Glad Tidings (Mark 1:1-8)

In a world that feels increasingly out of control every day, we’ve been given glad tidings that sound unrealistic at best and downright deranged at worst. We live in a world that has a way of grinding people down, making them beg for their bread, and judging them by the color of their skin, the country of their origin, the fullness of their bank account, and the people they love. In short, we live in a world content to force people to justify their very humanity before we’ll even see them as neighbors.

Into such a world comes Mark’s Gospel, carrying John the Baptist, Elijah, Jesus, Caesar, and the whole Roman Empire on its back—announcing that the world we know, the one that’s taken so much from so many … is coming to an end, and a new one is coming to take its place.

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The Heresy of Freedom (Mark 13:24-37

God created and loves individuals. No doubt. But God didn’t create us to remain focused on our individuality. In God’s new realm, freedom doesn’t just release individuals from their own private bondage; it also sets individuals and communities free for others so that all God’s children can flourish.

"=Why does 'freedom' in so many people's mouths appear to mean little more than 'freedom to feel superior to everybody who doesn’t look/talk/love like I do?'

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Seeing the Unseen (Matthew 25:31-46)

Why does God identify so strongly with these, the powerless?

Well, for one thing, God created us … all of us. And afterward, God paused to consider the fine craftsmanship of God’s hands. Apparently, God was heard to say, 'That’s pretty dang good! No … Yeah, that’s excellent!'

So, it stands to reason that God might take more than a little exception to watching those whom God has so lovingly called forth into existence have their dignity trampled. Their lives are threatened, either by those who actively seek to exploit the defenseless or those who commit their violence through neglect. God has always seen those who remain invisible, unseen to so many.

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From Those Who Have Nothing (Matthew 25:14-30)

When we read about vulnerable people being evicted and left to survive in the streets, we find a way not only to help feed and shelter but to agitate for justice in housing.

When we witness White nationalists openly advocate bigotry and threaten violence, we don't sit idly by and hope everything turns out all right; we take sides.

We followers of Jesus not only sound the alarm, we figure out a way to be in the middle of it—organizing, protesting, lobbying, healing, dispensing the mercy denied by the merciless

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Faith without ... Justice (Amos 5:18-24)

But God says, “If everything else you do isn’t motivated by your love of the imperiled and unremembered, then it’s worse than if you’d done nothing at all. If you’d done nothing, at least that would be an honest admission that you don’t understand. As it is, you take for granted you already know what I want. But that’s the thing: there’s no way to know what I want without looking into the eyes of those who’ve been cast aside.”

“Do you know what I really want?” God says. “I want justice to roll down like water and righteousness like an everflowing stream. And I want you to be all mixed up in the middle of it.”

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Guest Preacher: David Conway

The Claims on Us (Matthew 22:15-22)

Caesar’s always going to want what Caesar wants. Wall Street. Madison Avenue. They vie for our attention like it’s their birthright. There are so many claims placed upon our loyalties ... from every direction.

And, sometimes, that which pursues us most relentlessly is our own desire to be in control, to be ourselves, gatekeepers of God’s mercy. We in the church have been guilty of spurning the gifts people bring to God. But Jesus isn’t having it.

Jesus says, "Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar; give to God what belongs to God. But here’s the thing: It all belongs to God."

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New Maps (Matthew 22:1-14)

Unlike Matthew's original readers, when Jesus started talking about a King giving a wedding banquet, his audience wouldn't have immediately made the connection between the King in the parable and God. They would be much more likely to see their own cultural struggles in this King—who, let's be honest, seems pretty vindictive and pouty.

No, “vindictive and pouty” would have described not their vision of God but of a genuine political figure in their own world—somebody like King Herod Antipas. Jesus' listeners knew about arbitrary rulers who pursued their self-aggrandizing interests at the expense of the people they were supposed to protect. It seems clear that the King feels like everyone, but he is unworthy. This King feels like he's always walking around searching for somebody new to be disappointed with.

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Producing the Fruits of the Realm

Jesus heads into the vineyard to cheers of “Hosanna. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” But he can read the political tea leaves. He’s got a pretty good idea where this story is headed.

