An Encounter with Jesus, An Encounter with Hope

Luke 8:26-39 (Sermon)

Introduction

So, so you think you can tell
Heaven from hell
Blue skies from pain
Can you tell a green field
From a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?

Did they get you to trade
Your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
Did you exchange
A walk on part in the war
For a lead role in a cage?

How I wish, how I wish you were here…[1]

This song would put Liza to sleep as an infant. While lying in our bed trying to catch my couple of hours of nighttime sleep without a baby, I would listen to my husband sing this song to my daughter as he would rock or walk her. I’m sure it was the mellow octave and slow rhythm that lured Liza to sleep, but the words would often keep me up. Man, I know this feeling. The song is about addiction, the loss of a dear friend to that addiction and the longing for that person to return, but everything seems too far-gone. The wish remains only a wish; hope seems lost.

Hope seems lost today. Via social media timelines and various news outlets, chaos seems to reign, violence is everywhere, people are dying, angry is the mood of the hour, and anxiety is the new normal. Bringing it to a personal level, we’re driving ourselves into isolation through our gadgets and screens. We’ll sacrifice people on the altar of materialism, burning brothers and sisters as a pleasing aroma to a false idol; and if that reward is good enough, we’ll sacrifice ourselves. We speak pleasing words but they lack substance; they’re hollow husks. We’ve been disabused of the notion that anything could ever be different or, God forbid, better, so we plug our ears, close our eyes, abide by system, and keep our heads down. We’re in chains thinking we’re living our best lives now, but we’re comfortably numb, more dead than alive.

Is hope lost? Are we just deaf, dumb, and blind?

Luke 8:26:39

And they sailed down into the region of the Gerasene which is on the opposite shore of Galilee. Now, after going out [of the boat] upon the earth, a man, having evil spirits, met him who was from the city, and for a considerable amount of time was not clothed in a robe, and he was not abiding in a house but in the tombs. (8:26-27)*

Our passage is from Luke 8 and participates in the meta-theme Luke is building. [2] He writes, “Soon afterwards he went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God” (8:1). And Jesus does just that: travel and proclaim the word of God; where he steps and to whom he speaks causes radical change.

Jesus tells the crowd[3] gathered around him the parable of the sower. The word of God falls on various soils with various results (8:9-14). The conclusion, “But as for that in the good soil, these are the ones who, when they hear the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patient endurance” (8:15). Jesus’s emphasis is this: they who have ears to hear, hear and respond.

Not hiding the light of lamps (8:16-18) is tied up with this theme, “Then pay attention to how you listen; for to those who have, more will be given; and from those who do not have, even what they seem to have will be taken away” (8:17). As well as Jesus’s definition about his true mother and brothers (8:19-21): “But he said to them, ‘My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it’” (8:21). The refrain goes out: they who have ears to hear, hear and respond. [4]

Luke has Jesus get in a boat with his disciples to head over to the other side of the lake (8:22). On the way, a storm presents and literally threatens the lives of the disciples as well as the other fishermen. The disciples panic and wake Jesus up. Jesus shouts at the wind and the waves commanding them to “Be still!” At the sound of the divine yawp, the “the winds and water” (8:25) immediately obey Jesus and marvels at his disciples who don’t seem to know God when they encounter him. Again, those who have ears to hear, hear and respond.

Luke is a master storyteller. By linking vignettes he builds his meta-theme. The kerygmatic aspect, Luke’s proclamation of Christ crucified through these stories puts the audience in contact with the Christ and asks his audience the same question Jesus will ask his disciples in the next chapter: who do you say that I am? (9:20). That answer will determine everything; have you really heard?

Luke really wants his reader to hear and to know who this is who will set his face to Jerusalem to bear the sin of the world and be raised to new life in victory over death and captivity. [5] Luke is building a capable case for the Christ; he is stockpiling narrative artillery to get his audience to answer that question rightly. They who have ears to hear, will hear and respond.

Luke’s meta-theme sails across the lake to non-Israelite territory, and we land on the shore of our passage about the Gerasene Demoniac. As he exits the boat, Jesus’s foot strikes the dry ground of unclean territory: the region of the Gerasenes, a Gentile territory.[6] Where that foot strikes, chains fall. Freedom from the bondage of sin and liberty from oppression is not for Israel alone, “‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life’” (Jn 3:16). [7] The seed of the parable of the sower has come to the region of the Gerasenes, and Luke wants his reader to hear what happens when it hits the fertile soil of a desperate human heart and not only rebellious wind and the water.[8]

And after perceiving Jesus, [the man] shouted and fell down before him and in a great voice he said, “What do you have to do with me, Jesus the Son of the Most High? I beg of you, do not torture me.” For [Jesus] was commanded the unclean spirit to go out from the person. (For many times it had dragged him by force and he was bound by means of chains and shackles for his feet while being guarded and when tearing asunder the bonds he would be driven into desolate places by the evil spirit.) And Jesus inquired of him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Legion,” because many evil spirits entered into him. (8:28-30).

Notice Luke uses a specific Gentile to demonstrate how far Jesus’s liberating grace can and will go: to the unclean of the “unclean.” [9] Jesus goes to the margins of society, to the back alleys of civilization and finds fertile soil. Not among the civilized (the well dressed abiding proper etiquette) but among those bound by chains and not in their right minds. The fertile soils are those who hear because they know their dire state, [10] know they are bound, know their enslavement, know the burden of the fruitlessness of the rat-race of life, who know what it feels like to be ostracized and excluded, who know the crushing aspect of systems bent on the destruction and demolition and dehumanizing[11] of the person, those familiar with grim and with death.[12] They who have ears to hear, will hear and respond.

And [the evil spirits] were exhorting him that he might not command them to go away into the abyss. Now, there was a considerable herd of swine being pastured in a mountain in that place. And they were exhorting [Jesus] in order that he might allow them to enter [the herd of swine]; and [Jesus] allowed them. Now, when the evil spirits came out from the person, they entered into the swine, and the herd hastened from the precipice into the lake and was drowned (8:31-33).

When Luke brings Jesus across the lake to the region of the Gerasenes, he wants his audience to see how far, how deep, how wide, how cosmically powerful[13] the love and grace of God is in Jesus the Christ (to see how compassionate and powerful God is). This is Jesus, the one who was baptized by John in the river Jordan and the son with whom God is well please (Lk 3:21-22), this is Jesus the one who bested the devil in the wilderness (Lk 4:1-13).[14] This is Jesus who commands not only the wind and waves but also a legion (a military term designating 5,600 men) to flee a hopeless man.[15]

The evil spirits knew who it was standing before them and their paltry position by relation.[16] The evil spirits knew when Jesus spoke they had to obey, thus the pleading to be relocated into the swine and not into the unfathomable abyss thus death. They knew the power and the compassion (!) of the one who stood with the man among the tombs. Luke asks: do you know? They who have ears to hear, will hear and respond.

Now, after the ones who were feeding saw what had happened, they fled and announced [it] to the city and to the country. And they came out to see what had happened, and they went to Jesus, and they saw sitting near [his] feet the person from whom the evil spirits came out having been clothed and being of sound mind, and they were afraid. And the ones who saw announced how the one who had been possessed by an evil spirit was saved. And altogether the crowd of the neighboring country of the Gerasenes asked [Jesus] to go way from them, because they were seized by a great fear. And he turned back and stepped into the boat. Now the man from whom the evil spirits had gone out of was begging [Jesus] to be with him. But [Jesus] set him free saying, “Return to your house and fully relate what great things God did for you.” And [the man] went away toward the entire city proclaiming what great things Jesus did for him. (8:34-39).

While we don’t know exactly why the swineherds and the townspeople were seized with a great fear, we can guess. Jesus did send a lot of profit over the precipice into the lake. [17] But the emphasis in this final portion is on what had happened. So, both the now cured pork products and the cured former demoniac are in view. [18] This event was a massive encounter with divine power that upset the region in a myriad of ways (as divine power does: it upsets what humans build and prize).

There’s something else in view: the juxtaposition of the crowds’ fear and the fear of the man from whom many evil spirits came out. The crowd is seized with fear that’s closer to terror and they want Jesus to get out, fast; they lack faith; they’ve seen but they’ve not heard. [19] The man is seized with fear but it’s the fear that comes with hearing, the type of fear of the event of faith in the encounter with God. The man’s encounter with God has upended his existence: being possessed by evil spirits he is now possessed by faith and by the love of God, possessed by grace alone; he was naked, now he’s clothed; he was out of his mind, now he’s in his right mind; he was ostracized and excluded now he’s befriended and included. He has gone from being judged forsaken by God to being declared beloved by God; he came out of certain death into true life and hope.

Conclusion

The former demoniac hears and responds: he desires to follow Jesus. But Jesus tells him to go and do: Proclaim the freedom and the liberation God has given you. And he does just that: let me tell you about Jesus the Christ…Let me tell you about a man who told me everything about me… The most absurd people become God’s favorite messengers of a most absurd message: God does so love the whole entire world, a light shines so bright that darkness cannot overcome it, the good part is here and will not be taken away, Jesus is the Christ who died for our sin and was raised for our justification, that we matter to a wholly other God—who flung the stars in to the sky, who made the high mountains of the earth and the deep trenches of the sea—who has abolished death!

