Fearless: Small Group Resources

A digital version of the A New Light Study Guide can be viewed or downloaded here.

Below you will find additional 'Go Deeper' Resources.

Week 1 | April 27 - May 3

Sermon: Walking into the Unknown | Rev. Jessica Vaughan Lower

Scripture: Genesis 12:1-9

Go Deeper: This week’s go deeper material is an opportunity to enter into more contemplative space as a group. The invitation is to read aloud this prayer excerpt from Thomas Merton’s Thoughts in Solitude and to think about what feelings/thoughts/images come to mind when you hear this prayer. Share your thoughts with each other and feel free to read the prayer as many times as you need to.

“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself. And the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in everything I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire and I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.”

Week 2 | May 4 - 10

Sermon: When All Eyes Are on You | Rev. Jessica Vaughan Lower

Scripture: Joshua 1:1-9

Go Deeper: This week’s go deeper material (and the question that makes you go “hmmm…”) is an opportunity to exercise a different skill in biblical studies we sometimes call “reading against the text” or adopting a “hermeneutic of suspicion” (reading through a lens that doesn’t take things at face value). We’ll learn a little about the composition history of the book of Joshua (who wrote it and why) and use that framework to try and ask some critical questions of the text. It might feel a little uncomfortable, but that’s okay! It’s all a part of trying to understand our holy text and how to interpret it in its own context and our modern context. This is a longer essay excerpt, so I’d encourage you to assign four readers, one for each paragraph.

Amy C. Cottrill’s commentary on Joshua in Women’s Bible Commentary: Twentieth-Anniversary Edition, Revised and Updated

“The Deuteronomistic tone of the book of Joshua is widely recognized… Because of the theological and linguistic connections between the book of Deuteronomy and the material from Joshua through 2 Kings, it is now commonplace to refer to that collection of books as the Deuteronomistic History (DH). The editor (or editors) of the DH is often referred to as the Deuteronomist… Theologically, the Deuteronomist privileges obedience, faithfulness, and YHWH-alone worship. The Deuteronomist’s anxiety about foreign religious practices that might cause the Israelites to stray from YHWH is evident in the frequent negative portrayal of foreign women who might seduce Israelites into worship of their gods (e.g. the Jezebel story in 2 Kgs. 9)...

That the reader enters a particular ideological and theological world in Joshua is evident from the first verses of chapter 1 (1:6-9)... A favorite refrain of the Deuteronomist, ‘Be strong and resolute,’ reflects the theology and ideals of the editor. Strength, strict obedience, fearlessness, and decisiveness are privileged in this text. This is not a voice that invites or tolerates hesitation, doubts, or misgivings about the editor’s theological agenda.

Correspondingly, the introduction of Joshua as the new leader is accompanied by a clear indication of the consequences of resisting Joshua. God says to Joshua, “No one will be able to stand against you all the days of your life’ (1:5)... One is either with Joshua or against him in the mind of the narrator, and God will not abide opposition to Joshua’s leadership. The threatening tone of these words warns the readers against resistance to the editor’s theological and ideological assertions.

With the editor’s endorsement of Joshua as God’s chosen leader, Joshua makes his first speech. Significantly, he quickly separates the warriors from the women, children, and animals: ‘Let your wives, children, and livestock remain in the land that Moses gave you on this side of the Jordan; but all your warriors will cross over in fighting companies before your kin’ (1:14). The rest of the book addresses the warriors among the tribes; therefore, Joshua’s primary audience is male. Rhetorically, women readers are not addressed by the text that follows” (p. 103-4).

How does learning about the theology of the DH help you understand what’s happening in this first chapter of Joshua? How does this change the tone with which you read our scripture passage?
Cottrill talks about men being the primary audience for this text. With its rallying cry of “Be strong and courageous!” and assertion that “No one shall be able to stand against you all the days of your life,” in what ways could this text be used to promote patriarchy or toxic masculinity in religious spaces, particularly when it comes to leadership?

Week 3 | May 4 - 10

Sermon: Use What You Got | Rev. Jessica Vaughan Lower

Scripture: Joshua 2:1-14

Go Deeper: “Rahab and Her Interpreters” by Amy H. C. Robertson in Women’s Bible Commentary.

