Blogging Towards Palm Sunday, April 1^st

  Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29 & Mark 11:1-11

What is power?  We live in a season in which several people in our country are scrambling to become the President – the most powerful man (or woman) in the world.  What makes power?  A super PAC? An Ivy League degree?; Money?; a particular zip code?; military power?; connections?; luck?   We are in a confused age in which greatness, power, authority, fame, are aspired to – and yet often times responsibility to those over whom power is given, is shrugged off.  Look at our schools.  Look at what is happening in Syria.  Look at the major themes of the box-office smash movie of the past week “The Hunger Games.”  In an age and culture in which the squeaky wheel gets the oil, the loudest complainer gets ahead; the message of Jesus is counter-cultural, pointing to a parallel way of being in, but not of, this world.

The greatly influential German philosopher and poet Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) best frames the way that our world today envisions and defines power. He wrote of the will to power, believing to be the main driving force in man (and he meant man as he was an open misogynist).  Achievement, ambition, the striving to reach the highest possible position in life; these are all manifestations of the will to power.

Blogging Towards Sunday March 18^th   

Mark 9:14-29

 What is faith?  It’s a common question today in our culture in which many indentify themselves as spiritual but not religious.  Is faith about an institution?; or is it about the God at the center of it all?  Can you still doubt and have faith?  Can you lose your faith when you struggle with the difficulty of believing?  Today’s scripture passage wrestles with those questions in the context of a story about the remarkable faith of a father who radically loves his sick son, coming to Jesus for help.

Blogging Towards Sunday, March 4^th    

Mark 9:2-13

 

This past week our neighbors were robbed.  An occurrence that’s all too common in our city of Oakland.  I was most likely home, being dropped off by the car repair shop shuttle.  Odds are that I scared off the robbers, who left without the TV that they’d unplugged from the wall, while I chummed it up with the driver.  It’s not all that uncommon, as I’ve said; but I’d just spent the 20 minutes in the shuttle ride talking with another passenger, who lives in a less “edgy” and that’s not urbanite for “cool”, area of town than I do.  Her concerns were all about burglaries, violent crimes, with the fear of living in the city.  She saw true – but only part of what is.

Oaklanders seem to take pride in the grit.  Isn’t that why Oaklandish is so successful?  If you live in a dirty, tough town, it’s better to take pride in surviving it than to be paralyzed by shame for staying there.  For many of us, the city, and maybe Oakland in particular, is one of the last places to come to mind (if it comes to mind at all) when we think about where we encounter God in our lives or find spiritual renewal.  Instead, our minds wander to more peaceful and serene settings outside the hurried and complex life of the city: the mountains, the desert, parks, the ocean beach-side, silent retreat houses in the redwood forests of the North Bay. 

Blogging Towards Sunday, March 4^th    

Mark 8:22-9:1

Spiritual sight is something that most of us are looking for.  It’s not primarily the capacity to know all things that we long for, but more for perspective, balance and direction.  I’ve spent years praying for sudden illumination, the sort of explosive religious experience that comes to mind when you think of Paul on the way to Damascus, Moses in front of the burning bush, or Esther in her journey to queenship. 

We live among a few spiritual giants: Mother Teresa, MLK Jr., Desmond Tutu, Billy Graham, the Dalai Lama, other yogis. We have our own lists which differ with specifics, but have the same focus.  I’ve been around people who had an authority that you could feel.  It was as if the air was different around them, the space changed, their perspective stretching out to impact me, to invite me to deeper vision, wiser words, radical humility and action.  But how do you achieve that?  You can’t buy it in the dollar bin at Target. Nor can you order it from the Great Speakers’ Series.

Blogging Towards Sunday, February 26^th   

Mark 8:1-21

How much is enough?  We live in a society where we want to super size everything.  So we should supersize faith right?  We should have a supersized demonstration of proof that God is and that God is what we think, before we believe.  It’s not asking the impossible.  It’s just asking for a little more, not that hard to get.  It only costs like another quarter to get it at McDonald’s, so God should be able to do it – easy!

Ash Wednesday 

"Until Death Do Us Part"

Today marks the beginning of Lent: the season of 40 days (not counting Sundays, roughly 6 weeks)  that precede Easter Sunday.  In the ancient and early Church it was a time for catechism: learning about what it meant to be a follower of Jesus (sort of like a membership class sort of thing).  Catechets, or faith students, would be baptized as the sun rose on Easter Sunday, thus joining the community of faith.

