Somersaults on a Mountainside 4/5

The Rains Came Down and the Flood Came Up. In this final batch of sayings (which are less thematically unified than the previous chapters), Jesus offers what we could call “rabbinic advice” for how to condition one’s spirit for harder times to come. Because it’s going to rain soon, and tidal waves of sorrow will wipe out poorly built shelters. What does Present Me do to gift Future Me with the resilience she needs to weather the storm?

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 Zelle (generosity@galileohurch.org), or just send a check to P.O. Box 668, Kennedale, TX 76060

Somersaults on a Mountainside 3/5

How to Worship God, Not Money. When he smashes together the topics of religious practices (prayer, almsgiving, fasting) and financial practices (hoarding, worrying), Jesus reveals something big: our routinized religious piety runs the risk of disingenuousness, while we show by our output of emotional energy around money where our real worship is concentrated.

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 Zelle (generosity@galileohurch.org), or just send a check to P.O. Box 668, Kennedale, TX 76060

Somersaults on a Mountainside 2/5

A Crisis of Authority. Six times, Jesus speaks a formula that is intended to provoke a crisis in the listeners’ hearts: “You have heard it said... But I say to you...” Does he mean to open up the conversation about calcified religious law, doubling down on personal moral agency while releasing us from the scrutiny of rigorous watchdogs? (Yes.)

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 Zelle (generosity@galileohurch.org), or just send a check to P.O. Box 668, Kennedale, TX 76060

Somersaults on a Mountainside 1/5

Blessed Are the Who Again? This is where Jesus pokes the bears of empire, of religion, of capitalism – of all the systems that compete to define “success” and assign power to the “winners.” For him to claim God’s blessing on the losers – and furthermore to name them as the influencers, the “salt” and “light” for the rest of us – is a weird, wild flex.

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 Zelle (generosity@galileohurch.org), or just send a check to P.O. Box 668, Kennedale, TX 76060

Come On Up to the House 6/6

“No More a Stranger or a Guest, But Like a Child at Home.” God’s cosmic plan of salvation can be described as “reconciliation” – the putting back together that which has been separated – people from people, people from God, people from the earth – all is re-tethered, interdependent, in the household of God.

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 Zelle (generosity@galileohurch.org), or just send a check to P.O. Box 668, Kennedale, TX 76060

Come On Up to the House 5/6

I Was a Stranger, and You Welcomed Me. The church has long understood itself as an organization that provides basic necessities like food and clothing to those “less fortunate.” Does the church likewise have an obligation to provide accompaniment and community to those who are lonely? What if that is the gospel for our disconnected, disconsolate age?

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 Zelle (generosity@galileohurch.org), or just send a check to P.O. Box 668, Kennedale, TX 76060

Come On Up to the House 4/6

Welcoming Jesus. Jesus depended on the hospitality of others throughout his ministry – and really, throughout his life, from the Bethlehem barn to the borrowed tomb. The Bethany sisters were two of his closest friends, and they learned how to welcome him well. Can we extrapolate better and worse ways to welcome Jesus into our lives, perhaps by busying ourselves less, competing for his affection less, and quieting ourselves to listen more?

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 Zelle (generosity@galileohurch.org), or just send a check to P.O. Box 668, Kennedale, TX 76060

Come On Up to the House 3/6

I’m Gonna Sit at the Welcome Table. We use many metaphors for God, but what about God as Dinner Party Host Extraordinaire? Jesus returns to this metaphor in his parables: God prepares a table, a banquet, a party; guests are either ready or not to join the celebration.

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 Zelle (generosity@galileohurch.org), or just send a check to P.O. Box 668, Kennedale, TX 76060

Come On Up to the House 2/6

Aliens Among Us. The language of “aliens” recurs many, many times through the Torah – compiled and written during the time of Israel’s exile to Babylon, many generations after the escape from Egypt. While the imperially conquered Judaism of Jesus’s day tended to keep Jewish identity front and center (so that Jesus himself never once ate with a Gentile!), there is a strong minority report in the text about God’s care and concern for non-Israelite persons. What does this mean for our own reception of non-citizen immigrants? How does the contemporary church “love the alien as ourselves”?

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 Zelle (generosity@galileohurch.org), or just send a check to P.O. Box 668, Kennedale, TX 76060

Come On Up to the House 1/6

Sodom, Gomorrah, and the ancient Near Eastern ethic of hospitality. The story of Sodom-n- Gomorrah’s destruction deserves theological rehabilitation, so that the intra-biblical witness to those cities’ sin can be heard. Ezekiel 16:49 and Jesus’s sending of the apostles in Matthew 10 both point to Sodom’s inhospitality (a failure to welcome and care for traveling strangers) as the reason for God’s displeasure and punishment. Here we learn that God prioritizes our care for the stranger as the natural (God-given) way of human being.

