The Word As Resistance

What is Paul saying about what it means to be a people of transformation? Join Brigitta Vieyra in an exploration of how radical tenderness is a liberatory spiritual disposition of interdependence. Transcript available here: https://surj.org/our-work/surj-faith/twir/

All means all. Join Rev. Anne Dunlap as she sorts through trees and branches and calluses and grafts in Romans 11 to discover that what Paul really does mean is: All. Means. All. Transcript available here: https://surj.org/our-work/surj-faith/twir/

What is the good news that Paul longs for his beloveds to tell each other again and again, in the midst of Rome’s lies? Join Rev. Liz Kearny in unlearning what the empire’s religion has taught us about “confessing with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believing in your heart that God raised him from the dead,” and find out what Paul says will actually save us. ***Content warning: Mention of suicid...

What does Paul actually think about his own Jewish people? Does the love song he sings in Romans 9: 1-5 offer us some clues? (Hint: it is a love song, after all). Join Rev. Anne Dunlap for this episode that definitely required some wrestling with so many layers and burdens of interpretation that she needed multiple metaphors to find a way through. Transcript available here: https://surj.org/our-wo...

(So good we accidentally posted it twice!) Who do we imagine when we read "us" in the book of Romans? When is "us" just a substitute for dominant and normalized? When is "us" collective liberation? Sharon Fennema explores these questions in starts and stops as she wonders what it means for God to be "for us" as white Christians with access to privilege and dominant culture Transcript available her...

Who do we imagine when we read "us" in the book of Romans? When is "us" just a substitute for dominant and normalized? When is "us" collective liberation? Sharon Fennema explores these questions in starts and stops as she wonders what it means for God to be "for us" as white Christians with access to privilege and dominant culture. Transcript available here: surj.org/our-work/surj-faith/twir/

So many of us were taught that Paul teaches us that our bodies are shameful, sinful even. Is there any other way to understand Romans 8:12-25? What would it mean if there were? Join Rev. Anne Dunlap for our latest episode in our #WrestlingWithRomans series! Transcript available here: https://surj.org/our-work/surj-faith/twir/

Wrestle with Romans 8:1-11 with Brigitta Vieyra to dissect how race is a modern, colonial invention that Paul urges divesting from as a daily act of resistance. Together, we’ll also consider how the sacred, holy work of reimagining oneself beyond and away from whiteness requires us to become spiritual revolutionaries needed for our time.

Consider with Rev. Liz Kearny all the ways we have felt hopeless or overwhelmed by despair when we realize how thoroughly systems of oppression have saturated our very ways of being. How does Paul make space for us in Romans 7 to get honest about that? What is the first step from those places of despair onto the pathway towards transformation? *Note: This podcast is for the 6th Sunday after Pentec...

Join Jean Jeffress and Nichola Torbett as they talk to a live audience at the Northern Californa Nevada Conference of the United Church of Christ Annual Gathering. We explain to people unfamiliar with the podcast what it is and what it does. And we have a conversation from Paul's letter to the Romans as part of our #WrestlingWithRomans series

Explore Romans 5:1-8 with the Rev. Liz Kearny as she learns how to reclaim this heavyweight text of the New Testament from the ways it has been co-opted by empire. What does it mean to remember with our whole selves that Abraham and Jesus are indeed our ancestors? How can we follow them in the path of faithful resistance to every system that seeks to destroy life? Transcript available here: https:...

Our new series, #WrestlingWithRomans, starts off with Rev. Anne Dunlap wrestling with the concept of justification and what Paul could possibly mean by invoking the faith of Abraham. Hint: It's not about arguing that Christianity is better than Judaism. Transcript available here: https://surj.org/our-work/surj-faith/twir/

"The Great Commission" in Matthew 28: 16-20 has long been used as a harmful loyalty oath to empire and a punishing god. Rev. Anne Dunlap asks if we can understand this text in a way that helps us declare our loyalty to the ways of justice and community and intimacy and liberation. https://surj.org/our-work/surj-faith/twir/

Join Dr. Sharon Fennema to feel into what these pentecosts of tender breath in the Gospel of John are offering us in this moment. Transcript available here: https://surj.org/our-work/surj-faith/twir/

What can a generative framework for holy resistance look like when we start thinking of Jesus less as martyr and more as witness? Join Rev. M Jade Kaiser as we ask how orienting ourselves towards attending our mistakes and failure, even when we feel guilt and shame by being a witness is a radical work of repair.

Ponder with the Rev. Liz Kearny what Jesus has to teach us about following our failures, limitations, and frailties to the truth: that it's community that holds the work of liberation.

Join Jean Jeffress as they discuss navigating and failure to navigate their own privilige and the ways in which the church is a hot mess during our Eastertide #FailureLab series. Transcript available here: https://surj.org/our-work/surj-faith/twir/

How do we recognize resurrection in a world that so rarely recognizes people as children of God? Join Nichola Torbett as she explores the failures and mistakes in the Emmaus Road story from the gospel of Luke. GoFundMe for Ralph Jarl: https://www.gofundme.com/f/nf36y-cover-medical-expenses Donate to SURJ: https://surj.org/give/ Support #JusticeForJayland on-the-ground Black organizing in Akron, Oh...

In this episode, Dr. Sharon Fennema engages doubting Thomas in a failure lab, exploring the ways we often require proof before believing the truth of someone’s experience with racism and racial harm. How can we stop demanding proof of wounds in our antiracist work? Transcript Available here: https://surj.org/our-work/surj-faith/twir/

"Attention is the beginning of devotion." (Mary Oliver) On Easter, what resistance lessons can Mary Magdalene teach us about the power of waiting and weeping? Join Brigitta Vieyra in reflecting on how the act of bearing witness can open us up to surprising possibilities of new beginnings. Transcript available here: https://surj.org/our-work/surj-faith/twir/

Center your hearts and minds for Holy Week by listening to the stories of the women who walked alongside Christ in his final days. This beautiful episode is from Rev. Kelsey Beebe. 1st reading: Woman Anointing Jesus' Feet (based on Matthew 26: 6-13; Mark 14:3-9) 2nd reading: Women Watching & Ministering to Jesus When He Died (based on Matthew 27:55-56; Mark 15:33-41) 3rd reading: Jesus' Mother Wit...

Palm Sunday was not a celebratory parade, but a confrontational protest. Together, we go searching to find a symbol of resistance to sustain us in this movement for these times. Join Brigitta Vieyra in exploring how the donkey in the Palm Sunday story invites us all to untie ourselves from empire in a collective spirituality of revolt. Transcript available here: surj.org/our-work/surj-faith/twir/

Ruby Sales says that empires destroy intimacy. Join Rev. Anne Dunlap as she applies that declaration to our understanding of the story of Jesus raising Lazarus, and how the binaries there might not be what we've been taught at all. Transcript available here: https://surj.org/our-work/surj-faith/twir/

Journey with Rev. Liz Kearny as she gets into some real talk with John, the Gospel writer, about the way he tells the story in John 9. How might understanding John’s context help us see our own patterns of trying to find belonging in who we are against, rather than in solidarity with one another? As we resist anti-Jewish rhetoric in this text, how might we find our way back to each other? Transcri...

Join Rev. Jean Jeffress as they examine different interpretations of the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman. From Musa Dube's post-colonial interpretation, to Rev. Anne Dunlap's organizing against Rome interpretation to the I'm just so f***ing thirsty for justice interpretation. Rev. Jean throws in a little Good Friday for good measure just to be thorough. Transcript available here: https://su...