Seeds and Ways: Building Up a New World Liturgical Resources

Access the full Building Up a New World Year C Roadmap here.

Building Up a New World Liturgical Resources written by Dr. Sharon R. Fennema, who serves as Join the Movement toward Racial Justice Curator with UCC National Ministries.

Book Chapter: “Power Analysis for Powerful Congregations”

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Book Chapter: “White Supremacy and the Structure of Oppression”

Scripture: John 20:19-31
Book Quote:
“White supremacy is the structure of oppression in which the United States lives and moves and has its being and which we export around the world. White supremacy is not about interpersonal prejudices or individual acts of hate. White supremacy is about power – who has it, to what ends, and what meaning is made out of that power…White supremacy is also a theological construction…[it] makes meaning out of people’s bodies – whose are worhty and pure and good and able (white), and whose are criminal, a threat, deserving of punishment, disposable (Black, Indigenous, immigrant, disabled, queer, poor)…Our goal must be collective liberation from an oppressive structure, and building up a whole new world” (15, 29).
Theme Notes:
We are all wounded by white supremacy. Though Jesus’ life predated the concept of race as we know it, his crucifixion by state violence aimed at enforcing Roman occupation is a piece of the oppressive structure that is white supremacy. The wounds that Jesus shows to identify himself to his disciples are connected to the wounds of every person who’s suffered and died at the hands of racialized capitalism. What if we hear in Thomas’ demand to see and touch Jesus’ wounds, the demand of so many in our society to see and touch “proof” of white supremacy and racism? How might our worship and our organizing change deepen if we considered part of our work to be putting people in touch with the wounds created by white supremacy, in ourselves and others?

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Book Chapter: “Living into New Solidarities: Mutual Aid as Gospel Practice”

Scripture: John 21:1-19
Book Quote:
“Mutual aid…model[s] what is possible when we live through an ethic of sharing rather than scarcity…mutual aid brings us back to basic human instincts and the initial vision of the church…Our impulse to share is our birthright…When we are baptized into the church…we claim and are claimed within new kinds of relationships – relationships of justice, dignity, and mutual belovedness, new solidarities made possible in Christ. Mutual aid calls us into these new solidarities, which we are reminded of at the communion table when we remember that God sets a table for all, right here in the midst of public health crises, late capitalism, and the terrors of deportation, empire, white supremacy, and climate change” (216-217).
Theme Notes:
After Easter, after the resurrection, when Jesus wants to be sure his followers know it’s really him present again among them, more often than not, he shares food with them. To know the resurrected Jesus, to encounter life beyond death is to eat together surrounded by abundance. Perhaps when Jesus keeps questioning Peter, he’s trying to make sure that all of his followers get the connection: loving him, loving Jesus means living into new solidarities formed by an ethic of sharing, rather than scarcity. Feed my sheep is a resurrection calling to transformative mutual aid as the path of new life amidst death-dealing forces.

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Book Chapter: “Organizing Congregations for Impact”

Scripture: John 10:22-30
Book Quote:
“Faith-based organizing intentionally builds power in community, builds leadership, and shifts decision-making power to the people. It builds and deepens relationships, community, and collective imagination…Jesus spent a lot of time out on the block listening, seeing, noticing, taking in, asking questions, and making connections. And while Jesus did correct and provide instruction, he centered the community in everything he did…The fight for justice is always too big for one person alone and we cannot win if we do not come together and organize. Jesus knew this. Jesus modeled this. He knew his gifts, operated in them, AND surrounded himself with folx with different experiences and different skills; then he began to organize and train them so they could do the work” (38).
Theme Notes:
Christian theology and biblical interpretation has often made sense of Jesus’ use of the metaphor of shepherd and sheep as a way of understanding followership or discipleship: sheep are trained to follow the shepherd who protects, cares for, and lead them. But what if we thought of this metaphor as an image of collecitve consciousness/awareness. When Jesus says “My sheep hear my voice. I know them and they follow me” maybe he’s calling our attention the ways they have deepened community together, collectively imagined a new world, and built power together. It is this kind of organizing that brings new, abundant, and lasting life to the community, to us all.

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Book Chapter: “Come As You Are: Possibilities for Dreaming Disability Justice in Congregational Contexts”

Scripture: John 13:31-35
Book Quote:
“There will be no tidy checklists of ‘things your congregation can do for disabled folx.’ Our shifting bodies necessitate shifting strategies. Disability justice organizing happens in non-linear time. We wait for each other. We make sure each other’s bodyminds are provided for. We act like we want each other in the room…On the program…In the pulpit…Beyond the pulpit…What we have is this moment. What we have is each other. What we must do is dismantle ableism in our persona lives and public initiatives. And in order to do that, we must be clear on the insidious nature of ableism, learn the context of disability movement-making, and come to embrace the power of community/collective care” (82).
Theme Notes:
As progressive Christians, we lean heavily on what some would call a “love ethic” as the root of all of our work for justice. We are quick to claim our efforts to follow Jesus’ commandment to love one another as the root of why we do what we do in the struggle for justice. But rarely do we speak or think about the real, complex, multifaceted ways that love manifests itself in practice. We don’t often challenge ourselves to wonder about and be accountable to what love means concretely in practice. This week we suggest that one way that loving one another “just as I have loved you” manifests in congregational organizing is in our mutual practices of and commitments to disability justice.

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Book Chapter: “Healing Sustains Our Organizing”

Scripture: Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5
Book Quote:
“Healing is a journey of stitching back together what was fragmented by the suffering of trauma – in mind, body, and spirit. It is mending the soul by way of learning how to be in healthy relationship with self and others…Social justice organizing is actually healing work. We are healing ourselves as we are healing the systems that harm…Integrated, layered healing in movement is an opportunity to receive and reciprocate healing as we heal these harmful systems, not just reaching for healing after we are specifically impacted and realize we need healing. We always need healing and healing should always be available” (119, 124, 127).
Theme Notes:
The resurrection vision of a future of flourishing for all offered in Revelation literally has healing at its center. In some ways, all of our work for justice and organizing for transformation has healing at its root. What would it look like for us to intentionally put healing practices at the center of our work, like the tree of life at the center of the new city Revelation invites us to imagine, whose leaves are for the healing of the nations.

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Book Chapter: “Dismantling Christianity for Indigenous Self-Determination”

Scripture: John 17:20-26
Book Quote:
“Discussions of ‘truth and reconciliation’ with Indigenous Peoples are common today. We cannot resolve or ‘reconcile’ until the truth has been fully realized, told honestly, and publicly…There is still quite a lot to say regarding violence perpetrated by religious institutions and invader-state governments against Indigenous Peoples, predominantly because this onslaught of violence has never ceased…Colonization by invader-state governments has largely been enabled by collusion with religious ideologies and institutions…Although some small steps and gestures have been made…more radical structural transformations inevitably still need to take shape, such a giving land back to Indigenous Peoples” (97-98).
Theme Notes:
If we are honest with ourselves, calls to unity like the one we find in Jesus’ prayer in John’s gospel “that all may be one” are often used coercively to require acquiescence with the status quo, normative, or the systems and structures with the most power. This kind of “oneness” has been used by Christians, historically and presently, to justify colonizing violence, now often continued as “inclusion” without structural change. But true flourishing and collective resurrective liberation requires a oneness built through solidarity and accountability, rather than power and compliance. How might we hear Jesus’ desire for oneness as a longing for truth-telling and reparations that can bring about genuinely collective liberation?

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Book Chapter: “Resisting White Nationalism: Antifascism in the Way of Jesus”