Vox Veniae Podcast

Expressing the Unknown

When have you engaged with someone radically different from yourself? Christopher Mack hears in Paul’s cross-cultural message regarding the unknown god in Athens, a subversive God who topples the status quo and a Peacemaking Christ who is our moral arc and present assurance. [Acts 17:22-31]

 

Reflection

• How might you notice our idols of scapegoating, isolationism, and violence?
• What might it look like to name the injustices of scapegoating the trans community, our interventions into the politics and economies of Latin America, and lament our dependency on violence, guns, and death?
• How might you express hope in light of the unknown in the coming weeks?

Practices

• Book: Acts: A Theological Commentary on the Bible by Willie James Jennings
• Book: Acts of the Apostles: Wisdom Commentary by Linda M. Maloney and Ivoni Richter Reimer

Seeing More Deeply

What are some areas that need a deeper look when it comes to how we see Christ, ourselves, and others? Weylin Lee stares afresh at the story of Stephen’s communal execution, and elicits bravery from us to go beyond deconstructing to decolonizing our faith. [Acts 7:55-60]

 

Reflection

• How are you invited to decolonize your view of Christ and your faith?
• How might you offer a unique voice and story in our collective work of advocacy?
• What does a nonviolent response look like for you in response to someone else’s violence?

Resources

• Podcast: Faith for Normal People, Episode 10, Decolonizing Our Faith by Danyelle Thomas
• Film: Chinatown Rising a Harry Chuck and Josh Chuck film
• Book: The End of Memory: Remembering Rightly in a Violent World by Miroslav Volf

Good Shepherding

On Good Shepherd Sunday, Kimberly Culbertson points to the story of the man born blind in the Gospel of John as a living example of how Jesus companions us, and how we are to embody community for one another. [John 10:1-6]

 

Reflection

• Is the person of Jesus shaping your ability to see and be seen?
• Is the person of Jesus shaping your ability to move toward and guide others to abundance?

Recovery as a Path

What do we do when we’re struggling with addiction in our own life or a loved one’s ? Lilly Ettinger and Joe Arenella bravely share about their own recovery journeys and how they have experienced hope and life, even in the most challenging of circumstances. [Psalm 116:1-6]

 

Reflection

• What is your cry to the Divine?
• Where might you seek reconciliation in your life?
• How might you take a step toward healing?

Resources

• Book: Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps by Richard Rohr
• Book: Divine Therapy and Addiction: Centering Prayer and the Twelve Steps by Thomas Keating

What is Forgiveness?

What does forgiveness mean to you? Gena St. David places lived experience of personal and systemic injustice of the church in conversation with the anxious disciples' first encounter with the risen Christ. [John 20:19-23]

 

Reflection

• When have you feared punishment for telling the truth?
• How might anger become a holy emotion?
• What injustices do we need to grieve more fully prior to forgiving?

Resources

• Book: The Wild Edge of Sorrow by Francis Weller

Behold and Beheld

What step of hope might we take together? Christopher Mack retraces the steps of Mary Magdalene through trauma and isolation to renewal and belonging. [John 20:1-18]

 

Reflection

• What part of your human experience do you need to know God, in Jesus, experiences alongside you?
• How is what you are willing to see impacting how you live?
• What does bearing witness to belonging look like for you this week?

Resources

• Book: Learning to Walk in the Dark by Barbara Brown Taylor
• Book: The Rebirthing of God: Christianity’s Struggle for New Beginnings by John Philip Newell
• Book: Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer by Richard Rohr
• Book: Belonging: 5 Keys to Unlock Your Potential as a Disciple by Karoline M. Lewis

Downward Path of Greatness

How are we invited to resist the desire for power and living out of our ego? This Palm Sunday, Weylin Lee questions what draws us to certain models of greatness rather than eschewing upward mobility as we follow Jesus on a humble path of solidarity with the vulnerable. [Matthew 21:1-11]

 

Reflection

• How are we invited to resist the desire for power and living out of our ego?
• Who and where are those we need to be in solidary with?
• What does our identity reveal about our authentic calling?