Our lives speak to this fantastic and absurd message; we are part of God’s motley crew of absurd messengers encountered by God in the event of faith in the proclamation of Christ and pulled out of ourselves and reoriented in and to the world[20]—not in a meek way, but in a dangerously helpful one.[21] For where we go, so to the proclamation of Christ Jesus who is love and divine grace and righteousness, who sets the captives free from their chains of bondage, who brings freedom to those enslaved by the demonic powers of a world and its systems oriented to it’s own self-destruction, like possessed pigs careening off of a precipice. We have come through certain death into true life and hope; how can we not bring this life and hope to a world fast loosing life and hope?

Jesus proclaimed gives birth to hope because “[t]hat is the meaning of the name Jesus Christ, a name of hope, a meaning of hope…The way of the love with which God has laid hold of our hearts…is the way of a hope that cannot be disappointed and will not be disappointed.”[22] Those of us gathered here today, who have ears to hear, are sent out from here with the hope given to us in Christ proclaimed. We are thrust back into a turbulent and hurting world and are caused to be witnesses to the mercy and justice and love of God in a world[23] seemingly devoid of such things. Mercy, justice, love, peace, and hope are not only for us who sit here and hear, but also for the people out there who long to hear.

The world groans restricted by the chains and shackles of the cage, held in bondage to the myths and lies of our systems and dogmas and longs to hear the message of Jesus Christ who brings hope to the hopeless, freedom to the captives, and love…

Love that will not betray you, dismay or enslave you,
It will set you free
Be more like the man you were made to be
There is a design,
An alignment to cry,
Of my heart to see,
The beauty of love as it was made to be[24]

*Translation mine.

[1] Pink Floyd, Wish You Were Here

[2] Joel B. Green The Gospel of Luke TNICNT Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1997. “Although this narrative unit is part of the sequence of scenes held together by these references to a journey, then, its position at the midpoint of this sequence and its identification the goal of Jesus’ intended trip (v 22) portend its identification of the goal of Jesus’ intended trip (v.22) portend its particular importance in this chain of episodes.” 335

[3] The text indicates that the crowd was comprised of many people from town after town . “When a great crowd gathered and people from town after town came to him, he said in a parable” (8:4).

[4] Justo L. Gonzalez Luke Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible. Louisville, KY: WJK, 2010. About Luke 8:19-21, “…the point is that those who hear and do the Word of God are a new family of Jesus and of God.” 106.

[5] Gonzalez, 107. About 8:22-25, “…the central theme of this entire section, which is power of Jesus over demons. It is important for Luke’s narrative to stress that power as a prelude to the entire section on the passion in which that power seems to be brought to naught. Thus four miracle stories serve to remind us of who this is who will set his face to go to Jerusalem and there suffer and die The first of these stories shows the power of Jesus over the demons that wreak havoc through the elements.”

[6] Green, 335. “The one who shares center stage with Jesus has no name in the narrative- his foremost characteristic is his bondage to and release from demonic power (cf. 4:18-19). If these variations on a theme help us to identify the melody, then the countermelody is recognized in the assorted clues that this is the first time Jesus has crossed over into predominantly Gentile territory.” See also Gonalez, 108. “Although there are textual problems in this passage, so that it is impossible to tell exactly where the miracle is said to take place, it would seem that we are now in a Gentile area where large herds of swine were common…Thus one of the added dimensions of this story is that it is an early indication of the power of Jesus beyond the world of Judaism.”

[7] Gonzalez, 108. “Jointly, the three narratives serve to announce that the one who will soon find himself in Jerusalem refused, mocked, and crucified is Lord over all powers of evil, including disease and death, and is yet loving and compassionate. Separately, they point to various aspects of the lordship and compassion of Jesus.”

[8] Green, 336. “On a fundamental level then this text concerns the crossing of boundaries in Jesus’ mission, and more particularly the offer of salvation in the Gentile world. Within the larger narrative setting of this account, this emphasis is striking for Luke thus portrays how the lessons of the story of the sower then (8:4-21) appropriate to the Gentile world too. Here is a man, first full of demons then saved who responds as a disciple and becomes the first person to be commissioned by Jesus for missionary activity grounded in his own.”

[9] Gonzalez, 110. Bigger theme here, “It is the theme so prevalent in Luke, of the outsider being brought back in and of the restoration of community when this happens. The Gerasene who lived in the tombs is restored to his home and community. The woman who, of her hemorrhages, was considered unclean and was therefore excluded from community is now cleansed and restored. The girl restored to her family. In all three stories Jesus seems to go beyond borders of propriety: he heals Gentile; he commends an unclean who has touched him; he touches a corpse… The demons that Jesus conquers not only those of disease and but also those of isolation exclusion.”

[10]Gonzalez, 110. “As a whole the three stories warn us against being too systematic and dogmatic about the nature of the Christian mission. It is mission to Gentiles but also to those who should be part of the community but are excluded. At points it is a mission inviting to witness; and at other points it is a mission inviting some to be silent! It is a mission among crowds; but it is also a mission of personal touch. It is a mission of joy and restoration both to those who have long been oppressed by evil and to those who have suddenly discovered its demonic and life-destroying power.”

[11] Green, 338. The way Luke sets up the story, the audience is given a clear and upfront view of this man who used to be “normal” but now—for some reason—wasn’t, “In fact, his adverse condition is so advanced that he had crossed the boundaries of human decency. He had lost any claim to status’ naked and living in the tombs he was scarcely even human.”

[12] Green, 338. “Uncontrollable out of his mind, he was chained and guarded as a societal menace, like a wild animal. The strength of the evil forces at work inside of him is further underscored by Luke’s observation that attempts at containment had been unsuccessful. The destructive power of the demonic on this man could hardly be portrayed more strikingly. Completely displaced from his community living among the tombs he might as well be dead.”

[13] Green, 338. So many mentions of Demons/Evil Spirits, “…an encounter of cosmic proportions.”

[14] Green, 338-9. “The demoniac’s actions, now under diabolic control, signal the tension of the moment of encounter. Falling before Jesus is a sign of reverence, submission 70 but the demoniac’s loud shout suggests a defensive posture even resistance 71 The demoniac uses a question to issue a defensive directive: Let me alone! Within the Lukan narrative the demon correctly identifies Jesus as God’s Son, just as the devil had done (4:1-13); and, in particular as ‘Son of the Most High God’…”

[15] Green, 339. “Rather than immediately departing the man, this demon attempts to negotiate with Jesus and, indeed to gain ascendancy over him. Jesus counters by demanding and receiving the name of the demon: Legion from the Latin term legio, designating a military unit of some 5 600 men. The significance of this term in this co-text is signaled immediately by the narrator, who interprets the demon’s reply to mean that the number of demons who had entered the man was ‘many.’ With this the confrontation opposing powers has reached its zenith, with Jesus the victor. Not only does the compassion of Jesus expand to include the Gentiles then but so also does his power and authority.”

[16] Green, 339. “This demon finds himself in the presence of one related to “the Most High God” is one more powerful than he, and more powerful than the one he serves…That is the demon’s address is motivated by his recognition of his own inferior position. “

[17] Gonzalez, 109. “Then there is matter of the reason why the people in the area wish Jesus to The text mentions only ‘fear.’ Is it fear of the unknown and surprising power that has been manifested; or is it fear that Jesus will upset the economic well-being of the region, as he has already done drowning the swine?”

[18] Green, 340, Presence of Swineherds functions as testimony: other people saw these events. “Their return to the ci (from whence the man hailed, v 27) provides for the additional witnesses of what Jesus had done for this man. Hence the repeated phrase ‘what had happened’ must be taken to mean both the drowning of the pigs and the healing of the former demoniac.”

[19] Green, 341. “Fear in the face of evidence of divine activity is expected in the Gospel, but the fear of these people is not portrayed as a positive response. Have gathered from city and country (v 34), and now all from the region share in a common verdict. In fear they reject Jesus. The offer of good news rebuffed, Jesus departs. Unlike the disciples in the boat (8:22-25), in spite of the unambiguous evidence of divine intervention before them in the form of their transformed acquaintance, these people seem not to have any faith at all.”

[20] Corresponds with the definition for Dialectical Theology provided by Dr. W. Travis McMaken on this podcast hosted by Stephen Waldron, http://theologyandsocialism.libsyn.com/our-god-loves-justice-interview-with-w-travis-mcmaken-on-helmut-gollwitzer

[21] W. Travis McMaken Our God Loves Justice: An Introduction to Helmut Gollwitzer. “What overcomes this ecclesiastical banality is encounter with the church’s resurrected Lord, with ‘the Easter story [that] broken into our world, bringing with it a power, a world-overcoming revolution, which makes everything different in our life, which forces the church into a totally different direction.’ This encounter delegitimizes the church’s banality and demands that the church become an agent in proclaiming this world-overcoming revolution through word and deed. Instead of leaving the church to its comfortable domestication, ‘the one thing that matters for the church is that she should be both a danger and a help to the world.’ Gollwitzer’s ecclesiology calls for a dangerous church because a church that is not dangerous is not help at all.”

[22] Helmut Gollwitzer “Hope for the Hopeless” The Way to Life: Sermons in a Time of World Crisis. 103-4. “And now with this hope [we go] back into our earthly life, and that means into tribulation, into hopes that can be disappointed, into battles win two which he sends us as his disciples, into the unpeaceful world as peacemakers, into solidarity with the hungry and the enslaved as prisoners…When we are struck to the ground, we rise again and again, and even at the grave we raise our hopes again…”

[23] McMaken, 148 “Christians are called to bear political witness to the God they have encountered—a God of peace, justice, mercy, and ultimately, of love.”

