Tripp Fuller

A migrant people are promised their land, and Jesus’ own migration promises to end in death. This week’s Lectionary texts take place in the gritty places where divine deliverance is needed.

Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18 Warning: Daniel downer debunks a favorite interpretation of God passing through slaughtered birds. But the gift of the land creates its own unique contours as Israel identifies itself as an immigrant people.

Psalm 27  Proclaiming the Lord’s protection probably means we know we have something to be protected from. There’s a pull in both directions: we need to be pulled toward faithfulness and God needs to act in faithfulness as well.

Philippians 3:17-4:1 Are pastors just like everyone else? Maybe… maybe not. Where is there space for imitation? The Christian life entails more than just believing in Jesus. It also means imitation. Aric helps clarify the place of the body as we follow Jesus.

Luke 13:31-35 Learn what verse it was that kept Daniel from becoming a Calvinist for at least 2 months! We try to get our heads straight about the Pharisees and remember a few things about Herod’s involvement in Jesus’ death in Luke. The passage underscores the trajectory of Jesus’ life: to Jerusalem, for a celebrated arrival, and ultimate death.

Aric Clark is a writer, a speaker, and Presbyterian minister who lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife and two gremlins pretending to be his sons. He is the co-author of Never Pray Again: Lift Your Head, Unfold Your Hands, and Get To Work, a book which challenges readers to embrace a concrete other-centered spirituality. He is also the creator of LectionARIC a youtube channel for hermeneutical vlogs. His most recent project is a video curriculum for small groups introducing critical tools for studying scripture called Strange Book of Books. When he is not writing, preaching, or parenting, Aric can be found engaging his tabletop gaming hobby, or cooking for a crowd of random strangers he invited home without his wife’s permission. He is a pacifist and he still can’t grow a beard.

Daniel Kirk is a writer, speaker, blogger, and New Testament professor who lives in San Francisco, CA. He

We kick off Lent this week with some reflections on Lenten practices. And we see how entering into Lent after Transfiguration Sunday forces us to leave the glory of the mountain in favor of the road to Jerusalem.

Deuteronomy 26:1-11 The offering of the fruits of the land is a seal and celebration of the fact that God has fulfilled God’s promise to give the land to the people of Israel. They have transformed the land from pastoral to cultivated. And this celebration only comes on the heels of slavery and suffering in Egypt: God is faithful through delivering them from afflictions.

Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16 Wrestling with a text that makes it seem like this life will be better than what most of us experience. And the Jesus story stands next to it in sharp contrast, specifically as Jesus rejects the Satanic invitation to entrust himself to the narrative of this psalm.

Romans 10:8b-13 We navigate the significance of confession and belief in the context of a faith that calls for radical dedication and inclusion of surprising social groups.

Luke 4:1-13  Finally! A fasting text to help springboard our own Lenten fast. Jesus refuses the way of glory in favor of entrusting himself to God’s very different plan. Jesus is the faithful son of God that Israel was supposed to be. And, Jesus is rejecting a satanic image of God.

Daniel Kirk is a writer, speaker, blogger, and New Testament professor who lives in San Francisco, CA. He holds a Ph.D. in New Testament from Duke University and is the author of a pair of books, Unlocking Romans: Resurrection and the Justification of God and Jesus Have I Loved, but Paul? His third book A Man Attested by God: the Human Jesus of the Synoptic Gospels, is off to the printers. He blogs regularly at StoriedTheology.com  (http://patheos.com/blogs/storiedtheology). You can follow him on Twitter @jrdkirk and on Facebook at Facebook.com/jrdkirk.

The holiness of God comes down to be in, with, and among the people. And Jesus subverts our understanding of the power of the profane. These are a series of stories about what happens when God shows that the place for glowy glory is not just up in heaven, but down here among us as well.

Exodus 34:29-35 Moses plays the part of an angel of God as he comes down the mountain wearing God’s glory. Aric helps us deconstruct the idea that holiness is completely intolerant of the profane.

Psalm 99 A song of holiness, mountains, separation, and kingship. We reflect on how to read the psalms without just reiterating masculine images of power. And the psalm challenges us to define justice as nothing less than equity.

2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2 Paul’s passage about the veiled Moses leaves us all trying to unveil what on earth Paul is up to. The whole community can take away the veil to get the glowy face!

