The Word As Resistance

In this week’s text from Exodus, we are still in the aftermath of the incident of the golden calf; in this story, Moses and God remind each other who they are, and Moses asks to see God, all in seeing and hearing distance of the Hebrew people. Join Collective member Rev. Anne Dunlap and guest contributor Rev. Dr. Tracy Howe as they talk about intimacy, mending relationships, and how the land helps...

Dive into the story of the Hebrew people and the golden calf with Rev. Liz Kearny and special guest (another Liberating Lineages Collective co-founding member!) Amelia Mae Paradise. How does this messy story invite us to take inventory of the ways our carceral society and its logics push us to throw each other away when harm happens and conflict arises? What can we learn about repair, boundaries,...

On this week's podcast in the Exodus and Abolition series, we hear remixes of the 10 Commandments by M Jade Kaiser and collective member Sharon Fennema who creatively imagine what a recontextualized version of this text so often used as a weapon of white Christian nationalism might offer our abolition imaginations. What does it mean to hear these commandments always in the context of freedom from...

Our Exodus series continues with Collective member Rev. Anne Dunlap and special guest Jordan Leahy talk about dealing with the practicalities of a mixed multitude on the move. The people have continued on their journey after they pointed out a lack of food and were provided manna, quails, and provision for rest, but now they are thirsty. Now they are much farther along their journey, in a desert,...

Join Rev. Liz Kearny and special guest Rev. Addie Domske as they encounter a God in Exodus 16:2-15 who tenderly responds to the Hebrew people's cry for food and sustenance with bread from heaven (and some quail!). How might we imagine God in this text as a mother, a nurturing parent, who is helping a traumatized people relearn in their bodies how to trust enoughness and rest? And what gifts can th...

In this episode we wrestle with the story of the parting of the Red Sea, wondering how our abolition dreams hold together oppressed and oppressor in making a way toward liberation. Featuring Dr. Sharon Fennema of the Liberating Lineages Collective and Cole Parke-West of Christians for A Free Palestine and Farm Church as our guest contributor. Transcript available here: bit.ly/TWARepisodes

This week’s Exodus reading is the culmination of the Ten Plagues, the escalating contestation of power between The Divine One and Pharaoh. Join Collective member Rev. Anne Dunlap and special guest Graie Hagans as they talk about this grim final plague in which all the firstborn of Egypt not protected by the passing-over preparations are to die. What is the role of ritual as abolition practice? Wha...

In our text for today (Exodus 3:1-15), Moses gets curious about a bush that burns, but is somehow not consumed. In this wilderness space, God calls Moses into the work of helping his enslaved Hebrew siblings get free from slavery in Egypt. Join Rev. Liz Kearny and special guest contributors Candice Baughman and Rev. Dexter Kearny of the One Parish One Prisoner program at Underground Ministries for...

We begin our "Exodus and Abolition" series in Exodus 1, setting the context for the unfolding of the rest of the the story by showing us the contours of what enslavement means for the Hebrew people. Into this this context of oppression, enter three stories of women resisting unjust laws and acting to preserve life. Join Dr. Sharon Fennema as she brings womanist theologian and beloved ancestor Dr....

In our text this week, Jesus is really going through a rough time, and he manages to offend just about everyone around him with his sharp-edged words and actions. Join Rev. Anne Dunlap, Dr. Sharon Fennema, and Rev. Liz Kearny as they listen to the outcry of the Canaanite woman in the story, and wonder together about how her actions changed Jesus from that moment on. Transcript available here: http...

This "miracle" story of Jesus walking on water comes on the heels of Jesus feeding over 5,000 people. And they are all still in the raw trauma of learning John the Baptist has been executed. Join Rev. Liz Kearny, Dr. Sharon Fennema, and Rev. Anne Dunlap as they ponder miracles, tormenting storms, heartbreak, needing a minute alone, and Jesus reaching for us. Transcript available here: https://bit....

Join our contributors Dr. Sharon Fennema, Rev. Liz Kearny, and Rev. Anne Dunlap as they talk (and cry) about the famous story of Jesus feeding over 5,000 people. The story follows after the series of parables imagining the kingdom of heaven together in community in chapter 13. And here, we encounter Jesus after having heard the news that John the Baptist had been murdered by Herod. With this viole...

