Fun fact: the enews note is often more difficult to write than a sermon. To be honest, I don’t really have words for this edition of the This Week @ Central. 

There are some days when I wake up and think “I’m not built for this, maybe tomorrow I’ll wake up with a different call.” And there are other days when I wake up and think “the heavens are singing the glories of God and somehow I’ve ended up in the chorus of creation that’s shouting for joy… might as well enjoy it.”

In the past week, I’ve thought about baptism and the wilderness, the collapse and emergence of a new political order, continued threats from AI(I am very very bearish on this), concepts of citizenship, and the Jesus problem that is now very apparent to me in the American church.

Some of those thoughts will preach and some of them will not! For this Sunday, I think you’ll hear something tied to wilderness, citizenship, and the Jesus problem in the American church… all through the lens of our lectionary texts. The real goal is for us to consider memories and new understandings of hope. A lot of this is inspired by these words from Rev. Dr. Cody Sanders:

Feral hope is a hope that is driven into the wilderness by the Spirit, alongside Jesus emerging from the baptismal waters in the Synoptic Gospels. It is hope dashed and born again, like the disciples moving all along the way of Jesus—misunderstanding, halting, sometimes regressing, yet buoyed by surprise and wonder and the intrigue of companions moving along a winding pathway. Feral hope is a hope that travels to the grave—the place of death, the aftermath of violence—unsuspecting. Like the women coming to the tomb of their crucified beloved not to witness resurrection, but to anoint a corpse with spices and tears. It is a hope-against-hope, a hope acquainted with hopelessness, a hope born of the alchemy of grief and wonder. Feral hope is radical hope.

In my last sermon, I briefly noted that the promise of the world to come is not guaranteed to be made known in our time, regardless of how much work we put towards that world coming into being. I want to be in conversation with those words offered by Rev. Sanders, because he talked about this before me, and I happen to think that we are pointing at the concept for our faith and its practice in the 21st century. His full article, called Feral Hope for Futurist Leaders, (just 10 pages) can be read here.

Aside from the above, we have a few updates on Sunday plans, which you can read about below:

– How the Bible Actually Works will not meet.

– Asset Mapping is postponed and will take place on February 1.

– our plan for worship will be announced by midday tomorrow(Saturday), which is what most churches around us are planning to do too. 

If worship is cancelled, we will share my sermon via email, but unfortunately are not able to share the wonderful music that our choir would have offered. We will also not gather online. Please stay tuned to your email or our Facebook page for that announcement tomorrow!

I started this note saying I had no words, and yet here we are. 

Be good to yourselves and one another, and I will see you Sunday (or a Sunday soon),

Thomas