[24] Mumford & Sons, Sigh No More

Posted on June 24, 2019March 10, 2020 by laurenlarkin 0

Invigorating Gospel Proclamation

Tripp Fuller and “Jesus: Lord, Liar, Lunatic…or Awesome?”

If there was ever a book that captured the essence of Tripp Fuller, I imagine Jesus: Lord, Liar, Lunatic…or Awesome?* is it. I’ll be honest, I’ve not read all Fuller has written and so my claim may be a bit presumptuous. However, I’ve seen and listened to a number of his excellent interviews, and from what I can tell of his enthusiasm and energy in those encounters, it seems he’s remained true to himself in these pages. But it’s not merely himself that he communicates to the reader; such a result would defeat the purpose of the book. Rather, Fuller causes Jesus to jump off the page and into the reader’s lap in all his freaking awesome and zesty divine and human glory. Fuller reminded me, chapter after chapter, why I, too, love Jesus the Christ.

The book is broken into eight chapters and each chapter provides a really good intellectual engagement of the various aspects of Christology while making the reader chuckle and smile throughout. Fuller’s approach to discussing these conceptions is accessible to the average Christian. By that I mean, you don’t need a few master degrees and a PhD to discover the intricacies Fuller is presenting in his work. He has the knack of distilling heady concepts into accessible ideas that the reader is then encouraged to mull over and contemplate.

For instance, in chapter 4, Fuller explains the historicity of the gospels and the early church’s reception of these various stories about the Christ. He works in Tatian (!)–whom I just learned about this year–Quelle, Mark’s foundational relation to Luke and Matthew, and does a find job letting John stand on his own. He addresses the conflicts and tension between the gospels, but then by dispelling the fear of errancy, leaves the reader with a more robust conception of the text thus a better relationship to the text. I have to say that everything Fuller covered in this chapter could have taken place in my classroom with high school students; in fact, these discussion did happen and do happen. And I can firmly say: Tripp, I couldn’t have said it better myself.

One thing that I was most impressed by was not only his good representation of Luther’s theological impact in the reformation in just a few pages of chapter 5, but his consistent effort and commitment to being ethically minded. Every chapter gave the reader some sort of actual problem plaguing our society that Christians can and need to engage. Whether he’s advocating for the need for the church today to listen to the various voices of multiple people groups, or asking for concerted concern for the environment and our world, Fuller brings a demand to his reader: what will you do? This is a level of holy conviction that I think often goes missed in much preaching these days.

In the final chapter of the book, Fuller engages with a host of thinkers: Sobrino, Motlmann, Cobb, and Johnson (all of whom show up in substantial form in previous chapters). In doing this, he pulls together everything that comes before and pulls the various concepts discussed together to form a coherent end. On page 164, Fuller writes,

Moltmann developed a theology after Auschwitz, Sobrino is arguing for a theology in Auschwitz, recognizing the crucified people of our present global situation as Yahweh’s suffering servant. Theology’s job is not primarily to explain the world, but to unmask it.[1]

Yes, we as theologians and preachers and teachers must do better to use our platforms to unmask the world and point to where the problems are. We need to provide ample opportunity for an encounter with God in the event of faith for not only those who are suffering and oppressed but for those causing suffering and oppression. To quote Fuller,

The way forward for the church must move us toward the poor and the planet. The needed change is not simply instrumental, like changing lightbulbs, eating less meat, or carpooling. Humanity, and in particular those in power, need a conversion, an existential change, the cultivation of new desires. ..As we start to wake up to the tragedy surrounding us, the theological challenge will be continuing to risk thinking after Christ—to wager putting our present system and the privilege and perks it provides before the cross.[2]

In order for this type of substantive conversion and change to occur, Fuller makes mention that something else has to die (in order for there to be life, a death must first occur). This something else is what Fuller calls “therapeutic believing” and defines it as:

Therapeutic belief is about the existential shape of one’s faith and not (primarily) about its content. It begins by accepting the ‘as is’ structure of our world, church, and self and then asks how we can function better as individuals and how we can make our world a bit better than we found it. In doing so, it takes for granted the very world we received and ignores the kin-dom’s[3] challenge to religion, culture, and politics.[4]

One of the problems I have with some modern gospel proclamation is the use of the gospel to numb rather than to invigorate. There is a way to preach the gospel that ends with the person feeling at ease within themselves and blind to what is going on outside of them in the world. The gospel can become a rock under which believers can live and pretend they can’t see the pain and suffering of the world around them. The gospel can be proclaimed in a way that upholds the status quo rather than challenge it. There’s a significant difference between being soothed and being numbed, the former will result in substantiated selves and the former will still be beholden to the shackles that bind. We need to check our proclamation.

The gospel is the word of liberation that sets the hearer free from the controlling mythology of the day within the world, which traps the person in a relentless cycle of creation worship rather than Creator worship. To come into encounter with God in the event of faith, assisted by the proclamation of the Gospel of Christ crucified and raised, is to be propelled into the world as liberated and active and political creatures. There is no need to abstain from such activity for fear of trying to self-justify oneself, because justification happens only through faith in Christ. Activity then becomes just activity; but that activity matters horizontally as those who are silenced and oppressed and marginalized need people who have eyes to see their oppression and ears to hear their cries—we can’t see and hear anything if we’re numb to everything.

Fuller is right to call out the problems of therapeutic believing. From how St. Paul describes the work of the Holy Spirit that binds us together in a bloodline and fellow heirs with Christ, we can’t ignore when our fellow brothers and sisters suffer (we are in a family now). We aren’t afforded the comfort to look the other way to be only concerned with our own salvation. When you hurt, I hurt; only when you are free will I be free, too.

Tripp Fuller has written a very engaging and inspiring work. I’m better for reading it. I learned not only new things, but also found ways to rephrase some things I’ve said before. I recommend taking the time to read this book.

*I was encouraged to read this book after viewing this review from Dr. W. Travis McMaken: http://derevth.blogspot.com/2019/05/jesus-lord-liar-lunaticor-awesome-video.html

Tripp Fuller Homebrewed Christianity Guide to Jesus: Lord Liar, Lunatic…of Awesome? Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2015.

[1] Fuller, 164. I did question the comparison between Moltmann and Sobrino, but I lack sufficient knowledge of Sobrino to push back.

[2] Ibid, 168.

[3] For why the “g” is dropped, chapter 3, p. 57ff explains Fuller’s reasoning.

[4] Fuller, 170.

Posted on June 3, 2019March 10, 2020 by laurenlarkin 0

“Our God Loves Justice”

Sancta Colloquia episode 109 ft. Sabrina Peters (Talkin’ “Our God Loves Justice” by Dr. W. Travis McMaken)

In this episode of Sancta Colloquia, I had the honor and privilege of sitting down and chatting with a friend from Twitter, Sabrina Peters (@sdrp_). I’ve always really enjoyed the content Sabrina produces both through her tweets as well as one her blog (listed below). She’s very insightful and completely human: she loves and lives in a way that is authentic (she isn’t virtue posing, this woman gives a damn about you and your life). So, when Sabrina posted a book review about Dr. W. Travis McMaken’s most recent book, Our God Loves Justice: An Introduction to Helmut Gollwitzer (#OGLJ), I couldn’t help but notice and want to talk to her about it. There are two reasons: McMaken’s book is one of my favorites (as I express in the show), and I knew that Sabrina would have an embodied response to the work and the implications of Helmut Gollwitzer’s Political Theology and Theological Politics. My conversation with Sabrina about this book proved me right: Sabrina is postured in the world toward others as her theology demands her to be: fighting against oppressive systems and finding ways to dismantle the kyriarchy.* For Sabrina, the Gospel is not a tool of oppression as it is all too often used. Objectivist Neo-Capitalism has infiltrated gospel proclamation, and what we have is, as Sabrina makes mention, a disembodied message (ironic since the Word of God is also the incarnate Christ, Jesus of Nazareth) that is only a saccharine word of numbing “comfort” for a very small group of people: those who are elite and privileged. (In other words, you aren’t actually getting comfort in this proclamation; you’re being lulled to sleep in the midst of your pain and the pain others.) Sabrina makes it clear that the word of God, when we are encountered by it in the event of faith, brings a bit of crisis and crisis brings embodiment. When you are under exposure you become very aware of your body (flesh and blood). And as this crisis plays out with the encounter with God in the proclamation of the Gospel it isn’t just a crisis that ends with exposure unto death but one that ends in life, new embodied life. To think this event only involves some sort of soothed conscience so that you can just continue to live in a disembodied way is a lie: the creative word of God in the proclamation of Christ Crucified is a word that reconstitutes the entire person (mind, soul, heart, and body). The mind and the body matter. Freedom and rest are not freedom and rest if you merely think you are; freedom and rest are truly freedom and rest when you are free and at rest. I was honored to have Sabrina on the show and I believe you’ll agree with me that she doesn’t pretend to be smart, she’s hella smart and insightful.

*Kyriarchy: Sabrina explains it as anything that maintains systems of power and oppression like Racism, Sexism, and Homophobia to name a few

Intrigued? You should be. Listen here via Screaming Pods (https://www.screamingpods.com/)

A huge THANK YOU to my friend and producer Sean Duregger (Twitter: @seanCduregger) and Screaming Pods (Twitter: @ScreamingPods) for hosting Sancta Colloquia (Twitter: @SanctaColloquia).

