The Word Is Resistance

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: 1 - We are building up a new world (3x) Builders must be strong. 2 - Courage, sisters, don't get weary, courage, brothers, don't get weary. Courage, people, don't get weary, though the way be long. 3 - Rise, shine, give God glory (3x) Children of the light!

As "The Word Is Resistance" comes to completion, enjoy this final episode from Rev. Anne Dunlap, which includes brief reflections on the Magnificat and highlights offerings from 2 of our long-time listeners. Much gratitude for your presence with us over these 7 years! Transcript available here: https://surj.org/our-work/surj-faith/twir/

As "The Word Is Resistance" podcast comes to completion, we are wrapping up with 4 special "Parting Gift" episodes. For this episode, enjoy a group conversation with Liz Kearny, Jean Jeffress, and Brigitta Vieyra, hosted by Anne Dunlap, as they reflect on how the podcast has changed them and what parting gifts they hope listeners take with them as we all go home by another way. Transcript available here: surj.org/our-work/surj-faith/twir

As "The Word Is Resistance" podcast comes to completion, we are wrapping up with 4 special "Parting Gift" episodes. For this episode, enjoy a group conversation with M Jade Kaiser and Sharon Fennema, hosted by Anne Dunlap, as they reflect on their how the podcast has changed them and what parting gifts they hope listeners take with them as we all go home by another way. Transcript available here: surj.org/our-work/surj-faith/twir

As "The Word Is Resistance" podcast comes to completion, we are wrapping up with 4 special "Parting Gift" episodes. For this episode, enjoy a group conversation with OG contributors Rev. Anne Dunlap, Nichola Torbett, and Rev. Margaret Ernst, as they reflect on their how the podcast has changed them and what parting gifts they hope listeners take with them as we all go home by another way. Transcript available here: https://surj.org/our-work/surj-faith/twir/

Paul is writing to his dear ones in Thessalonica about how to keep up their resistance under Roman occupation. Spoiler alert: This work involves 1) debunking the lie empire tells them (us) about “peace and security” while 2) depending on the beloveds around them (us) to fight off the numbing spell of this lie so we can keep resisting together. Tune in for this episode with Rev. Liz Kearny to explore the connections between the themes of this text, the toxic theology of Christian Zionism fueling so much of the violence of this moment, and our role as white Christians in taking action to stop the genocide unfolding in Gaza. Transcript available here: https://surj.org/our-work/surj-faith/twir/

In this episode, Rev. M Jade Kaiser wonders what it means to spiritually prepare individually and collectively for both times of disaster and openings of freedom. What wise or foolish actions or non-actions are we taking in the present that will serve us come what may - tomorrow, next year, or generations to come? Transcript available here: https://surj.org/our-work/surj-faith/twir/

Join Rev. Anne Dunlap and Rev. Liz Kearny for a conversation about facing, embracing, wrestling with, and healing our lineages as white folx who seek to build up a new world. As we observe All Saints Day, where are the places of trauma in the stories of our own ancestors? What did they give up to assimilate into whiteness? Where did they show us how to resist oppression? With grounding in the lectionary's psalms for this day (1 and 90), how might we follow the path to the water that will impact the generations coming after us? Transcript available here: https://surj.org/our-work/surj-faith/twir/

In a world that wants to force us into either/or thinking, wants to push us to choose - with us or against us - Dr. Sharon Fennema explores Jesus' invitation to discern our callings beyond the binaries. Join in lamenting all that we have given over to Caesar, and in imagining what it would look like to give ourselves and our world over to Love. Transcript available here: surj.org/our-work/surj-faith/twir/

Rev. Liz Kearny was in Italy this month on a family trip and recorded these reflections from her hotel room in Rome after touring the Colosseum. After witnessing these remains of Rome's death machinery, Rev. Liz wanted to share some #WrestlingWithRomans bonus content as she connects what she saw at the Colosseum with what we've been learning together in this series on Paul's anti-empire missive to Gentile Christians. Transcript available here: https://surj.org/our-work/surj-faith/twir/

Paul doesn't shy away from practical matters in his letter to the Romans and this week's episode takes a look at his admonitions against letting differences divide us. Dr. Sharon Fennema explores contemporary and historical examples of the ways solidarity is a threat to empire and asks what these have to show us about resisting "divide and conquer" tactics and building the kind of community we are called to create as kindom-makers and Jesus-followers. Transcript available here: surj.org/our-work/surj-faith/twir/

Join Rev. Jean Jeffress as they wrestle with Romans 13:8-14. Paul is beginning to finalize his argument to the Roman Jesus-followers. He needs them to understand that what the love of Christ Jesus offers is belonging. And he really, really wants God's people to act like it.