“The character Rahab, celebrated for her role in bringing about the conquest of the land by the Israelites, claims marginal status in the world of the Hebrew Bible in three senses: she is a woman, she is a non-Israelite, and she is a prostitute. As we might expect, the very aspects of Rahab’s biography that make her an “outsider” are the subject of significant attention from biblical interpreters, both Jewish and Christian… Rahab’s marginal status not only makes her an interesting focal point for the history of interpretation but is also important to the plot of the biblical story: her courageous actions would have been unlikely—if not impossible—if she were more fully integrated into her community. Her occupation may have allowed her access to information about the coming of the Israelites in the first place, and her home at the very border of the city—in the city walls, in fact—provides a perfect sanctuary for the spies to see the city without risking too much. At least as important as these more practical points, though, Rahab clearly has very little reason to feel a vested interest in the city of Jericho as it is. She is tolerated there but is far enough outside of mainstream Canaanite society to be able to envision something else for herself. Perhaps this vision—and the sense that she has little to lose by bringing about change—helped move her to risk what she had, in order to see what else could be.

Rahab lived on the margins of society, someone theologian Howard Thurman would have identified as having “her back against the wall.” How might her social location have influenced her decision to help the Israelite spies? Does that still make her fearless? Why or why not?
Considering what we learned about the DH in the go deeper materials last week, how is the Deuteronomist’s theology at play in this story? How might adopting a hermeneutic of suspicion color the way we read the Deuteronomist’s use of a woman like Rahab in Israel’s story of conquest?

Week 4 | May 18-24

Sermon: Come and Go | Rev. Dr. Tom Tewell

Scripture: Matthew 14: 22-33

Go Deeper: Dale Bruner’s Commentary on Matthew...

“This is a miracle story with two acts, each six verses long, one centered on Jesus (14:22-27) and one centered on Peter (vv. 28-33)—a tableau of Christ and his church. In the first act the Lord approaches his troubled church astride the waves and speaks to her in epiphany, ‘Courage! I am! Don’t be afraid!’—commands worthy of inscription in churches, homes, and hearts. In the second act a believing disciple and an enabling Lord do the impossible, master the elements, and for a brief moment give the church a glimpse of her unearthly possibilities in the world. But in the second scene of the second act the believer becomes an unbeliever, sinks back into natural life, cries out to the Lord, and is saved. This act and the play itself end with a confession of faith in the Son of God, who mounts water, supernaturalizes believing disciples, and then saves barely-believing-yet-praying disciples from death—‘Really, you are the Son of God!’ (Matthew’s favorite title for Jesus).

The center of the story is Jesus’ imperial ‘I am.’ The feeder of the hungry in the preceding story is now identified as the divine Lord who walks on water. The Social Savior is also the Sovereign I Am. But in both stories the church disappoints Jesus. In crises she believes that her surroundings and resources (or lack of them) are more decisive than her Lord; she believes that the world’s winds are stronger than the Lord’s words. Yet in both stories the Lord uses his faulty disciples—to distribute food in one and to subdue nature in the other” (p. 73)

Bruner homes in on the Gospel writer’s use of ἐγώ εἰμί (translated “I am,” literally “I am I” or “I exist”) in this passage to assert that Jesus claims divinity in this moment by alluding to the divine name of the Hebrew Scriptures. Assuming Peter and the disciples would have understood this reference, what do you make of Peter’s moment of fear and doubt as he walks toward Jesus on the water?
How does Bruner talk about Peter as an allegory for the church in this story? Do you agree or disagree with his assessment? Why or why not?

Week 5 | May 25-31

Sermon: Come and Go | Rev. Beth Putney

Scripture: Mark 5: 25-34

Go Deeper: My Body Is Not a Prayer Request: Disability Justice in the Church by Amy Kenny

“Today, we typically think of illness (and sometimes disability) as biological, with Western medicine set up to find and cure disease directly. When Westerners go to the doctor, it’s usually to find a cure for whatever symptoms we’re experiencing. I’m in pain: fix it, medicine. Folks in Jesus’ day thought about healing in much broader terms. They talked about healing as restoring relationships and integrating someone back into social and religious systems. The Greek word often used in Scripture for healing is sozo, which means ‘to make whole’ or ‘to save.’ It’s the same word used to talk about salvation. Jesus’ healing is not purely about a physical alteration but about reestablishing right relationship between humanity and God and, hopefully, between individuals and community. Healing allows people to flourish. Modern medicine still recognizes the difference between curing and healing. Curing is a physical process; it’s individual, usually (fairly) rapid, and concentrates on eliminating disease. Healing is a sociocultural process. It focuses on restoring interpersonal, social, and spiritual dimensions. It’s lengthy and ongoing because it’s a process of becoming whole” (p. 9).