Resources

• Book: The Selfless Way of Christ: Downward Mobility and the Spiritual Life by Henri Nouwen
• Podcast: Lead Us Not by Sojourners 

Book: This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories that Make Us by Cole Arthur Riley

This Side of Heaven

How might trust grow as we invite God into our dry places? This fifth Sunday of Lent, Kimberly Culbertson companions us into vulnerable places of grief, challenge, and trauma, as she considers what healing looks like in our story here and now. [Ezekiel 37]

 

Reflection

• Where in your life are you longing for resurrection? Can you lay that before God?
• Is there somewhere in your life where you are facing resistance to resurrection? Can you lean into Trust?
• Where have you already experienced resurrection? Can you make space for joy and gratitude?

Belonging as Witness

What parts of ourselves feel exiled? On this fourth Sunday of Lent, Christopher Mack places the man born blind in conversation with the woman at the well to see how they both bear witness to the power of belonging. [John 4 & 9]

 

Reflection

• How might you consider sacred repair and healing for exiled parts of your life? For  people exiled?
• How might you move toward more belonging for yourself and others?
• What does a commitment to Beloved Community look and sound like for you in the coming weeks?

Resources

• Book: River Flow: New & Selected Poems by David Whyte
• Book: Belonging: 5 Keys to Unlock Your Potential as a Disciple by Karoline M. Lewis
• Book: Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human ExperienceTime Away with God by Brené Brown

Illuminating Rest

When you slow down the pace of your life what’s catching up with you? On the third Sunday of Lent, Christopher Mack slows down to listen to the woman at the well and how her encounter with Jesus invites us to rest and wonder. [John 4]

 

Reflection

• Where might you listen for your embodied life’s need for rest?
• How might the light of day be illuminating uncomfortable realities of bias in our community?
• Is there anything you need from Jesus? In mutuality what might Jesus need from us?

Resources

• Book: Crossing the Unknown Sea: Work as a Pilgrimage of Identity by David Whyte
• Book: Belonging: 5 Keys to Unlock Your Potential as a Disciple by Karoline M. Lewis
• Book: Invitation to Retreat: The Gift and Necessity of Time Away with God by Ruth Haley Barton

Leaving Home

What helps us “leave home” in trust? On this second Sunday of Lent, Gena St. David sifts through our unsettling experiences of leaving the familiar in parallel with Abraham’s journey into the unknown. [Genesis 12:1-4]

 

Reflection

• How are you “leaving home” (identity, loyalty, authority) in this season?
• What’s helping you “leave home” in trust?
• Who are you “leaving home” with?

Naming Empire’s Enticements

What does it say about our spiritual imaginations that Lenten fasts often center on our relationship to food, drink, or media, but less often on our relationship to power? As we begin Lent, Christopher Mack examines the testing of Jesus in the wilderness through the lens of how we steward and are enticed by power. [Matthew 4:1-11]

Reflection

• Where do you feel the pull to compromise your values and purpose?
• How might the power, perks, and prestige of Empire distract us from collective action?
• Where have you seen scripture, prayer, and community used to hurt and to heal? How might this change how you engage with them in the coming weeks?

Resources

• Book: Matthew and the Margins: A Sociopolitical and Religious Reading by Warren Carter
• Book: The Jesus Way: A Conversation On the Ways that Jesus Is the Way  by Eugene Peterson
• Litany: Levingston, Zhailon. “Hope: A Litany Claiming Another World Is Possible and On Its Way.” In Rally: Communal Prayers for Lovers of Jesus and Justice, edited by Britney Winn Lee 
• Vox Values

Trust in the Midst of Uncertainty

How might uncertainty propel us deeper into the mystery and revelation of God’s grace in the midst of injustice, suffering, and oppression? Virginia Cumberbatch sits with the sense of being out of control in our chaotic and heartbreaking world to find faith in learning to trust and work toward God’s Dream when we do not currently see it. [Psalm 99:1-5]

 

Reflection

• How might we invite a spirit of exploration and curiosity in the midst of uncertainty?
• How can the uncertainty or mystery of our human condition embolden us in our faith and in our purpose?
• What’s one thing this week you can invite spirit led revelation?

Resources

• Book: The Cross and the Lynching Tree  by James Cone
• Book: Shoutin’ In the Fire: An American Epistle by Danté Stewart
• Dance: The Dance Theatre of Harlem
• Instagram Social Media Account: @BlackLiturgies Project by Cole Arthur Riley  
• Song: “Man of Your Word” by Maverick City

What Does it Mean to be Reconciled?

