January 25 and February 1 — Church Anew

January 25, 2026

Previous Testomony: Isaiah 9:1-4

Rev. Dr. Walter Brueggemann, “On Utterance”

The poem recollects the violent days of the Guide of Judges and a specific raid by the Midianites, and the violent destruction of weapons of battle (Judges 6:1-6). The rhetoric permits that “disarmament” is itself one thing of an act of violence, a far cry from good insurance policies of “arms limitation.” I think that we mumble after we pray to God as peace-maker. We half hope that God will mightily intrude into our war-making world. However we additionally know that such an intrusion is past our horizon, and so we dare to think about that peace-making is certainly a human activity.

(Must you be intrigued by the hymn talked about in Dr. Brueggemann’s publish, you could discover a pattern prepared to listen to and a duplicate of the music accessible for buy at The Hymnary. )

Narrative Lectionary: John 3:1-21

Rev. Dr. Walter Brueggemann, “Wake/Woke”

Nicodemus has the grace to current himself to Jesus for instruction; he’s nonetheless bamboozled and bewildered by the educating of Jesus that invitations him again to an elemental innocence. The standing to which Jesus invitations Nicodemus would require of him a readiness to forego the facility and leverage of his nice studying. However then, that’s precisely how the gospel comes at us. We’re required to surrender the props we have now acquired, to current ourselves in open-handed vulnerability for presents which are important to our lives that we can not generate for ourselves. 

To be “woke up” is to have the ability to acknowledge that our greatest certitudes are displaced and negated by the order of God’s love in and for the world. That drive of affection requires that we relinquish the administration of our lives and yield ourselves to the practices of neighborliness that make newness amongst us doable. In contrast, the so-called “woke” don’t anticipate or need newness however solely a continuing extraction of privilege and benefit. Being “woke up,” in distinction, leads us to the neighbor.

February 1, 2026

Gospel: Matthew 5:1-12

Rev. Dr. Walter Brueggemann, “Talking Alternatively”

We’ve got two renderings that serve two totally different functions in two totally different interpretations. Whereas Luke is preoccupied with financial issues, Matthew is targeted on Judaism that had turn out to be not more than professional forma train of non secular obligation. We should merely allow the 2 readings to have their say, and never give both one precedence over the opposite.

Dr. Raj Nadella, “The Sower and the Seed and Black Lives Matter”

The blessed in Matthew are usually not those that are lucky sufficient to fall on good soil, profit from favorable buildings, and flourish. Within the Beatitudes (5:3-11), Jesus proclaims blessed are those who mourn, the meek, the marginalized, and the persecuted.