The empire wants you exhausted. Because exhausted people don't resist, they can only survive.

This week, we're talking about rest as resistance. Not self-care. Not work-life balance. But Sabbath as protest against a system that defines your worth by your productivity.

We explore:

• How Sabbath was woven into creation itself, and became an act of defiance under Pharaoh
• Why Jesus withdrew constantly, even with only three years to accomplish the most urgent mission in history
• What trauma does to your nervous system, and why some of us can't rest even when we desperately need to
• Elijah's breakdown and God's response: rest first, then work
• What white Christians need to grieve before we can move into repair
• Three starting points for practicing Sabbath as resistance

Before we can do the repair work coming in February, March, and April, we have to stop long enough to tend to what's broken in us.

Rest isn't retreat. Rest is how we stay in this for the long haul.

Resources:

• Walter Brueggemann, Sabbath as Resistance
• Trauma and grief resources
  • Journal Gently - an 8-week guided journaling experience for women who are ready to listen to what still hurts without fixing or forcing anything. (Kari Bartkus, Love Does That)
  • Kristen Humiston, MSW, APSW: Courageous Healing Therapy (WI residents)
  • Kristen A. Brock (me!) Trauma-Informed Coaching
  • The Body Keeps the Score: Bessel Van Der Kolk, M.D.
  • My Grandmother's Hands: Resmaa Menakem
  • Trauma and Grace: Theology in a Ruptured World. Serena Jones
  • Othered: Finding Belonging with the God who Pursues the Hurt, Harmed & Marginalized: Jenai Auman
  • Translating Your Past: Finding Meaning in Family Ancestry, Genetic Clues and Generational Trauma: Michelle Van Loon

If this episode was meaningful for you, the best way to help others find the show is to:

• Text this episode to a friend who might need it
• Leave a 5-star rating and review
• Subscribe so you don’t miss future episodes

Here’s to a faith that tells the truth, refuses silence in the face of harm, and follows Jesus all the way into healing and justice.

RESOURCES:

www.kristenannette.com

Holy Disruption: Reclaiming a Justice-Rooted Faith course info and interest list

Justice Coaching options!

"Find your justice mindset" quiz!

What does holy risk actually look like, and how is it formed?

In a moment when the church has confused nationalism with faithfulness and cruelty with obedience, we need to recover what it means to follow Jesus courageously. But courage isn't something we summon in a crisis. It's cultivated long before the moment arrives.

This episode explores the essential components of holy risk through the lives of people who chose obedience over safety: Esther, who prepared spiritually before approaching the king. Jesus, who deliberately broke the Sabbath to expose a broken system. Bonhoeffer, who returned to Nazi Germany when he could have stayed safe.

Their stories reveal a pattern and a path. Holy risk requires spiritual preparation, community discernment, and a willingness to act when the cost is real. And it's formed through practices most of us are skipping.

We close with six ancient disciplines that shape risk-ready disciples: practices that ground us in Scripture, anchor us in community, and prepare us to respond faithfully when neutrality is no longer an option.

The crisis is already here. The question isn't whether you'll be ready someday. It's whether you're being formed today.

Content Note: This episode discusses immigration policies, family separation, Christian nationalism, and historical references to Nazi Germany.

Primary Passages:

• Esther 4:13-16 - "For such a time as this" & "If I perish, I perish"
• Luke 14:1-6 - Jesus heals a man on the Sabbath
• John 5:1-18 - Jesus heals the paralyzed man, tells him to carry his mat on the Sabbath
• Exodus 1:15-21 - Hebrew midwives (Shiphrah and Puah) defy Pharaoh's order
• Daniel 3:16-18 - Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego: "But if not..."
• Mark 5:25-34 - The bleeding woman touches Jesus' garment
• Joshua 4 - Stones of remembrance

Music:

• Kirk Franklin - "The Last Jesus"

Books:

• Dietrich Bonhoeffer - The Cost of Discipleship

If this episode was meaningful for you, the best way to help others find the show is to:

• Text this episode to a friend who might need it
• Leave a 5-star rating and review
• Subscribe so you don’t miss future episodes

Here’s to a faith that tells the truth, refuses silence in the face of harm, and follows Jesus all the way into healing and justice.

RESOURCES:

www.kristenannette.com

Holy Disruption: Reclaiming a Justice-Rooted Faith course info and interest list

Justice Coaching options!

"Find your justice mindset" quiz!

What King said about white moderates still confronts the church today.

In this MLK bonus episode, Kristen reflects on being born in 1963, the same year Martin Luther King Jr. wrote Letter from Birmingham Jail, and what his words reveal about comfort, delay, and Christian resistance to justice.

Rather than beginning with King’s now-famous letter, this episode starts with the lesser-known statement that provoked it: A Call for Unity, written by eight white clergymen who urged patience, order, and restraint in the face of segregation, brutality, and state violence. Their words sound measured. Reasonable. Even familiar.

This is not another tribute to Dr. King. It’s a reckoning with who he was actually writing to in 1963, not the extremists, but the moderates. The well-meaning religious leaders who agreed with justice in theory but were unwilling to be disrupted by it in practice.

Kristen reflects on what it means to inherit that distance, socially, theologically, and spiritually, and how many of us are still living inside an unfinished revolution. The systems King confronted were never fully dismantled; they were managed, delayed, and reframed as “order.” And generations later, we are still being asked to wait—often by people who are not the ones waiting.

In this bonus episode of Jesus, Justice & Mercy, we explore:

• Why Letter from Birmingham Jail was written in response—not isolation
• What King meant by the “white moderate.”
• How Christian calls for “order,” “unity,” and “patience” delay justice
• The difference between negative peace and positive peace
• Why comfort—not hatred—is often the greatest obstacle to liberation
• What it means to inherit an unfinished revolution

If this episode was meaningful for you, the best way to help others find the show is to:

• Text this episode to a friend who might need it
• Leave a 5-star rating and review
• Subscribe so you don’t miss future episodes

Here’s to a faith that tells the truth, refuses silence in the face of harm, and follows Jesus all the way into healing and justice.

RESOURCES:

www.kristenannette.com

Holy Disruption: Reclaiming a Justice-Rooted Faith course info and interest list

Justice Coaching options!

"Find your justice mindset" quiz!