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 Zelle (generosity@galileohurch.org), or just send a check to P.O. Box 668, Kennedale, TX 76060

Sound the Warning 6/6

Warning: “Nasty women” will save us. I have a “signature sermon” on this genealogy, where the 5 women are lifted up as examples of scandalous sexuality. These are our messiah’s mother and grandmothers. We should have always understood that scandalous sexuality does not disqualify anyone from Jesus’s family tree.

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 Zelle (generosity@galileohurch.org), or just send a check to P.O. Box 668, Kennedale, TX 76060

Sound the Warning 5/6

Warning: Jesus upsets the powers, and the powers are capable of anything, even hurting children. We know it’s true; we have seen such violence in our own time. Gaza; Sudan; Ukraine. U.S. America, where basic nutrition programs are dangled over a fiery pit of congressional posturing. Texas, where health care for children – not only gender-affirming health care, but all health care for poor kids – is viewed as dangerously expensive. The text calls us to reaffirm our commitment to the children in our care.

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 Zelle (generosity@galileohurch.org), or just send a check to P.O. Box 668, Kennedale, TX 76060

Sound the Warning 4/6

Warning: Jesus asks hard things of us. Joseph had a lot to lose, standing by Mary. But this is the thing about Jesus: he forces us to confront who we really are, what we really want; and what we’re actually willing to give up to be that person, to want those things.

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 Zelle (generosity@galileohurch.org), or just send a check to P.O. Box 668, Kennedale, TX 76060

Sound the Warning 3/6

Warning: Jesus widens our circles. And not everybody enjoys the widening of our circles. We like to imagine that we’re on an elite, “insider” tier. What does it do to our sense of self-worth if everybody can get in? How do we reorient our estimation of self so that we love to share the privilege we’ve been granted? (This is a key difference between patriotism and nationalism, by the way. Patriotism wants to share the bounty of one’s homeland; nationalism is stingy and protectionist.)

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 Zelle (generosity@galileohurch.org), or just send a check to P.O. Box 668, Kennedale, TX 76060

Sound the Warning 2/6

Warning: Jesus changes literally everything. John the Baptist was suspicious of those who came for his baptism without any intention to let go old ways of being and take up a new life. All he could do was wash away the old, he said; but Jesus would burn it off. How does the bright-hot Light of the World laser away the accretions of life in this weird world?

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 Zelle (generosity@galileohurch.org), or just send a check to P.O. Box 668, Kennedale, TX 76060

Sound the Warning 1/6

Warning: God is not done with us yet. Jesus warns his followers to “stay awake,” because the current iteration of God’s presence among them is not the last. As we contend with over- saturation of our spirits by bad news and constant policy alarms, how do we remain people who are watchful for God’s presence, not in an “end of the world” kind of way but in an awareness of God in the everyday-ness of life?

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 Zelle (generosity@galileohurch.org), or just send a check to P.O. Box 668, Kennedale, TX 76060

Jesus Has a Headache 4/4

Money gives Jesus a headache. What kind of dummy goes to Jesus to ask for a ruling on an inheritance? But it’s a good thing someone did, because we got a lot of financial advice from Jesus from that dumb question. His main word to the wise: God provides, and if you think otherwise, you’ll waste your life working and hoarding and imagining you’ve done it all yourself.

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 Zelle (generosity@galileohurch.org), or just send a check to P.O. Box 668, Kennedale, TX 76060

Jesus Has a Headache 3/4

Blasphemy gives Jesus a headache. There are better and worse ways to talk about God’s power and presence – and there’s a way so much worse that we call it blasphemy. Jesus cautions us to be careful how we talk, how we articulate what God is and isn’t doing in our world. It’s not always easy to know; and part of what we do in church together is practice talking in the better ways we learn from scripture, song, and spoken word.

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 Zelle (generosity@galileohurch.org), or just send a check to P.O. Box 668, Kennedale, TX 76060

Jesus Has a Headache 2/4

Posturing gives Jesus a headache. The VRPs (Very Religious Persons) are doing their jobs: rigorously patrolling the boundaries of their religious community for its protection. But Jesus can see through their surface-level service, right into their self-righteous hearts. Finally, with Jesus, there aren’t any secrets. What would it mean to live life so transparently with everyone?

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 Zelle (generosity@galileohurch.org), or just send a check to P.O. Box 668, Kennedale, TX 76060

Jesus Has a Headache 1/4

Evil gives Jesus a headache. The demonic forces Jesus exorcised held people captive, so his liberating work meant setting people free from those psycho-spiritual chains. But that liberative work makes privileged people suspicious. Plus, sometimes it doesn’t exactly “work” – seven more troublemakers come in to replace what’s been kicked out. It’s tricky, fighting evil.

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 Zelle (generosity@galileohurch.org), or just send a check to P.O. Box 668, Kennedale, TX 76060