Blogging Towards Sunday, February 19^th   

Mark 7:24-37

Today’s passage is rather shocking and potentially embarrassing for it shows Jesus mouthing prejudice.  His comments in verse 28 seem to affirm that God loves the Jews more than the Gentiles; that he has come not for everyone but only for his people.  It’s embarrassing because it seems so –un-Jesus and also flies in the face of other scriptures and historic church affirmation about Jesus coming for all peoples, nations and languages.  Does this racist Jesus change his mind?  Is he won over by the theological argument of the woman?; convinced by her great faith?; or merely using her as a rhetorical device in order to expound upon his version of good news?

This peculiar story, recorded only here in Mark among the four gospels, points to the reality we face today.  How do we interact with others?  How do we approach not only racial and social class diversity in our faith communities, but how do we encounter those among us who have a different faith story, spiritual practice, or theological viewpoint?  How are we as the church called to live in our world of today, but not of it?  What is great faith?  What does it look like? 

Blogging Towards Sunday February 12^th   

Mark 7:1-23

After several striking demonstrations of miraculous healing power in the Jewish west bank of the Sea of Galilee, Mark turns to a narrative of an argument between Jesus and the Pharisees and the Scribes.  Today’s sections contain 5 teachings all organized around a common theme of ritual purity.  They start in 7:1, 7:9; 7:14, 7:17, and 7:20.  We divide them up in a literary fashion because of the change of location, or the use of transitional words such as “and he said….”; or “Again Jesus….” 

Before we study the text we need some historical reminders of things that we may have forgotten or never known.  In Jesus’ day there were several principal sects (or denominations or schools of thoughts) among the Jewish believers: the Pharisees, Scribes, Sadducees, Essenes, and the Zealots (or Siccari).

Blogging Towards Sunday February 5^th   

Mark 6:45-56

Defying Gravity

This is a curious story. The second miracles on the water – of the sea of Galilee.  It echoes what we’ve already experienced in Mark 4:35-41 when Jesus calms the storm, and goes beyond it.  Are they the same story edited because it’s such a good one?  Or is this wonder on the water moving the disciples – and thus us: the current readers, by extension – to deeper faith? 

After feeding the 5,000 Jesus does something even more radical: he defies gravity.

 Blogging Towards Sunday, January 29^th 

Mark 6:30-44

This pericope (section of the gospel) seems to be perfect for us as we gather today for worship and our shared ministry work of discernment, discipleship and rededication as a community of faith at our annual congregational meeting.  Mark tells this story in juxtaposition with the story of the horrific feast at which the 1% of ancient Palestine gorge themselves at the table of Herod Antipas and punctuate the debauchery with the beheading of John the Baptizer all for a king to avoid shame and his mistress to exact revenge on a too courageous prophet.  (Mark 6:14-29)

In the larger scheme of Mark’s retelling of the Jesus story, we see that these two contrasted stories about feasts follow Jesus sending out the twelve disciples to do ministry (Mark 6:6-13).  On one hand it’s remarkable that he would dare to do so: the disciples seem so clueless:  They were terrified by Jesus’ calming of the story (Mark 5:35-41).  They don’t seem to get the parables and basic teachings of Jesus about the Kingdom of God (Mark 4:10).  And yet on the other hand, Jesus has redefined family – the principal thing in terms of identity in the ancient world.  Family isn’t about your family name, your gender, your tribe; but rather it’s about who you follow and how you follow them in your life.  For Jesus, anyone who follows God, seeking to do God’s will in the world, is part of his family.  So in the end the disciples might not be 100% clear on what’s going on, but they get the big picture (even if not very clearly).  They too seek to know God, to follow God, and to do God’s will in the world.  Maybe we ourselves are not all that different than the disciples today?

Bumper Sticker of the Week

Blogging Towards Sunday, January 8^th 

Mark 6:14- 29

As I read this pericope (section of the gospel) it seems to be about authenticity and boldness.  How far are we called to go in standing for what we believe to be right?  How bold are we in proclaiming what we believe to be true, right, gospel-good-news?  Do we proclaim it with just words, or do we do so with all of our lives and livelihoods?  In a world that often is toxically tainted by hypocrisy, polished messages, photoshopped images and smooth talkers who promise everything, I’ve been told to not lose my head.  No one expects you to go that far in doing what you think, or what the Bible says.  And yet in a world that’s bankrupt of belief in promises made – whether that be by politicians, bankers, bosses, union leaders or clergy – aren’t we all looking for some sort of authenticity that’s organically earned by doing what is preached and promised?   In my life, I first had a transformational faith experience as an adolescent when I encountered and dialogued with people – principally adults who weren’t in my nuclear DNA based family – who actually did what they believed and what Jesus taught.  It was experiencing that radicalness that shaped and reshaped me.