Luke 9:28-36, (37-43a) Along with 2 Cor 3, this passage warns us that the revelation we’re looking for is nothing compared to the revelation that takes place on the cross. The context of glorification is Jesus’ looming self-sacrifice on behalf of the people. And we talk about how to interpret (or not) passages depicting demon possession.

Don’t forget to grab your tickets (for online or in person attendance) for the Clobbercast recording in Palo Alto on February 5!

 Aric Clark is a writer, a speaker, and Presbyterian minister who lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife and two gremlins pretending to be his sons. He is the co-author of Never Pray Again: Lift Your Head, Unfold Your Hands, and Get To Work, a book which challenges readers to embrace a concrete other-centered spirituality. He is also the creator of LectionARIC a youtube channel for hermeneutical vlogs. His most recent project is a video curriculum for small groups introducing critical tools for studying scripture called Strange Book of Books. When he is not writing, preaching, or parenting, Aric can be found engaging his tabletop gaming hobby, or cooking for a crowd of random strangers he invited home without his wife’s permission. He is a pacifist and he still can’t grow a beard.

Daniel Kirk is a writer, speaker, blogger, and New Testament professor who lives in San Francisco, CA. He holds a Ph.D. in New Testament from Duke University and is the author of a pair of books, Unlocking Romans: Resurrection and the Justification of God and Jesus Have I Loved, but Paul? His third book A Man Attested by God: the Human Jesus of the Synoptic Gospels, is off to the printers. He blogs regularly at StoriedTheology.com  (http://patheos.com/blogs/storiedtheology). You can follow him on Twitter @jrdkirk and on Facebook at Facebook.com/jrdkirk.

Cindy Wang Brandt joins Daniel again, drawing our conversation into broader spheres of consideration than we might have found otherwise. She reminds us of the importance of children—how this is astounding in the ancient context and a witness to God’s power. We walk through Psalm 71 and hear of a salvation that spans generations and families rather than being mired in western individualism. First Corinthians 13 confronts us with love as the crucial component to flourishing life in the church. And Luke 4 shows us that God can surprise us not only by who has the greatest gifts to serve the church, but also by those who are the beneficiaries of God’s love and grace. The subtext seems to be this: be prepared to be surprised.

Jeremiah 1:4-10 Cindy breaks down Jeremiah’s youthful call in light of her recent work on raising children unfundamentalist. We have to remember that our charge is to listen to whomever God has empowered to speak by the Spirit.

Psalm 71:1-6 A psalm that could be Jeremiah’s: God’s knowledge of a person from the womb. Cindy brings some insight from an East Asian context, taking our focus off of ourselves and helping us situate salvation in a communal and multi-generational context.

1 Corinthians 13:1-13 The proverbial Love Shack of the Pauline corpus. We reorient to this chapter as addressing the exercise of spiritual gifts in the church.

Luke 4:21-30 The age old question: why do the people freak out? Cindy shines some light back on the US from outside: we have our own possessive tribal instincts. How do we adjust our instincts and care for the outsiders? Are we willing for Jesus to go to our neighbors if it doesn’t accrue any benefit to ourselves? In the end, Jesus himself lives out the promise that God makes to Jeremiah and the psalmist: he is delivered by God.

Don’t forget to grab your tickets (for online or in person attendance) for the Clobbercast recording in Palo Alto on February 5!

Cindy’s blog series “Raising Children Unfundamentalist” can be found here. The Facebook group is here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/665348930273216/.

Cindy Wang Brandt is a blogger at cindywords.com and serves on the board of a non-profit fighting global poverty at One Day’s Wages.  She has written for Sojourners, Red Letter Christians, and HuffingtonPost.  Her first book is Outside In: Ten Christian Voices We Can’t Ignore, and is working on her second book on the subject of Raising Children UnFundamentalist. You can join the conversation on progressive Christian parenting, at the Raiding Children UnFundamentalist Facebook group. She’s on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. After 5½ years as a missionary, she is currently living in her hometown in Taiwan.

Daniel Kirk is a writer, speaker, blogger, and New Testament professor who lives in San Francisco, CA. He holds a Ph.D. in New Testament from Duke University and is the author of a pair of books, Unlocking Romans: Resurrection and the Justification of God and Jesus Have I Loved, but Paul? His third book A Man Attested by God: the Human Jesus of the Synoptic Gospels, is off to the printers. He blogs regularly at StoriedTheology.com  (jrdkirk.com). You can follow him on Twitter @jrdkirk and on Facebook at Facebook.com/jrdkirk.

