SERMONS
Calling All Angels
It was minutes before the recent debate and an online meeting was ending. One of the participants said, I’m calling all angels, all the spirits, all the ancestors. She had high hopes for her candidate. And she asked if I knew the song by k.d. lang about calling all angels. I didn’t. But it’s perfect for today.
How many times, oh, before it's too late?
Calling all angels
Walk me through this world
Don't leave me alone
Calling all angels
We're tryin'
We're hopin'
But we're not sure how.
Greatness in the Eyes of God
How often do we let our fear and our desire to be right get in the way of truly listening to others? How often do we demonize those with whom we disagree, instead of taking the time to understand their perspective? When we are caught in this cycle of needing to be right or superior, we are trapped by our egos.
But Jesus calls us to something different. He calls us to humble ourselves, to set aside our egos, and to approach one another with the openness and curiosity of a child. The path to greatness requires humility. It requires us to ask questions, even when doing so reveals that we don’t have everything figured out.
Losing It
He lost it. She’s losing it. Who wants to do that? To lose control. To lose your temper. To have an ugly cry. I certainly don’t want to lose it. Though sometimes I do.
Peter seems to lose it when Jesus says his mission will involve suffering and death. That’s not what a Messiah does, Peter thinks. We need you to come in and overthrow Rome. Show your political and military might. We need a political strongman.
How did Creator become commercialized?
The wounds we’ve carved into the Earth do not happen in a vacuum, the wounds leech into issues of global politics, gender, and race. The pollution of water and air in the United States often coincides with red-lined neighborhoods - those are neighborhoods which the American government designated to be ghettos for black and brown people. The genocides in Palestine and Congo are rooted in a desire to tear minerals like Cobalt from the Earth, to possess or destroy or pillage land. Hawaiians call the land the ʻāina. And their connection to the land, just like all indigenous peoples, is essential to their culture, spirituality, and freedom movements.
Opening Up
She’s bored, lonely, and unhappy. Marya has been teaching children too long, it seems. She’s alone in the world. Her life is monotonous. And if anything, her heart is closed.
Are You Leaving, Too?
Why did you leave? Why did you leave the place you grew up or another place you lived a long time? Why did you leave a marriage or a relationship? Why did you leave a job? Why did you leave a church?
What Did Your Mother Teach You?
In Gaza, Mohammad Abu Al Qumsan is grieving his two twins, Aysal and Aser, born three days before they were killed in an Israeli strike this week. Mohammed says that when he married his wife, Dr. Joumana, his joy was immense, but when he learned of his twins’ deaths, he also learned of his wife’s death. In a single day he lost everything. Yet he bore his wife’s weight, being a pallbearer for her, and then prayed at his family’s funeral. A burden too great to bear—the loss of mother and twins. This Palestinian mother had no opportunity to nurture or teach her children.
We wonder what Jesus learned from his mother. What she modeled. What she taught. What kind of advice she gave.
What's For Dinner?
Jesus issues an invitation that is far more intimate and provocative when he calls himself our bread. He invites us to eat him and never be hungry again.”
What are you hungry for? Security and belonging? Meaning and purpose? Connection. Community. Intimacy. Love. An ongoing hunger for wholeness, courage or a healing of old wounds?
The Power of Kings
We can see in our world today, that these two kinds of power continue to show up. The Power of Kings could be used to create peace and stability for all people, but recently it seems like it has been used to create destruction and pain. We see the Power of Kings abused in the way a police officer killed Sonya Massey in her home after responding to her call for help. We see it abused in Israel’s continued destruction of Gaza, and in the support that its destruction has garnered. We also see the Power of Kings being used by those who are looking to save Gaza, and by those who continue to work to create justice even through broken and failing systems.
But where do we see the Power that God gives?
Get Away From It All
Sometimes it’s too much for me. The over-stimulation, the information overload, the screens everywhere.
It’s almost like a nightmare. You just want space to clear head and think. You finally close your laptop and put down your phone. And you pull into a gas station. And there is a screen babbling to you about something. You sit in the doctor’s waiting room and there’s a home remodeling show playing. You’re at your gate, waiting for a plane, and CNN is on. You get into a taxi and video clips are showing. Stop. Turn it off. It’s too much. Take me to a deserted island to get away from it all.
Don't Lose Your Head
We are called to speak truth to power. Amos proclaims that God will judge Israel for its mistreatment of the poor. And like most prophets, Amos becomes a threat to the powers that be. One writer puts it this way: “The truth will set you free, but first it will shatter the safe, sweet way you live.”
What is calling you?
What is calling you? What is your purpose on this earth? How will you grow into your authentic self while finding joy in service to the needs of others?
When life lays you low
When life lays you low, sometimes you will do anything. To get well. To make things better. To work things out.
Weather the storm together
Jesus said, “let’s go across to the other side” and the followers of Jesus took him in the boat “just as he was”. No preparations. He was teaching the crowds and then he just got into a boat and sailed off. Imagine if right now I said “I want to go to Michigan.” and I just left church, went straight to the lake and got into a boat? Where would I go when I get there? I don’t even know how to sail! What if something happens along the way? I don’t know the tide patterns or what the weather will be like… What a dangerous thing to decide to do on a whim!
The reign of God is like . . .
We’re invited to look at the ordinary and see the extraordinary, to be open to the mystery of God’s work in this garden, and to see the unexpected gifts in our midst that are signs of God’s presence among us now. We are encouraged to reimagine what is beautiful and ask, where do we see the sacred? Where do we see God’s presence in our daily, ordinary, sometimes boring, maybe even complicated lives?
What are you resisting?
You Pharisee. I bet you’d resist being called that word. It’s downright derogatory. It’s as bad as being called a ___. I’ll stop!
A Pharisee is judgmental, hypocritical, self-righteous, hyper-legalistic, right? It’s a slippery slope, though. That’s not far from labeling an entire religion as Pharisaic.
Puns and Pondering the Trinity
God is always more. Life is always more. And we are always more. More than we can imagine.
It’s another word play, really: one in three, three in one. A God of relationship. Interdependence. Interweaving. A divine dance, as early Christians thought of the trinity.
A Language of Love
Do you speak more than one language? I wish I did, but I don’t. Not that I haven’t tried. In 7th-8th grade, I took German as my required language course. I still have the construction paper and photo-heavy report I did on Miene Familie, but sadly, I do not recall how to speak any of it. I’ve taken Intro to Spanish classes 5 different times, but, “Hola mi amiga” is about as far as I get in a conversation.
Above Earth's Lamentation
There’s a hymn I’m sure many of you know: “My life flows on in endless song / above earth’s lamentation. / I catch the sweet though far-off hymn / that hails a new creation.” I love this hymn. It’s one of my favorites.
But it landed a little differently one Sunday morning last October. It was homecoming weekend at my alma mater, Carthage College, and after the usual homecoming Eucharist, there was a memorial for Pastor Kara, the beloved campus pastor who at age 52 had died of cancer several months prior.
150th Anniversary of the Congregation - Bishop Yehiel Curry
The view from the enclosed balcony was breathtaking. Boats quietly traversed through the green waters where the Pacific Ocean meets the sea of Cortez. It was about 80 degrees, the sun was shining, and there were no clouds visible. On this day, I was about to do something I had never done before.