Awaken Bowness Podcast: Recent Episodes
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Our Pastor, Nikayla Reize is a vibrant preacher and Old Testament scholar. She leads at Awaken Church and Teaches at Ambrose University. Awaken Church is a small parish in Bowness, Calgary. At Awaken we really value wrestling with, engaging in, and being unravelled by Scripture, together around the Table, in the Neighbourhood. This podcast is a collection of sermons, lectures, and interviews.
Daniel discusses the proverbial elephant in the room : the abusers that can be a part of church spaces.
Are we really known by our love for one another? Listen to Daniel preach on this and how we as the church could stand to redirect our focus.
Link to Dancing with the Stars video : https://youtu.be/QEu3PGP77-A?si=44CXEI7eiWbdZCMs
Is holiness like a white shirt that doesn't have any stains on it, or is it something completely different? Derek gives us an alternative way to understanding holiness and this aspect of God's character.
In our fourth Sunday of Advent, as we draw towards Christmas, Dallas Loewen teaches us about the illuminating light of love that we find in one another.
“The light that looks like love is bursting through the darkness that prevents us from seeing ourselves and others as the beloved creatures made in the image of the divine. The light reveals a chorus of voices singing and declaring and inviting all people to return to that same loving voice that's been there all along. Good news! The light has come! Your Liberator, the one whose light never fades.
And then we in turn take that and we go and do likewise as the light in the world. That's what we get to share. It's been coming toward us this whole time and we await it. Now it's going beyond us still.”
This week at Awaken, through our examination of celestial light, we are joined by Dr. Stephen Jeans, who teaches Earth and Space Science at Ambrose University and Mount Royal University. This week he walks us through the science of how the light shines in the darkness, the light of stars from millions of light years away, shining through the darkness of space. We consider what the actual skies teach us about the radical peace we can know as the light comes.
This Advent we will contemplate the way light interacts with darkness in personal, collective, and astronomical ways. When the nights are long and the days are filled with gloom; when the frozen air slows our bodies down, we join the ancient tradition of gathering around the light of community to honour each other’s longing to see what the light illuminates and to be released from what holds us, that we ourselves might radiate the illuminating light that shines in the night.
For this first week in Advent Kara Boda-Harvey leads us through biblical history, as we contemplate what it means to wait for the light that is coming.
"The light is a world where nobody shows up for war. The light is a world where the weak lead the strong and the children teach the parents and the poor are no more and neither are the rich because all is abundantly shared. All are safe. All are loved. And this Advent we are an Advent people who confidently hope in the light that is coming. And we can wait with confidence because we serve an Advent God. A God who from the very moment that we turned away from Him began to plan and wait for the day when he would restore us to Himself."
The final wrap up of our Daniel series, Glendon Frank leads us through the conclusion of the book of Daniel, and sets us up for the coming season of Advent.
“Is God the king on the throne whose days are numbered by the hand writing on the wall whose powers only one by the blood of the innocent? Or of God the child in a stable in an occupied land you know nothing about? Is God building a tower with bricks forged by the oppressed hoping in vain that it will make his name known forever? Or is God waiting, even now in the womb of a refugee mother? Is God a devouring beast with wings and fangs and horns? Or is God one like a Son of Man, seeking not to dehumanize people but to look them in the eye so that they may see him? His eyes, his face. Bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh, and remember what it actually is to be human.”
Daniel Chapter 10 opens where we left off, with Daniel in a place of great lamentation and confession. But in this chapter, Daniel is not alone in his lament, but the Holy One comes to meet him and his grief on the banks of the Tigris.
'There's this God speaking: “You’re not wrong. Your tears are not wrong, your sorrow is not illegitimate, your anger is justified. Since the first day you set your mind to be human your words have been heard and I have come because of your words.”
'And in the last verse there in that chapter he says again: One in human form touched me and strengthened me he said “Do not fear greatly beloved.”
He says it again “You are safe”'
Daniel chapter 9 moves us out of the realm of the apocalyptic, and into the realm of confession. In the tradition of Jeremiah and the weeping prophets, Daniel recognizes with a deep grief that all is not okay. And this allows us to learn that we must first move through that grief at the way the world is, to hope and dream of how the world ought to be.
"We can grieve only when something like scales falls from our eyes, and we can begin to look around us, and we begin to allow ourselves to really notice what we're seeing until we are finally able to slow down and say something isn't working you guys. We are not okay. I don't know what to do about it but we’ve got to something. I don't have any ideas, but we ought to at least stop and notice the things are not as they ought to be.
In that kind of headspace where I think a lot of us live, Daniel whispers “there's a God whose love whose compassion is limitless. Who holds rest as the ultimate vision of flourishing for all creatures here below and all you heavenly hosts. And perhaps if we say that over one another over and over we will start to find our bodies again, and we will find our hearts again, and we will begin to join with the weeping prophets and feel grief."
Daniel Chapter 7 takes a turn for the supernatural and apocalyptic. In this sermon we unpack what we can make of these dreams of beast and monsters, and what deep wisdom is held in apocalyptic story for our lives.
"The apocalyptic way of telling story allows us space to consider that perhaps the monster isn't the person or even the event. Perhaps the monster, the real monster that terrorizes us all is that feeling of being completely unsafe, of knowing that you are utterly alone. The feeling of knowing that you must go into hiding as a matter of survival, that you must become something else and because you will never fully understand why or exactly or when you encounter this feeling and went into hiding you might end up ruminating consciously and subconsciously and sliding and losing your ability to feel what's real.
This apocalyptic way of telling story actually allows us to sit back and see ourselves seeing ourselves; as both a young child being terrorized by a monster and as the monster who if let found out and unleashed would terrorize the innocent. And so, we exist in that tension. It's hard to hear your neighbour’s cries for love when you yourself struggle to believe that you are worthy of love."
In this sermon we arrive at the very famous story in the book of Daniel, where Daniel meets the Lion's Den. Once again we are met with the dynamic of humans, animals, de-humanization, and the question of who acts with true humanity.
"The way of the Living God is one where Lions can lay down with Lambs. Where I don't have to be afraid of you and you don't have to be afraid of me. It’s a reversal of what the Medes and the Persians believe. It’s a reversal of the anxious way of Empire. Anxiety around what happens to me if I make space, if I let go of control and become curious about the unfamiliar.
But the way of the Living God as seen in Daniel is one where the while Earth is filled with the knowledge of the Living God. The Spirit which leads us into shared life. The spirit in the lion is the same as is in the lamb. Those with hard hearts cannot see this way, becoming the very beasts they so fear are waiting for them out in the wild creation."
In the next chapter of Daniel, we open with a story of a new King on the Throne of Babylon, who is hosting a feast with the stolen treasures of the lands his empire has conquered. His feast is disrupted by the hand of God writing mysteries on the wall.
"So Jesus is standing here saying… I am not like Belshezzar, or Nebuchadnezzar, or Pharoah. I was born among the animals. I am a human one, no gold, no stony heart. If you become what you trust, Jesus says, I have become soft-hearted and compassionate. Jesus exists in time and place. Jesus can bleed and feel pain. And he says “I have come, not to take your voice. I have come that you may find in again. That you might gain the courage to take your power back. I stand with you.
And Jesus says “If the finger of God has done this, has given this man back his voice, do you know what that means? Mene Mene Tekel Parsin.”
In Daniel Chapter 4, King Nebuchadnezzar has another dream he needs Daniel to interpret. Once again this dream raises questions for us, what is it to be a God, a human, and a beast.
“And so now we have this king, that was famous for his glory, and for his almost divinity. But he is going to be brought down. He’s going to be brought down so far that he will not become a human like the rest of us – we think – he will be brought down until he’s like an animal. Until the time that he learns that the point of having any authority over creation at all is to have mercy on the poor and the lowly, for this is what it means to be human. To have compassion, and mercy, and a thirst for justice and goodness and beauty upon the land that God loves.”
We continue our series through Daniel the story in which the corrupt King dreams a dream about himself as statue made of precious metals, and so erects a real statue for the whole empire to worship. In this sermon we are led to imagine the differences between the kings of this world, and the kingship of the Son of Man.
“Daniel’s God is not like other kings, Daniel’s God is a Human One. Jesus’ favourite name for himself is the Son of Man, as if to say “I’m not made of gold and silver.
"He was not lifted up an unblemished golden statue, he was never crowned with a golden crown. He was stripped and exposed for the sham that he was, for underneath his clothing there was no gold or bronze. A man made of skin and bone, caught within time and place. Able to bleed, and weep, and cry, and feel things deeply. Able to confess and tell the truth about loneliness and despair, he was lifted up on a Roman cross. And in the lifting up, we see the antithesis to the Nebuchadnezzars of the world and the dreams they keep dreaming for us.”
In chapter one of Daniel, we meet Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. These four boys are are captured from their homeland and brought to the capital city of the Babylonian Empire, where they are to be given new, imperial names and moulded into boys with appropriate minds and bodies in the eyes of the empire. But they do not go alone into exile, their God travels ahead of them and with them into captivity, and they resist the oppressive imperial forces that strive to dictate to them the one true way to be human.
The book of Daniel is a dramatic story of courts, contests, conflicts, and apocalyptic visions of violent kings, wild beasts, and the One True Human. The play between poetry and politics in Daniel forms an incredible tale about four friends resisting forced assimilation in Babylon. Although the Dehumanizing Empire tries to teach them how to be human, how to plan for the future, and how to find home, Daniel comes from a people who see reality differently and have a different way of knowing the time. This fall we will explore Daniel together in our context as a parish church in Canada in the 21st century. We will be challenged and inspired as we find ourselves face to face with the Incarnate One, beckoning us home.
Our Holy Spirit series has come to it's close. In this sermon, Nikayla brings home all the things we have learn and meditated on about the coming of the Holy Spirit in the book of Acts, and of the coming of the Holy Spirit into our lives, as we imagine together the bright new vision of humanity that the Spirit is birthing in our midst.
This week Sunday Dallas Loewen preaches on the next part of our passage from Joel and Acts, "And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." We will be exploring the conception of the Holy Spirit, salvation, and deliverance from spiritual evil; exploring how these ideas can create harm in our communities, and what a Spirit breathed, life giving conception of the the Spirit's Deliverance can look like.
"The Sun will be turned to darkness and the Moon to blood before the great and glorious Day of the Lord, and all who call on the name of the Lord will be saved."
The Day of the Lord as an event is a towering figure that occurs over and over in the biblical narrative. What exactly is meant by the Day of the Lord? What does in mean to the people of God as an event that has already come to pass, and as an event that we wait and hope for? How does this hope for the coming of the Day of the Lord that overturns empires and brings down the mighty change the way that we live in the world now?
