Set the Captives Free? Yes we can (through the cross)

12 11 2008

by Frederick Harrison

I’ve been gnawing on the Luke 7:17-35 passage over the last month. Especially verse 22.

John is in Herod’s dungeon wondering when Jesus will depose Herod and establish a Godly kingship on earth. He remembers the Isaiah 61 prophecy but doesn’t get the bigger picture.

John has in mind unfortunates like himself, jailed because those in authority don’t like what he is saying. “Brood of vipers!” indeed. We’ll throw him in the pit until he pays us a little more respect. Read the rest of this entry »


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Liberated Imaginations: Kicking at the Darkness Until it Bleeds Daylight

14 07 2008

In May, Brian Walsh was invited to give a lecture at the annual Refresh conference hosted by Wycliffe College. The conference theme this year was “Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs,” with guest speakers Marva Dawn and Graham Kendrick.

For this event Brian chose to reflect on the nature of worship that has emerged in the Wine Before Breakfast community, specifically the role of lament in our life together. So he crafted a talk that integrated music and spoken word and asked members of the Wine Before Breakfast band to help in the presentation.

We make that talk available in our resources section. An audio CD of the presentation is available from Wycliffe College, less the concluding performance of Emmylou Harris’s “The Pearl.”


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To Hell With Romans 13

14 02 2008

by Brian Walsh

A reflection on Romans 13:1-7
Wine Before Breakfast
Originally Delivered February 6, 2007

Let me put my cards on the table right from the outset. I am sick and tired of hearing Christians who have something at stake in the status quo of economic, social and political systems of injustice appealing to Romans 13 to legitimate unswerving obedience to oppressive and deceitful regimes.

I speak a fair bit in the US and whenever I am addressing the question of the meaning of the gospel for our political lives someone invariably asks, “yes, but what about Romans 13?”

What about it? I reply.
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We’re all in this Together

5 02 2008

by Rachel Tulloch

A reflection on Romans 3:9-31
Wine Before Breakfast
Originally Delivered October 10, 2006

It was all over the news when the gunman entered the one-room Amish schoolhouse killing five girls and wounding several more. This was evil. I remember clearly when I was told that four men had grabbed my 14 yr. old friend on her way home and dragged her to a deserted field to assault her.

This was evil. When we think about events like this which seem all too frequent in our world, evil is easy to identify and easy to become angered at. We look at those who commit these horrible things and quote along with Paul,

Their feet are swift to shed blood;
ruin and misery are in their paths,
and the way of peace they have not known.
There is no fear of God before their eyes.

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Creation’s Groan

31 01 2008

by Andrew Stephens-Rennie

A reflection on Romans 8:18-39
Wine Before Breakfast
Originally Delivered November 21, 2006

Dishes clanging, water splashing, people yelling up and down the hallway. As the floor is finally mopped clean, the instruments put away and the water let out the drain, the chaos is suddenly intruded upon by a mournful silence.

Silence is never to be found in this city, and yet today silence has found us here. Patients gather ’round the bed, prayers are lifted like incense to heaven as tears roll drearily down our cheeks. A father. A son.

Now Spirit.

From the centre of the semi-circular crowd, a young man leads in a prayer of thanksgiving. He leads us in a prayer of lament, for this our dearly departed. Lying in our midst, body covered in hand-woven linens, flies circling and spirit fleeting, we remember who he was to us. We recall the few things we were able to do for him while he breathed his last breaths in this place.

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