Sabrina reads lots of books (mostly comics and theology books lately), drinks lots of tea, pretends to be smart on Twitter, and ponder how to destroy the kyriarchy. She lives in the passive-aggressive, beautiful Seattle, with her spouse and his mostly clever, somewhat corny jokes. She currently serves as a Eucharistic minister at a local Episcopal church, and is re-exploring her vocational direction, dusting off the MDiv she earned six years ago. For the personality junkies out there, she is most likely a 5w6, and every MBTI test ever taken has been inconclusive, save for the “I” for “introvert”. Her blog is: https://sdrp.me/

The following are links to highly recommended videos/podcasts where Dr. W. Travis McMaken discusses his book Our God Loves Justice:

With Stephen Waldron (@stephen_m_w) on his podcast Theology and Socialism (@TheoSocialism) cohosted with Benjamin D. Crosby (@benjamindcrosby): https://t.co/sFA3IDWHV1

With Tripp Fuller (@trippfuller) on Homebrewed Christiantiy (@HomebrewedXnty & https://trippfuller.com/): https://trippfuller.com/2018/04/17/our-god-loves-justice-with-w-travis-mcmaken/

With Dean Dettloff (@DeanDettloff) and Matt Bernico (@spookymachines) on their podcast: The Magnificast (@themagnificast & https://themagnificast.com/): https://m.soundcloud.com/themagnificast/ep-54-our-god-loves-justice-w-w-travis-mcmaken

And this video with one of my previous guests, Liam Miller (@liammiller87), on his youtube channel (youtube.com/user/MQUT) for his blog/podcast: Love, Rinse, Repeat (@RinseRepeatPod):

Recommended Reading/Works Mentioned in the Podcast:

There’s a free study guide for Our God Loves Justice; you can read about it here on Dr. W. Travis McMaken’s blog (DET): http://derevth.blogspot.com/2018/02/free-study-guide-for-our-god-loves.html

Evangelical Theology, by Karl Barth: https://books.google.com/books/about/Evangelical_Theology.html?id=8iQgolN1WTMC

Wisdom Ways, by Elisabeth Schüller Fiorenza: https://g.co/kgs/StgzoA

Shalom and the Community of Creation: An Indigenous Vision by Randy S. Woodley: https://books.google.com/books?id=cB5qKv72Jz0C&printsec=frontcover&dq=shalom+and+the+community+of+creation&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjI6ur8pZniAhXKs54KHa-ODUsQ6AEIKjAA#v=onepage&q=shalom%20and%20the%20community%20of%20creation&f=false

Union Made: Working People and the Rise of Social Christianity in Chicago, by Heath Carter: https://g.co/kgs/SnA8bR

Posted on May 26, 2019March 10, 2020 by laurenlarkin 0

Who Do You Say That I am?

The Silence of Holy Saturday

If there was a day to feel the most human, I know not one better than the 24 hour period linking the event of death of Good Friday to the event of life of Resurrection Sunday. Yet, I believe most of us rush through Saturday, not paying any attention to tension embedded in this day.

We know what happened: Jesus died on Friday and was raised on Sunday. Saturday is just the day I run those last minute errands, color eggs, plan for tomorrow’s dinner celebration, and lay out my “Easter best” outfit. My day to day productivity attempts to eclipse the possibility of eventful reflection. God can break through the clutter and cacophony of a regular day just as God can break through stone hard hearts and closed off minds. But if we are too immersed in the demands of our worlds and lives, we could miss the silence of Saturday; missing this silence and the very pregnant space-time pause, steals from the abundance of tomorrow, Easter Sunday. Might as well just be a celebration of the fertility of the Spring solstice.

In my opinion, Holy Saturday, the divine silence of this 24 hour period, is the center of the chiastic structure of massive event proportions. While everything feels normal here, nothing is actually normal. Everything is different but then none of it is. It’s the entire book of lamentations jammed into a day; it’s the moment between Adam and Eve stepping out of the Garden per divine decree and the settling in of the cherubim and seraphim who will forever prevent return. It’s the between of the walls of water dropping and drowning the Egyptian soldiers and the arrival at Mt. Sinai. It’s the deep dark of transition before Mary pushed Jesus into the world and held him to her breast. It’s the pain of Dinah after her rape and before her brothers find out; it’s the harrowing moment between the last few breaths of the Levite’s concubine of Judges 19 and the door opening the next morning. This is where we are; it makes sense that we run through it.

There’s nothing easy about Holy Saturday. It’s filled with questions with no answers. It’s filled with crisis and confrontation. It’s filled with darkness no matter how bright the noon day sun shines. The demand of what in the hell just happened? weighs down on human skeletal structures, and there is no reprieve of an answer. This is loss; this is sorrow. Our bodies are forced into a conflict of feeling and thought: he was here, and now he’s not. The longing to touch him still courses through the nerve endings of the skin of my finger tips, but I cannot touch him anymore. The grief of desiring to lay lips on his that are now dead and gone, cold and lifeless. Substance was here and now it is seemingly vanished; the vacuum pulls my body into it: where I could not lie and sit and stand because he was there, I now can and that awareness of absence is crushing.

In the midst of this palpable heaviness that feels like divine silence, God isn’t actually speechless. The kerygma floats on the warm breeze: who do you say that I am? On Good Friday humanity answered with a conviction and judgment that ended in death. On Sunday, God will do the same but it will bring about life. But even if answers have been given, the question spoken long ago still demands an answer today; we aren’t off the hook because we’re being addressed today. And today, Saturday, the question haunts us as faith goes searching for her desire: what we knew and believed is being met with a radical upheaval of the unknowability of the future.

Today, law failed. Today, religion failed. Today, piety means nothing. Today, faith feels like a farce. Today, bodies long and hearts faint. Today, prophets only sigh. Today, love mourns. Today, grace feels beyond reach. Today, we are naked. Today, we are forced to be human, to reckon with what was and confront what will be. Today, we must wrestle with the demand of the eternal question in the divine address: who do you say that I am?

Posted on April 20, 2019March 10, 2020 by laurenlarkin 0

Interruptions as Invitations into Life

Sancta Colloquia episode 107 ft. Susan Vincent

In this episode of Sancta Colloquia, I had the honor of listening to Susan Vincent (@susanv) tell me her story. All of our stories are rather remarkable and the remarkable aspect of Susan’s story (for me) was that she was raised in an evangelical, conservative, charismatic environment, home-schooled by evangelical academics. And here she is now working to defend the voiceless, the oppressed, and the disenfranchised, working to dismantle systems of injustice and systemic oppression. I believe the Lord works in mysterious ways and Susan’s story encourages that belief: out of a conservative evangelical environment is born a woman who asks the important questions and thinks critically about her faith and how faith and life and social and political ethics work together. Susan explains in beautiful terms that the events that challenge and interrupt us and our status-quo are better conceived as invitations to experience God and others anew, to experience life anew. Rather than defensive reactions and clinging dogmatically to things as we once knew them, we should ask, “Can I make my response one of curiosity?” Essentially, according to Susan, when events encounter us that challenge and interrupt our way of seeing things, we are encouraged to take up the invitation to open ourselves and broaden our conceptions. I don’t know about you, but this is death into new life; and I’m all about dying to the old and finding life in the new. And not once but daily. I am grateful to Susan for her willingness to sit with me and chat on a Saturday afternoon. I learned so much from her and am very excited to share this sacred conversation with you. To quote Susan, “Faith allows us to open ourselves to the unknown.” Damn straight it does.

And, as a heads up, I took copious notes as she was talking. So, I’d recommend getting a pen and some paper and feel free to pause the track if you need you…and you may need to.

Intrigued? You should be. Listen here via Screaming Pods (https://www.screamingpods.com/)

A huge THANK YOU to my friend and producer Sean Duregger (Twitter: @seanCduregger) and Screaming Pods (Twitter: @ScreamingPods) for hosting Sancta Colloquia (Twitter: @SanctaColloquia).

Here’s the video I referenced by Liam Miller featuring The Rev. Dr. John Flett:

Susan grew up in Huntsville, Alabama (aka Rocket City USA). She was homeschooled K-12 with her three younger sisters. During that time learned to play several instruments and developed a love of reading. Growing up she attended a non-denominational church with her family, where she learned to speak the language of Christianity with an evangelical/charismatic accent.

Susan received her Bachelor of Science in Mass Media Communication from Oral Roberts University. At ORU she participated in the MultiMedia Institute, the Honors Program, and the Missions & Community Outreach Department. She traveled with ORU Outreach to Poland, Ukraine, India, China, Japan, and Kenya.

Not yet ready to give up travel or higher education, Susan went on to earn her Juris Doctor and Master of Dispute Resolution degrees from Pepperdine School of Law. While in law school she assisted in developing negotiation trainings at the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution in London, volunteered as a mediator in small claims court, advised the Supreme Court of Rwanda on case management and alternative dispute resolution, and interned with a trial judge in the Family Court division of the Los Angeles Superior Court.

After taking the bar, Susan spent a year in Kampala, Uganda through the Nootbaar Legal Fellowship. While there, she served as a court-appointed mediator in the Commercial Court and managed plea bargaining initiatives in the juvenile and criminal courts. She also earned a Certificate in Development Project Management, helped develop remand and diversion programs with the Children Justice Initiative, and learned to love African tea.