You can listen to the song Amy references in her sermon, Downpressor Man by Peter Tosh here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlt-UsJcG8g
"I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord."
The coming of the Holy Spirit into our world does more than just give us dreams and visions, filling us with the internal sense of connection to God. It does more than connect us to the Land and Sky that surrounds us. It turns all of creation on its head. When the Spirit comes the greatest powers and systems we know, even the Sun and the Moon are turned upside down.
"I will show wonders in the sky above, and signs in the earth below."
The bible has told us again and again that God speaks to us through the Land, the Sky, and all things contained in it. In this sermon we imagine what it would look like to be a people who listen to the land in which we are planted, and marvel at the skies above it. The Spirit of God is speaking to those who get close enough to the dirt to hear her voice.
"Even your slaves will prophesy."
This week we explore how the Spirit of God speaks to us through those in our society who are the most marginalized, and that that place on the margins, rather than the center is where we meet God. The movement of God and the good news of our gospel Is that God does not lift us up or bring us to the center, but that first the incarnate God, and now the spirit of God goes all the way down to the humblest and lowly of people.
From the story of the Exodus, we learn that our God is a God of the enslaved people, those who are beaten down. We are reminded in this sermon one of the key messages of the biblical story, that the voice of God isn't heard from glittering halls of power but from the marginal places where we have decided things are of little value.
"Your young men will dream dreams and your old men will see visions."
We continue our journey through Acts 2 and our exploration of who the person of the Holy Spirit really is with a sermon on the visions and dreams that the Spirit pours out on all people young and old. This week Sue Hewitt will walk us through how we experience the Spirit of God through visions and dreams.
"In those last days I will pour out my spirit on all flesh. Your children shall prophesy."
This week as we continue our mediation on Acts 2 and the Holy Spirit Kathy Brown talks us through this assertion from Joel that our children will prophesy. We contemplate in this sermon what is means to be a prophet, what prophesy really means, and how this gift of the spirit connects us to one another through time and through space, as our children speak prophetic truths which connect the past to the future.
"I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh." Is the opening to the key text we are meditating on over the course of this Summer. The Holy Spirit is characterized by this image of a radical generosity that pours out onto all people. This is a self-giving generosity that is given indiscriminately and unconditionally, a pouring out of self onto all flesh.
This Sunday Mike Poettcker brings us into the next phase of our series on the Holy Spirit by challenging out notion of what it means for the Spirit to pour out upon All Flesh, and what this example of a radical, self-giving, unconditional, indiscriminate generosity means for us as followers of God.
We aren't really known for a fiery zeal for the Holy Spirit here at Awaken and with all the bad press our fellow Christians have given the Holy Spirit we can't blame each other for being guarded. Christians tend to cause more harm than good when we think of the Spirit as either a personal magic within us, validating our ego-driven desire to transcend, or as a liturgical lapdog who comes when called and turns the Spirit-filled life into a spectacle.
All through this summer we will be lingering in the mystery of Pentecost and the role of the Holy Spirit, and this exploration is opened by Dr. Beth Stovell, who will be opening our discussion by teaching us that the Holy Spirit rushes in to continue the work of Jesus, healing hurts and transforming communities. This kind of Spirit-breathed transformation is found in liberation that undoes imperial powers and societal violence, creativity that stirs up the arts to show us what it is to have God in our midst, calling us to advocacy against injustice, and speaking into our inner and outer hurts in an outpouring of love, peace, and hope. The Spirit offers us ways to become a part of the healing of the hurt in the world around us without us glorifying ourselves or becoming saviours ourselves.
For the next several weeks, let's gather together and peer over the edge of ourselves toward our shared longing to be unraveled and enchanted anew. And what if we weren't focussed on a pursuit of a personal and disembodied Spirituality but on a collective surrender and curiosity for the Living Mystery that disrupts, unsettles, and enlivens us to inhabit this wonder-filled place?
Throughout this series we've explored how Sabbath is for all of creation - human creatures, non-human creatures, and the land itself. We either all rest and flourish, or none of us do. As we close the series on Pentecost Sunday, Dallas discusses how the pouring out of the Spirit on all flesh is an invitation, as Willie Jennings calls it, into the "risk of new relationships." This Spirit is not exclusive, and she is leading the Church towards radical inclusivity and belonging. Pentecost joins people together across all boundaries, and draws us together in a shared common good.
The Sabbath laws in scripture are insistent that a true Sabbath rest is not just for the head of the household, not just for the wealthy who can afford it, but for everyone, and everything. If the rest isn't for everyone, it isn't Sabbath. The Scriptures also constantly remind us that God is deeply concerned with they way we treat animals. No small part of the law is dedicated to what animals can be eaten, and how they can be eaten, as our God is not the God only of humans, but of all living things.
So as we continue to discover in this series how Sabbath and Jubilee express God's dream for our neighbourhood and the flourishing of the world in which we live we discover this week what God's instruction to us to care for the animals - and the animals themselves - can teach us about the vision we are building for the flourishing of all creation.
We've considered so far in this series that man was not made for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath made for man. This week, Michelle Edworthy impresses upon us that the Sabbath wasn't made only for human beings, but for the land itself. The Sabbath is a sacred symbol of rest, and that rest is commanded not just for the people who live on the land, but for the land itself.
This week we are reminded that God's Jubilee dream is one of rest, wholeness, and thriving for the land itself. The land is holy, the land has agency, and the land is worthy in the eyes of God of this sacred rest. We imagine together what this can mean in our lives and our neighbourhood to honour God's commands that we give freedom and release to the land in which we live.
Jubilee is the antithesis to Capitalism. Jubilee is only possible in a gift economy. Jubilee is only possible among a people who have repented of their idolatry, who have denounced their allegiance to Mammon, and turned towards one another, viewing image bearers as being worth more than our possessions. Jubilee is only possible in a community that sees a God who made the world, loved the world, and on the seventh day delighted in the world, a creator among beloved creatures. Jubilee is only possible in a community that sees the labourer as an image bearer. Jubilee affirms the value of each human being regardless of their ability or efficiency, or productivity.
Mammon says that your value to society is dependent on your ability to serve the economy. In Mammon’s economy, disabled, queer, immigrant people are treated as burdens on society, and the able-bodied citizen is the most valuable. The able bodied father who works 50 hours a week at a job he hates, that is destroying his own body and destroying the world is a hero and his wife who is at home ensuring he is free to serve Mammon and not be distracted by things like laundry, meal planning and diapers is a virtuous wife. The son inherits the business. Sabbath stops mattering then because we can’t actually rest – we can only check out because we are bored or comfortably numb or we find work so degrading and meaningless to ourselves and to others that we can’t wait to be done with it. Sabbath rest isn’t possible in Mammon’s world or Pharoah’s world or Ceasar’s world or Jeff Bezos' world. Sabbath rest comes from a place of delight, of loving what God loves. Mammon creates death-dealing gender roles and hierarchies and everything comes down to how hard you can work, how much capital you can generate, and how successfully you can protect and defend your assets and the assets of your employer and your nation. Countless men have died fighting Mammon’s wars. Countless women have gone numb under the tyranny of Mammon’s womanhood. Everybody else is othered and then either murdered or swept under the rug. But Jubilee – Jubilee spins the wheel the other direction and releases us from Mammon’s grip – brings us towards one another.
St Ambrose of Milan once criticized Christians for their charity work saying, “You are not making a gift of your possessions to the poor, you are handing over to him what is his.” (340-397).
As we continue our journey of exploration through God's dream of rest for the community of God, we are joined this Sunday by Wayne and Lydia Nelson, who will speak on Sabbath as Addiction Recovery. What does it mean to find rest and freedom from the bondage and burden of living with addiction. What is God's dream for us when we struggle with addiction, and what does Sabbath mean in this context?
God's sacred dream for rest and wholeness in our world does not mean rest from labour only, but rest from trauma, from indignity, and from the cycles of fear and ostracization that keep people from flourishing in the community of God. Christ offers a Sabbath rest that wraps us up in safety, empowerment, and connection.
The week pastor James Wheeler joins us to preach on the Trauma-Informed Sabbath.
Every seventh year the community of God is meant to set aside an entire year for the work of entering into Sabbath rest, together. Every 50th year was called the Jubilee Year and was meant to radically reconfigure the neighbourhood according to God’s dream. Jubilee safeguards against intergenerational poverty and intergenerational wealth so that we can choose love, experience peace, and delight in God, together. At the onset of his ministry, Jesus proclaimed the inauguration of the final Jubilee and began forming a community that would join him in the ongoing work of Sabbath in the neighbourhood.
He's not here? Where is he?!? He’s out there. He’s gone ahead. He’s in the garden of the future. He is binding the strong man and getting ready to plunder the house. He is melting weapons down this very moment; He has the big mask on and there are sparks flying and he’s melting down steel and shaping them into gardening tools. He’s washing shame from the face of every child and the tears from the eyes of all parents who’ve prayed through clenched teeth for their babies and he’s digging wells and planting the bulbs of purple irises – he’s breaking prisoners out of jail – expunging records – he’s at the bank, he found the record of your debt and he’s setting them to flame right now. He’s got a jar full of every tear you’ve ever shed and he’s gone forward 10 generations and he’s planting those tears on the pillows of your anxious great great great great grandson – to whisper in his dreams that he’s the dream of his ancestors. He’s setting the table of tomorrow with the harvest he gathered from gardens that haven’t been planted yet. He’s singing – he’s marching – he’s dancing barefoot – he’s preparing little bowls of milk and grain and sweet wine. He knows the Kingdom of Heaven is a furred creature that lives inside of your chest and every morning he’s putting out those small offerings – he’s going to lure you outside of yourself. He's clearing away the debris and making it safe so you can come out into the streets and dance with your friends. He’s putting new wine in new wine skins. He’s singing, “let’s eat, drink, and be merry, for yesterday we were dead”. He’s gone back to visit your grandmother’s mother and your mother’s mother’s mother’s father’s father’s parent’s parent’s all the way back to when we were sitting around the fire and looking at the stars and wondering about the future and he’s telling them about us and they’re cheering and they’re dancing – he’s gone back to tell them we made it and he’s gone forward a hundred years and he’s telling them that we’re on our way – that we’re doing the work – we’re noticing our wounds and the hope that comes from there - and we’re talking about what hurts and exploring the very convincing evidence that the parts of us that are hurting are the same parts that call forth change. We are at the library of life together like Hermione and her boys and we’re figuring out that hope is an action – faith is an action – humility is an act of resistance and asking for help is the breakthrough we’ve been waiting for. The future is coming like a dog at the offleash park -- it's bounding over the horizon, tail wagging, mud-covered, catching up but running past us, ahead, and turning back with an ear cocked to the side, "you coming?" Our only mantra now is, "who knows? Everything is possible."
