Tripp Fuller

Listen to how Jim responds to being put on the spot with this one: Does God change? And it only gets better from there!

Jeremiah 18:1-11 The God who can change, and who can change our futures. Here is the potter who can start over with the malformed lump. 

Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18 When God knows everything, when it seems that all the days of our life are written in God’s book—what is there to preach? Wait to see what Jim breaks out!

Philemon 1:1-21 From sexuality in the psalm to slavery in Philemon—jrdk tells you how it holds together. And Jim says—PREACH THAT. Put it into the larger picture of systems and structures. 

Jim Kast-Keat is the Associate Minister for Education at Middle Collegiate Church in the East Village of New York City. He is a divergent thinker, an ideation specialist, and an aspiring minimalist. Prior to working at Middle he helped lead ikonNYC, a radical theology collective in New York, NY, worked as a Product Designer with Sparkhouse in Minneapolis, MN and was a pastor at Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, MI. He is the co-host of That’ll Preach, a weekly sermon prep podcast and the creator and curator of Thirty Seconds or Less, a project that shares ideas and amplifies voices every day. To find out more about Jim go to www.jimkastkeat.com or follow him on twitter at @IdeasDoneDaily.

Daniel Kirk is a writer, speaker, and blogger who lives in San Francisco, CA. He is also serving as pastoral director for the Newbigin House of Studies in San Francisco. Daniel holds a Ph.D. in New Testament from Duke University and is the author of, 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 hot off the presses. 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.

Divine hospitality is put on display in God’s great acts of salvation. And God wants God’s people to reflect that lavish hospitality to one another and to expect that God’s own desire is to continue lavishing such abundance on God’s people in the present.

Jeremiah 2:4-13 Strong words from God when Israel does not live up to the story that God has given it. This is a passage for you if you’ve got something strong to say—where have we truly fallen into idolatry?

Psalm 81:1, 10-16 Who is God? Well, what has God done? That tells you who God wants to be, here and now, for the people: God wants to give you good things—better things than you are capable of getting for yourself!

Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16 Hospitality is the answer to the problems besetting the people of God in the OT texts. Hebrews undermines a somewhat useless over-spiritualized ideas about the Christian life.

 Jim Kast-Keat is the Associate Minister for Education at Middle Collegiate Church in the East Village of New York City. He is a divergent thinker, an ideation specialist, and an aspiring minimalist. Prior to working at Middle he helped lead ikonNYC, a radical theology collective in New York, NY, worked as a Product Designer with Sparkhouse in Minneapolis, MN and was a pastor at Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, MI. He is the co-host of That’ll Preach, a weekly sermon prep podcast and the creator and curator of Thirty Seconds or Less, a project that shares ideas and amplifies voices every day. To find out more about Jim go to www.jimkastkeat.com or follow him on twitter at @IdeasDoneDaily.

Daniel Kirk is a writer, speaker, and blogger who lives in San Francisco, CA. He is also serving as pastoral director for the Newbigin House of Studies in San Francisco. Daniel holds a Ph.D. in New Testament from Duke University and is the author of, 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 hot off the presses. 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.

This week we get a picture painted in four different shades of divine deliverance.

Luke 13:10-17 A loosing that confronts us with our desire to guard sacred space and time. And a story that reminds us that praise must always be grounded in experience.

Jeremiah 1:4-10 Jeremiah is set aside from the time he was born. Maybe we aren’t! As prophet of God Jeremiah is the embodiment of God on earth.

Psalm 71:1-6 What it means for God to be righteous: God as faithful deliverer of God’s people. This is why God is praised.

Hebrews 12:18-29 Heaven and earth come together in our worship. This assures of us our great deliverance, but it also stands as a warning.

 Daniel Kirk is a writer, speaker, and blogger who lives in San Francisco, CA. He is also serving as pastoral director for the Newbigin House of Studies in San Francisco. Daniel holds a Ph.D. in New Testament from Duke University and is the author of, 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 hot off the presses. 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.

God has hopes for creation that include a flourishing of justice for all. The summons and the warning both point toward God being on the side of those who need the world’s abundance to overflow to them and embrace them.

