Mission Hills Christian Church

Reflection

Station 1: What do you pray for? How do you face moments of pain and suffering?

Station 2: What cross or burden do you bear? What bears you? What is it like to be you or to walk in your shoes?

Station 3: What do you stand for? How are you learning who you are?

Station 4: Where do you struggle with accountability? Who in your life is a source of affirmation and call out when you need it?

Station 5: How do you stand up for what you believe?

Station 6: What hurts have you experienced, both physically and emotionally, that leaves you more vulnerable to more hurt? Have you chosen to hide or excessively protect yourself from further suffering, or have you chosen to keep on living and loving and risk being hurt again?

Station 7: What ideas or definitions or theologies about God have you let go of (or allowed to die)?

stations of the cross

Station 8: What social, economic, and political structures have crucified us and others?

Station 9: What is your place in history? How do you, and how can you, make a difference in the unfolding of human destiny? What is your part in preventing catastrophic climate change and in advancing economic, social, and racial justice?

Station 10: Whom do you blame for the ways in which you suffer? In society, who are our scapegoats?

Station 11: When you look in the mirror, do you see the true image of Christ? Do you see the suffering of Christ and also the one for whom Christ is willing to suffer? When have you witnessed the true image of Christ in other people?

Station 12: What unfinished business do you have with your parents and/or with your children? If this was your last chance to communicate, what would you say to your parent or child?

Station 13: What part of you is dying? What part of you has died? In what ways will you never be the same? Do you embrace this change or regret it?

Station 14: What part of your life is entombed - on hold, unseen? What kind of "gestation" or transformation is underway within? What new life might await you when the stone is rolled away from your tomb?

Artwork is Fran Moyer’s Stations of the Cross at Saint Anselm’s Episcopal Church in Lafayette, CA. To follow along with the audio, visit missionhilsla dot com.

Readings in the meditation are by Pádraig Ó Tuama from his book Daily Prayer with the Corrymeala Community

Music in the meditation is by Apouria.

Radical theologian and philosopher Peter Rollins joined us at Mission Hills for a live event entitled "Absurd Cross" in November 2017 with 120 friends over pints and pints of MacLeod Ale. If you would like to support Peter's work, you can become a supporter on Patreon. Thanks for listening!

Read

Matthew 23:1-13

1 Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and his disciples,

2 “The legal experts and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat. 3 Therefore, you must take care to do everything they say. But don’t do what they do. 4 For they tie together heavy packs that are impossible to carry. They put them on the shoulders of others, but are unwilling to lift a finger to move them. 5 Everything they do, they do to be noticed by others. They make extra-wide prayer bands for their arms and long tassels for their clothes. 6 They love to sit in places of honor at banquets and in the synagogues. 7 They love to be greeted with honor in the markets and to be addressed as ‘Rabbi.’

8 “But you shouldn’t be called Rabbi, because you have one teacher, and all of you are brothers and sisters. 9 Don’t call anybody on earth your father, because you have one Father, who is heavenly. 10 Don’t be called teacher, because Christ is your one teacher. 11 But the one who is greatest among you will be your servant. 12 All who lift themselves up will be brought low. But all who make themselves low will be lifted up.

13 “How terrible it will be for you legal experts and Pharisees! Hypocrites! You shut people out of the kingdom of heaven. You don’t enter yourselves, and you won’t allow those who want to enter to do so.

A reflection for Dia de los Muertos.

Momentarily distinct
with our own bodies and our own consciousness,
we are blessed to risk love,
to parent new life,
to create and innovate,
to strive and to rest.

And then, finally, to return to You.

Knowing that the tasks are never completed,
the relationships never simple,
the twists life takes often surprising,
at last we rest in You,
as we once rested in our parents’ loving arms
so long ago.

Oneness from Whom we emerge at birth,
we know that all life flows back to you,
once more united
after the struggles, bruises and delights,
the challenges and aspirations,
the loves, betrayals and affirmations
that make life complex and maddening and sweet.

Grant that our rest be serene.
May our lifelong harvest of love bring You — and those we love — joy.
May our persistent efforts to nurture sustain those we have guided on the way,
and may the sweet scent of that sacrifice please You too
as You gather us in.

Thanks be
for this beautiful planet and our moment awake on its surface,
for life’s fleeting pleasures and abiding connections,
for a heritage wise, ancient and abiding,
for the tasks we completed and for those attempted,
for the loves sustained and ruptured and our friends — whether remembered or forgotten.

For it all — thanks, praise, shalom.

Matthew 22:15-22
22:15 Then the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap him in what he said.

22:16 So they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, "Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality.

22:17 Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?"

22:18 But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, "Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites?

22:19 Show me the coin used for the tax." And they brought him a denarius.

22:20 Then he said to them, "Whose head is this, and whose title?"

22:21 They answered, "The emperor's." Then he said to them, "Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor's, and to God the things that are God's."

22:22 When they heard this, they were amazed; and they left him and went away.

The Beatitudes (Altered with John Dear’s Rendering)

Arise and walk forth! Those who are poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Arise and walk forth! those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Arise and walk forth! Those who are meek, for they will inherit the earth.

Arise and walk forth! those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

Arise and walk forth! Those who are merciful for they will be shown mercy.

Arise and walk forth! Those who are pure in heart, for they will see God.

Arise and walk forth! Those who are peacemakers for they will be called sons and daughters of God.

Arise and walk forth! Those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Arise and walk forth! when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.

Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Question

How might the world be transformed if Christians embraced the values and practices of The Sermon on the Mount to resist violence, systemic racism, and environmental exploitation?

Read

Just Peacemaking - Glen Stassen

The Beatitudes of Peace - John Dear

Peacework - Henri Nouwen

Joy is a flash of eternity illuminating time.
- Christian Wiman

Thanks to everyone who submitted their questions for this episode! Join us Sunday as we wrap up our environmental series with a conversation on this episode and your questions!

Links

Third Act

Sunrise Movement

Buy Nothing Project

Clean Out Your Closet

One Percent For The Planet

Our Climate Resources Page!

Week 3 of our environmental justice series “Re-Wild.”

WHAT DO YOU SEE? - Thomas Berry

What do you see when you look up at the sky at night, at the blazing stars against the midnight heavens? What do you see when the dawn breaks over the eastern horizon? What are your thoughts in the fading days of summer as the birds depart on their southward journey or in the autumn when the leaves turn brown and are blown away? What are your thoughts when you look out over the ocean in the evening? What do you see?

Questions

What are your values or core principles? What are the connections to the four paths of eco-spirituality?

How do the practices of nonviolence connect to the four paths of eco-spirituality? Why is nonviolence important?

When have you experienced “the creative way?” What was that like?

When have you experienced “the transformative way?”
How are these paths helpful in mapping Christian and interspiritual eco-spirituality? What would you change or add?

RECOMMENDED READING

Matthew Fox: Essential Writings on Creation Spirituality

Spiritual Ecology: The Cry of the Earth