We know that the crucifixion was designed to publicly shame and brutalize political opponents but we also know the Romans understood political victory within a sexual framework. The Romans would use sexual metaphors to portray their military victories - they imagined themselves as dominating and emasculating their opponents and crucifixion was designed for this purpose. When we consider the context, we suddenly realize Jesus likely experienced sexual humiliation and sexual assault as a part of state terror and execution. When we realized God truly descended into hell, we realize we aren't alone in our hellish moments. Jesus endured the shame of the cross and rises to dignity and honour. This should inform how we understand our own trauma and how we respond to sexual assault survivors who dare to tell their untold stories.
Nostalgia makes us want to fight to go back to how things were and idealism makes us want to fight to rush ahead into how things should be. Privilege makes us want to just stay exactly as we are - status quo. Here we find ourselves having to choose between our religious authorities, our violent insurrectionists, and our comfort with how things are.
Who has the power? Pilate? Rome? Or the Crowd? This is a sermon and meditation about power, people pleasing, and silence as a gesture of resignation version courageous resistance.
This week the story moves from the garden to the house of the high priest in Mark 14:53-72. Jesus is carried there under arrest while Peter follows close behind. Over the course of the night both Jesus and Peter are asked three questions.
This week we focus on Mark 14:43-52, and the story of Jesus' arrest in the garden of Gethsemane. We meditate on what the love of Jesus looks like in the midst of betrayal, resistance, violence, and desertion.
As we enter into Lent we will not lose sight of the Love we’ve learned from our series on 1 Corinthians 13. Paul has invited the Church to rise in love – to be patient and kind and humble and hopeful. With this challenge in view, we will spend the 40 days of Lent moving slowly through the last 24 hours of Jesus’ life and watching Jesus fall in love. Is it possible to rise to the call of Love even if Love brings us down?
This series will carry us through Mark 14:32-15:31. We begin in the first week of this series with a reflection on Jesus' plea to STAY AWAKE and keep watch in Gethsemane with him while he prepares for the painful 24 hours ahead and his final act of love. We will stay awake and strive to notice, together, what love incarnate looks like and why Jesus is entirely trustworthy.
At Awaken we enjoy focusing on Mary's "yes" to God but this Sunday we turn to focus on Joseph. If we only had Matthew's account of the birth narrative, we would never hear Mary speak. There would be no angels, no shepherds keeping watch, no census and no need for "room at the inn". The Joseph story in Matthew's telling involves four dreams and a brave father who must say yes. Joseph could have chosen to follow the scriptures and divorce Mary but instead, he offers a wild and costly yes to a better way - he marries the God-Bearer and becomes the God-protector. This story invites us to also choose a better way when faced with loving each other and loving our neighbours.
The sermon series is based on the Advent Package created by A Sanctified Art LLC, and is shared with permission. Find more information on their liturgical packages at sanctifiedart.org
Do not be afraid is the most common command in the bible, it is a phrase offered to God's people over and over again in times of distress and trouble. When the angel appears before Mary and she is troubled, confused, and afraid, this phrase is given again. In this sermon Kara talks us through how we experience the voice of fear, and what we can learn from Mary's response about how we can respond to the voice of fear.
The sermon series is based on the Advent Package created by A Sanctified Art LLC, and is shared with permission. Find more information on their liturgical packages at sanctifiedart.org
In Mary's song she says, "His mercy extends to those who fear him, from generation to generation." We reflect, on this first Sunday of Advent, on the ways Mary is pregnant with both the past and the future. The genealogies of Jesus in Matthew and Luke tell us that it's not about he bloodline of Jesus, but the story that shaped the people that shaped the story that shaped the people. So we are here, in this moment, between what came before and what come next. The light comes to us from the past and it comes fro the future so we pray with the grandparents who've gone before us and the grandparents yet to come.
The sermon series is based on the Advent Package created by A Sanctified Art LLC, and is shared with permission. Find more information on their liturgical packages at sanctifiedart.org
Welcome everyone and do it in love. Paul concludes his letter to the Romans with a scandalous call to radical welcoming. The ideology of Rome tells us we have to adapt to belong, but the Good News of Jesus says we are welcome in our differences. We may see things differently, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be in relationship. You are fully welcome, you are welcome fully, and you are fully welcome to be fully you. Safe and connected. And that script shapes our imagination for community - I welcome you with the welcome, I myself received.
In Romans 13, Paul instructs the church in Rome to submit to the governing authorities which God has placed over them. This text has been used throughout Christian history to instruct Christian to support governing powers, including when those powers upheld injustice, oppression, and slavery. How are we to understand this text in light of Paul's mandate that the greatest authority, and the truest fulfilment of the law, is love?
In this episode Glendon takes us though Romans chapter 12. After several chapters discussing ideas of sin, justice, salvation, the things that divide us and the things that unite us, Paul gives us some instruction on how we should now live. What does is mean to live by love, to allow your life, your body, to be given as a gift, a sacrifice?
For copyright reasons, a small section of the sermon is omitted in which a clip from the 1995 film Before Sunrise is played. If you would like to watch the clip you can find it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoeZ1X2zwU0&t=3s
Romans 9-11 has been used to argue for pre-destination and concepts of election. Some jars of clay are made for destruction and some for glory. Cannot the potter smash the clay if that's the potter's desire? This theology has been used to explain eternal conscious torment. If a 14 year old Muslim girl is raped to death and burns in eternally in hell, well that's God's prerogative. The Jews who died in the Holocaust? Eternal conscious torment. The kids who died in residential schools? Suffering eternal torment.
Eventually that way of thinking can mess a person up, not to mention a civilization, and the entire earth.
Romans 9-11 is just as likely to be saying that God chooses which "pottery" gets repaired and saved and it's God's business not mine. And it turns out, in the most surprising text of the New Testament, God chooses... everyone. Eventually everyone. Why do we want there to be a hell? What's in it for us.
Perhaps the wrath of God is redemptive and never punitive. Perhaps God really does reconcile all things and perhaps God really does love the whole world. Maybe one day every tongue does confess that Jesus (the lamb) is Lord and maybe everyone who confesses is SAVED. Maybe Jesus is really the king of creation.
This Sunday Glendon explores Romans 7 and 8. These constantly quoted chapters explore both the reality of struggles and sufferings that we experience in the this life, and the declaration that there is, right now, no condemnation and perfect freedom in Christ. How can we hold the tension between the reality of the struggles that we face and the promise of freedom and peace from those struggles, while looking at this freedom through the lens of God's radical overturning of oppression and injustice?
Unfortunately, due to an issue with the Zoom audio recording, several minutes were too distorted to be audible, and several minutes in the middle of the sermon had to be omitted. Get in touch with us if you need a transcript of the full sermon.
This Sunday Dallas explores Romans 6 and looks at how English translations prefer to use 'righteousness' instead of 'justice' when the Greek work is the same for both. How would the church be different if our focus was on justice (systemic justice) rather than only personal righteousness?
How many young people were raised to believe the goal of Christian discipleship to not swear, not watch R-rated movies, and not masturbate, but never learned anything about the biblical vision of justice for all? The church is meant to foster and alternative economy, and alternative way of walking upon the land, and alternative way of viewing relationships and community.
Pastor James Wheeler leads us in a beautiful sermon on the power of loving our enemies.
None of us is able to change the abusive system we were born into that the Empire depends on – all of us need help. Sin is a web that we are all caught in and here's the good news:
You aren't more important than anyone here AND no one here is more important than you. While each of us were still sinners, “Christ died for us” – you’re already worthy and welcome – you don’t have to do anything to deserve to be here and neither does your enemy.
Nothing kills community like nostalgia for the good 'ol days except maybe the 'dream' of how a community could be. Have you ever been a part of a church where the long-standing members feel nostalgia for what once was and the new members are eager and full of ideas for what we could be? That's the dynamic in the Romans Churches and Paul is not interested in forcing one side to assimilate to the other and nor is he interested in segregating into two different church. The Holy Spirit is always joining the two into the ONE. Perhaps we could honour our tradition by being open to something unimaginably bigger than we had previously imagined?
This is one of the 'clobber passages' that has commonly been weaponized against LGBTQ Christians. In this sermon, Nikayla considers the historical context and comes down hard against doing what's unnatural and degrading. This was vulnerable and packed with soul-food for anyone who has grown up hating their body and not knowing God's vision for flourishing sexuality.
Enjoy this sermon on the beginning of Romans 1. Here Pastor Nikayla opens up the book of Romans to set us off into a 10 week series.
No book of the Bible has played a more significant role in shaping Evangelical theology than the book of Romans. Penal Substitutionary theories of atonement and reformed theologies are largely shaped by texts in Romans.
Romans is the most written about, most taught, and most memorized book in the Bible. If you've ever attended a seminar on how to convert your friends to Christianity, you likely learned to use the Romans Road: Romans 3:10 (all have sinned and fall short the glory of God), Romans 5:8 (but God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die while we were still sinners), Romans 10:9-10 (if you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that Jesus is Lord you will be saved), Romans 8:1 (for there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ). See? It's the big kahuna of the Bible and our go-to for Christianese.
Romans is easily treated like a grab bag of quotes when in fact, it's a brilliantly crafted letter written by Paul to the Roman Church whom he hadn’t met. This was Paul's final letter. He wrote it from Corinth, hoping the Roman churches would help fund his missionary journey to Spain. When he finally arrived there, however, he was in chains and eventually executed by the Roman Empire. It's his desperate attempt to cast a vision for a divided community attempting to live in the pull between the dominant culture and the radically alternative vision of the Kin-dom of God. Sound familiar?
Paul begins his letter to the Romans by introducing himself as a slave. So let's spend 10 weeks reading through those eyes and together let’s heed the call to - LOVE over power - community over individual rights and freedoms – and generous hospitality over fear of one another.
Enjoy this sermon on Matthew 18:1-14 by the amazing James Wheeler.
Here he connects the lost sheep and a Good Shepherd to the warning against causing harm to a child. This text through trauma-informed lens opens the parable to new possibilities and brilliantly closes our Trickster Jesus series! Thank James.
Brynne Nelson leads us in this sermon about the Banquet - Brynne challenges us to consider who we've invited and who we haven't and how we respond to all the new guests. This felt like a very important sermon for Awaken and for any churches navigating what it looks like to be a fully inclusive and welcoming space.
