Tripp Fuller

Proper 22, October 4, 2015

Job 1:1; 2:1-10; Psalm 26; Hebrews 1:1-4; 2:5-12; Mark 10:2-16

Job 1, 2 God drawing Satan’s attention to a good guy might make one a wee bit nervous. But fortunately for everyone jrdk has a Mountain Goats song to help get you through it.

Psalm 26 “The prayer for those who feel like they’re on the losing end of some cosmic bet.”—Bo.

Hebrews 1:1-4; 2:5-12 Daniel tries to walk the ground between the exaltation of the human Jesus and the eternal Son.

Mark 10:2-16 A fraught passage on creation, marriage, and divorce. Daniel offers the definitive answer as to why this text is in the lectionary before the conversation opens up on large questions of justice and care for children.

Media referenced:

The Mountain Goats, Hast Thou Considered the Tetrapod?

Miguel de la Torre, The Politics of Jesús

Ched Meyers, Binding the Strongman

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.

Bo is wrapping up a PhD in Practical Theology at Claremont School of Theology while in full-time ministry. He is a pastor, coffee shop theologian, tattoo evangelist, and a soccer fan. His field of Practical Theology has an inter-disciplinary approach which allows him to be engaged in a wide analysis of diverse subjects. Academically, he is in conversation with 4 main areas of study including Sociology of Religion, Postcolonial Studies, Critical Race Theory, and Comparative Theology.

You can find his HomeBrewed Blogs here. You might want to start with his 3 part series of ‘Why I’m Into Practical Theology‘, ‘Constructivism‘, and ‘When Good Isn’t Enough‘. He also had a popular series this Sumer on the ABC’s of Theology. You can find summaries of that series on his Public Theology Channel on YouTube.

Bo is helping to launch an emergent style gathering at his church in LA called the Loft, and you can connect with him on Facebook or Twitter (@theBoSanders)

Proper 21, September 27, 2015: Esther 7:1-6, 9-10; 9:20-22, Psalm 124, James 5:13-20, Mark 9:38-50

These passages challenge us to live in the world in such a way that God is with us, that God being with us matters, and that God in the world makes the world better than it could otherwise possibly be. In the end, we discover that we ourselves might be part of the way that God is present and at work.

Esther 7:1-6, 9-10; 9:20-22 Daniel thinks Esther is too much trouble to try to preach, but Bo bails him out. Again.

Psalm 124 What if we read it as a commentary on the Esther story? Read in tandem it is a powerful and illustrative pair. Is there a compelling way to name our enemies in a current Western context?

James 5:13-20 How can we cultivate a second naïveté, engaging the world as though we live truly God-infused lives? Bo warns: you will get exposed when you preach on passages like this: your audience will know how you think God is at work in the world. But Daniel’s still worried about over-promising and God under-delivering.

Mark 9:38-50 The disciples model one of our greatest recurring failures: assuming that we ourselves mark the boundaries of the people of God. Bo drops his reminder: Everyone you see is a seat for the presence of God. The recurring surprise is Jesus’ willing identification with both outsider and “the least.”

Books referenced:

Ched Meyers, Binding the Strongman

Michael Hardin, The Jesus Driven Life

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.

Bo is wrapping up a PhD in Practical Theology at Claremont School of Theology while in full-time ministry. He is a pastor, coffee shop theologian, tattoo evangelist, and a soccer fan. His field of Practical Theology has an inter-disciplinary approach which allows him to be engaged in a wide analysis of diverse subjects. Academically, he is in conversation with 4 main areas of study including Sociology of Religion, Postcolonial Studies, Critical Race Theory, and Comparative Theology.

You can find his HomeBrewed Blogs here. You might want to start with his 3 part series of ‘Why I’m Into Practical Theology‘, ‘Constructivism‘, and ‘When Good Isn’t Enough‘. He also had a popular series this Sumer on the ABC’s of Theology. You can find summaries of that series on his Public Theology Channel on YouTube.

Bo is helping to launch an emergent style gathering at his church in LA called the Loft, and you can connect with him on Facebook or Twitter (@theBoSanders)

We keep slogging through wisdom texts, passages that invite us to the daring work of embracing an economy that flips the way of the world on its head.Bo drops his great line again, week 2 out of 2: “Each person is a seat of the presence of God.”

Mark 9: Daniel fills out Jesus’ “son of man” language with some talk about Daniel 7. Bo helps us see how Jesus critiques the political ways of the world. Failing to understand the cross is about failing to apprehend how the death of Jesus completely transforms what it looks like to be the faithful people of God.