Susan returned to California to work at Christian Legal Aid of Los Angeles, where she supervised legal clinics, developed partnerships with organizations like Homeboy Industries and local senior centers, coordinated pro bono services and volunteers, administered the internship program, and generally nerded out managing tech & systems issues. She also provided counsel and advice to low-income clients on legal matters such as post-conviction relief, immigration, housing, consumer law, and estate planning.

While acclimating to life in Los Angeles, Susan had the chance to re-examine many of the theological and political frameworks that she had grown up with in light of the people and real-life challenges she saw on a daily basis. Through friendships, books, and online conversations, she developed a new vocabulary of justice. These words and perspectives would serve her well during the initial process of coming out and navigating its complex relational & theological effects.

Susan currently works as a Managing Attorney at the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, where she leads a diverse team of legal and service professionals to connect community members with the Foundation’s many programs and offices. She also attends The Loft LA at Westwood United Methodist Church, spends (wastes? invests?) a remarkable amount of time on Twitter, and is perpetually finding new things to add to her reading list.

Recommended Reading/Works Mentioned in the Podcast:

From LA: https://shop.homeboyindustries.org/products/barking-to-the-choir
From Alabama: https://eji.org/just-mercy
About justice and Jesus: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/204177/jesus-and-the-disinherited-by-howard-thurman/9780807010297/
And: https://frontedgepublishing.com/solus-jesus-a-theology-of-resistance/
One more, on reading the Bible in bigger and better ways: https://www.wjkbooks.com/Products/066423903X/womanist-midrash.aspx

Posted on March 11, 2019March 10, 2020 by laurenlarkin 0

Conversion, Encounter, and Politics of Communion

Sancta Colloquia episode 106 ft. Nic Don Stanton-Roark

In this episode of Sancta Colloquia, I had the incredible privilege of interviewing my Twitter friend: Nic Don Stanton-Roark (@ExilePolitics). Through our conversation, Nic Don shares the journey he’s been on from Atheism to Theism to Christianity. We get the details of how this journey worked itself out: from the comical episodes to the serious engagements with the dark side of life with suffering. The beauty of (or some of the beauty of) Nic Don’s story is that God is wholly other, one whom we encounter in ways that are external to us: God is made known in the event-encounter of faith. We are drawn out of ourselves towards God and towards others. And Nic Don makes the point that it’s not merely some private encounter, isolated from others people. Rather, not only are other people present to draw us into the story of Christ through faith, but even our ecclesiastical movements in church (the Sacraments, worship, liturgy, etc) are meant to draw us into encounter with God and with others. We never go it alone and it’s an illusion and lie if we think we can. I’m grateful to what Nic Don shared with me thus with you. These stories of God’s movement in our lives encourages us: maybe it’s not as quiet as it feels; God still moves.

Intrigued? You should be. Listen here via Screaming Pods (https://www.screamingpods.com/)

http://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/screamingpods/SanctaColloquia/sanctacolloquia-06.mp3

A huge THANK YOU to my friend and producer Sean Duregger (Twitter: @seanCduregger) and Screaming Pods (Twitter: @ScreamingPods) for hosting Sancta Colloquia (Twitter: @SanctaColloquia).

Nic Don Stanton-Roark is the archivist for the Church of God (Anderson), a Wesleyan holiness movement that emerged in Northern Indiana in the late 19th century. He has written curriculum for and pastored in the Church of God and attained a master of theological studies from the main seminary of the Church of God, Anderson School of Theology, in 2015, with a focus on political theology.

Books mentioned and recommended:

C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy
Frederick Buechner, Now and Then: A Memoir of Vocation
Amos Yong, Theology and Down Syndrome
Thomas Reynolds, Vulnerable Communion: A Theology of Disability and Hospitality (Didn’t name the book but referred to it)
William T. Cavanaugh, Torture and Eucharist (didn’t name but referred to)
Katie Grimes, Christ Divided: Antiblackness as Corporate Vice

I would also list Stanley J. Grenz and Denise Muir Kjesbo, Women in the Church for info on how reform movements will begin egalitarian and then shift toward exclusion of women

Both my twitter and instagram are exilepolitics. My blog is theopolitical.wordpress.com.

Posted on February 19, 2019March 10, 2020 by laurenlarkin 0

Contemplating 2018

What I’m Carrying with Me into 2019

The following are musings…take them as that…

Over the past few years I’ve learned to take on the orientation of looking forward rather than backwards. I spent the better part of a decade contemplating the things that happened to me and the scars these things left on my body (mind and soul). I credit this to a theological disposition that prevented me from seeing self-actualization as a good thing. I am what I am, was my motto and there I stayed…for years. I kept my trauma and victim narrative in my tight grip and read from it daily; the lines being so known and second nature to me that there was barely any distinction between the narrative and regular speech. And the concept of “that was then” and “this is now” was anathema; the two were too blended for me. Then was now. What was will always be, is what I had intellectually established. I was trapped.

But God is relentless and pursued me through relationships (both good and bad), drawing me deeper and deeper into God’s self, forcing me to reckon that I was determining the future by clinging to the past and slamming the door shut on potential and possibility (all that is and makes up the unknown future). In other words, in my resistance to look anywhere else but behind and use only the words my trauma and pain gave me I was, full stop, objectifying God. Can I be better? Can I move on? Can I alter? Scary questions for one whose mind is made up concretely on the past as all determining. It was like staring into an abyss and stepping out into it. Letting go and letting God–though extremely cliche–is truest here. Giving myself over to the encounter with God in the event of faith demands that I be stripped of all things that I’ve clung to, stripped of my history and grafted into Christ’s, born again as I was born originally: naked and vulnerable.

This event-encounter is not a medium for me now to know God more fully; I’ll never claim to know God in totality or close to it. God self-discloses God’s self and there’s a contextuality to that self-disclosure: what I experience in the event-encounter with God will be different from what you experience; both marked by the language of death and rebirth, the experiences are still different. And not just personal to you and me, but from decade to decade and era to era. The consistency and constancy being that, from our human perspective, God is very much in the business undoing our preconceptions of God, bringing those who are comfortable into chaos, bringing those who are in chaos into comfort. Always the encounter in the event of faith undoes and redoes, but it never looks the same; like snowflakes, the encounters are all different.

What I can say is that this event-encounter with God brings me into a more substantial relationship with and to myself. To think that being rendered naked and vulnerable is the surest state to be in is paradoxical. But the paradoxes ring out over and over again: in death: alive; in weakness: strong; in losing oneself: found. But then somehow the paradox make sense because when I’m stripped down to just my flesh (naked and bare) I am more fully myself than when I am hiding behind my clothes, my past, my doctrines, my knowns, my relationships. Losing my determining of myself according to my pock-marked-by-trauma history, letting that form of self determining go leaves me with two open hands, beggar style, kneeling at the rail of the word of God to recreate me. No longer controlled by the myths of the world or the one’s I’ve created or the ones that others have given me, I’m free to be substantiated by the life giving and life sustaining word of God, the word of God who threw the stars into place, the word of God who became incarnate in Christ, the word of God that perpetually goes forth from age to age, uniting all the world unto God.

2018 seemed to drive this all home over and over again. Through the very good and the very bad, being thrust into God was the overarching theme. And the beauty of it was: becoming more me. There were times when I thought that certain negative relational events I was enduring were going to destroy me and crush me. Yet, I was neither destroyed nor crushed; far from it. I was made stronger and more solid. Being forced to let go of my trauma-victim narrative(s) allowed me to be a better theologian of the cross: having the ability to actually call a thing what it is and to take from it what I need to while discarding the rest. It allowed me to be finally present in the moment, in the feels, in the tears and cries, in the pain and to intentionally stand up and walk–not in order to run away or find a place to hide, refusing to accept things, but in order to face the shit head on without fear because I’m established totally and completely in God. Thus, I can’t help but say that I’m rather grateful for these negative relational events; I’ve learned and grown so much through them. I’m a better person, more solid, more substantial. I’m bringing this into 2019.

2018 taught me that there is a huge distinction between my trauma-vicitm narrative/script and regular speech. Throughout therapy, I’ll say something, and my therapist will stop me and say: “You know that’s the trauma-victim narrative again, right? Did you hear it?” And for a long time I’ve always responded with: but that’s how I think, that’s normal. But through the majority of this year my response has been different. “Yes, I hear it loud and clear.” Understanding this distinction is part of my strength and having a different script to pull from is vital. I’m bringing this into 2019.

And this leads me to thank those friends and family in my life through whom God encounters me last year and (hopefully) this year, 2019. I want to thank you, the people who repeatedly call me higher and remind me to move forward. And the people who challenge me to push my limits. The people who call me out and correct me *because* they love me, and the people who are patient with my many questions and much pushing back to understand things more fully. Thank you to the people who cheer me on in my successes and comfort me in my failures; and the people who just seem to like me (you all baffle me, frankly :D). Thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I express love in loyalty and you have it.

And those are my personal musings about 2018.

Posted on January 2, 2019March 10, 2020 by laurenlarkin 0

“Why I Love Preaching”

Luke 1:1-4 (Homily)

When I was little girl, I wrote stories. Learning to read fueled my pint sized writing desire; I didn’t want to be merely a passenger on the story train, I wanted to call those places and beings into existence, I wanted to be the engineer. With a pencil, eraser, and a wide-ruled piece of paper, I summoned into being characters made of glue, talking dogs and cats, story-book ending reversals and what-ifs, magical places, deep woods, vast fields, and majestic horses.