Thanks Brynne!
Adam Ayer leads us in an amazing workshop about this parable - be warned, it's not a very podcasty-podcast. There was a lot of group discussion and dialogue but the microphone only picks up Adam's voice so we've edited it as best we can (thanks Anna!!) to make it all one message - it's quite interesting!
Good Samaritan questions:
After reading the parable slowly consider the details of the stor.y
Who is the man in the ditch? Do the others think he's dead? What happened to him? What would motivate the traditional enemy of the Jews to stop and offer such compassionate help? How do you think the lawyer responds to Jesus telling us to be like the person who doesn't believe the right things?
"despair is a luxury of the bourgeoisie" - overheard in a Palestinian refugee camp.
When you can't afford to give up, you don't. So who can't afford to give up?
Tamika Palmer
Debbie Baptiste
Tina Duck
There are widows in our communities who are standing relentlessly for justice. Let's stand with them.
In this amazing sermon, Dave King begins with the parable of the tax collector and the Pharisee but then he shows us some other stories from Luke 18 and 19 to show how this parable is a key for unlocking all sorts of ways Jesus invites in those from the sides and sends away those who assume their place in the center. Wow! Thanks Dave!
Themes he covered include "mercy", "childlike faith", and who's sent away vs who is invited in.
In this story we unpack the way the text does not actually the kingdom is like the pearl - the kingdom is like the merchant who knows what he's looking for and can recognize it when he finds it. Do you know what you really desire and will you recognize it when you see it?
Nikayla gives a small sermon and then Chris L comes up with a personal illustration. This personal testimony was an incredible gift to Awaken and a historical moment in lives of all of us. Thank you Chris!
Have you ever stopped to consider:
Why did certain labourers get chosen first and why did some get looked over until the very end of the day?
What kind of a businessman would give the same wages to all?
Sounds to me like everyone is invited to the joy of becoming like Jesus and it sure sounds like God isn't a capitalist. It sounds like there's an abundance of joy and belonging and if it isn't a competition, we can celebrate one another's joy. Thank you Jesus for being a trickster and conspiring goodness in our community.
Lacey Hilgen brings this beautiful message to all of us where she goes through scripture and teaches us about the three measures, the bountiful feast, and the Kingdom of heaven. Thanks Lacey!
D'arcy Watsham takes us on a beautiful journey through how not to read this parable and how we might read it anew. Thanks for this challenging message to be open to the neighbourhood and open to one another.
This Sunday Pastor James Wheeler leads us in a brilliant and trauma-informed sermon on the parable of the Lost Son in Luke 15:4-32. What a gifted preacher and compassionate steward of the Word - thank you James!
Engaging the parables is an art that has largely been lost. The parables of Christ are designed to surprise, challenge, and shake us up because Jesus comes to us, gentle as a dove but shrewd as a serpent. Jesus isn’t just a teacher – he’s a trickster and a conspirator. Jesus speaks as both omniscient creator and innocent fool – an impassioned judge and a childlike prankster. This is the art of teaching in parables. In this series we will let the Trickster Christ conspire goodness in our midst and draw us closer together as a courageous community of Christ-followers in the neighbourhood.
We have reflected on Body and Blood at Awaken this year, and now we are wrapping up these reflections at the Communion Table with a series called ELEMENTS where we will reflect on the four elements: earth, fire, water, air and how all of creation is gathered together at the table where we are nourished together on the body and blood of our Incarnate God. All of creation eagerly awaits the reconciliation of all things: element to elements.
Today, Malcolm Klager leads us in a sermon about the theme of water in the bible - it's short but packed! He ultimately invites us to come to the waters to be washed and reborn. Thanks Malcolm!
Dallas Loewen gives this brilliant sermon on Pentecost Sunday where he brings together Willie Jennings and Robin Wall Kimmerer to invite us to be a people shaped by a vision of belonging achieved not by forcing others to be like us but by being a people that learn to speak the language of others. The church is a guest in the world and we are here to listen and learn. God has invited us "...inside the risk of following the Spirit - the risk is believing in new relationships" - Willie Jennings.
Please forgive the technical glitch at the beginning of this sermon - we made the mistake of trying to be fancy which meant you can't hear the first five minutes so the intro might not make sense but trust us - it gets great!
We have reflected on Body and Blood at Awaken this year, and now we are wrapping up these reflections at the Communion Table with a series called ELEMENTS where we will reflect on the four elements: earth, fire, water, air and how all of creation is gathered together at the table where we are nourished together on the body and blood of our Incarnate God. All of creation eagerly awaits the reconciliation of all things: element to elements.
We have reflected on Body and Blood at Awaken this year, and now we are wrapping up these series at the Communion Table with a series called ELEMENTS where we will reflect on the four elements: earth, fire, water, air and how all of creation is gathered together at the table where we are nourished together on the body and blood of our Incarnate God. All of creation eagerly awaits the reconciliation of all things: element to elements.
Pastor Nikayla leads us in a reflection on fire in the bible focussing on Elisha and the showdown on mount Baal and the God who is fire (Hebrews 12:29 28 Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, 29 for our “God is a consuming fire.”).
We have reflected on Body and Blood at Awaken this year, and now we are bringing these ideas together at the Communion Table with a series called ELEMENTS where we will reflect on the four elements: earth, fire, water, air and how all of creation is gathered together at the table where we are nourished together on the body and blood of our Incarnate God. All of creation eagerly awaits the reconciliation of all things: element to elements.
Kara Boda Harvey leads us in a sermon on the earth and how we should learn to learn again from our ancient teachers.
Kara Boda Harvey takes us into a deep dive celebrating the blood of Jesus. This is another take on the atonement and why the blood Jesus is significant. Enjoy!
Here Nikayla discusses a bit about the blood of atonement - we look at the sacrificial system in Leviticus and the day of atonement and reflect on what it means that Jesus satisfies the wrath of Jesus (or in other words, how God Godself satisfies the wrath of God).
What does it mean that God became the sacrifice on the altar to atone for the sins of the whole world, while we were still sinners?
Here Kara Boda Harvey leads us in a beautiful and thoughtful reflection on the blood of new birth - menstrual blood and post-partum blood. These blood sources are a big deal in the Old Testament and Kara connects it beautifully to the blood of Christ and the birth of the church.
Questions for reflection:
Beginning again is sometimes painful - share a story about the pain of new beginnings
The Exodus story is the only story and the entire bible is just telling that same story over and over and over - pain turns to speech, the heart of a God turns towards the cry, water turns to blood, blood turns to wine.
If you were to enter a blood oath with your child - would you let them walk through the parts? No, you'd insist they stay away. In the same way, God walks through the parts and Abram does not. God anticipates unfaithfulness and yet....
This sermon is about the question God asks Cain, "Am I my brother's keeper?"
It kicks off our Lent series on BLOOD and it's a hopeful reflection on reconciliation and what it means to love your neighbour as yourself.
One of our siblings wrote a lent devotional on this text which also fits with the theme of this sermon. You can find it here.
Reflection:
Who is your neighbour?
You might not think you have any 'enemies' but perhaps there are people in the world crying out for you to dismantle systems of oppression which you benefit from. Who might think of you as an enemy?
There aren't any marriages celebrated in the New Testament except the great wedding day when the world to come overshadows this world. The New Jerusalem comes like a bride! Heaven and Earth become one flesh.
This is the conclusion of the BODY sermon - salvation is about our whole body, not just the soul and it's about the present and not just the future and it's about the power of God not just to us and for us, but through us and for the neighbourhood. What is our hope and how that impact the way we treat our bodies and the bodies of this world that we all call home?
On this Sunday we celebrated a bunch of people becoming members of the BODY that is Awaken Church!
This week Jess Dell Andrews led us in an exploration of what the bible says about marriage. It's a complicated topic - the Old Testament conception around marriage was extremely different than the Western concept of romance and equality. The New Testament also doesn't talk about it much - the only married couple in the NT discussed in any detail is Annanias and Saphira and well..... that story doesn't end well. Both Paul and Jesus say that we should avoid marriage if we are able (so I guess God didn't design any of us to be a 'husband' or a 'wife') - marriage is an accommodation in the NT. And yet - marriage is good and beautiful and a powerful school to learn what it is to love your neighbour.
Enjoy!
This was the most beautiful Awaken gathering - thank you to all who helped make it happen!
Dr. Cal Malena is a ‘true blue’ Canadian Baptist. He grew up in First Baptist Church Prince Albert and then attended Avalon Emmanuel Baptist while studying to be a Chemical Engineer at the University of Saskatchewan. He went to the Baptist Leadership Training School (BLTS) before going on to Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky and later did a doctorate at Golden Gate Baptist Seminary in San Francisco. His ministry started by directing Baptist camps at Katepwa and Christopher Lake in Saskatchewan. While working for Shell Oil in Calgary, he was involved in the planting of the new church - Bonavista Baptist. After seminary, he went to First Baptist Lethbridge as an Associate Pastor. After that, for the next 27 years, he was at Emmanuel Baptist Church in Saskatoon. For the last 12 years he has been at First Baptist Prince George, first as Lead Pastor and then as Pastor Emeritus when he retired in 2015.
Over these decades, Cal has been very involved in denominational life, teaching courses through the Carey Centre, serving on the Board and as President of Canadian Baptist Ministries. He recently served on the Board of Canadian Baptists of Western Canada (CBWC) for six years before being asked to resign because of his convictions on LGBTQ+ issues. Cal and his wife Joanne have 4 adult children and two grandchildren. They are active as allies to the Christian LGBTQ community and together they co-host a national support group for the parents of LGBTQ folks.
Beth grew up in Saskatoon and spent the first 22 years of her life at Emmanuel Baptist Church before moving to Vancouver to study theology at Regent College. While working on her MDiv, she spent several years living in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, fostering friendship-building and community in her work with Jacob's Well Ministries, and co-pastoring a church plant called God's House. In 2013, she and her housemate Danice came out publicly, and they were married the following year. No longer able to work in the CBWC, they both accepted jobs with Generous Space Ministries, a Canadian non-profit dedicated to dismantling fear, division, and hostility at the intersection of faith, gender, and sexuality. Four years ago, Beth and her friend Mark launched a non-denominational affirming church called Open Way in Vancouver, where she co-pastors today, alongside her side-gig as a wedding officiant.
This sermon was an exploration of toxic and untrue myths about sexuality and anatomy and invitation to see what our sexual bodies teach us about God. God's dream is always a dream of making love - God is the ultimate source and maker of love.
