Daniel Hazel

God's plan for a hope and a future:
-Seek peace in community
-Pursue the wellbeing of the community
-Pray to God for the community

God's plan of hope and future was, "Many of you will never see your home again." But. The real beauty of "hope and a future" is found in v. 7, which shows what it means to be a neighbor.

Jeremiah 29:11 is often misused. The original audience heard the "plans to give you hope and a future" in the context of v. 10, which said the exile would last 70 years.

A great reminder on Ash Wednesday--

"Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?"
Isaiah 58:6

Christian Nationalism confuses "the American way of the life" with the gospel. It forgets the American church is a small part of the global and universal Kingdom of God.

You have to be an idiot to think this is good for America, never mind the rest of the world.

“We witness today that God has put us in the center of this justice movement.”

Pursuing this admist the tension of the social realities that come with empire, which prioritizes:
-low economic mobility
-perpetual war (because the empire is always under threat)
-loss of civil rights
-assaults against the LGBTQIA+ community

May we create spaces of hope that joins God's mission of redemption, reconicliation, and restoration.

"[Jesus] forgave those who repented as well as those who did not, but he reconciled with the former while inviting the latter to take steps to be reconciled to God"
- Emily Swan

We subvert the empire
"every time the Book is opened,
every time the bread is broken,
every time the cup is poured out
every time the towel is wrapped around the feet of a begger."
- Walter Brueggemann

A public missiology suggests that we are welcome at God's table as much as we welcome the other.

Nothing has changed.

We can’t believe that advertising is called free speech!
We can’t believe that love is called for sale!
We can’t believe that you think there are two political parties!
We can’t believe that you repeat the word ‘democracy’ like it’s liturgical chant from a lost religion!”

- The Reverend Billy Talen

We can’t believe that racism is called crime fighting!
We can’t believe that sweatshops are called efficiency!
We can’t believe that a mall is called the neighborhood!

“We can’t believe that bomb is called security.
We can’t believe that monopoly is called democracy.
We can’t believe that gasoline prices are called foreign policy.

"to purify that which IS BECOMING. That is hope!"

A poem by Bud Osborn

Lately my daily prayer has been Habakkuk 2:14, which says, "But the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea." Through this, I am reminded that the knowledge of God is found in the care for the vulnerable.

Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.

All deserve dignity.
All deserve decency.

Our rhetoric matter.
Our actions matter.

Christians are called to bear witness to the irreducibility of our neighbor.

Prophetic imagination has to break the bubble the empire constructs. Prophetic imagination says that God is here; our neighbor is here.

Our immegrant neighbor.
Our gay neighbor.
Our muslim neighbor.
Our trans neighbor.
Our disabled neighbor.

"Militarization of our society, in the name of security or of patriotism, serves to assure perpetual war in order to maintain supremacy in the world."
- Walter Brueggemann

I love children’s books that show what a better world looks like. These three are my favorites that talk about community, inclusion, mental health, and justice. All beautiful and deeply theological.

"Justice, then, is more than giving to each what is due or treating all cases equally. It requires attention to our diversities, particularly to those most marginalized. Simply put, justice involves uncovering, understanding, and rejecting oppression."
Emilie M. Townes

9 feels right

Trump says he wants the U.S. to take ownership of the Gaza Strip Trump said he and Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu talked Tuesday about relocating Palestinians and leveling Gaza, which he suggested could be the "Riviera of the Middle East" under U.S. ownership.

Ethnic cleansing. The President of the United States is describing ethnic cleansing in very plain terms.

The completion of the ethnic cleansing of Gaza has been stated as the official position of the USA.

Lord, have mercy.

Wining becomes more important than helping bring in the Kingdom, the Realm of God. Winning--doing it my way or no way--becomes the doctrinal creed that fuels the piety of annihilation that is often the refuse of triumphalism."
Emilie Townes, circa 2006

"The problem with Christian triumphalism is that it gets away from being Christian so quickly. The goal is to win, dominate, conquer, convert--at all costs--even if that cost means lying, stealing, killing, and subverting justice.

A western-centric faith views the average Christian as a white male from the USA, but when considering the movement of God in a global context, the average Christian is more like a Nigerian woman. So much changes with a multiethnic Christian praxis.

"Eurocentric 'orthodoxy' does not have the monopoly on Christian thought."
@pastortrey05.com, Theologizin' Bigger, pg. 50