Sermons

March 19, 2023
In our scriptures for today, the Lord told Samuel to go out and look for a new King. In spite of Samuel's fear that King Saul would find out what he was doing and kill him, Samuel went — and he found David.
The blind man allowed Jesus to put paste on his eyes and did as Jesus instructed and went and washed his eyes — ridiculous, huh? And then the formerly blind man could see, and the citizens around him could finally see him! They said, “It is not him; it is someone else.” The formerly blind man said, "No, it's me. I am that man!” His whole world changed because he believed and acted faithfully.
And Paul admonishes the Ephesians: "So no more stumbling around. Get on with it! … Figure out what will please Christ and then do it."
Our scriptures this morning have a common theme: faithfulness in the face of danger and ridicule. AND, God's faithfulness as well.
In honor of International Women's Day, which was March 8th, and Women's History Month this month, I would like to talk about two women in the Bible who showed exceptional courage and faithfulness. Before I do, let me just list a few women in the Bible — out of many — who have often been held up as women of courage and action. Many, as mothers, played a crucial role in the life of their husbands and children.

March 5, 2023
Texts:
Isaiah 58:6-9
Matthew 25:34-40

I’d like to share with you this morning about our new Election Reform mission group, which is working to move our country toward multiparty democracy. I’d like to tell you what that means and why we’re committed to it.

As I was working on this teaching, Marja asked whether I was going to justify using this spiritual space of the Sunday teaching to talk about something overtly political. To be honest, I was a bit annoyed at her question, with the implication that unless I was talking about the inner life, I needed to justify myself. But she probably isn’t the only one here with that question.

In Isaiah 58, the prophet has God ask what kind of spiritual discipline God requires: The answer minces no words: the “fast” is to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free. In Matthew 25, Jesus says there is only one practice that will save us spiritually: Did we give food to the hungry, water to the thirsty, clothing to the naked, medical care to the sick? That’s what our spiritual practice is to bring us to. Our inner life is to result in justice for the oppressed and the expression of universal love.

February 26, 2023
Texts:
Psalm 32
Matthew 4:1-11

In the beginning of the Handbook for Churches and Mission groups, Gordon Cosby and Dorothy Devers reveal that

As the family of God, bound to God and to one another through Christ, the Church is fundamentally transformative — transforming the lives of its members, who, in turn, seek to transform the world in which they live. Thus, although the church exists as an end in itself, it also is ready to lose its life for the redemption of the world.” (p.6)

Lent is the time when we can be transformed from worldly power to spiritual power.

Jesus’ temptations lead us to what areas of our lives need to be transformed. He had been led by the Spirit into the desert after his baptism and his identity affirmation that he was God’s Beloved Son. He needed to be stripped down to be spiritually strengthened for his role of living in to his true identity. After forty days and forty nights of prayer and fasting, he was hungry. The tempter challenges his identity, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to be bread.” Jesus knew that he did not have to defend His identity. He knew he did not have to prove himself to the tempter that he could do miracles. He also did not have to take the path of the Israelites in the wilderness who complained about not having bread to eat, not trusting that God would care for them. In spite of his hunger, he responded, “Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” God’s word, that had reassured him in the wilderness of who he was and what he was to do on earth, sustained his body. He did not have to take the easy, comfortable way out. Just as his time in Gethsemane helps us to see his humanity, fear and pain in facing the torture he knew was coming on the cross, both here in the desert and there in Gethsemane, he agreed to submit his will to his Father’s will, no matter what the cost.

February 12, 2023

Text: 1 Corinthians 3:1-9

In today’s reading from the Epistles, we encounter Paul admonishing the quarrelsome Corinthians who have taken to fighting among themselves over which leaders are most worthy of their allegiance. Paul had spent eighteen months working to establish a church in Corinth, a wealthy and important city in Greece, and is obviously a bit frustrated that despite his best efforts to make it clear to this little band of converts to the Way that they are all equal before God and one another, they have nonetheless quickly taken to throwing up divisions among themselves.

These divisions have been exacerbated by the fact that they are beginning to invest an outsized amount of power and authority in human leaders. Paul makes clear that both he and Apollo are but mere servants doing God’s work. They may have helped to plant seeds and water the garden, but it’s God that gives the increase. To quote Paul, “For we are God’s servants, working together; you are God’s field; you are God’s building.” The foundation of the garden, the foundation of the building is God, and God alone. There is one master gardener and one master builder, and that is God. In relation to God, we are all laborers.

February 5, 2023

Text: Isaiah 58:1-12

It is a pleasure to be here with you again, and in person, finally. I have had the pleasure of meeting some of you in person over the past couple years in person, and many of you virtually. It is an honor to be here with you. I was remarking to someone the other day just how much I love and admire the community of 8th Day. I am sure there is more to your fellowship and ministry than what has come across my experiences so far, but it is very impressive how you seek to do more with little and share what you have to right some of the wrongs in the world around us. Having been a guest with you, and as one of the racial justice accountability group members, it has been a gift to watch the intentions, challenges, struggle and progress in so many areas and it is really nice to be here in the house with you.