Recommended Resources:
The Great Sex Rescue by Sheila Gregoire
DIvine COmmunion: A Eucharistic Theology of Sexuality by Jay Emerson Thompson
After Whiteness by Willie Jennings
The cultivation of belonging should be the goal of all education. Not just any kind of belonging, but a profoundly creaturely belonging that performs the returning of the creature to the creator and a returning to an intimate and erotic energy that drives life together with God. These words, intimacy and eroticism, have been so commodified and sexualized that we, Christians have turned away from them and fear that they irredeemably signify sexual antinomianism, moral chaos, and sin, or at least the need to police, such words and the power of they invoke. But intimacy and eroticism speak of our birthright formed in the body of Jesus and the protocols of braking sharing, touching, tasting, and seeing the goodness of God. There at his body, the spirit joins us in an urgent work, forming a willing spirit in us that is eager to hold and to help, to support and to speak, to touch and to listen, gaining through this work, the deepest truths of creaturely belonging: that we are erotic souls. No body that is not a soul, no soul that is not a body, no being without touching, no touching without being. This is not an exclusive Christian truth, but a truth of the creature that Christian life is intended to witness." - WIllie Jennings, After Whiteness
The cultivation of belonging should be the goal of all education. Not just any kind of belonging, but a profoundly creaturely belonging that performs the returning of the creature to the creator and a returning to an intimate and erotic energy that drives life together with God. These words, intimacy and eroticism, have been so commodified and sexualized that we, Christians have turned away from them and fear that they irredeemably signify sexual antinomianism, moral chaos, and sin, or at least the need to police, such words and the power of they invoke. But intimacy and eroticism speak of our birthright formed in the body of Jesus and the protocols of braking sharing, touching, tasting, and seeing the goodness of God. There at his body, the spirit joins us in an urgent work, forming a willing spirit in us that is eager to hold and to help, to support and to speak, to touch and to listen, gaining through this work, the deepest truths of creaturely belonging: that we are erotic souls. No body that is not a soul, no soul that is not a body, no being without touching, no touching without being. This is not an exclusive Christian truth, but a truth of the creature that Christian life is intended to witness." - Willie Jennings, After Whiteness
This sermon is an exploration of the toxic myths we've been taught about sexuality and anatomy and an invitation to consider God's vision of intimacy and connection.
Recommended Resources:
The Great Sex Rescue by Sheila Gregoire
Divine Communion: Eucharistic Theology of Sexuality by Jay Emerson Johnson
After Whiteness by WIllie Jennings
This sermon was more about dismantling myths about sexuality and physiology with the goal to reframe our understanding of God's purpose for sexuality: always about intimacy and never about power and domination.
Recommended Resources:
The Great Sex Rescue by Sheila Gregoire
Divine Communion: A Eucharistic Theology of Sexuality by Jay Emerson Johnson
After Whiteness by Willie Jennings
The cultivation of belonging should be the goal of all education. Not just any kind of belonging, but a profoundly creaturely belonging that performs the returning of the creature to the creator and a returning to an intimate and erotic energy that drives life together with God. These words, intimacy and eroticism, have been so commodified and sexualized that we, Christians have turned away from them and fear that they irredeemably signify sexual antinomianism, moral chaos, and sin, or at least the need to police, such words and the power of they invoke. But intimacy and eroticism speak of our birthright formed in the body of Jesus and the protocols of braking sharing, touching, tasting, and seeing the goodness of God. There at his body, the spirit joins us in an urgent work, forming a willing spirit in us that is eager to hold and to help, to support and to speak, to touch and to listen, gaining through this work, the deepest truths of creaturely belonging: that we are erotic souls. No body that is not a soul, no soul that is not a body, no being without touching, no touching without being. This is not an exclusive Christian truth, but a truth of the creature that Christian life is intended to witness." - Willie Jennings, After Whiteness
Earlier in this series we talked about Jesus and Gender through the lens of asking, "If Jesus is God and Jesus is a boy - does being a 'boy' make you more like God?" and this sermon explores the idea that Jesus' body isn't a "boy" it's a "church"! WE are the body of Jesus and we are a diverse and complex system. So let's talk about what it means to be a part of the body of Christ and share the throne with Jesus as his body.
Karen Keen gave this sermon at Awaken and you can find her blog at karenkeen.com
Karen R. Keen is a biblical scholar and spiritual care provider at The Redwood Center for Spiritual Care and Education. She has taught biblical and theological studies in both academic and church settings. Trained as a spiritual director in the Ignatian tradition, Karen loves seeing how God moves in people's lives in subtle and unexpected ways in daily life. She is the author of several books, including The Jesus Way: Practicing the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises, Scripture, Ethics, and the Possibility of Same-Sex Relationships, and a forthcoming book (2022) entitled The Word of a Humble God: The Origins, Inspiration, and Interpretation of Scripture. Karen earned her M.S. in education (counseling) from Western Oregon University, M.A. in exegetical theology from Western Seminary, and Th.M. in biblical studies from Duke Divinity School.
Heather Morgan is a queer, disabled pastor licensed in the Christian and Missionary Alliance, and currently studying disability theology through her MDiv at Emmanuel College at the University of Toronto. Heather has a lifetime of lived experience as a physically disabled and neurodiverse woman as well as living in a neurodiverse partnership and parenting multiple children with disabilities. As well, she has more than two decades of professional experience walking alongside individuals with disabilities and their parents. Heather has passionately worked out her faith in the midst of her embodied reality for almost four decades, and loves nothing more than to pull up a fresh seat at the table for a dear sibling in Christ. Listen to this beautiful sermon about the value of churches that are diverse! Hannah talks a bit about church history including Augustine and Gregory of Nazianzus and their takes on the body and disability with a beautiful call to action from Luke 14 and the parable of the banquet!
We apologize for the CRACKiLY sound quality - we are in the midst of sanctuary renovations and the cords were a bit stubborn. It's worth a listen regardless!
Read Isaiah 56 and Acts 8. The whole earth is filled with God's glory - pay attention and stand in awe at the vast expanse of who God is. God doesn't fit in any of the boxes we'd like and it makes sense that not all of us would fit either.
We recommend Transforming by Austen Hartke for further reading!
Thank you Adam Ayer for this beautiful Epiphany sermon. Your thoughts on the Babylonians coming to bring gifts back to the Temple and the body of Christ as a home for even the oppressor was truly awe-some. Enjoy this sermon and be challenged by the scriptures!
Embodiment has often not been a topic for inside of churches. Somehow we've gotten sucked into gnosticism where we think our bodies don't matter at best and are entirely bad at worst. Here we consider the incarnation and embodiment.
If you enjoy this sermon please consider reading Hillary McBride's book The Wisdom of Your Body.
This is a sermon by Pr Nikayla about making a home for one another - the power of finding sanctuary. We reflect on how Mary flees to Elizabeth's house and immediately finds sanctuary. From this place of knowing she's loved, safe, and WELCOME, she stands to proclaim the most revolutionary text in the New Testament.
Have you ever received sanctuary?
Is there someone in your life right now you could give sanctuary to?
Dallas Loewen invites to consider our "home" as a "home for all" this week. Thank you Advent Team for organizing this!
Thank you to the Advent team for putting together a beautiful Advent season at Awaken. In this first Advent Sunday Nikayla unpacks Luke 21 and Jesus' apocalyptic warning. Jesus tells his followers to look to the Sun, Moon, and Stars and while he warns of fearful comic shifts to the current world order, he says that all of it is towards REDEMPTION.
Dallas ends the Numbers series with this brilliant exploration of the story about land for the most vulnerable and what it is that we leave behind in the wilderness and what comes into the next land with us. Thank you Dallas!
This episode also contains a Land Acknowledgement with a challenge to renew our commitment the the Treaty for the sake of our descendants and the descendants of all who call this land Home.
In this sermon Pastor Nikayla unpacks Numbers 20 which begins with the death of Miriam and ends with the death of Aaron. In between the death of the two important character is a strange event involving a rock that gushes forth with water after mysteriously drying up. Moses does something wrong and he's told he won't make it into the Promised Land.
Nikayla walks us through some Rabbinical readings of the rock situation and the connection between Miriam and the water. Paul seems to know these Jewish traditions because he also thinks the rock followed the people around.
Do you think that God abandons you or distances Godself from you when you're not actively seeking God?
What would change for you if you knew that God was there regardless of anything you could ever do or say?
Do you believe God is with you? Do we believe God is with us?
In this sermon Dallas unpacks the story of Balaam and the Donkey who can talk. It's a funny and profound story of God blessing God's people without them even knowing it - it's about God's desire to gather His people under Her wing as a mother bird and how often we miss out on the Divine Longing to connect and belong.
Do you think you "deserve" divine blessing? Why or why not?
How does it feel to imagine God wanting to bless and show compassion regardless of whether you deserve it or not?
In this podcast Pastor Nikayla talks about Numbers 21 and the Bronze Serpent staff. Poisonous snakes come and begin biting and essentially killing the Israelite people. They all come together and ask for Moses to pray for them. God asks Moses to lift up a staff with a bronze serpent on it and when the community looks upon the serpent, they are healed.
This is a strange story! They have to look, together, upon the very thing that they're afraid of.
Fear can scatter us, or fear can gather us. What if we faced our fears together and trusted God to join us and unify us and heal us together?
Love casts out fear.
How can you face your fears this week at Awaken? Who do you need to invite for a coffee or a walk?
The Wilderness is as far away from the Garden of Eden one could get. It's natural to long for that better place -- greener pastures -- for life to begin after this current place. In this sermon Pastor Nikayla explores the story of Aaron's staff and the possibility of Eden in our very midst.
Are you waiting for your life to begin?
Do you often long for something better?
Have you ever seen LIFE in your midst when you anticipate death?
Share a story of Good News from this past week
If this is your first Awaken podcast - you may be in for a shock! This sermon is part of a 10 week series on being in a wilderness space - spiritually and socially. In the wilderness you are forced to confront your deepest fears of scarcity, abandonment, rejection, and death. It's a place for truth-telling. It's in this place that Jacob wrestles with God, Job cries out for justice, and Jesus cries out, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?"
No one chooses the wilderness - no one has control over how long the wilderness lasts. St John calls it the Long Night of the Soul.
Have you ever been in this wilderness place?
Have you ever been angry at or hurt by God?
In your tradition, are you allowed to be angry or hurt by God?
What would it feel like to fight God?
In this episode Dallas leads us in a sermon on Numbers 13 and the report of the spies. Some brought good news and others brought bad news.
Do you find it difficult to hear good news in the midst of so much bad news?