That pencil and wide-ruled paper would give way to multicolored pens and spiral-bound notebooks of college-ruled sheets. I didn’t pass notes in high school; I passed stories with my best friend. Together we spun chapters upon chapters of tales of love and romance, bringing our secret crushes on cute soccer players to life.

As an English major with a creative writing focus in college, I wrote and wrote. Plays. Essays. Poetry. Fiction. Satire. In my spare time, I filled personal journals with angsty poetry and meandering nonsensical musings about life and existence, God and the divine, scripture, human pain and human suffering.

Even as I left college and joined the masses moving to and fro on Wall Street, my poetry and prose came with me. A few weeks before the events of 9/11 traumatized my city in devastating ways, I started writing stories again. A clay pot by the name of Eli, his buddy Marc, and the Potter would not only keep me company on the dark nights where I couldn’t process the horror I had just witnessed from the distance of 1.5 miles, but they would be the midwives through whom my processing of terror and suffering of fragile humanity and an apparently silent God were born.

In seminary, I’d find ways for my inner iconoclast to come out. A thesis and three supporting points was boring. I’d submit epic poems to answer the question of predestination, or spin a tale about why confirmation was an important step in the Episcopal church. And at night, I’d curl up with my boys, sometimes reading to them and sometimes allowing my spoken words to pull them into imaginary worlds before they drifted off into to their own.

As they grew, bedtime stories became story installments on 5×7 index cards taped to the inside of lunch-boxes. No longer was I escaping into fantasy worlds I created for myself, I was creating escapes for my boys from the structure of elementary school. An anxious day, a stressful day, a bad day could be paused for a few minutes; just enough time to rest and dive back in after lunch. Time and space were held back, barricaded against by words gathered as a fortress creating and holding a place for my boys to breathe.

Now I stand here. And I get to use not only my training and authority to educate you in things of theology and religion, but I get to put my hand once again to the pencil and the sheet to create for you worlds vastly different from the one you are all too familiar with, where for a few minutes you can suspend disbelief. This story telling is part of our Episcopal identity that is as deep as it is wide. We put great emphasis on every part of the service being a moment of potential encounter between you and God in the event of faith. From the first song to the last and everything in between is structured to make that encounter possible. Not least of which is the event of preaching.

In preaching I get to use my words to create for you a moment in time and space for you to get caught up and caught in. I get to use my words to pull you into the rich and verdant possibility of encounter with God in the event of faith. I get to bring eye-to-eye and hand-to-hand with a God who loves deeply and fully. I get to call into being a moment so filled with conflict and comfort, where you are encountered and altered so radically that if you are listening even just a little bit, you can’t help but leave a little bit different.

I get to tell you stories about words so imbued with fertility that they spontaneously generate worlds of life (from the smallest plant to the largest mountain and every living thing between). I get to bring you face to face with a mighty, divine power who is deeply impassioned over people and the world that bushes burn, waters part, rains cause floods, food falls from the sky, and the earth quakes. I get to place you among the crowd of people enslaved, freed, and on the run; who cross a sea between walls of water, roam painfully through miles and miles of dessert, are fed from the sky, look to snakes for healing, and struggle with faith and belief that the promise uttered way back when is still valid, will still be fulfilled.

I get to point to the prophets of Israel who were so filled with the spirit and divine presence, that they couldn’t be silent anymore and spoke up, calling their people around them to wake up, hear, and return to the truth. I get to seat you at the stage of the greatest and most romantical story of love and desire between two people that Romeo and Juliet blush. I get to recite for you the poetry and songs of a people overcome with love and gratitude, hope and confidence, and sometimes fear and despair. I get to expose you to wisdom so ancient and so true, that there isn’t a fortune cookie or a horoscope in the world that could ever hold a match to it.

I get to ask you to be quiet as we all silently shuffle into a cave where a sleeping baby lies in a manger; “ancient wisdom born a wriggly infant to save the world,” I whisper to you. “Long awaited hope fulfilled.” I push you into the rushing and pressing crowds who are eager to see and hear and touch “This man who told me everything about me” (cf. Jn 4). I then prod you in front of a horrific instrument of death, and ask you to look up and see the painful death of Christ, this man who is God. Over the jeering, mocking, and taunting crowd, I holler, “This is what love looks like: sacrifice!” And three days later I get to bring you to another cave, an empty tomb, and let you feel and get caught up in the energy and fear of the women fleeing to go tell the disciples: Jesus is risen! And unlike before, now is a time for loud and ruckus noise! “Rejoice! Lift your voice! Love won! Life triumphed over death; light obliterated the darkness! Hallelujah!”

As a faithful tour guide of this great story, I then walk you through the good, the bad, and the ugly of the fits and starts of the early church comprised of people trying to figure out what just happened exactly, people like you and me. And I get to show you—each of you—where you’ve been grafted into this story since the beginning of time, where you along with all people of all history, are the intended recipient of this great work and act of love of God. I’m not here to give you another syllabus decorated with lists of expectations and to-dos; I’m here to call you out of all of that for a handful of minutes in order to tell you about what I think is the greatest story ever told, to write and speak you into it. I’m here to recreate that story for you in this time and space; to make that story come alive in this place at this moment.

I’m here to hand the story on to you “…just as [it was] handed on to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, …so that you may know the truth concerning the things about [the great story of God’s deep abiding love for God’s world and God’s people, for you, God’s beloved child]” (adapted from Luke 1:1-4).

Posted on August 10, 2018March 10, 2020 by laurenlarkin 2

The Toxicity of Toxic Language

When “Toxic” becomes Toxic

Here’s the thing about “toxic” relationships: it’s not always restricted to one person being *the* “toxic” person that needs to be excised from the group or broken off with. Though, this is commonly what is conveyed in the dialogue of aftermath of relational split: “that person was toxic; so glad that person is gone. Now, we/I can go on being/becoming more healthy.” While I don’t have a very high anthropology (meaning: I still question the inherent goodness of human beings but not the inherent dignity; plus, I’m a Luther theologian, it comes with the terrain), I still believe that *anyone* can be “toxic” in *any* given situation. It’s the mix of personalities in their potential for toxicity. Potential for toxicity can be other wise dubbed as the beloved and oft used term: “brokenness.” However, in common parlance, it’s not just “brokenness” (because general brokenness is acceptable for the most part), “toxicity” is like the dark underbelly of “brokenness,” the thing that is the deal breaker and can’t ever be tolerated by anyone. Thus, people who have otherwise standard issues and problems and “brokenness,” get labeled as “toxic” and should be avoided at all costs because they bring “toxicity” to everything. They’re essentially and inherently harbingers of poison to every relationship they touch; they’ve been ontologically defined as poisonous.

(Side note, I’d like to argue that it is better to render “brokenness” as “bentness” in order to adhere to the inherent dignity of human beings. “Brokenness” can indicate being useless and worthy of being trashed; all human beings are never ever, never ever of that category.)

“Toxic” is the new “co-dependent.” One of the problems of the language of toxicity becoming so popular is that it has lost its actual definition and impact (there are legitimately toxic people, things, and places in our lives). It has become easier to label someone as “toxic” because they are causing us *any* discomfort. Also, It has become all the rage to label someone, some-place, something as “toxic,” in order to scapegoat our own problems on to someone else, some-place else, or something else. It’s easier to just cut someone, some-place, something out of your life, rather than take a long hard look in the mirror and realize you are fucking up your own life. (I say this as someone who was caught too long in “toxic” this-and-that language and finally had to come to terms that *I* was (me and my trauma narrative) more of the problem than any other person, place, or thing.) Rather than knee-jerk reacting and labeling someone, some-place, or something as “toxic,” it might be worth slowing the roll and asking: why is this causing this reaction in me? Therein answers lie.

Another problem is, from my perspective, we all carry within ourselves potential for acting caustically[1] toward others; our potential for this activity can be actualized by other people acting out of their issues and trauma (and vice versa). Also, our caustic behavior can be actualized by another person’s otherwise normal personality traits because we’ve had some sort of trauma associated with those traits even if they’d never be considered categorically “problematic” by any professional. It’s rarely the fact that only one person is the “toxic” source, but rather the mix of personality traits we have that conform and collide with others. Conformity with others creates a wonderful sense of peace and acceptance, but this does not mean collision is out of the question nor does it mean that when collision occurs it’s a deal breaker and the other person is now “toxic.” Collision occurs as conformity becomes bedrock in a relationship. When the honeymoon of a new relationship wears off, it’s then where we start to see how different we are from each other and also the potential for triggering and being triggered. (And I am not speaking of small things like a disagreement and miscommunications that run standard in any relationship. Rather, I speak of the big collisions, the ones that demand terms like forgiving and forgetting.)

When collision happens, it’s a time for introspection and dialogue. The normal and healthy response in situations where collision has occurred—in any way—is: discussion, both interpersonal (what happened and what can we do together to grow and move forward with our relationship (if possible)?) and intrapersonal (why did this action trigger this response in me?). Granted not all relationships are or need to be carried forward, some are mutually too caustic (as a whole) to be continued; not because one person is inherently “toxic,” but because the unit doesn’t work and we are both mutually bad for each other because we trigger each other, you trigger me, or I trigger you. None of us wants to be in relationship that is primarily collision and strife. None of us want to be causing the caustic reaction. (I’m a firm believer that not all personality types should be anything more than cordial acquaintances because the relational scales tip too much in favor of the potential for collision and triggering.) Often times, though, a good conversation will allow for light to be shed on issues that either or both people in the relationship were blind to, where acceptance of your own and the other person’s contribution to the issue can be owned, and create the space for solutions to move forward to be implanted and embraced.

