Gird Up Your Loins 2/5

The Indictment. Among other things, Jeremiah indicts Judah (on God’s behalf) for their economic practices – not just individual offenses committed against the poor, but an economic system that favors the rich and ignores (or tramples) the needy. And the religious establishment supports it all (v. 31). Watch out, says the prophet! It is appalling! Like, God seems *actually* shocked. There’s just not too much that makes God mad like this.

To tell us your thoughts on this sermon, click through to the web posting and leave us a comment. Or, find us on social media: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Or, email us the old-fashioned way: info@galileochurch.org. To contribute financially to the ongoing ministry of Galileo Church, find us on Venmo, Patreon, or PayPal, or just send a check to 6563 Teague Rd., Fort Worth, TX 76140.

Gird Up Your Loins 1/5

The call. Jeremiah has a famous call narrative. It comes in a very specific historical period; God’s work is never in the abstract but always deeply situational/contextual. This call includes the instruction to “gird up your loins” (v. 17), and surely there are generalizable instructions here for all who heed God’s call to purposeful living: “Why am I here? What am I for?” We are not all prophets like Jeremiah, but we are all invited to participate with God in our specific time and place.

To tell us your thoughts on this sermon, click through to the web posting and leave us a comment. Or, find us on social media: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Or, email us the old-fashioned way: info@galileochurch.org. To contribute financially to the ongoing ministry of Galileo Church, find us on Venmo, Patreon, or PayPal, or just send a check to 6563 Teague Rd., Fort Worth, TX 76140.

Deep Water: Contemplating Baptism 7/7

The Centurion’s Pais. Oh this is a hard story, given all that we now know about enslavement, about sex between slaveowner and enslaved person, about power differentials… Does Jesus know these things? Is it a lovely story about queer love, or a painful story about Jesus’s tacit endorsement of a caste system? How do we recover a story like this from under layers of new understanding? What does it mean for us now? Could a sermon be a teaching opportunity for critical thinking/reading that is still faithfully exploring Jesus’s identity? Like, “Here is reading #1… here is reading #2… here is reading #3… here is what it means to receive the complications and confusion without losing your mind or your faith…”

To tell us your thoughts on this sermon, click through to the web posting and leave us a comment. Or, find us on social media: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Or, email us the old-fashioned way: info@galileochurch.org. To contribute financially to the ongoing ministry of Galileo Church, find us on Venmo, Patreon, or PayPal, or just send a check to 6563 Teague Rd., Fort Worth, TX 76140.

Deep Water: Contemplating Baptism 6/7

A Life Well-Lived. Someone said about Betty White, “Live your life so that when you die at 99, they will say it was too soon.” I say about Dan Patrick, “Live your life so that when you get Covid, no one will rejoice over your suffering and hope for your demise.” These little picture-stories from Jesus are about the quality of a life well-lived on the foundations of his example – what does it look like? In whom, other than him, have we seen it? Also, we dedicated a baby this Sunday!

To tell us your thoughts on this sermon, click through to the web posting and leave us a comment. Or, find us on social media: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Or, email us the old-fashioned way: info@galileochurch.org. To contribute financially to the ongoing ministry of Galileo Church, find us on Venmo, Patreon, or PayPal, or just send a check to 6563 Teague Rd., Fort Worth, TX 76140.

Deep Water: Contemplating Baptism 5/7

Blessings and Woes, Love and Hate. There’s an economic punch in the Sermon on the Plain – “blessed are the poor/hungry; woe to the rich/well-fed.” But there’s also this reputational component – do people speak well of you (woe!), or defame your character (bless!)? The relationship between those two is worth exploring, as we (still) tend to villainize the poor and assume good things about the wealthy. I don’t mean the super-wealthy – just the normally wealthy, as if they followed the rules and worked hard and blah blah blah. This is the lie of capitalism – that good people can prove their goodness by working the system to their advantage. Jesus calls bullshit.

Deep Water: Contemplating Baptism 4/7

New Wine, New People, New Practice. Levi throws a party for Jesus; it makes people mad. Jesus eats and drinks all the time; it makes people suspicious. He’s experiencing too much joy with all the wrong people, and religion shouldn’t feel that way? His metaphor about wine and wineskins means new people, new practice. “It’s supposed to be delicious, you dingbats.” 

To tell us your thoughts on this sermon, click through to the web posting and leave us a comment. Or, find us on social media: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Or, email us the old-fashioned way: info@galileochurch.org. To contribute financially to the ongoing ministry of Galileo Church, find us on Venmo, Patreon, or PayPal, or just send a check to 6563 Teague Rd., Fort Worth, TX 76140.