Sometimes we live as if we are in a sin-soaked world but what if we saw this place as soaked in Christ?
What could you do this week to orient your life around Good News without ignoring the real dangers in this world?
This recording features a poem read by Phuc Luu called the Migratory God which can be found on theworkofthepeople.com
This week Dallas leads us in a teaching on being critical but never cynical. He reflects on Miriam's complaint against Moses and the strange skin disease that results. He pauses to let us consider that although she was exiled from the community for a time, the entire community was unified in one way: they weren't leaving without her. In this wilderness, we are not alone.
Read Numbers 12 and consider: did Miriam actually do anything wrong? How did her exile unite the camp? What do you do with scripture that seems too weird or casts God in a less than lovely light?
In your understanding, what is the difference between being critical and cynical?
In this series we move through the book of Numbers. Nikayla kicks it off asking if the God of the Hebrew Bible is a wilderness God and what this would mean for this of us in between the no longer and the not yet.
What do you sometimes wish you could go back to?
Where do you long do be in your life?
What's it like being in this space in between?
The final episode!
What happens when we put Jesus, Husbands, Fathers, Masters, and Military in the same category and then put sinful humanity, wives, children, and the enslaved in another?
In this episode Dallas and Nikayla dialogue about the Armor of God text in Ephesians 6 and notice how this text may have sounded to the original readers and what the implications for us today.
What disciplines could engage with to guard your heart against that which would divide us and harden us?
Ephesians 5 is a wild ride! There's prohibitions against sexual immorality (what does that mean? does anyone have an exact list of things that make something sexually immoral?) and a long passage about marriage and headship!
What was your parent's marriage like when you were growing up?
Did they live out the Eph 5 vision for marriage?
Does Paul's vision for marriage require a husband to have authority over a wife or do you think this text is about abandoning power and authority to take the posture of sacrificial love and humility?
What would change about how we read this text if we took his words seriously at the end of chapter 5 where he says he's talking about Jesus and the Church and not marriage?
Does marriage teach us about the gospel or does the gospel inform every.single.human.relationship?
Have a listen and let Dallas or Nikayla know what you thought!
What is a life "worthy" of the calling? Before we jump to answer that question let's meditate on the words in verse two:
humble, patient, gentle, love, unity, peace
While the world is bent on death - Paul invites the Ephesians to turn towards the way of LIFE.
Question: what is the difference between living as a Christian and living as a "gentile"?
Ephesians 3 contains some of the most beautiful scripture in our entire tradition. Paul's heart to defend the place of the "outsiders" and then just speak the love of God directly towards them is the kind of pastoring our world needs immediately.
How do you feel about "mystery"? Do you prefer certainty? Why or why not?
Where do you see God's radical love?
Here Dallas and Nikayla discuss Ephesians chapter 2 and both of us choked up once or twice in this discussion as the text unfolded in front of us.
Describe a time when you felt fully safe and seen and loved in community.
What would it take for you to know safety and belonging again or for the first time?
A POST- COVID SPECIAL!
As we learn to come together again (slowly and safely) after nearly two years in isolation from one another we are reflecting on Paul's letter to the Ephesians for a few weeks. This is friendly dialogue (unscripted) between two pastors who love the church and much like the apostle Paul, long to see the church be a HOME to one another in the Beloved. The goal for this series, of course, is to empower you to ask even more questions and hold the sacred text with more curiosity, and be even more open to one another in the name of the God who is love. The mission flows from the COMMUNITY - so let's wrestle together with the depth, height, and width of Jesus' unfathomable love for us, through us, towards all of us.
He chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. Eph 1:4-6
Beloved, Today we had a unique opportunity to hear some teaching from from two very wise and experienced individuals.
Donald Goertz is an ordained pastor with the CBOQ and for the past 25 years he has been Associate Professor of Church History and Director of the MDiv. Church In The City at Tyndale University where he also helped design and launch the Spiritual Formation major.
Over the years, this mix of experience has led to his being asked to consult with a variety of congregations and organizations in Canada and overseas as they wrestled with complicated histories and planned for next steps forward. He has two primary goals: to help the Church rethink its mission and creatively engage its wonderfully multicultural and diverse community and to actively prepare people to integrate their faith and their personal and professional lives.
Marion Goertz, DMin, RP, RMFT, CTTS For over 20 years Marion has maintained a private consulting practice, first in the Greater Toronto Area, and most recently in Western Canada, specializing in psychotherapy, trauma treatment and corporate reconciliation
As you all may recall, Donald and Marion worked with Scott and I this fall to facilitate dialogue and reconciliation and they both brought such patience, insight, and thoughtful leadership to our little church.
Today they will be giving a sermon together to conclude our series on Forgiveness. Please consider bringing the warm Awaken welcome and I pray each of us can find our hearts soft in the hands of our gentle Creator who longs for us to know the freedom of true forgiveness.
In an attempt to try something new this sermon is based off of an interactive game of Kahoot played on Sunday, April 18th. We talked about SHALOM and forgiveness and unresolved conflict. Did you know that withholding forgiveness affects YOU more than it affects the person who offended you? Did you know that conflict is a gift? Did you know that forgiveness is at the very HEART of Christian life together?
Let's be known in Bowness by our willingness to forgive freely and completely.
Join us for a three part series on FORGIVENESS as a spiritual practice of letting go. In this Sermon we unpack the poetic and beautiful story of Jacob and Esau and reflect on forgiveness as a gift that gives itself to you.
In this sermon and throughout this series you will find reflections from Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Reverend Mpho Tutu's book, The Book of Forgiving. https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B00DB32SR6/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
On Good Friday several of us gathering around the weeping tree in Bowmont park to slowly and reflectively take the weeping ties down from the tree. On Saturday we ironed them and carefully, prayerfully, tied them all together and made a banner for the Sanctuary. On Easter Sunday we had a celebratory worship service hosted by Logan and Dionne and we gave a sermon proclaiming that God is utterly alive and we reflect on how the bodily resurrection demonstrates that the earth and God are completely open towards one another. Our longing to connect is blessed by God!
The God revealed in the Scriptures is continually on the losing-side of history. This is foolishness and a stumbling block to those who are winning. Jesus didn't ride triumphantly into Jerusalem: the Resurrection isn't the victory following Friday's defeat. Jesus marched into Jerusalem - lowly and riding on a donkey to reveal a God who suffers, takes risks, opens Godself to vulnerability and always towards the most vulnerable. That might challenge our Greek notions of "omnipotence and omniscience" but you cannot love if you cannot lose and greater love has no other than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends.
Adrianna is a Table Group leader at Awaken and also a registered Psychologist. She leads us in a beautiful and interactive sermon on Self-Compassion. Is it ok to love oneself and be kind to oneself? Can we see our emotions (anxiety, fear, sadness, etc) as teachers looking to teach us something? What if we invited those "guests" over for tea and became curious about them. Thank you Adrianna!
Today we had the special honour of learning from Melchoir Cyusa. Melchoir is a survivor of the Rwandan Genocide and knows what it means to grieve as an individual and he knows very well how important it is to make sacred space for communities to grieve together. In this sermon we learned a lot about the Genocide in Rwanda against the Tutsi people and how people who have survived make space for grief and reconciliation work.
Thank you Melchoir!
We all have prejudice. Prejudice is when you make a judgement about someone's value based on their physical appearance/attributes. This could include their ethnicity, gender expression, weight, height, clothing style, monetary value of their clothing or vehicles, etc. Confronting our prejudices is important work and all people must do this work. Racism, however, is when power is mixed with prejudice and one group of people who have special access to power can dehumanize those they have prejudice against. Racism is about power and the Cross is God's divine confrontation with Power. This episode is a take 2 b/c of a sermon recording tech glitch. I read directly from my notes and re-recorded in my living room with a train and a puppy in the background.
At Lent we talk about the agony of the crucifixion and the suffering of Christ and so this sermon felt like an important PART of a bigger story about the role of suffering in our world and in the Church and this sermon is not a systematic theology but rather a message from our pastor for a particular community asking particular questions in this particular place called Bowness. We focus on Isaiah 53 and the notion that Christ is a man familiar with pain and suffering and the ways his suffering leads to healing for all.
Please don't just take MY word for it! Check out:
Unsettling Truths: The Ongoing and Dehumanizing Legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery by Soong Chun Rah and Mark Charles
The Color of Compromise by Jemar Tisby
Reading while Black by Esau Mccaully
The Cross and the Lynching Tree by James Cone
Who Will be a Witness by Drew G.I. Hart
and African American Readings of Paul by Lisa M. Bowens
For a full bibliography of commentaries on books of the bible by Biblical Scholars and Theologians of color email us!
Jess Andrews came and delivered this amazing sermon on pain and love through the eyes of Mother Mary. Thank you Jess for your leadership and courage.
In which I argue, alongside Bo Sanders and Randy Woodley (De-Colonizing Evangelicalism) that we can do away with words like SIN and SALVATION and instead propose a more costly discipleship. What if we went deeper and talked about the wound beneath the 'sinful behavior' and rather than modify and control the behavior, we made a safe and sacred space for people to come clean about the pain and trusted that the naming or the confessing of the pain in community leads to healing. This healing is the salvation. It's Christ our healer - Christ our wounded healer -- Christ invited us to put our hand in the wound and believe.
Eat the Skittles. Pay Attention to the Potlatch Ceremony and learn from the Traditional Stewards of this land. Participate in the Drama of Abundance and once you've seen that there is enough and the Love and Forgiveness, Mercy, and Welcoming Arms of the Creator never ever ever ever ever runs out -- your notions of scarcity will be exposed and you can join the flow of generosity that so gently seeks to re-order our anxious system.
Have you ever been on the receiving end of generosity? Have you ever been able to give generously? Consider these experiences and reflect on the nature of our Generous God.
On this Sunday we were gifted with the voice of Rohadi. Rohadi is an author, speaker, activist, and church planter. He led us in a thoughtful teaching on the importance of Lament and why some churches cough white evangelical churches cough are often not very good at this part of being alive in Christ. Thank you Rohadi!
James 4:8-10 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.
To learn more about the important work he is doing or access his free ebook on dismantling anti-black racism in the Church in Canada see his website at Rohadi.com
The Gospel according to capitalism is not the Gospel according to Jesus. The Gospel according to Pharaoh, Caesar, White Evangelicalism .... it's just not Good News.
If someone breaks into my car and steals my spare change -- there's a good news where I live that says I can call the police and the police will come and make that bad coin thief go away. But the Good News according to Jesus must be Good News for the coin thief too, right?
