That's What She Said

What the world needs now is to chill the freak out and realize that God's got this. Weird, ever warming weather. The threat of elections being stolen. The fear of not being accepted for who you are, just as you are in all of your complexities and multiple facets of your identity. In God's way of doing things, there is enough time. In God's way of doing things, there are enough workers. In God's way of doing things, you were already created perfectly wonderful in all of those weird and lovely ways that make you YOU. When. it looks as though nothing is possible, God provides more than enough

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What the world needs now is to be turned upside down. The beatitudes are a lovely description of a world, but seemingly not the world we are actually living in. What are we to make of a descriptive account (“blessed are…”) that does not seem to correspond to our reality? Reading this text, we are rehearsing a subversive script, trafficking in rumors, whispering conspiratorially about a coming time when the present world will be turned upside down, and a new world will emerge. The only way to prepare is to dare to live now as if that new world were already present.

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What the world needs now is daily bread. “Give us this day our daily bread” is not just an utterance of a memorized prayer, but a petition where all of The Divine One’s creations can and will be nurtured, allowing them to flourish. Food is essential to any culture, simply because we gotta eat! But even with this understanding, “Around the world, more than enough food is produced to feed the global population—but as many as 811 million people still go hungry.” 30-40% of food produced in the United States, alone, will be wasted. Jesus’s prayer to the disciples might push us a little bit further to think less about how stale our communion bread might be, more about who is starving at our open table, and what our food might be telling us to do. William DeShay Jackson brings us the message this week!

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What the world needs now is religious faith that supports our communal flourishing. Western, white individualism – including evangelical Christianity’s insistence on a “personal relationship with Jesus” as the pinnacle of spiritual experience – has contributed to the fragmentation of the human family. We have lost our sense that God’s dearest wish is for us to care for one another, to refrain from hurting one another, to regard each other with respect and dignity. Religious belief and practice that tears us from each other, sending us into our respective corners for private righteousness, is not the religious belief and practice that Jesus embodied and taught.

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What if David’s family is in ruins? Amnon’s rape of Tamar… Absalom’s murder of his brother and political-military rebellion against his father… David’s inability to adjudicate family matters (while he reigns all Israel!)… How do we measure his “professional” success vs. his personal failures? Is David revered, or cancelled? Or is there some third way?

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What if David is a rapist? All the previous chapters were about setting up a new administration, but now it’s settled. David is at home, bored, and turned on by his own sense of potency. What delusions are possible when too much power settles in one place/person?

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What if David oversteps his bounds? He wants to ensconce God more or less permanently in a “house” – imagining, perhaps, that putting down real estate roots means we’re here forever. But God says “no,” that God’s own Self is still running this show, and does not need David’s blessing in exchange for God’s.

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What if David was unashamed? The rowdy, raunchy dancing… the lack of decorum… the body positivity… can we handle that? Does Michal stand in for our constricted relationships with our own and others’ bodies?

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What if David was malformed by violence? David’s reign was secured by his constant readiness to go to war, and to have people murdered. He sat on a throne of blood – and claimed God’s blessing for his positioning. Huh. 

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What if David was a “chaotic bisexual”? In David’s lament for Saul’s and Jonathan’s deaths, we are invited to remember how David and Jonathan loved each other, and how impossible that was then, and how liberating it might be to uncover that story.  

To tell us your thoughts on this sermon, click through to the web posting and leave us a comment. Or, find us on social media: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Or, email us the old-fashioned way: [email protected]. To contribute financially to the ongoing ministry of Galileo Church, find us on Venmo, Patreon, or PayPal, or just send a check to 6563 Teague Rd., Fort Worth, TX 76140.