This week, Jesus continues his lakeside parable teaching with a string of mini-parables: a mustard seed is sown and becomes a massive tree-home for the birds, a woman mixes yeast into her flour, a man buys the field where he was digging around and found treasure, a merchant sells all they have to buy a single pearl, and a net pulls in all kinds of fish which are later sorted into “good” and “bad.”...

In this week's text, Jesus entrusts the treasure of another land-based parable to the gathered community. Here, instead of exploring the interconnection between seeds and the soil they are planted in like last week’s parable, the story revolves around the complex interconnection between the growth and fruition of good seeds planted in good soil and so-called weeds maliciously planted and growing a...

"The sower went out to sow." So begins one of Jesus' most famous parables. What could he be saying to this crowd of people at the lakeside? Join Dr. Sharon Fennema, Rev. Anne Dunlap, and Rev. Liz Kearny as they talk about seeds, soil, belonging, underground secrets, and more! Transcript available here: https://bit.ly/TWARepisodes

As summer weather draws so many of us outside to dance with a whole host of sky, water, and plant relatives, the Revised Common Lectionary journeys with Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew as he shares stories and works wonders rooted in his relationship with the natural world. Join Rev. Liz Kearny, Rev. Anne Dunlap, and Dr. Sharon Fennema of the Liberating Lineages Collective as they offer a "teaser"...

In this Easter episode, join Rev. Liz Kearny, Rev. Anne Dunlap, and Rev. Brigitta Vieyra as they witness Mary Magdalene's grief, and find life-giving currents of intimacy, waiting, agency, and claiming in the movement of this story. Transcript available here: https://bit.ly/TWARepisodes

On this Good Friday, our hearts ache with Jesus and his community as they endure his arrest, interrogation and torture, and execution. Join Rev. Anne Dunlap, Dr. Sharon Fennema, and Rev. Liz Kearny as they keep tearful vigil through the Gospel of John's telling of this grievous story. Transcript available here: https://bit.ly/TWARepisodes

This week, Jesus-the-organizer and his comrades enact a protest parade in opposition to Rome’s military procession happening on the other side of town, all during the feast of the Passover, when the Jewish people remember God’s liberating acts that brought them out of slavery in Egypt. Join Rev. Liz Kearny, Rev. Anne Dunlap, and Rev. Brigitta Vieyra as they join the crowd in this embodied act of l...

This week we encounter yet another passage from John (11:1-45) where water and bodies play a central role, this time the water of tears and the dead body of Lazarus and the grieving bodies of Mary, Martha, Jesus, and the community gathered around them. Join Rev. Anne Dunlap, Rev. Liz Kearny, and Dr. Sharon Fennema as they consider the ways that resurrection and grief are inseparable and how God lo...

The 9th chapter of the Gospel of John is full of questions. What kinds of questions continue harm? What kinds of questions will get us free? Join Rev. Liz Kearny, Dr. Sharon Fennema, and Rev. Anne Dunlap as they wrestle with these questions, and wonder together how this story of a blind man receiving his sight can help us build a world where Every. Body. is met with care and dignity. In honor and...

In this week's text, Jesus encounters a Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well, and they are both transformed in the course of their rather intimate conversation. Join Dr. Sharon Fennema, Rev. Anne Dunlap, and Rev. Liz Kearny as they navigate the many layers of lineages of Jacob's well and the waters of life. Transcript available here: bit.ly/TWARepisodes

This week we get to eavesdrop on the conversation between Nicodemus and Jesus about what a life moving toward kindom-making looks like. We’re reminded that logos, usually translated as “word,” actually means something more like “conversation,” so here we recognize Jesus/the Conversation-made-flesh doing what Jesus does best - engaging beloveds in deepening their understanding and widening their lo...

We're back! Join us for this special series for Lent 2026, on the gospel texts for Year A. In this episode, Rev. Liz Kearny, Rev. Anne Dunlap, and Dr. Sharon Fennema meet Jesus at the end of his 40 day wilderness journey, famished, not long after he has been baptized by John in the Jordan River, and go deep talking about the Son of God, the "diabolos," and temptations that tear us apart. Transcrip...

This live recording of Dr. Vincent Harding’s song for the freedom movement is of a multi-racial “movement choir practice” in Denver, CO in December 2014, being led by Minister Daryl J. Walker. We are deeply grateful to the Freeney-Harding family for letting us use the song for this podcast. This song has been the theme song of our podcast since the beginning. Enjoy it now in its entirety. Lyrics:...