How does Kenny’s definition of healing change the story of the bleeding woman for you?
What would it look like to read this story and other healing stories through the eyes disabled folks like Amy Kenny? What would those stories teach us about faith and wholeness?

Week 6 | June 1-7

Sermon: You'll Lose Everything | Rev. Jessica Vaughan Lower

Scripture: Luke 22: 39-46

Go Deeper: Justo Gonzalez’s commentary on Luke in Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible (Luke)

“Significantly, in his prayer on the Mount of Olives, Jesus addresses God as ‘Father.’ … When approaching a parent, one does not demand that something be done. Respect for the parent’s authority and wisdom precludes that. But on the other hand, one who really trusts a parent does not simply say, ‘Whatever you say is all right with me.’ Trust in the parent’s unyielding love allows the child to express wishes and feelings of which the parent may not approve. But the very act of expressing them is a sign of both love and respect. It is out of this relationship that Jesus is able to say both ‘remove this cup from me’ and ‘not my will but yours be done.’ The two probably interpolated verses, 43 and 44, present an interesting paradox that is best understood in this context. An angel comes from heaven to give Jesus strength, and the result is not, as we would expect, that his fears are allayed, but rather that ‘in his anguish he prayed more earnestly.’ The more heavenly strength one has, the more able one is able both to express one’s anguish unashamedly, and to accept God’s loving will” (p. 251).

Gonzalez highlights how Jesus’ prayer is modeled off of a healthy parent/child relationship. How does rooting prayer in this kind of relationship enable us to pray more boldly? What might be the disadvantages?
What does it mean to you that God can hold both the “take this cup from me” and “not my will but yours be done” prayers?

Week 7 | June 8-14

Sermon: Die Another Day | Rev. Jessica Vaughan Lower

Scripture: Acts 16:16-40

Go Deeper: Willie James Jennings’ commentary on Acts in Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible (Acts)

“The prison returns in all its horror. Luke never allows us to wander too far away from its reach and many signatures. Torture and violence are signs of the prison. Lies, deceptions, and falsehoods that lead people to be incarcerated are signs of the prison. Exploitation, racism, and bigotry also encircle the prison and its judicial system… The disciples of Jesus cannot escape our necessary confrontation with prisons. Arrest, incarceration, and imprisonment have never been and never are neutral processes, functioning according to basic rules of justice and human utility. Incarceration is a process at the disposal of the rich and powerful, and here we see it unleashed against the servants of Jesus.

We are yet within the story of the slave girl and the wealthy woman Lydia. Commentators tend to forget the reality that bookends this story. It is because of the slave girl’s release that Paul and Silas will be seized. Had they left her in her pious slavery at its conjuncture between religious speech, fortune telling, and commerce, they would have been able to flow freely through the city. They would have experienced no trouble had they not disturbed the smooth interplay of religious and economic practice. But they freed her from her use-value, broke her out of a spiritual and material system that made her visible only as flesh to her owners. Now the disciples must face the awesome power of the owners. Who are the owners? Owners are the high priests of the economic world… They fear only interruptions to the smooth flow of capital. These owners unleash an imperial power that is always at their disposal, one drenched in the seductions of money and influence. They take Paul and Silas against their will and bring them into the marketplace in front of the authorities, and from the site of commerce and control, they say the words that will bring exactly the desired effect: ‘These men are disturbing our city; they are Jews’ (v.20)” (p. 161-2).

Willie James Jennings, an African American theologian and professor, brings up another kind of fear operating in this text: the fear of losing power. How do you see this fear playing a role in the text? How do you see this fear playing a role in our modern day society?
Lydia, whose home Paul and Silas return to in Philippi at the end of this passage, was a wealthy woman, a “dyer of purple cloths,” used her resources to support the ministry of the church. How might Lydia’s economic position and support have been disruptive to the status quo? In what ways is Lydia fearless in this system?