Isaiah 5:1-7 An encapsulation of God’s hope for a beautiful, abundant place for everyone and of humanity’s failure to partner faithfully with God. But how do we recognize God in distinction from the gift of God we have turned into an idol?

Luke 12:49-56 The not-so-peaceful Jesus. He’s not so peaceful because people aren’t listening to the invitation to justice and mercy. Key here is getting our eyes fixed on what God’s will is here on this earth now. 

Psalm 801-2, 8-19 “God, why?”—the people. “People, why don’t you get it yet?!”-God. God wants the people to embody the justice that Jesus and the prophets summon us to. We have to be God to the world around us.

Hebrews 11:29-12:2 Jesus as the compass who points us in the direction of living out our faith. Including trust: Jesus perpetually entrusts himself into the hands of God.

Kimberly Knight has spent the past several years creating intersections between her decades of experience in the technology sector and progressive Christianity. She has worked as online organizer for the Beatitudes Society and as social media consultant for The Center for Progressive Renewal. She is currently cooking an online church project that you will want to keep your eyes open for. She blogs at KimberlyKnight on the Patheos progressive channel, where she hosts conversations about being gay and Christian in America.

Daniel Kirk is a writer, speaker, and blogger who lives in San Francisco, CA. He is also serving as pastoral director for the Newbigin House of Studies in San Francisco. Daniel holds a Ph.D. in New Testament from Duke University and is the author of, 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 hot off the presses. 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.

Isaiah 1:1, 10-20 Worship in the courts versus justice in the community. Surprise: sacrifice doesn’t give the people the purification they’re after. Maybe our religiosity itself is the evil God despises.

Psalm 50:1-8, 22-23 The city that God abandons in Isaiah is the city the people praise in Psalm 50. Here’s an invitation to wrestle with what faithfulness and sinfulness actually look like.

Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16 This might be just the passage for those of us starting to burn out and not quite sure, anymore, that anything is going to change. How do we reach toward the new country that looks like the Kingdom of God?

Luke 12:12:32-40 Luke’s Jesus is the consummate table-waiting master. He is calling us to reverse our posture toward possessions. As a nation of consumers, what’s our response? Will we keep hoarding?

 Sean Gladding is a storyteller, pastor, writer, speaker, backyard chicken keeper, community gardener, and YMCA soccer coach. He is married to Rebecca, is father to Maggie and Seth, and they live, love, work and play in the MLK neighborhood in Lexington, Kentucky. He is the author of The Story of God, the Story of Us and TEN: Words of Life for an Addicted, Compulsive, Cynical, Divided and Worn-out Culture.

Daniel Kirk is a writer, speaker, and blogger who lives in San Francisco, CA. He is also serving as pastoral director for the Newbigin House of Studies in San Francisco. Daniel holds a Ph.D. in New Testament from Duke University and is the author of, 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, will be out soon. 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.

Hosea 11:1-11 A story of a deeply conflicted God: a God who has to discipline, but a God who has treated Israel with tender lovingkindness in its history—that sounds a note of hope for the future. God is the one who always longs to get God’s people out of Egypt—and Egypt out of God’s people.

Psalm 107:1-9, 43 A psalm of tangible trust: supplying real, tangible goods for our real, tangible needs. But are we willing to be the provision of God?

Colossians 3:1-11 How do we participate in the new humanity? Well, let’s talk about sex.

Luke 12:13-21 There are some kinds of fairness, justice, and judgment that Jesus doesn’t want anything to do with. Yes, we should be offended. We have a lot of stuff, so Jesus is talking to us.

This week we talked about the book Free: Spending Your Time and Money on What Matters Most by Mark Scandrette. 

 Sean Gladding is a storyteller, pastor, writer, speaker, backyard chicken keeper, community gardener, and YMCA soccer coach. He is married to Rebecca, is father to Maggie and Seth, and they live, love, work and play in the MLK neighborhood in Lexington, Kentucky. He is the author of The Story of God, the Story of Us and TEN: Words of Life for an Addicted, Compulsive, Cynical, Divided and Worn-out Culture.

Daniel Kirk is a writer, speaker, and blogger who lives in San Francisco, CA. He is also serving as pastoral director for the Newbigin House of Studies in San Francisco. Daniel holds a Ph.D. in New Testament from Duke University and is the author of, 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, will be out soon. 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.