I'm interested in sharing that good news - every day - every breath. Good News for the sinner and the sinned against.
We are quick to throw away the things that don't work anymore, wear out, or just simply aren't fashionable anymore. This is true of the clothing we wear, the food we allow to rot in the produce drawer, and the relationships we have with one another. When something wears out or breaks or doesn't interest us anymore - we toss it. This is especially true when something doesn't cost us much: most people treat a 'rental' differently than a home they own. We care for what costs us - we dispose quickly of what costs little. This mentality is destroying the earth, vulnerable communities, and pushing humans further into isolation and shame and crippling despair. Imagine a community that made promises, and then kept them! Imagine putting down roots, making a home, and saying, "I will fix this and repair it and make it last." The God of our ancestral faith is a Covenanting God - a God who demonstrates "homefulness" - God takes what's broken or worn out and fixes it. We call this forgiveness. Our God is a forgiving God - a Covenanting God - a God who takes brokenness and makes all things new.
There's a lot of bad news going around - a system that thrives on anxiety and a fear of scarcity has captured our imagination and it seems impossible to imagine anything that would rescue us from ourselves. Then comes the God of the Incarnation - the God who moved into the neighbourhood (John 1:14 MSG) and invited us to participate in the only true resistance against Pharaoh's Kingdom: Neighbourliness.
Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove took some time to chat with Nikayla about the gospel in his context of community living in a historically black neighbourhood in North Carolina. It was a beautiful and engaging challenge for all of us to live out biblical visions for justice with a gentle posture of love.
Please check out more work he's been doing at jonathanwilsonhartgrove.com
Miroslav Volf and Matthew Croasmun wrote a book called, "For the Life of the World" and Jonathan Wilson Hartgrove wrote a book called, "Awakening Hope" and these two books plus the legacy of the House of Commons and other vibrant expressions of community at Awaken have inspired this sermon about the Earth and every living thing as the Home of God and finding a Home here with God and one another.
Advent is over and not because the presents are opened and the tree has been put away, but because Christ has come! So, how do we Awaken to the hope, peace, joy, and love we were embracing during Advent? In this Christmastide season, let's take a practical look at how the Incarnate God invites us into the incarnation. God becomes flesh here in Bowness -- Awaken Awakens. So what do we do?
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We Break Bread Together
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We Live Together
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We Believe that Where We Live Matters
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We Make Promises (and we keep them!)
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We Share Good News
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We Practice Lament
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We Embody Sacrificial Love
This is a sermon about the impossible love between Ruth and Naomi and how this small story of radical, boarder-crossing, and risky love proclaims the gospel as it points to the birth of God, a board-crossing and risk-taking God who comes in the name of Love, bringing all of Heaven with him.
Thank you Nicole and Kate for singing O Come O Come Immanuel as a benediction
On this second Sunday of Advent we lit the candle of peace. We heard a very humble story of struggle, addiction, trauma, and impossible new beginnings from Kerry Gladue. Kerry works at the Simon House in Bowness helping men in recovery.
From the website:
Simon House guides and empowers men to achieve long-term recovery from addiction and all of its effects. Through our Core Values of compassion, acceptance, respect, integrity, accountability, and innovation, we will lead the way in addiction treatment and lifelong recovery. Our mission and core values are guiding principles which you will experience at all times while engaged with our program, whether as a client, family member, staff, donor, community stakeholder, or visitor
To purchase Kerry's book follow this link here:
https://bravecommunications.ca/products/kerry-gladues-book
https://www.facebook.com/KerryGladueSecondChances/
https://www.simonhouse.com/
Abraham fell face down and laughed -Genesis 17:17
But in the daylight God disappears, running here and there, contending with the desires of people, shaking with laughter, then weeping.
Which recalls to him this singular concern: to keep dancing her crazy cosmic conga and coax all the broken circles back to love.
- Stephen T Berg
Amy R led us in a discussion on Paul's letters on Christ the King Sunday. She talks about how to read Paul and hones in on Ephesians 1. What does it mean that Christ is the King and how does Paul communicate this to his beloved churches?
Listen to this sermon and then slowly read Ephesians 1. What stands out to you?
Thanks AMY!!
Eric Reynolds in one of the masterminds behind Mobile Escape and Escape Mail and so, as you can imagine, he has a mind for puzzles and imagination. He leads us through a workshop on how to read the Parables and encounter the God of mysteries and messianic secrets. This isn't really a sermon but more of a workshop and so it won't feel like the podcasts you're used to. To see the full video with the amazing diagrams he has put together, please check out the video on the Awaken Facebook page or find the prezzi here:
https://prezi.com/view/ozLOdL2VbL9LQ1wgbKM0/
Discussion: Why would Jesus speak in parables instead of just making the message as clear as possible? After listening to this workshop on puzzles and parables, what stands out to you about the parable of the sower? How about some of the small parables in Matthew 13?
Maddie McBlain gave this sermon on Nov. 8th and it was really thought provoking.
When we come to the Scriptures and ask, "Why do bad things happen to good people?" you'll find a different answer in Proverbs than you do in Job and another different answer in Ecclesiastes. The Bible never answers the question in a clear conversation-closing way. Rather, a colllection of diverse perspectives remain bound together in the wisdom traditions as if these Wisdom Books were different people sitting around a table having a debate, pulling up a chair for YOU and inviting you into the pursuit of wisdom.
Thank you Maddie!
Homework:
Read a chapter in Proverbs and highlight a verse that seems to be objectively untrue in your experience. How would Job talk about that verse in Proverbs? Read Ecclesiastes 1 and consider how the author of Ecclesiastes would respond.
What bad things have happened to you in your life and how have you reconciled that experience with your faith? If you could ask the authors of Proverbs, Job, Ecclesiastes any question, what would you ask? What might they ask you in return?
The prophetic speech is disruptive and piercing. His or her words are unbearable to King and Priest because you cannot serve both God and money, both God and power. You will hate one and love the other.
So while we tend towards serving our own privilege and sacrificing to the god of the economy, the prophets weep and imagine a bitter end and yet, rather than revel in grief, the prophets have the tenacity to hope vigorously in an undoing of this world and the inbreaking of something radically new.
If you'd like to learn more about Seth Cardinal Dodginghorse or see the speech he gave on Oct 1st follow this link:
https://broadview.org/seth-cardinal-dodginghorse-interview/
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/tsuutina-trail-opening-land-conflict-1.5746607
This week Kara BH leads us through a sermon about the story of Deborah and Jael and invites us to be conflicted, unsettled, and awakened to the task of wrestling with the scriptures. Michelle E lead us in a beautiful time of communion and we were blessed together.
This is the beginning of a new series on How and Why (and for Whom) to engage the scriptures. Nikayla gave this sermon on how to read the Law or the Pentateuch and she talks about how God choose the least of these from out of the dominant and dominating culture. The dominant culture did not and DOES not recognize this God or know this God's name. The Pentateuch is the stories of the "least of all people" being chosen by God, rescued by God, and established by God as a treasured possession. The Law isn't only about morality or right behavior - it's about how to stay OUT of Pharaoh's throne, avoiding the trap of power, and how to stay within the shared memory; connected to the community and to the land. The LAW needs to be read through a Kingdom Lens and it needs to be read because the least of these continue to be unnoticed, unnamed, unfavored here in our city. We read it so that we might avoid the temptations of power and be people who remember.
DISCUSSION: Read Exodus 1-5 and notice which characters have names and which characters don't have names. Who are God's people? Consider the gospels: Who are the people who recognized and trusted Jesus?
Anna lead us in Communion this week and her reflection and teaching on communion is shared here after the sermon recording. For this series we will post the communion time as well as the sermon for any who have missed out on the Sunday gathering.
This is the finale of the Acts series. I had the privilege of interviewing Dr. Jon Coutts from Ambrose. Dr. Coutts is a devotee of Dr. Willie Jennings and has spent some time working in pastoral ministry so the book of Acts and the work of Jennings is a passion of his. We talk mainly about the sorrows and the surprises at the end of Acts. We ought not be discouraged in our many challenges and conflicts. The book of Acts is about the outworking of the gospel and it ends in further challenge and conflict. At the end, the work of the Church remains unfinished, the conflicts unresolved, the sorrow unrelenting, but it is in this 'in-between' that we encounter the power of the Gospel. Jennings' puts it like this:
"Paul lives between Jew and Gentile, speaking to both. Luke again reminds us of the tension that resides in the in-between space. This space, constituted by the body of Jesus, is ground zero for Christian existence. This is what public space means for a Christian. It is the space between commitments, allegiances, and alliances where we give witness to God’s sovereignty over flesh and blood, in space and time, and in the now. Public in this sense sutures inside/outside, native/alien, and Jew/Gentile through the bodies of disciples, like Paul. ... In the duration of time, opposition will rise up as some people begin to see the implications of this Jesus-message, that a new day of God’s reign has come that will bring together Jew and Gentile, diaspora concern and Gentile need, worshipers of the one true God and wayward worshipers of many other gods... This is the primal vulnerability that is church rooted in the new and uneasy social and political space created by the Spirit of God. This space requires disciples willing to live floating in baptismal water, their feet no longer held in place by the soft soil of kinship, empire, family, or even religion. These followers of the savior are held afloat by the Spirit working through love for one another." - Jennings (Acts, 185-194)
The book of Acts doesn't end in victory and celebration - there is less unity at the end of Acts than there was in the beginning. The struggle only increases and yet -- Paul is not pressed into despair. He boasts in his weakness, breaks bread with his enemies and holds onto his ancestral hope. Let's imitate Paul.
Discussion:
What are you 'waiting' for?
What does it mean for us as believers that Acts ends in so much chaos and disunity among the believers? Has church unity been achieved more or less in the past 2000 years?
In light of this, what does it mean to be known by Hope?
While Feliz, Festus, and Agrippa acknowledge that Paul is innocent, they are not motivated by doing the right thing. They're motivated by the need to keep the crowds happy and avoid conflict.
Are you more like Paul, standing firm and non-reactive, or are you like the governors who are tossed back and forth on the waves of anxious attempts to 'keep the peace' and make everyone happy?
Mother Theresa says, "The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow - do good anyway."
This is an invitation to stand strong, grounded in the truth because this neighborhood needs a non-anxious church even if it costs us (spoiler: it will cost us).