For the third Sunday after Epiphany we have the appearance of Jesus at the Synagogue of Nazareth. We get a glimpse of Jesus’ mission through his reading of Isaiah. A social gospel manifesto. The Spirit who inspired Jesus then comes to us as it makes us one with Christ—and forces us to ask how we know Christ when we see him.

Luke 4:14-21 “The Social Justice Manifesto”! But what is the social justice Jesus envisions? Cindy talks about good news to the poor, debt relief, freedom. And then there’s the Spirit piece—Jesus speaking as one empowered by the same Spirit that gives gifts of speech in the church. If we weave those together, we find an imperative to use our speech in the church to further Jesus’ mission of social justice.

1 Corinthians 12:12-31a The intimate unity between Christ and his people: the Spirit makes us Christ. In a moment of weakness, Daniel lets his white male privilege show. (So embarrassing—please don’t tell!) But really—how do we respond to diversity? Cindy jumps in with some wise words. And then there’s the question of where we look for Christ: Up? Down? Or left and right?

Psalm 19 Do the heavens declare with speech or without? Daniel’s so confused. Cindy recommends doing an editing job to make up for the need for… well… an editing job. And then, what do we do with the celebration of the Law? Is it, or Christ, what we want to preach as the perfect reviver of our souls?

Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10 So, really, why are the people crying? Surely the sermon wasn’t that bad? Ok, probably not. And then they throw a party—and Cindy shows us how the party brings us back to good news for the poor: the people were to share their meat with those who had none.

Don’t forget to grab your tickets (for free online or in person attendance) for the Clobbercast recording in Palo Alto on February 5!

Books cited this week:

Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson 

Grounded: Finding God in the World-A Spiritual Revolution by Diana Butler Bass

Cindy’s blog series “Raising Children Unfundamentalist” can be found here. The Facebook group is here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/665348930273216/.

Cindy Wang Brandt is a blogger at cindywords.com and serves on the board of a non-profit fighting global poverty at One Day’s Wages.  She has written for Sojourners, Red Letter Christians, and HuffingtonPost.  Her first book is Outside In: Ten Christian Voices We Can’t Ignore, and is working on her second book on the subject of Raising Children UnFundamentalist. You can join the conversation on progressive Christian parenting, at the Raiding Children UnFundamentalist Facebook group. She’s on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. After 5½ years as a missionary, she is currently living in her hometown in Taiwan.

Daniel Kirk is a writer, speaker, blogger, and New Testament professor who lives in San Francisco, CA. He holds a Ph.D. in New Testament from Duke University and is the author of a pair of books, Unlocking Romans: Resurrection and the Justification of God and Jesus Have I Loved, but Paul? His third book A Man Attested by God: the Human Jesus of the Synoptic Gospels, is off to the printers. He blogs regularly at StoriedTheology.com  (jrdkirk.com). You can follow him on Twitter @jrdkirk and on Facebook at Facebook.com/jrdkirk.

It’s the Second Sunday After Epiphany and we are joined by Cindy Wag Brandt for some LectioCast fun!

Isaiah 62:1-5 Celebration. Praise. Delight. We’re familiar with all these—but are we ready to see them as God’s own posture toward God’s people? (Also, Daniel rides his hobby horse about God sharing God’s awesome stuff with God’s people.)

1 Corinthians 12:1-11 We hit the difficulties of unity: it’s an act of faith, and it’s sometimes used as a club to get minority voices to quiet down and get along. Then there’s the thorny question of whether Paul’s prioritization of word gifts is elitist.

John 2:1-11 Reading John is sometimes equal parts solving a puzzle and reading a story. What’s this wedding feast, better wine imagery doing here? What do we make of Mary’s understanding of who Jesus is and what he’s capable of?

Psalm 36:5-10 The psalm resonates with the theme of celebration that ties together Isaiah and John. We also might learn a little about love, with Cindy bringing some wisdom from her Chinese culture.

Cindy’s blog series “Raising Children Unfundamentalist” can be found here. The Facebook group is here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/665348930273216/.

Cindy Wang Brandt is a blogger at cindywords.com and serves on the board of a non-profit fighting global poverty at One Day’s Wages.  She has written for Sojourners, Red Letter Christians, and HuffingtonPost.  Her first book is Outside In: Ten Christian Voices We Can’t Ignore, and is working on her second book on the subject of Raising Children UnFundamentalist. You can join the conversation on progressive Christian parenting, at the Raiding Children UnFundamentalist Facebook group. She’s on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. After 5½ years as a missionary, she is currently living in her hometown in Taiwan.

