Our theme verse for the week is that Jesus came “to set the oppressed free” (Luke 4:18). In that same message, Jesus talked about poverty and incarceration as signs of where oppression flourished. And then Jesus mentioned health.

In his inaugural sermon in Luke 4, Jesus says that he came ‘to set the oppressed free.’ Yesterday we looked at the first category of the oppressed: those who are economically oppressed. Today, we’re thinking about Jesus’s second category: the incarcerated.

In his inaugural sermon, Jesus lays out his vision for why he came. He quotes from the prophet Isaiah, summarizing it all with the words, “to set the oppressed free and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:19).

These verses always pack a punch.

Today we hear about patriarchy from four women of color.

Today we’ll hear a bible story that most of us have never encountered before.

Today we look at how patriarchy has impacted the very bible we read.

There’s really only one place where Jesus calls someone ‘daughter’ and there’s really only one place where he calls someone ‘son.’ And they are VERY instructive.

So many times, the patriarchy starts when Eve is cast as the ‘helper’ of Adam. But that’s actually not what the Bible teaches.

After a challenging week of thinking about money and what it means to follow Jesus financially, it’s a good day for a simple prayer/poem.

On Sunday we talked about steering clear of shame when it comes to talking about money and at the same time holding to the radical teaching of scripture.

Americans tend to love the idea of the self-made man (and yes, it’s usually males who love this idea the most). Whether or not we can articulate it, we tend to think of ourselves as deserving of our pay because, after all, we worked for it. Rarely, if ever, do we stop to recognize where our ability to work came from.

In the early church, not unlike the church today, those who were rich had more influence.

Jesus doesn’t hold back when it comes to talking about money. He completely upends how the world approaches money. He blesses the poor and he decanters the rich.

Perhaps today is a day to proclaim loud and clear that we want a Jesus who is free from all hatred - even self-hatred - and is alive and at work in bringing justice to this world. Sing along today as you listen HERE.

According to Lisa Sharon Harper, the Hebrew approach to perfection was the more organic one. It was about relationships.

There’s a passage in Paul’s letter to the Philippians where he writes what might come across as arrogant: “All of us, then, who are mature should take such a view of things” (Philippians 3:15).

One of the things that Brenna and Nicole talked about on Sunday in their fantastic sermon was how the ‘morality police’ love to explain what sin it is that caused whatever suffering you are enduring.

Detriech Bonhoeffer, the German martyr, wrote about ‘the pathological overburdening of life by the ethical’ - this sense in which we try so hard to be morally pure that all our white-knuckling gives us an ulcer

Sometimes a song or a play or a painting can reach more deeply into us than the two-by-four of a sermon.