This week the lectionary hovers around the beauty—and necessity!—of God’s forgiveness. Mercy triumphs over judgment, and demands that we become a different kind of people as well.

Hosea 1:2-10 A favorite Christian praise song illustrates the stark judgment of God and also, in the end, the triumph of mercy.

Psalm 85 A song the echoes Hosea by celebrating God’s past actions of turning from anger and judgment and looking for God to to do it again.

Colossians 2:6-15 Paul takes a deep dive into our identity as those who are in Christ. Death to our old humanity marks our union with Christ as our sins are forgiven and we are freed from hostile powers. And God says to us, “Yes, you are my people!” even as he said to Israel.

Luke 11:1-13 Luke’s version of the Lord’s prayer puts us on the hook for our economic life when it comes to our receiving spiritual life from God. And God does want to give us us spiritual life—by God’s own Spirit.

Daniel Kirk is a writer, speaker, and blogger who lives in San Francisco, CA. He is also serving as pastoral director for the Newbigin House of Studies in San Francisco. Daniel holds a Ph.D. in New Testament from Duke University and is the author of, 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, will be out soon. 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.

Colossians 1:15-28 A hymn to the cosmic Christ. Perhaps the most important thing to get about the Christian story: you are the image of God. Who God is making us is not defined by our sin, failure, or who we are not.

Luke 10:38-42 Mary and Martha, distraction and presence. Are we ready to be interrupted by what demands our attention?

Amos 8:1-12 Summer fruit: the end of God’s patience with Israel. Amos warns the people about scheming for getting more and more while they’re honoring God through religious ceremony—sound like a country you know?

Psalm 52 What do you really love to hear? And are you able to stop and see and listen?

 Rev. Sarah Heah is an ordained elder for the California Pacific Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church (UMC). She recently began serving at First United Methodist Church in Costa Mesa. Sarah is often a guest writer for various publications, websites, and blogs where she shares insights on the topics of making faith relevant in our modern society and negotiating faith with church – How does faith “work,” grow, and be sustained when you don’t fit into the average church?  Sarah is a contributor to the book, Disquiet Time: Rants and Reflections on the Good Book by the Skeptical, the Faithful, and a Few Scoundrels edited by Jennifer Grant and Cathleen Falsani (Jericho Books/Hachette, Oct. 2014). You can find her online at RevSarahHeath.com.

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, 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, will be out soon. 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.

Luke 10:25-37 The well-known parable of the Good Samaritan wants to challenge our assumptions about who is worthy of our love. The challenge for us might be owning up to the ways in which we have decided to direct our love to some and not to others.

Colossians 1:1-14 Paul celebrates a faith that does more than think certain things. Here, too, love is at the heart of the message. Faith looks like love. And power looks like patience. 

Amos 7:7-17 In the middle of a stark picture of God’s judgment Amos shows us what it is to be a faithful prophet. Seduced by neither religious nor political power, Amos faithfully speaks God’s words.

Psalm 82 This psalm offers a call for judgment that can only come from a full understanding of the depths of injustice in the world. Do we understand injustice enough to ask God for judgment?

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, 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, will be out soon. 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.

2 Kings 5:1-14 – Naaman the Syrian discovers that the power of God does not run in the channels carved by the political and military powers of the world. Servants and messengers upend his expectations and demonstrate that God’s power is often found in the places we are least inclined to look for it.

Psalm 30  – The story of God’s salvation looks like victory, health, and life. We need to look to all three to know when God is truly at work. And we need to trust in God to bring them about.

Luke 10:1-11, 16-20 – Jesus sends his followers to bring the Kingdom of God ahead of his own arrival. Jesus sends his followers to be his own presence before he arrives. And he sends them out like sheep who have to trust that the wolves will feed them rather than eat them. The power of God’s kingdom comes in ways that our yes would normally be too dull to see.

Galatians 6:(1-6), 7-16 – Construction of a people faithful to the gospel that they’ve learned continues with final instructions: take care of yourself by loving your neighbor. New creation means that we have to reimagine power, obedience, and how God brings us the peace we yearn for.

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.