Daniel Kirk is a writer, speaker, blogger, and New Testament professor who lives in San Francisco, CA. He holds a Ph.D. in New Testament from Duke University and is the author of a pair of books, Unlocking Romans: Resurrection and the Justification of God and Jesus Have I Loved, but Paul? His third book A Man Attested by God: the Human Jesus of the Synoptic Gospels, is off to the printers. He blogs regularly at StoriedTheology.com  (jrdkirk.com). You can follow him on Twitter @jrdkirk and on Facebook at Facebook.com/jrdkirk.

Eric Barreto wraps up his tour of duty by helping usher us into Epiphany.

Isaiah 43:1-7 A HUGE REVEAL! The deepest vocational longing of Daniel’s heart is laid bare! Also, there is intimate language of God’s care for God’s beloved children, maybe an anticipation of the baptism scene itself.

Psalm 29 attempts to depict the overwhelming power of the voice of God. God’s kingship isn’t about preserving the monarchy, but empowering and blessing the people.

Acts 8:14-17 One picture of the relentless embrace of the other. (Also, Eric uses the word “erstwhile”—jrdk loves that word.)

Luke 3:15-17, 21-22 Is John’s stark apocalyptic prophecy in line with Jesus’ own vision of his mission? And do we really want a nice Jesus? Then, what kind of son of God is Jesus, and how does this relate to Adam as son of God? And, yes, Daniel rides his human Jesus hobby horse one more time—for the good of the church!

Eric’s Books: Reading Theologically, Ethnic Negotiations: The Function of Race and Ethnicity in Acts 16.

 Eric Barreto is Associate Professor of New Testament at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, MN, and will soon be heading to take a New Testament post at Princeton Seminary. He is an ordained Baptist minister and devotes a fair bit of his writing to helping the church grapple better with scripture.

He writes regularly for WorkingPreacher.org, a lectionary commentary website. He also writes for OnScripture.org and Huffington Post. Eric’s most recent work is an edited volume, Reading Theologically, a guide to biblical interpretation for seminary students.

Daniel Kirk is a writer, speaker, blogger, and New Testament professor who lives in San Francisco, CA. He holds a Ph.D. in New Testament from Duke University and is the author of a pair of books, Unlocking Romans: Resurrection and the Justification of God and Jesus Have I Loved, but Paul? His third book A Man Attested by God: the Human Jesus of the Synoptic Gospels, is off to the printers. He blogs regularly at StoriedTheology.com  (jrdkirk.com). You can follow him on Twitter @jrdkirk and on Facebook at Facebook.com/jrdkirk.

Eric Barreto is back to help us round off our Christmas episodes. We catch a vision of God creating a unified people in Christ, and Eric calls us to more faithfully interweave our understandings of heaven and earth.

Jeremiah 31:7-14 In a diffuse world of turmoil, Jeremiah promises unity as God gathers people together. The least likely travelers are the heart of what God is about.

Psalm 147:12-20 Nature is a way in which God executes God’s will and judgment: both for blessing of God’s people and for those who stand over against God. And we explore the “word of God” as something broader than Christ.

John 1:(1-9), 10-18  Eric gets us out of English to think about the word being active and powerful. So we start talking about what God is like, and Daniel spouts one of his favorite heresies. And we see again that what Jesus does impacts all creation.

Ephesians 1:3-14 Daniel keeps pointing out the Calvinist passages this week. It’s a good week to be a Calvinist. Then there’s that other thing: being united to Christ by the Spirit. Then there’s this bit about heaven and earth not being mere contrasts. Eric calls us to interweave the two.

Eric’s Book: Reading Theologically

Eric Barreto is Associate Professor of New Testament at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, MN, and will soon be heading to take a New Testament post at Princeton Seminary. He is an ordained Baptist minister and devotes a fair bit of his writing to helping the church grapple better with scripture.

He writes regularly for WorkingPreacher.org, a lectionary commentary website. He also writes for OnScripture.org and Huffington Post. Eric’s most recent work is an edited volume, Reading Theologically, a guide to biblical interpretation for seminary students.

Daniel Kirk is a writer, speaker, blogger, and New Testament professor who lives in San Francisco, CA. 

