Vox Veniae Podcast

Rallying Cry of Resistance

How might we respond when we feel powerless, unsupported, and at a loss for words? Christopher Mack points to the Apostle Paul’s understanding of Spirit crying out with us for compassion and renewal.   [Romans 8:26-32]

 

Reflection

• How do you handle moments when you find yourself speechless?
• How can we continue to bear witness as God’s subversive global family?

Resources

• Book: Romans Disarmed by Sylvia Keesmaat & Brian Walsh
• Art: Wintered Field by Jason Yarmosky
• Book: Roman for Normal People by J.R. Daniel Kirk

Creation & Trust

What might it mean to have a nonviolent relationship with the rest of God’s creation? Gena St. David explores how the nonviolence of Jesus and the Apostle Paul’s hope that ‘creation itself might be set free’ could impact our relationship to all of creation. [Romans 8:20-25]

 

Note: Speaker Gena St David invites curiosity about how the nonviolent practice of Jesus applies to our food and environment, while acknowledging a diverse community like Vox is going to include multiple perspectives. Conversations about plant-based eating must include sensitivity to those recovering from disordered eating and those living with food insecurity or in food deserts. Our hope as a community is to continue to collaboratively explore multiple ways of practicing nonviolence with all of creation.

 

Reflection

• What can we do today to help creation be free?
• How is our pain like creation’s pain?
• What does a trusting relationship with creation look like?

Resources

• Book: The Nonviolent Atonement by J Denny Weaver
• Book: Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari

Reimagining Growth

How does reflecting on God’s abundance impact your willingness to consent to God’s movement in your life? Weylin Lee considers a parable of Jesus on growth. How might we reimagine our relationship to God’s abundance and how we expand our lives beyond ourselves?  [Matthew 13:1-9]

 

Reflection

• How might consenting to God’s abundance facilitate your growth?
• Where have you experienced growth even in rocky and thorny seasons?
• What are some ways we can be active beyond ourselves?

Resource

• Poem: The Facts of Life by Pádraig Ó Tuama

Who Is Jesus?

What expectations, titles, and ideas have you been handed about Jesus? Nick Zadrozny approaches the gospel text with curiosity, playfulness, and insight. We find ourselves challenged as Jesus befriends people on the moral margins of society who make us feel uncomfortable.  [Matthew 11:16-19]

 

Reflection

• What have you been told about who Jesus is?
• What have you studied about who Jesus is?
• What expectations do you have about who Jesus is?

In the Midst

Have you ever had to push through discomfort to stand in your beliefs? On the last weekend of Pride, Amy Wolfgang recounts their own journey of integrating their faith with their queer identity. They challenge us to imagine and live into a hopeful and creative stance toward our collective future.   [Matthew 10:27-39]

 

Reflection

• Is there a hurtful or violent theology you are being invited to set aside for your healing journey?
• Where do you sense tension from being at the point of opposition or oppression for countering a violent system?
• How might we imagine justice-bringing as ‘one of the most pleasurable experiences’?

 

Resources

• Book: Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing World by Adrienne Maree Brown
• Vox Homily Practice and Resources

 

Liberated Into Community

How do we pivot from a past experience of deliverance to forming a community practicing sustained love and liberation? On the weekend of Juneteenth, Christopher Mack recalls the evolution of slavery to Jim Crow segregation to mass incarceration in the United States. How do our scriptures’ images of liberating eagles, nonviolent sheep, creative serpents, and peacemaking doves inform how we form community?  [Matthew 10:16; Exodus 4-6]

 

Reflection 

• How might you listen more clearly to your life?
• What would it look like to allow Christ to lament alongside you?
• Where might you show up in solidarity with your community this week?
  

Resources

• Raise Up by Hank Willis Thomas
• Museum: The Legacy Museum and The National Memorial for Peace and Justice by the Equal Justice Initiative
• Instagram Post: “How do we talk with our kids about life with Jesus if we don’t say obey?" By Meredith Miller
• Art: The Cotton Bowl by Hank Willis Thomas
• Art: ALL LI ES MATTER by Hank Willis Thomas
• Book: Mindful of Race: Transforming Race from the Inside Out by Ruth King

Welcome

What helps you feel welcome? Gena St. David gathers us around the table to notice who feels welcome and who is missing. How might a nonviolent practice might help us follow Jesus in being good news to the marginalized while celebrating alongside one another? [Matthew 9:10-13]

 

Reflection

• Who among us feels least welcome?
• Whose suffering might we relieve?
• How is our story related to our calling?

Resources

• Book: Simply Jesus: A New Vision of Who He Was, What He Did, and Why He Matters by N.T. Wright
• Film: Chinatown Rising a Harry Chuck and Josh Chuck film
• Book: Love Is My Savior: The Arabic Poems of Rumi  translated and edited by Nesreen Akhtarkhavari and Anthony A. Lee

Returning Home: Beyond Nostalgia

How might we stimulate one another to bring to today, the best of what we can from the past? On this Pentecost Sunday, Christopher Mack ponders how Mother Holy Spirit might animate our nostalgia to empower us in challenging times. [Acts 2:1-8, 12-13]

 

Reflection

• How might you find a sense of home in some new and unexpected development?
• What might you do this week for the common good?
• Where might the disempowered find empowerment in our community?

Resources

• Book: Seasons of Our Joy: A Modern Guide to Jewish Holidays by Rabbi Arthur Waskow
• Song: Home by Diana Ross [from The Wiz, original film soundtrack)
• Book: An Introduction to the Old Testament: The Canon and Christian Imagination by Walter Brueggemann
• Book: Acts of the Apostles: Wisdom Commentary by Linda M. Maloney and Ivoni Richter Reimer 

The Wisdom of Singing

How does singing sustain us? Gena St. David resonates with the power of songs to help us embody hope in challenging times of adversity and nonviolently resist injustice. [Psalms 68:4-9]

 

Reflection

• Which song or breath practice might you deepen?
• Where do you desire to feel more free?
• How might song or breath help you decide to wait or move?

Resources

• Book: Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain by Oliver Sacks
• Song: Mississippi Goddam by Nina Simone
• Song: Hard Times (Come Again No More) by Stephen Foster

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?