkably easy to fall into the us-versus-them trap of thinking that we, the God-knowers, “have” God to offer, that we mediate God to the world. This week’s lectionary pa...
Trinity Sunday by Ekklesia Project (5/20/2016)
... MacDonald Dobbs...
Choices by Todd Edmondson (5/25/2016)
...rs old. It seems that my parents wanted to give me a treat, so they took me to the aisle where the candy bars were on display and told me I could pick one out. Instead of making a beeline toward the M&M’s or the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, grabbing one, and calling it a day, I simply stood there, looking at the vast array of sugary snacks, unable to make anything even approaching a selection. ...
A Morsel From Your Hand by Shannon Schaefer (6/1/2016)
.... Half through her explanation, feeling awkward and wanting to end her humiliation, I gently cut her off and said, “Do you need money?” Her answer was, “Yes, $26,” an amount so exact, so without explanation, and so more than what I was expecting and yet still modest, that I startled. As I looked in my bag to see what I had, she said, “and also I really need a ride just over there,” gesturing t...
What We Owe by Ragan Sutterfield (6/9/2016)
...earsed and repeated, were the same every time. I’d lead them through a series of exercises and thought experiments that would help most, in the end, see their advantages—the head start, however hard the work, they had over many others from different backgrounds and races than their own. But I’d always leave a little sad, because since this was a Christian school it should have been one saturate...
Pain and Hope by Jessie Larkins (6/14/2016)
...to share your grace. Amen. --Guerillas of Grace, 28 These are tough days for those who mount pulpits to proclaim the Word of God. Sitting, as I am, on this Monday before Sunday, wondering how to write faithfully about these appointed texts for the week, I find my thoughts repeatedly drifting to my newsfeed. These stories cry out for the preacher to say a word about them, too. This we...
Found in Translation by Jim McCoy (6/23/2016)
...ransmits us there, not in the sense of bringing information to the receiver but of putting the receiver in the place of the event – alive.” -- Denise Levertov, “Great Possessions” “The Translation of Elijah” has always seemed to me a strange title for the chariot of fire scene. “Translation,” I thought, was merely a matter of substituting words in one language for words in another lan...
Snaring Satan by Brian Volck (6/29/2016)
...s I might to make it otherwise, I have a modern mind. Like many others, I don't know if the Hebrew, S-t-n, “the adversary or accuser,” or the Greek, diabolos, “the slanderer,” can still be understood a personal, superhuman enemy of God Rather than catalogue modern answers to that question, I’ll pose a riddle: “Is Satan’s first deception persuading us that he exists or that he doe...
Neighboring by Stephen Fowl (7/6/2016)
...yday discourse from our Gospel reading for this Sunday. Our familiarity with this story and our conventional use of the term Good Samaritan might lead us to miss some of the more interesting details of this story from Luke’s gospel. The story emerges out of a verbal conflict between Jesus and a lawyer. Luke tells us that the lawyer wants to test Jesus. This lawyer asks Jesus what he ...
New Endings, New Beginnings by Jessie Larkins (7/14/2016)
...y cries have been “Come, Lord Jesus” more often than they’ve been jokes or hashtags. When I read the Old Testament lesson appointed for this coming weekend and hear Amos’ denunciation of 8th century Judean social, economic, and religious practices, it sounds so familiar. Income inequality, corrupt business practices that benefit the wealthy, religion that’s nothing more than form without su...
The Last Word by Joel Shuman (7/20/2016)
...ife that the Cross of Jesus makes it possible to abandon. Again this week we are offered a word of prophetic judgment (from Hosea) and a reiteration of the author of Colossians’ account of what transpires in the cross. However, in both texts we discover a delightful comedic turn that opens to us the possibility of seeing ourselves and our world in surprising new ways. The passage from Hosea is...
The Beginning of a Heavenly Sowing by Shannon Schaefer (7/27/2016)
...the humidity, I was overwhelmed by the pungent aroma of soil and onions. Instead of the usual black trays of infant plants getting a good start on growth, before me were long rows of drying tables, heaped with onions - such an abundance that the metal tables had begun to tip and sink into the ground from the weight. Soon I was told the story: the garden interns, knowing this planting of onions ...
