Wednesday, December 30, 2015
Sunday, December 27, 2015
Thursday, December 24, 2015
Saturday, December 12, 2015
Reflection and Renewal: Your Love Won't Let Us Go (based on 1 John 1:9)
May your all-encompassing love shine through in all that we do. Keep our eyes and our hearts open.
Amen.
Thursday, December 10, 2015
Benediction: Every Part Of Our Lives (based on Luke 1:31-38)
In every part of our lives God; may our ears hear your voice, may our hands do your work, may our feet walk your path, and may our hearts share your love for all people.
Tuesday, December 8, 2015
Monday, December 7, 2015
Preaching the Whole Magnificat - Nadia Bolz Weber
Mary's song isn’t a docile picture of obedience singing about how great it is to be pregnant. Mary is singing of nothing less than complete overturning of the social and economic order.
There’s a reason why the Magnificat is said to have terrified the Russian Czars. Because, the message is that if you find yourself rich and powerful then … watch out! This young little Jewish girl is not singing about a whole lot of good news for you.
What Mary sings of is not an endless cycle of retribution, but a total dismantling of the entire system. The child she bears is not coming to make the oppressed the oppressors. He is coming to disrupt the whole notion of oppression itself. This divinely vulnerable love is the only way out of our cycle of power and oppression.
I’m certain that the reality of empire and oppression and poverty and the abject powerlessness of her very self in her very context was not lost on the mother of our Lord. Quite the opposite. I think she knew. She knew that because of her lowliness and poverty and insignificance – because of this and not in spite of this that God was and is doing an entirely new thing.
Never had the poor been so exalted than for God to slip into their skin insistently blessing the whole world in a radical way. She knew you simply can’t speak of such things. They have to be sung.
The full article is available here
Thursday, December 3, 2015
John The Baptist and Mary's Magnificat: The Economics of Hope - Nancy Rockwell in Patheos
Each advent, John the Baptist steps up, announcing that the economics of the empire and the temple are a corrupt system. People listened to him because they already knew this to be true.
We've gotten so used to thinking of John the Baptist as a secondary figure to Jesus, the message was meant only to point towards Jesus. In this we sell him well short.
The corruption of the temple economy was at the center of John's attention. His leaving Jerusalem, his camel skin clothing and his diet of honey and locust were signs of his refusal to participate in that economy.
Yet for all of his fiery conviction, John's answer to the corrupt economy is practical, reasonable, and most of all, full of hope: You who have two coats, give one away to someone who has none, he says. You who have two loaves of bread, do likewise. Behave fairly, treat people justly, no matter what job you have.
Changing the economy is John's answer to Herod's imperial acts of terror and the Temple Leader's economic exploitation. He teaches that we can build a world of hope among us by meeting each other's needs.
Mary of Nazareth, Jesus’ mother and John’s cousin, and the other Forerunner who is our Advent guide, rings out the same message, telling about how God scatters the proud in the imaginations of their hearts, who brings down the powerful from their thrones and lifts up the lowly, who fills the hungry with good things and sends the rich empty away.
The repentance John advises to the crowds is economic change. The dedication Mary sings about is the same. These actions are hopeful, and in their view, fit preparation for the redemption of the world.
The full article is available here
Wednesday, December 2, 2015
Post-Traumatic Church Syndrome - Reba Riley
When I read surveys and studies about America's changing religious landscape, I don't see statistics. I see Post-Traumatic Church Syndrome.
It is real, pervasive, and quite possibly one of the reasons why the percentage of adults who describe themselves as Christians has dropped by nearly 80 percentage points since 2007.
Post-Traumatic Church Syndrome is:
- A condition of spiritual injury that occurs in the context of religion, faith and/or the leaving, losing or breaking thereof
- The aftermath of said spiritual injury
- A diagnosis intended to aid in serious spiritual healing.
Post-Traumatic Church Syndrome can be seen in the many people tired of being spiritually bruised, of their faith being used to justify unloving policies, and some of whom give up on faith altogether. In fact, 59% of all Millennials who grew up in church drop out either permanently or for an extended period of time.
For me, questions about faith weren't being asked or answered by the theology preached by family's church of my childhood. It felt like the deconstruction of an entire world view all at once.
No one ever told me it was ok to explore outside the lines of my upbringing. No one told me that God was big enough to handle all of my doubts, questions, wondering and wandering or that God would meet (and was already residing) wherever I was - or wasn't.
For me, the term Post-Traumatic Church Syndrome framed the pain I couldn't express. It helped to identify the reason why I couldn't pray or darken the door of a church. In the midst of such tumult, it is important for each individual to remember that they are not alone in their upheaval. When I have shared my experience with others, so many have had the same experience and say, "[t]hat's me."
I found my way through Post-Traumatic Church Syndrome by finally understanding that God was everywhere and in everyone whether they knew it or not. I finally understood that we are all connected.
At last I understood that we cannot experience God without one another, because God is love. If faith is love in action, God is in love in action times infinity.
Full articles are available at Time Magazine, HuffPost Religion, Religion News and Faith Street.
Tuesday, December 1, 2015
Why We Need A Little Advent - Ben Irwin
We're not very good at waiting for Christmas - or lingering over it when it finally comes.
This may be because we're hoping for some kind of respite from the world, but somehow the payoff of Christmas feels hollow when we finally get there.
I believe the answer lies, in part, in allowing ourselves to fully experience Advent first.
Advent forces us to linger in the dark—even as we wait, sometimes impatiently, for our redemption. It’s only by lingering here that we can see the light of Christmas properly.
To experience the respite Christmas offers, we first have to understand: respite from what and for whom?
Advent calls us to look upon the distress of our world and insists that we see the world as it is - that we see its brokenness and our part in it. This can be challenging for those of us who’ve known nothing but privilege and power and comfort our whole lives.
Confronting the brokenness in our world means confronting the brokenness in our own hearts. It means confronting our complicity in systems that oppress, discriminate, or take away life.
Mary anticipated that her son would bring down rulers, lift up the humble, feed the hungry—and send the rich packing. His birth challenged (and continues to challenge) the legitimacy of an empire built upon slavery and coercion.
The angelic proclamation of “peace on earth” is not something we were supposed to just sit around and wait for. (No peace this year. Oh well… maybe next Christmas.) The Christmas proclamation is a vision we are called to embody.
The full article is available here
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