Psalm 1: JRDK and Bo revisit their point/counterpoint on the place of the Law in the Christian life. And Bo commands you, “Arise, take up your notebook, and walk.”

Proverbs 31: Moving beyond a checklist approach to the woman of valor. Just read Rachel Held Evans.

James 3-4: More wisdom! Wisdom for getting over the bluster of our political scene. Wisdom for prayer–but there’s a promise here that we have to believe if we’re going to preach it with strength. Daniel is troubled, but Bo bails him out. Again.

Books referenced:

Ched Meyers, Binding the Strongman

Randy Woodley, Shalom in the Community of Creation

Rachel Held Evans, A Year of Biblical Womanhood

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.

Bo is wrapping up a PhD in Practical Theology at Claremont School of Theology while in full-time ministry. He is a pastor, coffee shop theologian, tattoo evangelist, and a soccer fan. His field of Practical Theology has an inter-disciplinary approach which allows him to be engaged in a wide analysis of diverse subjects. Academically, he is in conversation with 4 main areas of study including Sociology of Religion, Postcolonial Studies, Critical Race Theory, and Comparative Theology.

You can find his HomeBrewed Blogs here. You might want to start with his 3 part series of ‘Why I’m Into Practical Theology‘, ‘Constructivism‘, and ‘When Good Isn’t Enough‘. He also had a popular series this Sumer on the ABC’s of Theology. You can find summaries of that series on his Public Theology Channel on YouTube.

Bo is helping to launch an emergent style gathering at his church in LA called the Loft, and you can connect with him on Facebook or Twitter (@theBoSanders)

Bo Sanders emerges from his doctoral exam prep cave to enliven and enlighten our study of the Lectionary Texts for Proper 19, Sept 13. He brings in a theme that will run through the next four weeks: “Everyone you meet a seat for the presence of God.” Across these texts we’re confronted with the likelihood that we will cling to our own ideas rather than heeding divine direction.

Proverbs 1:20-33 Wisdom wants our attention, but apparently we, in general, don’t want to give it. Daniel lures Bo into love of this passage by reframing it in light of Jesus as the wisdom of God.

Psalm 19 The question of whether we can hear comes back at us. Bo tries to convince Daniel that the Law is good. Daniel takes a rain check.

James 3:1-12 We explore the dynamic equivalence of speech as typing. “Words are not just the dance of the tongue.” Bo Sanders said that. And he also drops this gem on us: “Everyone you meet a seat for the presence of God.” But wait, there’s more! This also applies to ourselves.

Mark 8:27-38 This is the turning of the whole story, from Kingdom in Power to Kingdom through Suffering. The scariest part of all: it transforms our understanding of what discipleship is supposed to be: “Take up your cross and follow me.”

Mark commentary Bo mentioned: Ched Meyers, Binding the Strong Man.

Danielle Shroyer wraps up her four-week stint by challenging us on privilege, empowerment, and trust while working through the texts for Proper 18. A theme emerges about entrusting ourselves to God’s economy of abundance, with its call for lives of generosity.

James 2: Favoritism. James’s warning about favoritism gets contextualized into a world of (white) privilege. Daniel can’t resist addressing the (apparent) tension between Paul and James.

Mark 7: Does Jesus change his mind? Does the Syrophoenician woman win the argument? Or did Jesus draw out what he needed to hear and what she needed to be able to say for herself? And what if the “dog” is Rome, the power that takes bread from the table of Jewish children.

Proverbs: What if generosity is the antidote to injustice? And how do we take steps toward justice when the system is rigged against it?

Psalm 125: A thought experiment: what if this Psalm is talking about the person who so entrusts herself to God that she lives out the generosity we were talking about in the Proverbs reading?

We mentioned this awesome resource? Julie Clawson, Everyday Justice.

Danielle Shroyer is an author, speaker, and blogger. She serves as the Theologian-in-Residence at Journey Church, one of the first independent emerging churches in the country, where she also pastored for over eight years. Danielle is the author of Where Jesus Prayed: Illuminations on the Lord’s Prayer in the Holy Land (which will be released October 1 2015) and The Boundary Breaking God: An Unfolding Story of Hope and Promise (Jossey-Bass, 2009). A graduate of Baylor University and Princeton Theological Seminary, Danielle speaks often across the country on issues of theology, faith, church leadership, culture, and story. She has written for Patheos, The Hardest Question, and Immerse magazine, and she blogs often at www.danielleshroyer.com. Danielle lives with her husband and two children in Dallas, Texas