What Are You Preparing For? by Ragan Sutterfield (8/3/2016)
...he sea level. As Elizabeth Kolbert <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/12/21/the-siege-of-miami">chronicled last fall in the New Yorker</a>, when a super tide comes crashing in it floods the the lawns of million dollar homes and soaks sports cars in corrosive salt water. This is happening more and more. It will keep happening more and more. The city of Miami Beach is, of co...
A Deeper Communion by Todd Edmondson (8/9/2016)
...rhetoric clogging our airwaves and the vitriol that plagues our social media sites seems just the sort of thing that divides “father against son” and “mother against daughter.” We have elevated divisiveness to an art form, so that not just households, but communities, classrooms, and congregations bear the marks of estrangement. Even among followers of Christ, virtues like gentleness and kindne...
God Calls People by Timothy W. Ross (8/18/2016)
...’s pressing issues. Yet if you pressed me on the matter, I would be forced to admit that I too have been called by God. My real introduction to this passage came long ago when I lived in the bush of Africa. Our family was part of a church-planting team among a tribal people. We were the only foreigners for miles around, and even though the tribal people were good to us, it was ...
Slavery and the Cost of Discipleship by Kelly Johnson (8/31/2016)
...s in today’s gospel. Paul’s “dear friend and co-worker” Philemon, a believer whose faith Paul praises, had a slave. It shocks us now to realize that the early Christian communities included not only slaves but also slave-owners. Being baptized did not automatically mean that a slave-owner would free his or her slaves. And this is not because ancient slavery was a humane institution. Slavery me...
Lost Sheep and Broken People by Brian Volck (9/6/2016)
... into life’s ambiguities, hadn’t yet recognized the power of my own desires, hadn’t yet read enough theology – Augustine in particular. When I understood idolatry as getting the order of my loves wrong, specifically by desiring (and thus secretly worshipping) something more than God, I saw false gods everywhere. Nearly all recorded history – from the founding of ancient Sumer to the unedifying...
Money and Friends by Stephen Fowl (9/12/2016)
...s. Then he says, “You cannot serve God and wealth.” Whether or not I always serve God, I hesitate to accept the idea that I might be serving wealth. Rather, wealth is there to serve me. I think that is what many of us both in and outside the church think. We are free and wealth or money is to be used by us. It is a tool; it serves us. We may not always use our money wisely, but we definitely us...
Fear of Beggars by Jessie Larkins (9/21/2016)
... their cars, full of items like bottled water and socks, to avoid passing cash to the homeless that live on the streets of our town. (Because, you know, drugs and stuff). I have had folks confess to me that the only reason they give money to the man or woman they pass on the corner is out of guilt, but they know deep down that their $5 bill is more about them feeling good than helping the poor. ...
The Spiritual Dimensions of Justice Work by Ekklesia Project (9/21/2016)
.../radicaldiscipleship.net/2016/09/18/something-much-greater-at-stake/">Something Much Greater at Stake</a>...
Captivities by Joel Shuman (9/28/2016)
...lament over the destruction of Jerusalem and the hard life of servitude facing those exiled to Babylon, to the exiled Psalmist’s wondering about the very possibility of faithfulness for the remnant of God’s people living in a pagan land, to Paul’s words of encouragement to his young friend Timothy even as he (Paul) sits in prison awaiting execution, to Jesus (even Jesus!) reminding us that even wh...
Distraction Sickness by Ekklesia Project (10/3/2016)
...llivan is a controversial writer who uses illustrations that may be offensive to some readers, but his article on modern struggles with technology is our latest link for the Signs of the Times. <a href="http://nymag.com/selectall/2016/09/andrew-sullivan-technology-almost-killed-me.html">from New York Magazine</a>  ...
Embracing Place by Shannon Schaefer (10/7/2016)
... we are arguably a culture of non-places. With mobility a marker supposedly for our freedom, we fall too often for the lie that transience is the path to transcendence. We have perhaps embraced the nomadic as a symbol of what it means to be successful. What is the old adage we use about our gain of influence? We say that we’re “going places,” or “on our way to the top.” Ambition feeds the lure...