We have used and abused the word “toxic” in all its forms, and the results prove disastrous. We are all bent, traumatized individuals making our way through this journey of life. Even the most integrated of us still has plenty to work on and will continue to aggravate, frustrate, and bother other wanderers. The most we can do is admit our own weaknesses, realize when those weaknesses are not beneficial to others, and realize where we can and need to become strong.

Something that I loved learning about when I started studying Luther and his conception of justification and the proclamation of the Gospel, was not that he let me off the hook of the law of God, but that he put me on it. Far from being a therapeutic hedonist, Luther has a high view of the law both as it plays into the believer’s relationship before God and in the believer’s life. No, sin boldly isn’t the same as: you do you as you please at whatever expense and at whomever’s expense. It’s about the reality that you are, by encounter with God in the event of faith, right before God, that this event-encounter is not born of your particular activity but does have significant bearing on your present activity. Luther’s dialectic of law and gospel and the need for the good theologian to be able to distinguish between the two is never about being given the license to avoid the law at all costs and to reject all people and things and words that give off even the hint of personal discomfort and conviction to us. Rather, it’s always about being able to really *see* with our own eyes what is the law and what is the gospel, what brings death and what brings life, and to act accordingly—not to avoid it but to enter into the event, to be encountered there in by God and God’s grace.

Sometimes, we must enter into the death present and terrifying in relational collision (to face it head on, eye to eye, word to word) in order to be brought into something so much more beautiful and alive than it could ever be if we had sidestepped the entire problem in the name of comfort. I will be more alive, you will be more alive, and even the relationship (either sustained or terminated) will be life giving (even if there is grief and pain as a result of termination). With God all things are possible, even abundant life out of what feels like and looks like certain death.

[1] I like “caustic” rather than “toxic” because there is an allusion to a chemical reaction, neither chemical is bad in it’s own state, but when combined the reaction is bad.

Posted on July 28, 2018March 10, 2020 by laurenlarkin 0

Blessed are the Ordinary

Mark 6:30-34, 53-56 (Sermon)

One of the hardest jobs I’ve ever had is being a parent, specifically being a stay-at-home-parent. It’s probably not hard to imagine why I’d say such a thing; either you personally relate to such a statement because of experience or you’ve witnessed the grueling task being performed by another. Being the primary care provider for little and rather irrational human beings demands a certain amount of mental and physical and emotional fortitude; not to mention the exponential increase therein as you have more kids. Maneuvering through (what seems like) the endless minefield of demands and needs and still retaining some sense of self at the end of the day is the feat of feats.

But it wasn’t just the tasks that sent me into my own personal pressure cooker and crucible, but the monotony of the tasks. The day in and day out of doing the exact same thing over and over again often felt soul crushing and dehumanizing. I had gone from a well-decorated seminary student with a bright-star-esque academic future, to rinsing off yet another poopy cloth diaper. The rocking chair and my nursing infant tethered me to the nursery. This. This is my life. Nursing and diaper changes. Peanut butter jelly sandwiches and massive tantrums.

I watched as my peers reviewed proofs of their books, traveled to exotic locations to proclaim the gospel, start ministries and plant churches while I was stuck changing my shirt for the fourth time that day because of projectile spit-up. My inner monologue featured the twin thoughts: “I’m capable of so much more!” and “Good Lord, I’m a shell of a human being…”

One day, while I was reading one of the volumes of Luther’s Works, I saw my plight clearly defined.

This punishment [in Genesis 3:16], too, springs from original sin; and the woman bears it just as unwillingly as she bears those pains and inconveniences that have been placed upon her flesh. The rule remains with the husband, and the wife is compelled to obey him by God’s command. He rules the home and the state, wages wars, defends his possessions, tills the soil, builds, plants, etc. The woman, on the other hand, is like a nail driven into the wall. She sits at home…so the wife should stay at home and look after the affairs of the household, as one who has been deprived of the ability of administering those affairs that are outside and that concern the state. She does not go beyond her most personal duties.[1]

On that day, as my eyes moved over Luther’s words, I felt the very long tentacles of the curse uttered way back when cinch and tighten around me. I was a nail hammered so deep into a wall that the only hope to recover the nail would be to tear the wall down; the only other recourse would be to just admit the nail was lost forever. I wasn’t special, I wasn’t a bright-shining star; I was just a mom stuck in the monotony and banality of #momlyfe.

And I know I’m not alone, and I know that what I experienced isn’t merely a stay-at-home-parent thing. We all suffer from the monotony and banality of our lives. Very few of us here are as famous and special as we thought we would be when we were kids. And even if we are, monotony and the mundane plague every one’s life. The same people keep sitting in the same chairs at our dinning tables, ranting about the same things. We drive the same route in the same traffic there and back from work. Our lunches are packed with the same foods and in the same manner; the only change being that the store ran a sale on pink lady apples so you didn’t get the Fuji you normally get. Ooooo. Fancy.

While routine can bring comfort, it will also bring disdain; no one likes being in a rut or in the thick of existential crises surrounded by the doldrums. At some point in the last 7 days—more likely than not—you said or thought something to the equivalent of: is this all there is for me? Or you felt stuck, stuck like a nail driven deep into a wall, nothing special.

And then the apostles were called together to Jesus and they reported to him everything that they did and everything they taught. And then [Jesus] said to them, “Come! You yourselves privately to an empty place and rest a little.” For the people—who were the ones coming and the ones going—they were not even having an opportunity to eat. And they (Jesus and the disciples] went away in a fishing boat into an empty place privately. And then they saw them [Jesus and the disciples] going away and many people recognized [them] and then together they ran from all of the towns and they were ahead of them [Jesus and the disciples]. (Mark 6:30-33)

There’s nothing really special about our Gospel passage either. In fact, it’s remarkably dull and mundane. Neither my exegetical work nor any commentary provided me with that: “Oh, wow! That’s really cool!” moment we preachers so desperately desire. The text is as a bland in the original Greek as it is in the English; you’re not missing out on anything.

The story is as follows: the disciples have returned to Jesus and tell him what they’ve been doing (Mark doesn’t take the time to be specific, it’s merely: they tell Jesus all the things, no one story being significant to tell in detail). Jesus then suggests a retreat, and they all get in a boat to go to a remote place for rest. This attempt is thwarted because: people. Jesus loves the people and teaches them. That’s it. There’s nothing very remarkable here.

The reality that Jesus is popular or that he is very concerned for the physical and mental state of his overworked disciples[2] isn’t new; Mark is consistently pointing out both.[3] Even the destination for the disciple’s retreat is not even worth mentioning in detail: it’s merely a deserted, remote place without a name located somewhere on the northwestern portion of the shore.[4] And, according to the commentary I read for this passage, v. 33 points out that Mark has, “…oversimplified the process by which so large a crowd came to be in the ε῎ρημος τόπος looking for Jesus.”[5] Mark, in his quick and immediate style, merely informs his reader that there were a lot of people, these people recognized them, and they ran to meet Jesus on the other side of the shore. V. 33 has a lot of information collapsed into it; none of it particularly all that fascinating.

To make matters more bland, the main point of the remainder of chapter 6 falls not with this failed attempt at retreat and rest, but on the feeding of the 5,000 and Jesus’s walking on the surface of the water.[6] But guess what? We weren’t even offered the good part. According to the Lectionary, we go from v. 34 straight to v.53 and read about another boating endeavor and Jesus healing everyone everywhere. The lectionary intentionally dropped those two big, fat miracles out of the reading. And, just like our boring lives, what we’re left with is a big dose of: meh.

Wedding the lectionary’s scriptural omission to the conception that Mark’s is very concerned with (and has been for a few chapters now) the “Christological question…‘Who is Jesus?’”[7], we find ourselves in a bit of an intellectual conundrum. We’re faced with the question: how does this handful of disconnected verses offer illumination into Jesus? How are we, through the text, brought into an encounter with God? And surely the crisis of the need for food and being encountered by your rabbi walking on water provides a more than adequate means for a textually centered encounter with God. In my very human opinion, the miracles seem to be a seraphic announcement: Jesus is God! But what we have seems more like divine mumbling, huh? what? I didn’t quite catch that.

And then when he [Jesus] got out he saw a large crowd and he felt sympathy upon them, that they were as sheep not having a shepherd, and then he began to teach them many things. (Mark 6:34)

Rather than being overwhelmed by the largeness and the magnificence of the grand miracles of vv. 35-52, where we can point and say: See?! This is God; there is God in Christ! We are left being rather underwhelmed with mundane minutia and commonplace statements about Christ. But maybe that’s the point?

Maybe by not being dropped into midst of the grandness of the big miracles but shoved to the outside margins and fringes, we are being asked to reconsider how we view the ordinary? Being forced to focus on the text surrounding two major miracles and not on the miracles themselves demands that we broaden our typically narrow Christological answer to the question “Who is Jesus?” We are forced to incorporate the small, the mundane, and the banal of life in our answer. Whatever we say of Christ applies even in the monotony of the everyday.