PS - I hope you chuckle as you hear me slowly discover that apparently the phrase is, do it anyway' and when you learn that I stood my ground even though Raven was laughing and screaming in a game of chase outside my door during this recording. :)
A lot of people don't like Paul because they think of him through the 'clobber passages'. In this episode I suggest that we don't read Paul's letters before reading the Paul story in Acts. In Acts 20 and 21 Paul says goodbye to his friends and begins his final journey towards Jerusalem where he knows he will not return. He kisses and his friends who warn him that he will be bound in chains and carried away but he doesn't hesitate to walk the Jesus road. In 1 Corinthians 11:1 Paul says, "imitate me as I imitate Christ". Let's consider what it might look like to imitate Paul at Awaken, in Bowness.
Questions for discussion:
Do you read your bible? If not, why not? If you do, how do you read it?
How might knowing the Paul story from Acts impact how we read Paul's letters?
What is the difference between reading the story and performing (or imitating) the story?
The meaning of life isn't to find happiness or to find order and control. It's to find connection with the Image of God, perfect in Jesus and present in your neighbor.
In Acts 17 Paul is in Athens and he's deeply concerned about all of the idols - so many idols - even idols to unknown gods! He argues with the philosophers that God isn't an idea - God isn't way up there or on the other side - God is here, not so far, and what a scandal that he might look like the Nazarene son of a Jewish Carpenter.
After listening to this episode: What are your idols? What has the pursuit of your idols caused you to miss out on? Have you made God or Church or Community into an idol?
What would change if you began to see by the light of Christ what the light illuminates right here and now?
This is the Jerusalem Council episode. This is the BIG CHURCH MEETING - there was tension, conflict, drama -- do we need to make the 'new people' assimilate? Now that they're here, can we segregate? Which identifiers are essential? When a new person joins a community -- does the person change, or does the entire community change? Can we figure this out together, or should we just spit up? This podcast gets real - we talk about Awaken Identity and the urge within each of us to either cut and run or cling to control when we feel vulnerable.
Discussion questions:
What are the Awaken identifiers in your experience?
When you're stressed are you more likely to cut and run or fight for control?
Have you ever resisted a 'new thing' and then found yourself totally blessed by it once you opened yourself to it?
At Awaken we say, "because our God is a welcoming God, we welcome you" -- have you encountered God's welcome at Awaken -- have you extended the 'welcome' to Others?
We work so hard to be respectful and pure and upright and yet Christ gave up his respectability and power to be crucified as a criminal. What if we entered the the story and didn't try to escape it with a kernel of truth? What if we felt the discomfort, saw the truth and felt the pain?
Questions for discussion: Where has there been shame in your story that you kept hidden? What has happened when you let the light in? How can we give up of our power and privilege to ally with those burdened by shame and exclusion? If we rush towards the pain instead of away from it -- could there be freedom?
Books referenced in this episode:
Prophetic Lament by Soong-Chan Rah https://www.amazon.ca/Prophetic-Lament-Soong-Chan-Rah/dp/0830836942
The Booklet of Uncommon Prayer by Kenjo Kuramitsu http://kenjikuramitsu.com/resources/
Reconstruction the Gospel: Finding Freedom from Slaveholder Religion by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove https://www.amazon.com/Reconstructing-Gospel-Finding-Slaveholder-Religion/dp/0830845348
Check out affinitymentorship.com and the John Howard Society
In this podcast Nikayla interviews renown Christian Ethicist Dr. David P Gushee about his book, Changing Our Mind (2014).
In Acts 9 Paul is stopped dead in his tracks by the living Jesus and it radically changes his mind about the Jesus movement. The people of the Jesus movement have to radically change their minds about Paul. In Acts 10 Peter sees the living God tell him to radically change his mind about the Gentiles. A lot of the book of Acts is about changing our mind and you might even argue that the GOSPEL is about changing our mind about Jesus.
In this podcast you'll be introduced to two important Jesus followers: Stephen and Philip.
The early Christian movement will challenge social norms so radically that Stephen will be executed for it and Philip will be led by the Spirit to baptize a gender variant foreigner from a racial minority. The Bible CLEARLY says that eunuchs AND foreigners are not allowed to participate in the assembly of the LORD but here we got Philip baptizing and fully affirming the place of this person within the assembly because the Spirit told him to do it! What do we do with that? If the purpose of the Bible isn't to guide us towards certainty or a certain answers, what is the purpose of the Bible?
Warning: There was a strange glitch in the recording and it sounds like we recorded this with an electric potato but hopefully you'll be so entranced by the brilliant content you won't notice. Next time it'll be better sound quality! Thank you for listening and sharing.
"We don't really need the church, because we have each other!" - Ananias and Saphira, probably
When the local church makes marriage the end-goal of discipleship instead of an act of worship it becomes an 'energy draining vortex that seeks to capture all our imaginative capacity for intimacy' (Willie James Jennings). What if the marriage we celebrated most was the marriage of heaven and earth found in the local church community? Imagine the sense of belonging, safety, vulnerability, intimacy! It'd be a revolution and I'll tell ya what -- a lot of folks wouldn't like it. Listen to Nikayla unpack the Ananias and Saphira (one of the only married people mentioned in the NT) story and get ready for the single people in the community to call the Apostles out on their hypocrisy in Acts 6.
Let's be a Church that pours love and welcome and time and treasures and talents INTO the Church instead of staying safely back to watch and only show up when we think we need to (ought to?) or when we think the church has something to give to us.
Acts Commentary by Willie James Jennings https://www.amazon.com/Acts-Theological-Commentary-Bible-Belief/dp/0664234003
affinitymentorship.com
The Booklet of Uncommon Prayer by Kenji Kuramitsu at evangelicalsforsocialaction.org
In this episode, I interview some of the members of a Christian intentional community that existed in Bowness for 9 years. I ask Megan, Steph, and Lee about what inspired them, what was difficult, and where they saw God. There was a lot of laughter and a few tears as we reflected on how incredibly difficult it is to be a family of God that practices radical non-violent hospitality in a neighborhood like Bowness. It turns out, they found Jesus in the lost and the vulnerable and Steph even went as far as to call it ... magical.
If you're interested in expressions of community living, our parish church in Bowness is always interested in new and creative ways of living in community together from co-housing to co-neighbouring and we are all simultaneously afraid and inspired by the call of Jesus to be a new and peculiar people in this place.
Books I highly recommend which were cited in this episode include:
God is Stranger by Krish Kandiah (I accidentally said his last name as Kandish, sorry Krish) https://www.ivpress.com/god-is-stranger
Ada Maria Asasi-Dias who came up with the term 'Kin-dom of Christ' instead of Kingdom with the help of a franciscan nun names Georgene Wilson in Mujerista Theology: A Theology for the 21st Century
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CMC6AEO/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i0
Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CMC6AEO/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i0
In this episode we look at Ascension and Pentecost and how it alludes back to Elijah and Elisha. Nikayla shares about the wildly destablizing and disruptive movement that was the early Jesus Movement.
In this episode Willie Jenning's commentary on Acts https://www.amazon.ca/Acts-Professor-Willie-James-Jennings/dp/0664234003 was cited as well as his book
The Christian Imagination: The Theology and Origin of Race https://www.amazon.ca/Acts-Professor-Willie-James-Jennings/dp/0664234003
and Soong Chun Rah's book The Prophetic Lament https://www.amazon.ca/Prophetic-Lament-Soong-Chan-Rah/dp/0830836942
and Lisa Sharon Harper's The Very Good Gospel https://www.amazon.ca/Very-Good-Gospel-Everything-Wrong/dp/160142857X
Apocalypse means 'uncovering' or 'unveiling'. In this episode Logan Renaud and I talk about what is 'uncovered' in the book of Revelation. Is it the violent end of the world? No. It's the end of violence. What's 'uncovered' is that Jesus, the lamb who was slain, gets the last word. The Kingdom of Jesus is the eternal kingdom - these corrupt and broken systems cannot and will not last and this, my friends, is very good news. This is the final episode in our garden series.
Let's be unraveled by our belief in the Incarnation. It's hard to deconstruct the "flesh versus spirit" dualism we often conform to here in the post-enlightenment west, but God became flesh! Creator became creation! This should awaken us to more wonder than we can fathom. We begin in Genesis and go into the Gospels to reflect on what our belief in the Incarnation invites us into. Jesus simultaneously has authority over creation and yet is vulnerable to creation. Jesus is fully God and fully human - not human on the outside and God on the inside - this paradox invites us to do the difficult work of reconciliation and be unified as created ones made in the image of God.
Eric and I talk about Jesus and what Jesus' authority over nature means for us today. Jesus calms the storm, walks on water, and curses fig trees. There are themes and stories from the Old Testament which can inform our understanding of this authority and wow - Jesus is God, and Jesus is right here in our midst? This is terrifying and wonderful and inspires me to enter the mundane with great expectations. Eric shared a bit of his knowledge about the ways climate change and natural disasters are and will continue to displace the most vulnerable populations on earth and he invites affluent Christians here in Calgary to consider what it means to follow Jesus across the water. Thanks Eric and Happy Birthday :)
Rod Olson is an urban farmer,a lamenting truth-teller, and a man who can hear the soil teach about Jesus. This was a wildly inspiring interview about the gospel, incarnation, death, resurrection, and all of the ways the earth is preaching the gospel right here in Bowness. Have a listen and be inspired!
This podcast is a look at the ways we tend to vilify the future and mythologize the past in times of crisis. We look at the story of the wilderness wandering between Egypt and Sinai and consider the disciples between Ascension and Pentecost. Ultimately, I hope it encourages you to be still and trust that there is healing yet to come - gardens yet to plant and a community right here worth belonging to, even and perhaps especially, in the wild unknown.
Eric and I wrestle with the creation stories in Genesis 1-3. We talk about science and faith, gender hierarchy, the devil, and climate change. Ultimately we find fresh hope that Jesus really offers an answer to this whole mess. We were nervous but co-hosting a podcast was a lot of fun! I think you'll enjoy it even as it might unsettle ya.
I referenced a book by Randy Woodley and Bo Sanders called Decolonizing Evangelicalism you can find here https://wipfandstock.com/decolonizing-evangelicalism.html
I also referred to a Podcast Episode on Faith with a Fresh Vibe on Indigeneous Spirituality with Tony Snow you can find here https://www.rohadi.com/podcast/episode-6-with-tony-snow/?relatedposts_hit=1&relatedposts_origin=5270&relatedposts_position=2&relatedposts_hit=1&relatedposts_origin=5270&relatedposts_position=2
This is the first episode in a six week series about the Garden. Since it is the first week of Easter this is an overview of the Garden versus City theme from Genesis to Revelation. We begin in Genesis, hang out in Exodus and 1 Kings for a bit and then end in John 20 with Mary's shock when she finds a Gardener in the graveyard.