Episodes

  • Fishing for People and Speaking Truth to Power

    Fishing for People and Speaking Truth to Power
    Feb 7 2025
    Luke 5:1-11 “Fishing never works out well for the fish! and fishing for people instead doesn’t fix that. The examples in Jeremiah, Amos, and Ezekiel, give Jesus’ call to the disciples a very different social and political context of justice. In this story, Jesus is inviting these working class folk take up the justice work spoken of by the Hebrew prophets, to take up fishing for people as Jeremiah, Amos, and Ezekiel would have defined it. Fishing for people was about hooking or catching a powerful and unjust person, and removing them from the position of power from where they were wielding harm.This wasn’t about saving souls so they could enjoy post mortem bliss, but about changing systemic injustice in the here and now.”For more go to renewedheartministries.com
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    18 mins
  • Confronting the Discomfort of Our History and Our Present

    Confronting the Discomfort of Our History and Our Present
    Jan 30 2025
    Luke 4:22-30 “Today we need to pay close attention to responses that answer justice and reparations movements with rage and responses that define these movements as good news. This week’s story reminds me that if at times I feel like throwing the Jesus of the synoptic gospels off a cliff, I’m in the right story! I’m being confronted with the discomforting truth of why we too often respond to calls for justice in our time with the same resistance and rage. What our story whispers to us is that this rage against justice today is the same rage that placed our Jesus in our gospel stories on a Roman cross. And it calls us to reject that rage and instead embrace a future where we live in a world that is a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone.”For more go to renewedheartministries.com
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    17 mins
  • A Gospel of Economic Justice

    A Gospel of Economic Justice
    Jan 24 2025
    Luke 4:14-21 “Poverty is an indictment of the system it exists in, because that system creates and allows for poverty. A system of winners and losers will always have those who lose. But in Jesus’ new social order, everyone has enough to thrive. In our reading, Jesus’ gospel doesn’t just end with the poor. It also includes freedom for prisoners, sight for the blind, liberation for the oppressed, and the year of the Lord’s favor when slaves would be set free, debts cancelled, and lost or sold land returned back to ancestral families. Today, in addition to econimic justice, we could extend this list of system failures even further. Participating in Jesus’ justice work today is to combat white supremacy and anti-Blackness. It means combating misogyny and patriarchal norms. It means standing for the safety and well-being of our LGBTQ family and friends, and even more.” For more go to renewedheartministries.com
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    17 mins
  • Water, Wine and Human Beings Fully Alive

    Water, Wine and Human Beings Fully Alive
    Jan 16 2025
    John 2:1-11 “I like the image of turning water into wine. It reminds me of the saying in the womanist tradition of making a way out of no way. The story asks us to focus on the present, to do all we can in the moments we have before us. What had transpired in the story was a crisis: running out of wine at a wedding feast. And what ended up happening was better: wine being drank better than any that had been drunk previously. We are about to face crises of our own this coming year, crises of injustice rooted in marginalization and bigotry bearing the fruit of violence and oppression. In the midst of crisis, we too can be about turning water into wine. We won’t know exactly how till we are in the moment, but each moment will provide opportunities for us to make choices and build on them. The wine may be about to run out, and all we may have at our disposal is water. But don’t give up. Look for the water pots.”For more go to renewedheartministries.com
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    16 mins
  • Spirit, Love, Justice and Truth

    Spirit, Love, Justice and Truth
    Jan 9 2025
    Luke 3:15-17, 21-22 “Establishing justice on Earth is the result of the Spirit. In our reading, that Spirit descends in the bodily form of a dove, which many today take as the symbol of peace arrived at because universal distributive justice has been established. At the core of Jesus’ message, the heart of Christianity, is the call to love our neighbor. And loving one’s neighbor is what we call today social justice: making sure we and all of our neighbors have what they need to thrive, not just barely survive. Social justice is rooted in love, specifically love of one’s neighbor. It calls us to engage our civic responsibility toward one another. It calls us to take inventory of how we are sharing space with others we live alongside with on our planet. Justice is also deeply tied to truth-telling. It is difficult to practice justice as a society when we don’t share the same reality, and when some have been misinformed and convinced through appeals to their own bigotries and fears that the reality is different from what is genuinely happening.”For more go to renewedheartministries.com
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    19 mins
  • Wisdom and Understanding Give Birth to Social Justice

    Wisdom and Understanding Give Birth to Social Justice
    Jan 2 2025
    Luke 2:41-52 “Any Christian teaching, action, or movement that disparages, discourages or prevents adherents from caring about social justice rejects Jesus’ central wisdom and teachings on loving one’s neighbors. Any form of Christianity that inhibits your pursuit and practice of social justice denies the central tenet of the gospel that the Jesus of the stories taught, for the work of social justice is merely the act of applying the ethic of loving one’s neighbor. Social justice is the practical fruit of loving one’s neighbor. Therefore, to say that Christianity is rooted in love of neighbor is to also state that genuine Christianity bears the fruit of social justice out of love for our neighbor. Whatever form of Christianity we subscribe to, our faith should not disconnect us from our world, from our community, from our society. It should propel us to lean into and be more deeply connected to our world, community and larger society.”For more go to renewedheartministries.com
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    15 mins
  • Mary’s Magnificat and the Intersection of Faith and Social Justice

    Mary’s Magnificat and the Intersection of Faith and Social Justice
    Dec 19 2024
    Luke 1:39-55 “Few stories in the gospels’ narratives of Jesus’ birth demonstrate the intersection of faith and social justice as much as Mary’s Magnificat does. The social locations mentioned here matter. Pay attention to who is doing what. These stories aren’t about those whose character or personality exhibits humility. It is about those who are living in more humble situations and stations of life. They will be lifted up. This is a precursor to such phrases as mountains being brought low, and valleys being raised, the first being made last and the last being made first. And all of this is in accordance not with the hope of escaping one day to another world or retreating into inner peace. It answers the promise made to the ancestors. At the time of Jesus, the Jewish prophetic hope was not to one day become a disembodied soul in some far distant heaven, but that one day all injustice, violence and oppression in our world would be put right, here and now. For those with the awareness to notice these themes, where liberation and social salvation is emerging in these stories is inspiring for our context today.”For more go to renewedheartministries.com
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    16 mins
  • Advent and Justice Toward One Another

    Advent and Justice Toward One Another
    Dec 12 2024
    Luke 3:7-18 “Advent isn’t about escaping to somewhere else or about escaping inward either. Advent is about the arrival of justice where we are. And that’s what we want to be about. We may have deep anxiety over what the next four years is going to bring, still we can choose to focus on what we can do about it. Some of us can do precious little while others, closer to the powerbrokers of our society, can do a lot. Wherever we find ourselves on that spectrum we are called to do what we can. Advent is about establishing justice on Earth and shaping our world into a just, safe, compassionate home for everyone. Let’s be a part of that kind of advent community, the people who bring about the arrival of that kind of world. This year, during our Advent season, let’s stop looking for someone or something else to show up. Let’s rededicate our commitment to showing up in whatever ways possible for each of us for the sake of justice.”For more go to renewedheartministries.com
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    17 mins