In v. 34, Christ has compassion on the crowd because they are sheep without a shepherd (a clear Old Testament reference).[8] The imagery of the sheep without a shepherd, “…denotes the ‘untended’ state of the ordinary people of Galilee… which arouses Jesus’ compassion and to which he responds as in 4:1-2 by an extended period of teaching.”[9] Jesus has compassion on a group of people, a large group of ordinary people with ordinary lives. Jesus, in the big and in the small, is “‘the one who cares.’”[10] This one who cares is the one who the ordinary people encounter on the shore, and it’s in this encounter where the ordinary is transformed into something extraordinary because the ordinary comes into contact with the extraordinary. And, that’s what the grace of God does and this extraordinary alteration is the essence of the reign of God.[11]

In the economy of the reign of God: what was last is first, what is made low is brought high, what is poor is rich, what is unclean is made clean, what is rejected is accepted, and what is dead is made to be alive. In all of the gospel accounts of Christ, Jesus is recorded as upending the status quo and in doing so he overthrows the controlling myths of the world. When being strong and powerful and rich and satiated was considered to be the manifestation of blessedness, that God had looked upon you and smiled, Jesus said the opposite,

“Looking at his disciples, he said:

‘Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
Blessed are you who hunger now,
for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh.
Blessed are you when people hate you,
when they exclude you and insult you
and reject your name as evil,
because of the Son of Man.’” (Luke 6:20-22).

Blessed are you who are ordinary for yours is the extraordinary grace of God. Because it’s in the throes of existential crisis of monotony where you realize you are completely incapable in yourself to be anything but ordinary and commonplace, where the lie that you have to be the richest of the rich, or the powerful of the powerful to affect change in this world is exposed. God, in Christ, has looked upon you and has had compassion. And we know that it is the character and quality of God to have compassion because Christ is compassionate here and elsewhere; this is as marvelous and powerful (and maybe more so) as stilling and quieting the wind and waves, as magnificent as walking on water and feeding the 5,000. This is the extraordinary and compassionate God the ordinary people of Galilee encounter on the shore.[12]

In this event-encounter with God everything changes by the paradoxical grace of God. The rejected becomes the beloved, the sick become the well, and the ordinary becomes the extraordinary.

A friend of mine wrote a very excellent book on the life and theology and politics of Helmut Gollwitzer, a theologian of early 20^th century Protestant Germany. He writes about Gollwitzer’s death,

“Helmut lived for another seven years and more, until October 17, 1993. He died when he fell down the stairs of his house. This may seem like an odd detail to include here. I must admit that when I first learned how Gollwitzer died, it struck me as an unjustly ignoble death for one who had lived the life and survived the circumstances that he did. From another perspective, however, that Gollwitzer survived what he did only to die in such a mundane way is perhaps the greatest possible testament not only to his strength and character, but also the grace of God that characterized his life—grace upon grace.”[13]

When I first read how Gollwitzer died, it didn’t make sense to me that my friend was seeing it as a great testament to the grace of God. Considering my friend to be one of the better theologians I currently know, I knew there was something I was missing in the connection. What was he seeing that I couldn’t see?

Finally, it dawned on me that I could ask him, especially when he was standing next to me at AAR. When I asked him how Gollwitzer’s death—caused by falling down stairs—was “grace upon grace,” he explained to me that it was the paradox of grace. The grace of God changes the mundane tasks and events of life; it’s in the mundane tasks and events of life where the grace of God is exposed for what it is: truly remarkable. It’s in the non-miraculousness of life where the paradoxical grace of God shines brightly—we expect to see the power and grace of God in a miracle, but not so much in the everyday. It is here in the mundane and monotonous aspects of life where we encounter God and the question, “Who is this?” about Christ is answered with a “I am who I am” (Ex. 3:14). The drab gray background of our common and ordinary lives highlights the bright colors of God’s grace. God is glorified in the ordinary.

Our regular tasks and the things we do day in and day out, the very things we think are hindering the grace of God are the very vehicles for the grace of God, where we encounter God in the event of faith. We don’t have to be monastic monks to experience the grace of God. We can experience God’s grace in the common. Changing diapers is divine, holding an average steady job to provide for your family is divine, putting meals on the table over and over and over again is divine, studying or grading papers is divine, just getting up and being present in your life in whatever capacity you can participate in is divine, even death is divine; in all of these things we are brought into event-encounters with God and with each other. This is surely divine.

In these event-encounters we are brought into life out of death because now everything harbors the beauty of divine possibility for encounter with God with an other. We don’t have to be strong and powerful and rich to be of any good in the world (and often times these things fail and hinder us in this regard). Rather, all we need to be is wonderfully and unremarkably ordinary human beings doing wonderfully ordinary human things with other ordinary human beings. We are the ones who have been the beloved objects of the God who cares and has compassion on us, who will never leave us or forsake us.

Luther was wrong (and make note: I rarely say it). We are not nails driven so deep in to a wall, rendered stuck in our respective environs and social platforms. We are the very ordinary creatures set loose upon the world to love and act radically as the very ordinary humans we are in Christ. We don’t have to focus on trying to make ourselves special because we already are in Christ. Blessed are those who are ordinary because they are the beloved people of an extraordinary God freed unto and into the world to set the captives loose.

The Lord is my shepherd;
I shall not be in want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures
and leads me beside still waters.

He revives my soul
and guides me along right pathways for his Name’s sake.

Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I shall fear no evil;
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

You spread a table before me in the presence of those who trouble me;
you have anointed my head with oil,
and my cup is running over.

Surely your goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,

and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever. (Psalm 23:1-6)

[1] Martin Luther Lectures on Genesis: Chapters 1-5. LW. V. 1. St. Louis, MO: Concordia, 1958. p. 202-3.

[2] France, p. 263. “υ῾μει῀ς αυ᾽τοι´ is unusually emphatic, and places the focus on the need of the disciples themselves: they have been serving others; now they themselves need to be cared for.”

[3] France, p. 263. “At the same time it reinforces the repeated emphasis of Mark both on the uncomfortable popularity of Jesus…and on his habit of taking his disciples away from the crowd…for periods of relief and of instruction.”

[4] France, p. 264. “Mark does not tell us where this particular ε῎ρημος τόπος was, but Luke locates the incident at Bethsaida (or rather presumably in its neighbourhood, since he, too, calls it an ε῎ρημος τόπος).” However, it is better to not credit Luke with geographical accuracy and “…assume that Mark has in view a place on the northwestern shore (such as the traditional site at Tabgha) not too far from Capernaum and on the same side of the Jordan inflow…”

[5] France, p. . The description in v.33 of the crowd and their goings-on seems to be that “…Mark has oversimplified the process by which so large a crowd came to be in the ε῎ρημος τόπος looking for Jesus.” Specifically as it relates to the coming miracle (that is skipped by the lectionary) in the feeding of the 5k.

[6] RT France The Gospel of Mark NIGTC (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002). p. 260. “The initial focus of the pericope is on the abortive attempt of Jesus to organize a ‘retreat’ for his disciples on their return from their mission (vv. 31-32), but the whole weight of the story falls on the feeding of the *unwanted_ crowd who frustrated that plan.”

[7] France, p 263. “But the patent symbolism should not lead us to miss what is surely the primary purpose in Mark’s inclusion of this story, the sheer wonder of an ‘impossible’ act, and the testimony which this provides in answer to the growing Christological question of this part of the gospel, ‘Who is Jesus?’ He is not merely the healer of afflicted individuals or the rescuer of endangered disciples; he is one who is not bound by the rules of normal experience of what is possible and impossible. In following him this representative group of Israelites, no less than those who followed Moses in the wilderness, will find all their need supernaturally supplied, for God is again at work among his people.”

[8] France, p. 265. “ω῾ς προ´βατα μη` ε῎χοντα ποιμε´να is an obvious metaphor for lack of care and leadership, and one used in the OT for Israel in the wilderness after Moses (Nu. 27:17, where the problem is solved by the appointment of Joshua), for Ahab’s army after his death in battle (1 Ki. 22:17), for the people of God when their appointed leaders have failed in their trust (Ezk. 34:5-6), and for their helplessness when their (messianic) leader is taken away (Zc. 13:7).”

[9] France, p. 265.

[10] France, p. 265. Reference to the 10^th chapter of Best’s “Story”. “The only subject of whom the verb σπλαγχνιζομαι is used in the NT is Jesus (apart from parable characters who represent Jesus or God). It is not a common verb in Mark (especially if we are right in not reading it in 1:41), but it occurs in the accounts of both feeding miracles (8:2); combined with the simile of sheep without a shepherd it presents Jesus above all as ‘the one who cares.’”

[11] h/t David W. Congdon via Twitter

[12] David W. Congdon The God Who Saves: A Dogmatic Sketch. (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2016). p. 27fn11, “Traditional accounts of theology want to make the Christ-event an exception to the way God acts elsewhere in the world. Here I take radically christoscentric approach and argue that God acts elsewhere only in the way God acts in Christ, since the Christ-event is definitive, even constitutive of who God is and how God acts.”

[13] W. Travis McMaken Our God Loves Justice: an introduction to Helmut Gollwitzer (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2017). p. 48

Posted on July 23, 2018March 10, 2020 by laurenlarkin 1

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The intersection of everyday life and theology

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Tag: Encounter

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Mark 6:30-34, 53-56 (Sermon)