Bumper Sticker of the Week

  Blogging Towards Sunday, January 8^th  

Mark 6:1-13

We return to the Gospel of Mark after a Christmas hiatus to a challenge of Jesus’ identity and legitimacy.  The texts begins with several linguistic cues that things are going to change. Whenever there is a geographical switch in the gospels, that’s to say a movement from one place to another, it’s not just topography that’s in view.

My Top 10 Reasons For Why I Love Oakland

Oakland is the infamous ugly step-sister city to the Cinderella post-card perfection of San Francisco.  Novella Carpeter, [her blog] one of the most recently famous Oaklanders because of her urban foodie efforts and recent book, coined this fairytalesque metaphor for my favorite city.  In 2011 the Town (as opposed to the “City” as we Nor Cal-ers call San Francisco) was made famous by the indecisiveness of our mayor Jean Quan and the destructive thuggery of our non-native majority occupiers confronted with violence by our friendly neighborhood police department.  While the Oakland all too often only gets a bad rap, it’s much like Brooklyn is to Manhattan: the place the Cultural Creatives, hipsters and Bobos call home while they do their thing.

  

10.  The YMCA

9.  The Weather

8.  The Views

7.  The Parks

6.  It’s a Foodie Shrine

5.  It’s an Urban Farming Mecca

4.  Failing Successful Public Education

3.  Urban Grit: Lake Merritt

2.  Urban Graffiti Art & Politics: Oaklandish & The Grand Lake Theater Marquee

1. The People

Monteskewed Moving Soon to a New Blog Site

I'm working on creating a new blog on a different url.  I'll be moving in the next few weeks.  As I'm working I'm imagining that I'll blog about the following things:

Oakland

Oakland Public Schools or Raising a child in a Public Urban School

Foodie Things

Urban Gardening

Blogging Towards Sunday through Scripture

Reflections on the Church in the 21st century

Bumperstickers

If you read the blog what do you like?  Is there something else that I should include, or maybe something I should eliminate?

Bumper Sticker of the Week

Blogging Towards Sunday, December 18^th

Mark 5:21-42 | Luke 1:26-38 | Luke 1:47-55

The Fourth Sunday of Advent:  
3 Women | Prince | God's Radical Love

Jesus and his friends return to Israel after their failed (or was it?) effort to proclaim the gospel good news on the other side of the Sea of Galilee (the Gentile Side, present day Syria and Jordan).  As he returns to his land, his people and his culture, he’s met with overwhelming needs, hopes and prayers.  Our Mark passage today focuses upon a chiastic story: a story (of the bleeding woman who comes to Jesus) sandwiched within another story (the dead girl, whose father comes to him for help).  This was a customary Jewish way of telling stories and writing, a lot like we look for a tight relationship between an introduction and a conclusion.  The contrast between these two women in need of healing and wholeness is also paralleled by the Lectionary texts in Luke 1 which lift up the story of Mary, another woman that God seeks out to involve in his company’s radical idea of a Christmas Party: a reversal of the way things are done in the world.  Today’s texts invite us to take a closer look at the world at Christmas:  God comes into the world not to condemn it, but to heal, liberate and transform it.  Are we then called to flee it, conform to it, or engage it?

What’s the rock star Prince got to do with it?

The 80s rock star Prince, often condemned for overtly sexual lyrics and actions, is commonly recognized as a musical composer, albeit in a different style than Bach or Mozart.  A song of his  “Let’s Get Crazy” lifts up the theme that I see underneath our three scriptures: the incarnation :: God’s radical commitment to our world.  Here are the beginning lyrics of that rock song:

 Blogging Towards Sunday, December 11^th

Mark 5:1-20 | Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11 | John 1:6-8, 19-28

The Third Sunday of Advent:  Deliverance

Jesus and his friends arrive on the other side (the Gentile Side, present day Syria and Jordan) of the Sea of Galilee after the rapidly arising storm in which the messianic power of Jesus is demonstrated to the disbelief of the disciples (Mark 4:35-41).  Arriving in a foreign land, Jesus is surprisingly accosted by a foreign occupying power.  The third Sunday of Advent is the “joy” Sunday, focusing on the joy of the reversal of the depressing and destructive power of evil in the world in the light of the birth of the Christ Child.  Yet is liberation always good news?  Does freedom always bring us joy?

Bumper Sticker of the Week