Deep Water: Contemplating Baptism 3/7

Deep Water. This is Luke’s story alone, where Jesus invites potential disciples to fish in the “deep water.” Can we talk about that allegorically? Like, what is the deep water of our own Christian discipleship? Deeper than “going to church,” deeper than a list of do’s and don’t’s, deeper contemplation of God’s power and presence than we’ve been invited to before… 

To tell us your thoughts on this sermon, click through to the web posting and leave us a comment. Or, find us on social media: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Or, email us the old-fashioned way: info@galileochurch.org. To contribute financially to the ongoing ministry of Galileo Church, find us on Venmo, Patreon, or PayPal, or just send a check to 6563 Teague Rd., Fort Worth, TX 76140.

Deep Water: Contemplating Baptism 2/7

This episode of That’s What She Said features an original song written by Emma J, a musician from Alabama who found us on TikTok and joined our Inside Out livestream worship community. They recently released an EP, Generation Now, and you can check it out on Spotify here: https://open.spotify.com/album/1il4TaH5AjpbsWaKs3gchk?si=uHNN6WYMRzeJStAd_mJvVQ

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Good News? It Depends. We come back to this message again and again at Galileo: the gospel is good news or terrible news depending on the position of the hearer. If you’re waiting to hear that God especially loves you, and hates all the same people you hate, it’s gonna sting. This is the inaugural event of Jesus’s ministry in Luke’s gospel, and it makes his hearers so mad they try to kill him – already! 

To tell us your thoughts on this sermon, click through to the web posting and leave us a comment. Or, find us on social media: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Or, email us the old-fashioned way: info@galileochurch.org. To contribute financially to the ongoing ministry of Galileo Church, find us on Venmo, Patreon, or PayPal, or just send a check to 6563 Teague Rd., Fort Worth, TX 76140.

Deep Water: Contemplating Baptism 1/7

Don’t Get It Twisted. The wildest thing about saying “yes” to God is, the human mind (or a personified Enemy, you decide) can come up with a million ways to twist religious commitment into US getting what WE want. The one with a new (or renewed) enthusiasm for Christian faith can imagine all kinds of ways that this is going to make life better, easier, more prosperous… but we’re invited here to be extremely skeptical of that. 

To tell us your thoughts on this sermon, click through to the web posting and leave us a comment. Or, find us on social media: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Or, email us the old-fashioned way: info@galileochurch.org. To contribute financially to the ongoing ministry of Galileo Church, find us on Venmo, Patreon, or PayPal, or just send a check to 6563 Teague Rd., Fort Worth, TX 76140.

Baby Driver 8/8

Son of God, Son of Humanity. This is Jesus, blissfully in tune with God and the human family, the mediator who understands us both, the peacemaker, the one who stands in the gap, Repairer of the Breach, Restorer of Streets to Live In.

To tell us your thoughts on this sermon, click through to the web posting and leave us a comment. Or, find us on social media: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Or, email us the old-fashioned way: info@galileochurch.org. To contribute financially to the ongoing ministry of Galileo Church, find us on Venmo, Patreon, or PayPal, or just send a check to 6563 Teague Rd., Fort Worth, TX 76140.

Baby Driver 7/8

The kids are all right. If last Sunday honored the long lifetime wait, this Sunday speaks to the possibility of youth as a revelation of what God is going to do next. Here, God is revealed as Jesus’s “father” (much to Joseph’s chagrin, I imagine), and we catch the foreshadowing of his provocative engagement with scripture and VRPs as he begins to imagine what comes next.

To tell us your thoughts on this sermon, click through to the web posting and leave us a comment. Or, find us on social media: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Or, email us the old-fashioned way: info@galileochurch.org. To contribute financially to the ongoing ministry of Galileo Church, find us on Venmo, Patreon, or PayPal, or just send a check to 6563 Teague Rd., Fort Worth, TX 76140.

Baby Driver 6/8

What if we wait our whole lives... We live accelerated lives. Everything is fast. But the life of faith is s-l-o-w. On God’s timeline, you could wait your whole life, fasting and praying in the temple, for one glimpse of one baby, and say “I can die now.” We’re invited to see our lives, our generation, as one in a long line of the faithful, stretching out behind and before us, like Simeon, like Anna.

To tell us your thoughts on this sermon, click through to the web posting and leave us a comment. Or, find us on social media: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Or, email us the old-fashioned way: info@galileochurch.org. To contribute financially to the ongoing ministry of Galileo Church, find us on Venmo, Patreon, or PayPal, or just send a check to 6563 Teague Rd., Fort Worth, TX 76140.

Baby Driver 5/8

The nobility of the shitty job. Out of everybody the angels could have appeared to that night – shepherds! Was everyone else too busy to see them? Too focused to look up? In bed, with the privilege of daytime work? Could we find here a redemption of our own shitty jobs – the ones we’ve had, the ones we have now? Does God’s favor extend to people who are working tonight, on Christmas Eve?