So, it should be no great surprise to learn that Jesus is a little testy—even in the face of the palm branches. He knows which way the political wind is blowing—but he walks into the vineyard anyway.

The parable ends. The fate of the vineyard is yet unresolved. But we know that already, don’t we? We’ve seen too much injustice two thousand years in to believe the vineyard has changed much.

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Starting a Revolution

If you’re starting a revolution, you don’t have to follow the same rules designed to keep power in the hands and for the benefit of those convinced the world was made for them.

You don’t have to live in fear—the kind of fear necessary to make a world where some have and some do not, where some get justice, and some silently cry themselves to sleep at night, certain that justice is just a word used to protect the powerful and punish the weak.

You don’t have to choose between violence and passivity. If you’re starting a revolution, if you’re committed to following the Jesus whom the powerful killed to make a point, you’ve got choices.

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Where We Can Look Each Other in the Eye (Matthew 18:15-20)

Real-life virtues—the ones that help us live real lives and not just "impressive” lives among those closest to us—are the kinds of virtues necessary for us to live together in community. These soft virtues like the ability to live and speak truthfully, to be a person others consider trustworthy (and not just being reliable about taking out the garbage, but about being worth the trust necessary to hold the vulnerability of others with gentleness and care), to be able to forgive (especially those who deserve it least), to have good boundaries that communicate where “you” end and “I” begin. These are the kinds of virtues that allow us to live not just in the memory of those who matter most to us but deeply and lastingly in their hearts.

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Didn’t See That Coming (Matthew 16:21-28)

In embracing the cross, Jesus’ followers can say of empire at its most blood-thirsty, “Is this the best you’ve got? God’s got an even more astonishing trick up God’s sleeve. It’s a little something we call ‘Easter.’”

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Guest Preacher: Paul-Anthony Turner

Guest Preacher: Dawn Wilson

Guest Preacher: David Conway

Guest Preacher: Dick Burks

Hiding Behind the Truth (John 17:6–19)

My first reaction is to want Jesus to pray for it to be easy. I want him to protect me from the world by installing some kind of force field, some heat shield around me that won’t allow the slings and arrows to touch me.

But he doesn’t do that. Instead, he prays not that there be a protective wall around me to guard against the damage life can cause but that I can endure the damage, that I can embrace the truth that life is full of fear and horror.

Because Jesus knows that if we who follow him can’t speak the truth, everything we have to say will be easily dismissed. If we find ourselves hedging our bets over speaking what’s true, why should anyone take us seriously when we talk about a better world?

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Oh, the Places You’ll Go! (John 14:1-14)

In other words, if you love one another, you’re already doing the works that I’ve done—and you won’t have to question the “way to the Father,” about whether you’re following the step-by-step directions since everyone will already know who you belong to.

If you condemn a system that allows police officers to kill a Black man in cold blood … on video … you and everyone else will know you’re following “the way.”

If you raise your voice on behalf of the unemployed and the undocumented in a culture satisfied to let them suffer unaided by the powers and principalities, you won’t have to question where I’m going—you’ll already be there with me.

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The Trouble with the Folks in Charge (John 10:1-10)

In other words, the people tasked with watching over the most vulnerable of the flock have proven themselves sightless. They care more that the sheep don’t jaywalk than about the fact that the way they run things has created even more vulnerable sheep.

The trouble with the folks in charge is that being in charge isn’t the point; it’s about what kind of world we want to live in. Does it create space for the invisible people? Does everyone have enough to eat, a place to sleep, a means to care for people’s bodies and minds? Does it stand vigil against predators who feast on the weak and defenseless?

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You Call this Blessed? (Matthew 21:1-11)

We heal the sick; we bind up the broken-hearted; we comfort the grieving; we pick up the downtrodden; we fight for justice … not because it makes for good strategy, but because we follow Jesus, which means we’re prepared to walk with him down any dark alley he enters—in search of those the rest of the world would just as soon leave behind.

We do it because it’s right. And because God loves us enough not to let us stay where we are, because we’re the blessed who come in the name of the Lord, and because we don’t know how to do anything else.

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