Today, we are going to talk about “Shackles.” Shackles among us, on us, and infecting us so that today the work is not yet done. And with all that you have done we know the work is not yet done. We can just look around us and see that the work is not yet done. But why? Why has there seemed to be so much progress but so little change at the same time? So much sacrificed, given … so many lives lost — blood sweat and tears … so many advances … and yet we still are plagued with poverty, racism, sexism, classism, transphobia/homophobia, victimization of the vulnerable, criminalization of the poor, government turning its back on the people and in so many places the Church not only being complicit but leading the charge. It is as if the Poor People’s Campaigns of the old and new had not occurred and that we had not had relief programs that should have lifted more of our siblings out of crisis. It is as if the Civil Rights Movements, Women’s Liberation Movement, the Gay (Queer, LGBTQ and SGL) movements, instead of precise surgical and medicinal social justice, political, and cultural change, were instead like zits on an adolescent’s face — numerous and an annoyance but not removed.

January 29, 2023

Text: Matthew 5:1-12

Sources:
   Prayers of the Cosmos, Neil Douglas-Klotz, Meditations on the Aramaic Words of Jesus, Harper San Francisco, 1990.

  The Healing Breath, Body-Based Meditations on the Aramaic Beatitudes, Sounds True Recording, SoundsTrue.com, 2004

I am going to focus on the first verse of the Beatitudes.  And I’ll read to you four different translations:

New Revised Standard Version: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Message: You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope.  With less of you there is more of God.
First Nations Version: Creator’s blessing rests on the poor, the ones with broken spirits; the Good Road from above is theirs to walk.
Klotz/Aramaic: Now is the blessedly ripe time to find your home in the breathing, to hold onto the breath as if it were your first and last possession.  To you belongs the power that no one can take away, that aligns with the One.

As I have grown to realize, and embody, the writings and recordings of Neil Douglas-Klotz, these translations were a game-changer for me in understanding this verse.  He wrote that those who followed Jesus were often the homeless, who literally had their only home in their own breath.  In Jesus’ time during Roman occupation, many had lost their incomes or were barely getting along.  This is a very encouraging set of verses for those people, the dispossessed. 

November 27, 2022

Here is the link to the Zoom recording: https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/HOb5GVM-hKPA_jrve7WzR-1hZlFJSCRQR4rDYU5BnSHfu_p8OK1dKIxFBCxYH4MV.VE4068kz5KnHhzFB?startTime=1669561591000

Texts:
     Isaiah 2:4-5
     Romans 13:11-12
     Matthew 24:37-44

Luisely:

Happy Advent 8th Day!   Our official time of anticipation and waiting has arrived!   It’s a time of waiting and anticipation for the quality time with loved ones, our rituals surrounding Christmas that help us remember the birth 2000 (and something) years ago, and, most importantly, the celebration of Emmanuel, God here, with us!   It is also a time that honors the waiting, the expecting, the anticipation, and the hope of new life.

Waiting for new life, hoping for new life, carries with it a vulnerability.  We have this visceral longing for whatever is gestating, to come to full-term and be born full of life.  This gestation can be literal, like Mary’s, and so many here, who have waited with love — and all the other emotions — for the birth of a new being we have yet to meet face-to-face.  Or it may be of a new relationship with another, or with ourselves.  It may be a new job, retirement, the hope for health, for healing.  We all are in waiting for new life.  And in order to wait for what we do not see, we need hope, or else we tend to fall into anxiety and despair. 

October 23, 2022 

Texts:
     Philippians 4: 4-7
     Psalm 84: 8-12

You can watch Jennie’s teaching on this Zoom recording.

I would like to open with prayer: Thank you, thank you, thank you Lord for being always present with us.  Please hold us in your Light and Love.  Amen

Recently Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of Braiding Sweetgrass, was named a MacArthur fellow for her work as a botanist and writer and as an Indigenous oracle.  Kimmerer is a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation.  In Braiding Sweetgrass she weaves together the elders’ wisdom, her research on plants, and her experiences as a mother, grandmother, and tenured professor at the State University of New York’s College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse.  She is also founder and director of its Center for Native Peoples and the Environment.  Kimmerer says, “in return for these spectacular gifts of the Earth, say to yourself: ‘What is my accountability in return for everything I’ve been given?’”  She calls us all to “honor the Earth’s glories.  She invites us to learn from plants and other species, natures’ teachers.”  Her book is a collective “call to action on climate urgency.” 

October 9, 2022

Texts: (For full texts, go to the end of this manuscript)
     2 Kings 5:1-15
     Luke 17:11-19

Here is the Zoom link to Jay’s teaching: https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/kS8HYqzEdZfIUp4rhRKE0vXUndaBfOJioGRVl9XOwfSmxZp8UOJnXTEnOFbunHez.mwMLvYxGeB4j9uxi?startTime=1665326569000

I find that it’s not popular in progressive Christian spaces to speak about sin.  It’s a word that comes with a lot of baggage.  Sin is a word that is used to shame, oppress, and judge.  I think for example of the way “sin” is deployed against queer and trans people to twist pleasure into guilt and bodies into shame.  I think of how sin has been used to induce guilt — petrifying, crushing guilt.  I think of how sin is used to foster self-hatred and justify authoritarian disciplinary measures to create submissive subjects.

But I’m not ready to throw “Sin” out yet, because if we give up on the concept of sin, I fear we might lose an important religious framework for naming the evils and violence that plague our work.  In the Western church, Sin is often understood in legal terms: breaking a law, committing a crime, wrongdoing in need of punishment.  In this framework, salvation means to be saved from impending punishment or from the consequences of one’s actions.  However, the Eastern churches (in general) have a very different concept of Sin.