To tell us your thoughts on this sermon, click through to the web posting and leave us a comment. Or, find us on social media: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Or, email us the old-fashioned way: info@galileochurch.org. To contribute financially to the ongoing ministry of Galileo Church, find us on Venmo, Patreon, or PayPal, or just send a check to 6563 Teague Rd., Fort Worth, TX 76140.

Baby Driver 4/8

Beautiful losers. Mary is nobody from nowhere, young and in trouble, no Planned Parenthood in sight, her life basically over. But she sings of her own empowerment, of the advantage that comes to those who are last in this world. God’s imagined future is her fuel. 

To tell us your thoughts on this sermon, click through to the web posting and leave us a comment. Or, find us on social media: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Or, email us the old-fashioned way: info@galileochurch.org. To contribute financially to the ongoing ministry of Galileo Church, find us on Venmo, Patreon, or PayPal, or just send a check to 6563 Teague Rd., Fort Worth, TX 76140.

Baby Driver 3/8

New regime, new economy. John’s instructions to those who ask how to prepare for the coming messiah are all economic (vv. 10-14). How does Jesus coming into the world and into our lives disrupt our own economies?

To tell us your thoughts on this sermon, click through to the web posting and leave us a comment. Or, find us on social media: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Or, email us the old-fashioned way: info@galileochurch.org. To contribute financially to the ongoing ministry of Galileo Church, find us on Venmo, Patreon, or PayPal, or just send a check to 6563 Teague Rd., Fort Worth, TX 76140.

Baby Driver 2/8

Tender mercies for our enemies, too? In a polarized political and relational climate, how do we maintain our integrity while also interfacing with humans we disagree with and maybe even hate?

To tell us your thoughts on this sermon, click through to the web posting and leave us a comment. Or, find us on social media: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Or, email us the old-fashioned way: info@galileochurch.org. To contribute financially to the ongoing ministry of Galileo Church, find us on Venmo, Patreon, or PayPal, or just send a check to 6563 Teague Rd., Fort Worth, TX 76140.

Baby Driver 1/8

Apocalypse or climate change? This story starts at the end: Jesus ranting about seas rising, nations falling, natural disasters that portend a calamitous future. It sounds all too real right now. What is the response of the faithful to climate change? What has God to do with ecodisaster? 

To tell us your thoughts on this sermon, click through to the web posting and leave us a comment. Or, find us on social media: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Or, email us the old-fashioned way: info@galileochurch.org. To contribute financially to the ongoing ministry of Galileo Church, find us on Venmo, Patreon, or PayPal, or just send a check to 6563 Teague Rd., Fort Worth, TX 76140.

The Cries of Our Hearts 8/8

We cry out for our stories to be believed. Apprentice Evangelist Remi Shores finishes our series with a text from John. The man born blind shows us how to listen to the wisdom in our bodies, even when others won’t. Others may cast you out, but Jesus will find you.

To tell us your thoughts on this sermon, click through to the web posting and leave us a comment. Or, find us on social media: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Or, email us the old-fashioned way: info@galileochurch.org. To contribute financially to the ongoing ministry of Galileo Church, find us on Venmo, Patreon, or PayPal, or just send a check to 6563 Teague Rd., Fort Worth, TX 76140.

The Cries of Our Hearts 7/8

We cry out for the capacity to love rightly and well. Augustine defined sin as “disordered love” – loving God/others/self with the wrong emphasis or priority. And that’s helpful. But is it also possible that we find our capacity for love diminished in this age? That our hearts have hardened somewhat as a defense mechanism in a world that does not reward softness? How can the church function as a “school for love” (McLaren), a “dojo for love” (Scandrette), where we practice opening our hearts in safe/strong space?

To tell us your thoughts on this sermon, click through to the web posting and leave us a comment. Or, find us on social media: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Or, email us the old-fashioned way: info@galileochurch.org. To contribute financially to the ongoing ministry of Galileo Church, find us on Venmo, Patreon, or PayPal, or just send a check to 6563 Teague Rd., Fort Worth, TX 76140.

The Cries of Our Hearts 6/8

We cry out for the right-sizing of empire. Most of Jesus’s subversion of empire is subtle – the palm parade satire, e.g.; or his near-constant declaration of God’s reign (this is the charge that will actually lead to a death sentence in an imperial court). The story about paying taxes is one of the rare times Jesus addresses empire overtly – and he calls not for governmental overthrow or “Christian nationalism”; he has no expectation that the empire will “legislate morality.” Rather, he advises… what, exactly? to we who follow him as citizens of empire?

To tell us your thoughts on this sermon, click through to the web posting and leave us a comment. Or, find us on social media: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Or, email us the old-fashioned way: info@galileochurch.org. To contribute financially to the ongoing ministry of Galileo Church, find us on Venmo, Patreon, or PayPal, or just send a check to 6563 Teague Rd., Fort Worth, TX 76140.