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.

The Cries of Our Hearts 5/8

We cry out for the beloveds we’ve lost to death in 2020 and 2021. We’ll interrupt the Markan narrative for a stand-alone service to acknowledge the losses of life in these two weird years. There’s a lot of pent-up grief among our #churchfriends; let us surround each other with safety for lament and the comfort of God’s power over Death. 

The Cries of Our Hearts 4/8

We cry out for security. The man with lots of stuff thought his security was in the stuff. The disciples, too, insist that they’ve divested themselves of everything valuable in this world. Jesus, though, suggests/promises that our security is in each other, both now and in God’s good/abundant/eternal future. 

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 3/8

We cry out for confirmation of self. Our quest for self-actualization (becoming the whole beautiful self God intends for you to be) is sometimes diminished to a competition – myself over others, myself in competition with others. Kristin Neff has recently written about self-esteem (self over others) vs. self-compassion (self with others). Jesus insists on a shift away from contemplation of one’s own esteem and toward imagining oneself in service of others; perhaps through Neff’s lens this could be less damaging to spiritual refugees and more empowering of empathy. (Service to others, after all, requires the theory of mind to understand who they are by first understanding self.)

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 2/8

We cry out for faith. The prayer of the parent for the child’s salvation is the truest prayer we know. What if your church could be the safest place in the world to confess doubt, with a softness of heart that allows the possibility of belief? What if we could practice, together, Ricoeur’s dual vows, the “vow of rigor” and the “vow of obedience”? 

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 1/8

We cry out for clarity. The loud clamor for our attention and agreement – the incessant demand for our declarations of certainty and loyalty – we are practically guaranteed to make mistakes, to absorb disinformation and hyperbole, to experience the blurring of our vision till we see only “trees, walking.” Jesus can restore clarity of literal vision with a couple of tries (!), but it’s harder to grant or inspire clarity about his own identity, and what it means for how we move through the world. Who is he, and who are we meant to be in response? This is our project.

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.

What the World Needs Now 5/5

What the world needs now is to think critically about our social media citizenship. The most sophisticated technology of our time has one purpose: to make us want to stay on a website. The social media “platforms” are, according to Hank Green, less like services we use and more like places where we live. They have their own governing bodies, their own currencies, and they call us not “customers” but “users.” And we “use” that technology to do a lot of really good things: to create art; to foster relationships; to critique the very platform that hosts our criticism. But what does it mean that so few people—the CEOs of a handful of corporations—have so much power over us? What if this is not a new thing—consolidated power in a central “location” where almost everyone “lives”—but an ancient thing happening in a new, well, “platform”? How can the wisdom of our ancestors in faith help us navigate our citizenship in these strange new lands?

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.