#AbolitionAdvent 2020 (Year B)

It's our 5th birthday here at The Word Is Resistance!  And incredibly, the gospel reading is about a party!  Mary insists that Jesus liven up the party at a wedding banquet.  Is this a frivolous magic trick, or was Mary on to something important? Join Rev. Anne Dunlap for this take on John 2:1-11.

Join us for our first-ever virtual meet-up! Register here: https://bit.ly/twirmeetup

Transcript available here:
https://surj.org/our-work/surj-faith/twir/

TWIR 1.16.22 Let's Liven Up the Party!

Join Rev. Sarah Howell-Miller as she follows Jesus in the wake of his first act of public proclamation in Luke 4:21-30 and asks why the good news of liberation for the poor and oppressed is so hard for people of privilege to receive.

Transcript available here:  https://surj.org/our-work/surj-faith/twir/

TWIR 1.30.22 No Prophet Is Accepted

שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ יְהוָה אֶחָֽד
בָּרוּךְ שֵׁם כְּבוֹד מַלְכוּתוֹ לְעוֹלָם וָעֶד

Shema

Fighting antisemitism is key to our work of dismantling white supremacy.  And fighting antisemitism during Lent, when the lectionary editors ramp up what they *think* the conflict is, is crucial.  Join Rev. Anne Dunlap to learn what an alternative reading of Luke 13:31-35 might look like -- we might just find that the Pharisees are on Jesus's side.

Resources to learn more about how to fight antisemitism are here:
https://bit.ly/CounterASResources

Transcript available here:
https://surj.org/our-work/surj-faith/twir/

TWIR 3.13.22 Reject the Deflection

Mary Magdalene is a fierce, pissed off, visionary whose power and story have been silenced by the sexism and whorephobia of the church. Join Blyth Barnow and Chanelle Gallant in this incredible conversation and homage to the Original Bad Bitch Apostle.

Transcript available here:  https://surj.org/our-work/surj-faith/twir/

TWIR 4.17.22 Easter, Sexuality, and Self-Determination

Rev. M Barclay (they/them) finds the story of Pentecost rich with imagery of mutual interest. Differences are not a barrier but an opportunity to deepen into understanding and authentic relationships while working toward the common goal of collective liberation.

Transcript with action links available here:
surj.org/our-work/surj-faith/twir/

TWIR 6.5.22 #MutualInterest: Pentecost Miracles and the Turning of the Era

This Trinity Sunday, Dr. Sharon Fennema explores the ways in which the mystery of the Trinity invites us to take a posture of wonder.  This practice of wonder and curiosity not only helps us cultivate a growth mindset that counters the logics of supremacy, but also nourishes the roots of revolutionary love.

Transcript available here: surj.org/our-work/surj-faith/twir/

TWIR 6.12.22 Trinity, Mystery, & Wonder: What We Cannot Bear

To begin our new #Disability Justice series, Rev. Anne Dunlap re-visits the story of the "Gerasene Demoniac" in Luke 8 and discovers the man from Gerasa is already whole, and Jesus's commitment to disability justice.

Transcript available here:  https://surj.org/our-work/surj-faith/twir/

TWIR 6.19.22 #DisabilityJustice: Getting Liberated from Legion, Again

On this episode, Rev. M Jade Kaiser (formerly Barclay) and Rev. Anna Blaedel talk through the scripture together, considering greed and riches in a multitude of forms. In their conversation, they weave in intimate reflections on sharing in life and chronic illness together and how forms of supremacy and collective possibility unfold in all of it.

TWIR 7.31.22 #DisabilityJustice: Take Care.

Where do we turn when the bottom drops out? This week's episode with Nichola Torbett is about salvation in those moments and how we can begin building the safety net we need now, a safety net big and broad and voluptuous and "unreasonable" enough to support everyone. Join us!

Visit https://surj.org/our-work/surj-faith/twir/ for transcripts, resources, and copyright information.

TWIR 9.18.22 #DisabilityJustice: Unreasonable, Voluptuous Accommodations!

This is the first week of Advent, and we join with Isaiah and Jesus in asking God to intervene in our world for justice and flourishing.

Transcript here:
https://www.showingupforracialjustice.org/the-word-is-resistance.html

TWIR 11.29.20 #AbolitionAdvent: Tear Open the Heavens

What if COVID-19 is our King Cyrus, inviting us out on that highway back home to right relationship with sacred land, our God, and each other?  What is the cost of our return, and how do we begin to pay it?

Buckle up; according to Nichola Torbett, "It's demolition time."

Transcript available here: www.showingupforracialjustice.org/the-word…nce.html

TWIR 12.06.20 #AbolitionAdvent:  Demolition Time

"If Advent is about anything, it’s about the heartbreaking longing in the midst of despair because of oppression.  It’s about looking at the world and longing for something different, something *better* than the violence of Babylon, or of Rome, or of the US."

Join Rev. Anne Dunlap for this week's episode in the #AbolitionAdvent series.

Transcript available here:
https://www.showingupforracialjustice.org/the-word-is-resistance.html

TWIR 12.13.20 #AbolitionAdvent In the Midst of Ruin, the Longing

Join Rev. Drew Bongiovanni as she explores the annunciation text in the gospel of Luke for our series on advent. How is confession and repentance part of advent? How do we build love up inside ourselves to counter the culture of whiteness? How does Mary show us the way?

Transcript here:  https://www.showingupforracialjustice.org/the-word-is-resistance.html

TWIR 12.20.20 #AbolitionAdvent: Turning the World Around, Starting With Ourselves

***SPOILER ALERT*** Hark! Jesus is Born!!! 

After #AbolitionAdvent, Rev. Margaret Ernst shares a Christmas message for 2020: including stories of feeling shame at needing support and solidarity after loss, and reflections on something Rev. Lynice Pinkard said in a recent bible study that she can’t get out of her head: that in a world full of Empire and suffering, it’s not that God is not powerful. It’s that God needs more friends. 

Our solidarity with God. 
God’s solidarity with us. 
Our solidarity with each other. 

  For a Christmas call to action, raise your voice to call for safety, and justice, for those who are incarcerated in a rapidly growing COVID-19 outbreak in Pennsylvania prisons, in a holiday season that has left so many of us isolated, but in drastically different ways. Learn more: https://www.decarceratepa.info/COVID-demands

Transcript available here:
https://www.showingupforracialjustice.org/the-word-is-resistance.html

TWIR 12.24-25.2020 #AbolitionAdvent: I'm With You. I Need You.

From January 2017 to December 2023, “The Word Is Resistance” was a weekly podcast from SURJ-Faith by white anti-racist Christians based on the Christian lectionary, offering an anti-racist Word for other white Christians -- though all are welcome to check it out.  We are pleased to keep this incredible resource alive here as an ongoing resource to help us all get free.

What do our sacred texts have to teach us about living, surviving, even thriving, in the context of empire, tyranny, violence, repression - the times in which we are living today?  What do they have to teach us, as white Christians, about our role in resistance, in showing up, in liberation?  They teach us this: 

Our traditions were made for these times.  They come from these times.  So we have resources in our texts, our practices, to help us right now.  We can reclaim our stories and re-tell them to nourish our resistance against white supremacy and our work for collective liberation.

TWIR 12.13.20 #AbolitionAdvent In the Midst of Ruin, the Longing

The Word Is Resistance

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