Brewing Theology With Teer Hardy

June 11, 2023 Galatians 2:15-21 In adding to the Gospel, Peter was annulling the Good News of what God had gone ahead and done for us in Jesus Christ. Each of us is attracted to false gospels; Paul even says that the law is written on our hearts— we WANT to be told what to do, if only so we can judge our neighbor’s shortcomings. All of us have fallen short of righteousness, scripture says, but tha...

May 21, 2023 1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11 To say “No,” to the demands and needs of the empires of the world is no easy task because the empires of our world desperately depend on your “yes” and allegiance. And they, like the Devil tempting Jesus in the Wilderness, will offer us power and influence in exchange for our allegiance. If Jesus is Lord of all Creation, then Dr. Stanley Hauerwas is correct in...

May 14, 2023 1 Peter 3:13-22 The busyness of life that we are so attracted to is one of the ways that we bury our heads in the sand or attempt to at the very least so that we don’t have to come face-to-face with the suffering of the world, or the fact that there are those whose identity is not honored by the church. But because Christ has died, because Christ has risen, and because Christ promises...

April 23, 2023 1 Peter 1:17-23 Love in the way famed fictional-recording artist Billy Mac instructs us to in the hit movie Love Actually – from your fingers to your toes. Love the person in the pew next to you. Love the person who has not responded to the text message you sent days ago. Love your spouse, partner, children, best friend, mail person, Uber driver, stranger on the street, and the past...

The stone was rolled away, the body gone, and we are unsure of what we are to do now. The unexpected happened. Mary Magdalen and the other Mary went to the tomb expecting to anoint Jesus’ lifeless body, but when they arrived, an angel told them, “Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where...

Lent 4 2 Corinthians 5:16-21 The difficulties we carry from our past – the things we wish we had not said even if it was OK to say those things back then, the doors we locked while at traffic lights, the streets we crossed to avoid walking past someone, or the people we misidentified because of the nothing more than the color of their skin – were taken to the cross with Christ and buried. The resu...

The help we expect, the help we so desperately need, does not come from ourselves. The track record of human history tells this to be true, and yet time and time again, we turn to ourselves to make right that which we continue to taint with our sin. Cries of lament are our turning toward God, acknowledging our humanness, and opening ourselves to being transformed. It is in being transformed that w...

Thanks for reading Brewing Theology! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. Six days after a dramatic journey through Caesarea Philippi – where Peter declared Jesus to be the Son of God, and Jesus foretold of his pending suffering, death, and resurrection – Jesus took three disciples with him up a high mountain. Mountaintop experiences within Israel were known to be where a p...

One of the things I love most about the church’s liturgical cycle is the crescendo that builds during the season after Epiphany. If you did not know, today is the fifth Sunday after Epiphany, the fifth Sunday after the glory of the incarnation was revealed to the magi. Lost between Christmas Eve and the New Year, we miss the wise men traversing afar, bringing their gifts of gold, frankincense, and...

Thanks for reading Brewing Theology! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. In the fall of 2022, before the fire, before I knew more about in, I would walk through the Sanctuary with my daughter every day after school. Each day we would hold hands as we walked through the hallway of the preschool, and as we made our way into the Sanctuary, Nora’s grip on my hand would get loo...

As far back as I remember, the Christmas story has not changed. A mash-up of Luke and Matthew’s accounts is etched into my mind: Mary and Joseph are both greeted by the angel Gabriel, wise men traversing a far, shepherds keeping their flocks by night, no room in the inn, and the manger. Oh yeah, and sweet baby Jesus. I could tell you the story and leave out one or two parts, and you wouldn’t miss...

The turkey will be dry. Your end-of-the-year bonus may come in the form of a jelly subscription you did not want. The relatives you dread seeing will overstay their welcome. And, that powder room appliance might be full. No matter how much we try to avoid the broken and messiness of the world and our lives, the birth of Joseph’s boy tells creation that we are not separated from God. Our story is n...

December 4, 2022 Luke 1:26-38 “Let it be with me according to” the will of God, according to the grand plans of God’s earth-shaking in-breaking. “Let it be with me according to” the Creator of Heaven and Earth. That’s what she said. With three words, “Let it be,” Mary reveals to the world that the way things are is not how things will be when the will of God is followed when the Kingdom of God is...