Prayer in the Zone by Ragan Sutterfield (10/12/2016)
...ed by an alien force and it has become dangerous to anyone who moves through it without care--the landscape always shifting, the wreckage of civilization overgrown by the wild. Stalkers are the people who are able to travel through the Zone, they know the way to the room. In the film two men, named simply “Writer” and “Professor,” hire a character named, keeping to the theme, “Stalker,” to take th...
The Beautiful Reality of Repentance by Todd Edmondson (10/19/2016)
... who is seeking to change his life, comes to the end of a journey. He has made his way upriver to the Jesuit outpost where the missionary priests are ministering to the Guarani tribe. In the past, he might have traveled this arduous route in order to kidnap and sell the people who lived there. Now, he has another purpose—penance. As he stumbles over boulders and climbs up cliffs, he drags behind h...
Loved for What We Have in Us by Timothy W. Ross (10/25/2016)
...en they emerged from the wilderness and marched around Jericho’s walls. Mark Antony thought so too. He gave Jericho as a gift to Cleopatra, tossing in Arabia as an afterthought. Cleo leased Jericho out to King Herod, charging him half the yearly profits of all Judea. And how do you suppose Herod skimmed off enough cash to pay the mortgage? Look no further than one man who had his boney fists wr...
God of the Living by Dan McClain (11/2/2016)
... people of Thessalonica, to Jesus’s re-orientation of the Sadducees' question about marriage in the resurrection—these passages simultaneously challenge and assure the Christian, especially the Christian in the midst of personal, social, and/or political turmoil. Above all, in these passages, we are challenged to become a people of Life, of the Living God. We are assured, having become a people...
Election by Ekklesia Project (11/8/2016)
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Don't Panic (The End is Good News) by Kelly Johnson (11/8/2016)
...rld will come to an end, for each of us and for all of us, and this both terrifies and fascinates us. People love stories about the end of the world. The long winter is coming, meteors hurtle toward earth, zombies overwhelm civilization. Such stories indulge our wish to be heroes. The thrill of adrenaline blows the cobwebs off our humdrum little everyday routine, and we can abandon the confusi...
King/Fool by Ekklesia Project (11/18/2016)
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Ordinary Things, Extraordinary Vision by Jana Bennett (11/23/2016)
... image Isaiah gives us for imagining our future with God is anything but the reality of the world we know today. In Isaiah’s vision, nations come together, united in climbing the mountains of God. They don’t just come together in some half-hearted way, either - they stream together, all pressing headlong in a rush toward God. They all recognize God. Our modern relativistic attempts at keeping ...
Disowning the Right Things by Brian Volck (11/30/2016)
...rtain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road...
You Want It Darker by Debra Dean Murphy (12/6/2016)
...amp;vnum=yes&version=nrsv">Matthew 11:2-11</a> “They’re lining up the prisoners and the guards are taking aim.” Leonard Cohen A confession: I do not know how to write about these Advent texts as if the events of the last month (and the many months prior) were politics as usual in the United States of America. You know—a couple of slick, scripted ...
Our Pious Disbelief in “God-With-Us” by Jana Bennett (12/13/2016)
...nd Aram, a non-Jewish nation. Ahaz fears the bloodshed and destruction that war inevitably brings. We, today, can understand Ahaz’s fear. Surely we have all been in some kind of position like that where we have stood among enemies, where no help or hope seems to be found. Our own enemies are probably not political foes who threaten to take away our land. In our context, perhap...
Marvelous Things by Janice Love (12/20/2016)
... it, but can’t help thinking to myself, how could you ever be? Last year, gravitational waves were detected from an event that happened over a billion years ago, long before humans even existed on the Earth. Two black holes, each much heavier than our sun, collided, causing the waves. Before they dramatically merged, these two black holes were orbiting each other 100 times per second...
There’s a New <del>Kid /</del> King In Town by Jessie Larkins (12/28/2016)
...ittle Jesus Boy (1934) One of my favorite Christmas Eve memories from childhood is sitting in the dim light of the sanctuary at my grandparent’s Methodist church in Richmond, VA. Every year the same heavy set man with the deep baritone voice would sit on a stool in the middle of the chancel area with his guitar and sing an acoustic solo of Robert MacGimsey’s 1934 Christmas tune, Sweet Littl...