What does grace mean? What does grace mean for white Christians hoping to resist white supremacy? Rev. Margaret Ernst wrestles with Romans 6:12-23 to help us get a view of grace as grounded in Paul's Jewish understandings of God's love, and as the gift of being invited to take action for liberation. Note: This episode for Pentecost 5A was posted late into the series. Sometimes wrestling takes longer than we think it will. Transcript available here: https://surj.org/our-work/surj-faith/twir/

This new reality Paul's been sharing with us - about everyone being included in a mighty tree as one beloved community - seems a long way off, doesn't it? Join Rev. Liz Kearny as she asks, “How do we get from here to there?” We can imagine that Paul's Gentile audience in Rome is asking the very same question. In response, Paul gives the church in Rome - and all of us - daily practices and ways of being that disrupt empire and help us build up a new world. Note: The opening and closing grounding moments in this episode use the words of Silvia Federici, quoted in an Instagram post from Chiara Francesca (linked in the transcript). Transcript available here: https://surj.org/our-work/surj-faith/twir/

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 suicide*** Transcript available here: https://surj.org/our-work/surj-faith/twir/

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-work/surj-faith/twir/

(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 here: https://surj.org/our-work/surj-faith/twir/

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 Pentecost, Year A, not the 3rd Sunday as Rev. Liz misspoke in this recording. Transcript available here: https://surj.org/our-work/surj-faith/twir/

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://surj.org/our-work/surj-faith/twir/

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, Ohio: https://www.thefreedombloc.org

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 With the Beloved Disciple (based on John 19:25-30) 4th reading: Women at the Burial (based on Matthew 27:57-61; Mark 15:42-47; Luke 23:50-56) Transcript available here: https://surj.org/our-work/surj-faith/twir/

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? Transcript available here: https://surj.org/our-work/surj-faith/twir/

Join Rev. Jean Jeffress as they examine different interpretations of the story of Jesus and Samaritan women. 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 just to be thorough.

In this bonus episode, M hosts Rev. Dr. Tyler Schwaller for a discussion on the Genesis text. Tyler shares about ancient and creative interpretations that draw out power struggles, gender, and the divine within all of us. Transcript available here: https://surj.org/our-work/surj-faith/twir/

What's going with Jesus and the tempter in the wilderness? Join M as they dig into how the tempations are readying Jesus for the work to come. This Lent, #TheWordIsResistance crew will be focusing on pushing back on antisemitic and anti-Jewish interpretations of the lectionary gospel readings. For more resources on fighting antisemitism, go here: bit.ly/CounterASResources Transcript available here: https://surj.org/our-work/surj-faith/twir/

What happens when we read the Ash Wednesday gospel selection in the context of ashes? Join Sharon Fennema in considering what ash makes possible, and what they can teach us about fighting antisemitism. This Lent, the Word Is Resistance crew will be focusing on pushing back on antisemitic and anti-Jewish interpretations of the lectionary gospel readings. For more resources on fighting antisemitism, go here: https://bit.ly/CounterASResources Transcript available here: https://surj.org/our-work/surj-faith/twir/

In the Transfiguration story, Jesus meets his ancestors to resource him for the fight to come. Nichola Torbett reminds us that our ancestors are familial, spiritual, and also the land itself, and that we as white christians can and must also call on our ancestors to resource us in these challenging times. Transcript available here: https://surj.org/our-work/surj-faith/twir/

Contrary to what we are traditionally taught about Matthew 5:21-37, Jesus is honoring and deepening Torah: teaching his community how to fulfill it, not abolish it. Join Rev. Kelsey Beebe to learn more about what Jesus is actually up to in this part of the Sermon on the Mount, and how that can help us as white Christians committed to anti-racism. Transcript available here: https://surj.org/our-work/surj-faith/twir/

What does it mean to be the "salt of the earth" and the "light of the world," in Jesus's teaching in Matthew 5? Join Nichola Torbett in this exploration of how white folks can remember and recover our own saltiness as we navigate towards freedom. Transcript with action links available here: https://surj.org/our-work/surj-faith/twir/

What happens when we crack through surface readings of the Beatitudes that seem to mean we're supposed to just be nice and not complain? Join Rev. Anne Dunlap as she explores this famous and often sanitized set of teachings from Jesus. Transcript available here: https://surj.org/our-work/surj-faith/twir/ Info and action to #StopCopCity and demand justice for Tortuguita available here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UNZfP4CKioMhDev6iZtRnMUspLk54awl0jswxHAvsDo/edit?usp=sharing

TWIR 1.22.23 Perfectly United by The Word Is Resistance

Join Rev. Jean Jeffress as they nerd out on the Magi, looking at the story from a literary perspective, and anwering the question, why were they needed for us to know who Jesus is? Focus passage Matthew 2:1-12

Join the Rev. Liz Kearny as she immerses us in the story of King Herod, the magi, the holy family and their communities in Matthew 2. Find yourself in the narrative and ask, “What choices can I make today to resist empire wherever I am? What decisions in my daily life will add to our collective movement towards liberation?" Transcript available here: https://surj.org/our-work/surj-faith/twir/

Join Nichola Torbett for an exploration of the ways that patriarchy and white supremacy contribute to lovelessness in our body politic and what it means for love to be born anew amidst all of that. The focus scripture is Joseph's dream in Matthew 1: 18-25.

What do Isaiah's words of disruptive joy have to say to a weary, wounded people living through exile? How can practices of abundance sustain and renew us during seasons of heaviness in our movements? What do white folks have to gain from joining the communities most impacted by systems of oppression as they embody the new world Isaiah imagines, right there in the midst of the old one that is languishing all around us? Join Rev. Liz Kearny for a resistance word from Isaiah 35:1-10 on this Advent Sunday of Joy. Transcript available here: https://surj.org/our-work/surj-faith/twir/