Luke 21:5-19 The Church has a word to speak in the face of rising Christian Nationalism and all the bigotry that comes with it. The One through whom all creation has been saved has a word for us. Paul wrote to the church in Rome, facing down persecution themselves, “faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the word of Christ.” The church tells the story that evil does not ge...

November 6, 2022 Ephesians 1:11-23 While we want to control, guide, and strategize our way into what is to come, the truth is that God is the One at the wheel. The role of the saints – past, present, and future – is to praise God, soak up God’s amazing grace, and be open to being used as vessels of mercy, grace, and compassion. Our story, saints of yesterday, day, and tomorrow is wrapped in the un...

October 9, 2022 Luke 17:11-19 Because we are recipients of a supernatural Grace, something we a difficulty naming but once we have experienced it, we are never the same, our posture and response to God are one of gratitude, shifting our worldview entirely. Worship goes from being a 60-minute weekly hostage situation to being the posture we assume throughout the week. Stewardship becomes joy-filled...

Luke 16:19-31 Jesus is not telling a parable about Hell, the final judgment, or heavenly rewards. Our lesson is not a story about the afterlife and how to get to where we all want to go. Jesus is extending an invitation to the Pharisees then and today, to his followers then and today, to live as though the Kingdom of God (his kingdom) is already among us. The Kingdom of God broke into the world th...

Luke 16:1-13 Through Grace, Jesus saves those respectability says are beyond saving. This parable is not about finances or management. It is a parable about new life. New life free from the weight and guilt and consequences of our sin. New life that comes to us by way of the unjust steward’s death to self. New life that is a gift from God, given to respectable people but also to the people ignored...

Jeremiah 2:4-13 According to Swiss theologian Karl Barth, all scripture and the entire Christian faith hang on the integrity of four little words from our text today: “Thus the Lord said….” Everything we believe as Christians stems from these four words. “Thus the Lord said….” God said creation would happen, and it did. God said Israel would be the shining star to the nations, and it is. God did n...

Isaiah 5, Isaiah 27, John 15 Parables of judgment always feel like a smack on the nose. Like a teammate, launch a firm chest pass your way when you are not ready, and instead of a quick layup, you have a broken nose and blood on your new sneakers. But the Good News in the doom and gloom of the parables of judgment is that judgment does not equal punishment. God does not tear down the walls of the...

Hosea 11:1-11 We often turn toward God’s love or God’s justice. This leads us to the thought that the God of the Hebrew Bible and the God of the New Testament are somehow different – the God of the Hebrew Bible is focused on justice and vengeance, while the God of the New Testament is concerned with love. Ignoring this tension ignores that tension reveals even more to us about God than we imagine....

Amos 8 Amos declared that the superficial religion of many – their Sunday morning best while not caring for the poor, going so far as to make a profit off the backs of the poor – was about to end. Resulting in their destruction. While it may not seem like it, the sending of Amos by God to the northern kingdom was an act of compassion and grace. God was all out of patience, and the summer fruit rep...

Amos 7 The prophets point out to the people of God where God is calling us to go when complacency takes root, and we miss the movement of God happening before our eyes. The prophet, then and now, has the task of bringing a word from God to the people. In the case of Amos, this word from God was to return to the will of God. Amos is one of six minor prophets in the Hebrew Bible. “Minor” describes t...

Galatians 5 Paul’s letter was not written for you. Paul’s letter, Paul’s letters, and all of the Holy Scriptures were written for the Church. The Body of Christ is assembled through the love of God our Creator, the faithfulness of Jesus Christ, and the power of the Holy Spirit. Paul writes, “the fruit of the Spirit is.” Singular. Not the “fruits of the Spirit are.” Do you notice the difference? Th...

Trinity Sunday John 16:12-15 June 12, 2022 The Holy Spirit will guide us. Jesus tells us the Holy Spirit will “take you by the hand and guide you into all the truth there is.” The Holy Spirit will not “draw attention to himself, but will make sense out of what is about to happen, indeed out of all that” Jesus “has done and said.” Jesus tells his disciples that they, we, will not be left on our own...