Eric Barreto leads off by inviting us to embrace the fact that we always read in community. Everyone’s reading is a gift and value for the church. We see characters all around the edges of the stories and society finding their place right at the middle of God’s work.

1 Samuel 2:18-20, 26 Hannah gives generously—she didn’t want the child for herself. Samuel wears the clothes of a priest. And we start to hear how the Jesus story echoes the Samuel story—including the honoring of faithful women who become faithful mothers.

Psalm 148 Here we are reminded that we are not alone in our praise of God (or in need of redemption). The particularity of Israel becomes a

Colossians 3:12-17 Get dressed! Daniel drops pearls of pastoral wisdom you won’t get just anywhere. Eric draws on his global experience to help us rethink our clothing choices.

Luke 2:41-52 Jesus feels at home in the Temple, in Jerusalem. That’s its own testimony to the faithfulness of Jesus’ family in coming to Jerusalem year by year. Daniel starts riffing on the correspondences between this scene and Luke 24 after the resurrection. Eric helps us honor Mary in Luke’s Gospel.

Eric’s Book: Reading Theologically

 Eric Barreto is Associate Professor of New Testament at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, MN, and will soon be heading to take a New Testament post at Princeton Seminary. He is an ordained Baptist minister and devotes a fair bit of his writing to helping the church grapple better with scripture.

He writes regularly for WorkingPreacher.org, a lectionary commentary website. He also writes for OnScripture.org and Huffington Post. Eric’s most recent work is an edited volume, Reading Theologically, a guide to biblical interpretation for seminary students.

Daniel Kirk is a writer, speaker, blogger, and New Testament professor who lives in San Francisco, CA. He holds a Ph.D. in New Testament from Duke University and is the author of a pair of books, Unlocking Romans: Resurrection and the Justification of God and Jesus Have I Loved, but Paul? His third book A Man Attested by God: the Human Jesus of the Synoptic Gospels, is off to the printers. He blogs regularly at StoriedTheology.com  (jrdkirk.com). You can follow him on Twitter @jrdkirk and on Facebook at Facebook.com/jrdkirk.

Margaret Aymer Oget joins for the final installment of our Advent series. Our wide-ranging discussion ties together texts, the character of God, first advent, and second Advent. We remember what it’s like when God breaks through in the midst of the sorrow and brokenness to upend the powers the oppose God’s shalom.

Micah 5:2-5a We explore hope in the midst of suffering—hope for new life that the labor pains of suffering ultimately yield. Margaret asks us to take the position of the sheep, and maybe think differently about what it means to be a shepherd.

Psalm 80:1-7 The psalm is a call for Advent—for God to show up in a way that we can actually see it.

Hebrews 10:5-10 Talking about the sacrifice of Jesus and the body that gets him there. Not your standard Advent text…

Luke 1:39-45, (46-55) Mary’s mortal danger is averted. And Elizabeth steps in, takes over the role of the priest, and pronounces the blessing of the priest.

Reference: O Antiphons

  Margaret Aymer Oget is a New Testament professor at Austin Seminary. She is the author of James: Diaspora Rhetoric of a Friend of God (Sheffield Publishing, 2014), and First Pure, then Peaceable: Frederick Douglass, darkness and the Epistle of James (T&T Clark, 2008); and an editor of Fortress Commentary on the Bible (Fortress Press, 2014). Aymer has served the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) broadly. She has served on the Presbyteries’ Cooperative Committee on Examinations since 2010, moderating the six persons who write the Bible Exegesis Ordination Examination for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). She was a member of the Committee on Preparation of Ministry of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) from 2010-2011, training sessions (governing bodies) of local congregations on the ordination process and their responsibilities therein. Aymer was also a member of the General Assembly Task Force on Civil Unions and Marriage (2009-2010), and she served as a steering committee member for the Committee on Theological Education Consultation on Racism from 2004-2008.

Daniel Kirk is a writer, speaker, blogger, and New Testament professor who lives in San Francisco, CA. He holds a Ph.D. in New Testament from Duke University and is the author of a pair of books, Unlocking Romans: Resurrection and the Justification of God and Jesus Have I Loved, but Paul? His third book A Man Attested by God: the Human Jesus of the Synoptic Gospels, is off to the printers. He blogs regularly at StoriedTheology.com  (jrdkirk.com). You can follow him on Twitter @jrdkirk and on Facebook at Facebook.com/jrdkirk.