textweek

Journey with Jesus - Advent 3

Check out Dan Clendenin's Journey with Jesus for this week. Dan writes about Mary, Ambrose and Basil and the bias of God's heart.

"Helping the homeless and parsing corporate compensation are complex issues; I can't pretend to know much about either. People with good intentions take widely divergent positions on how we should respond to poor people and rich corporations; but whether one should engage these matters is, for the Christian, beyond dispute. As I read the Scriptures for this week, God looks and feels biased. He seems to take sides, and not just about wealth. These Biblical texts are so uncompromising that it is tempting to "spiritualize" them in order to soften them. Instead, I think we should take them at face value as a declaration that the advent of God's kingdom subverts our ordinary ways of doing political and socio-economic business."

"Our Endangered Values"

Check out the NPR Fresh Air interview with Jimmy Carter about his new book, Our Endangered Values. I'm in the middle of reading the book, and really finding it interesting and helpful for raising issues of church & state, text & interpretation (who has the right to interpret), etc. I can see some church groups studying this book together!

bloomingcactus - Advent 3

Check out Todd Weir's bloomingcactus this week for an interesting discussion of the "light" in terms of Jungian psychology.

"Much of the pain and suffering around us comes from people imagining that they are the light themselves.  In psychological terms, my mind turns to Carl Jung when thinking about light and darkness within us.  Jung warned of the dangers of trying to live only in our light.  The shadow within is dangerous when ignored.  Jung believed that the things that we repress that we don’t want to know about ourselves create this shadow within us.  In our attempt to be “children of light” we often repress and try to hide from our greed, selfishness, hostility, grandiosity and pain.  We push these things from our conscious selves, but they rise up from our unconscious and control us."

Lectionary Collage

A new resource recommended to me this week is begodshelper.com. Eugene Stutzman and David Ryan are creating a collage and personal growth guide for each week's set of readings. Mr. Stutzman and Mr. Ryan are members of Covenant Mennonite Fellowship of Sarasota, Florida. It's definitely worth a look to pull us out of looking at the texts primarily through more text/words!

"Taking Faith Home" bulletin insert

Taking Faith Home, Advent 2, Greg Priebbenow, formingfaith.com. A free intergenerational take-home insert for integrating lectionary readings with at-home prayers, family time, table grace, devotions, ritual and suggestions for service. Take a look!

Disclosing New Worlds

Disclosing New Worlds is a lectionary blog by Lawrence Moore of Windermere Centre, United Reformed Church in the UK. Take a look at this relatively new resource from the UK!

Mark 1:1-8: Repentance & Forgiveness

If you've never read the Repentance & Forgiveness article by David R. Blumenthal from Cross Currents, this is a good week to do so! It's been online for a number of years, and is helpful for many when talking about John the Baptist in the season of Advent.

"Teshuvá is the key concept in the rabbinic view of sin, repentance, and forgiveness. The tradition is not of one mind on the steps one must take to repent of one's sins. However, almost all agree that repentance requires five elements: recognition of one's sins as sins (hakarát ha-chét'), remorse (charatá), desisting from sin (azivát ha-chét'), restitution where possible (peira'ón), and confession (vidúi)."

World AIDS Day

Don't miss Daniel Clendenin's article, "Close to His Heart: Tenderness," at The Journey with Jesus, especially if you are looking for material about World AIDS Day.

New Resource: Tributaries of Faith

I received an e-mail last week from Jill K. Warner at Faith United Chruch of Christ about Tributaries of Faith. From her website:

Tributaries of Faith is a ministry dedicated to the revitalization of main-line worship through creative use of the arts, most especially music. After listening to the needs of colleagues across the country, we have set certain priorities in our time commitments.

We unapologetically offer resources containing, and artists committed to:

• Inclusive, welcoming language.
• Theology which celebrates God's Grace and the sacredness of humanity and the earth as God's good creations, all the while acknowledging the very real struggle of the human existence.
• A multiplicity of artistic genres from a variety of cultures.

Check out the Lectionary Ideas page for music suggestions, original hymns, etc, written with the small to midsize progressive congregation in mind.

Mark 1:1-8 - Historical commentary

Michael A. Turton has put together a Historical Commentary on the Gospel of Mark, "a complete verse-by-verse commentary on the Gospel of Mark, focusing on the historicity of people, places, events, and sayings in the world of the Gospel of Mark." In this week's commentary on Mark 1:1-8, Turton includes translational and historical insights by Ehrman, Robert Grant, Burton Mack, Robert Kraft, and others, about issues such as the meaning and historical background of the term "Son of God" and "gospel," the Elijah figure, etc. Interesting background reading!