How does relational conflict feel inside us? Gena St. David delves into Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount to share a hopeful practice for navigating conflict with others, make amends, and embody peace. [Matthew 5:21-24]

 

Reflection

1. Who are you currently separated from (externally or internally)?
2. How might you talk with them about your role in the separation?
3. What might change (be reconciled) inside you after talking with them?

Embodying Our Identity

How are we invited to live out the identity that Christ offers us? Weylin Lee invites us to embody Jesus’ images of salt and light as we collaborate in God’s work, reveal injustice, and  see scripture as wisdom rather than a rulebook. [Matthew 5:13-18]

 

Reflection

• How can we participate and collaborate in God´s work around us?
• Where are the injustices we are invited to reveal and uncover?
• How might we engage scripture as a journey to wisdom?

Resources

• Book: Invisible: Theology and the Experience of Asian American Women by Grace Ji-Sun Kim
• Book: How the Bible Actually Works: In Which I Explain How an Ancient, Ambiguous, and Diverse Book Leads Us to Wisdom Rather Than Answers–and Why That’s Great News by Peter Enns
• TV Show: Hulu’s The 1619 Project by Nikole Hannah-Jones

Come On Down

Where do you return for renewal when your heart feels heavy with sorrow? Christopher Mack holds recent national tragedies up to the beatitudes and wonders how they invite us into an alternative to the violence of our world, while simultaneously creating space for us to process the hardships we encounter while partnering for God’s Justice. [Matthew 5:3-12]

 

Reflection

• Where do I most struggle to see God present and enveloping my own life?
• Is there a situation or group in your world where it’s hard to imaging God? How might you open yourself to Radical Love?
• What invitation in the beatitudes might there be for action and contemplation this week?

Resources

• Book: Shoutin’ In the Fire: An American Epistle by Danté Stewart
• Book: The Ninefold Path of Jesus: Hidden Wisdom of the Beatitudes by Mark Scandrette 
• Book: Rally: Communal Prayers for Lovers of Jesus and Justice Edited by Britney Winn Lee
• Art: The Mothership Designed by George Clinton, Peter Larkin, Jules Fisher 
• Art: The Mothership (Capsule) Created by Jefferson Pinder

Cruciform Care

How is Jesus revealed through our community? Christopher Mack reflects on the messiness of community and how the cross leads us into solidarity with the marginalized as our personal and communal wounds are mended. [1 Corinthians 1:10-13, 17-18]

 

Reflection

• Where do you experience the wounds of severed community?
• How might the cruciform power of Jesus bring care to your pain?
• What creative redemptive foolishness might you be invited to participate in?

Resources

• Book: Forgiveness and Reparation, the Healing Journey by Mpho Tutu van Furth

Immersed in the Way of Christ

As we begin a new year, how might we discover rhythms and moments of immersing ourselves in the way of Christ? Weylin Lee opens up about how experience and encounter get us unstuck and in step with God’s Radical Love  [John 1:35-42]

 

Reflection

• How might we sit in the tension of the paradox of Christ?
• How can we intentionally make space to listen?
• What ways can we foster community towards transformation?

Resources

• Book: Both/And Thinking: Embracing Creative Tensions to Solve Your Toughest Problems by Wendy K. Smith and Marianne W. Lewis

The Mystery of God

Speaker Gena St. David uses the phrase "all bodies matter" in today's homily in the context of support and solidarity for the vision and mission of Black Lives Matter https://blacklivesmatter.com/about/. She begins the new year reflecting on Epiphany and how mystery can lead us into goodness, belonging, and beautiful embodiment. [Ephesians 3:5-12]

 

Reflection

• When have you felt part of a larger body?

Resources

• Visual Art: Myein by Ann Hamilton
• Vox’s Values: Mystery

Unexpected Joy and Peace

What are we invited to do or change as we consider the unexpected disruption that the first Christmas brought with the birth of a baby? On the eve of Christmas Eve, Weylin Lee leads us in the practice of lectio divina through a reflection over the past year and through the Christmas story  [Luke 2:8-15]

 

Resources

• Book: Wholehearted Faith by Rachel Held Evans