Sermons

June 17, 2012

The title of my sharing this morning is “Being a Mustard Seed”.  But before I explain to you what I mean by that, I’d like to tell you a story when I was a young girl.

In the summer, when growing up (probably between when I was 9 and 11), I would play kickball in the back yard of our house in Xenia, Ohio with my brother, David almost every day.  David was a year older than I was.  He was a natural athlete with the speed and grace of a gazelle.  He became famous one year when he was playing little league baseball because he caught a fly ball, winning the game, even though his hat had fallen down over his eyes and he couldn’t see a thing.  He could hit, catch or dodge a ball -- anything.  I, on the other hand, would say that I played with the speed and grace of something more like an armadillo.  According to Wikipedia, “Armadillos have short legs, but can move quite quickly.”  But not as quickly as a gazelle. 

June 3, 2012

Good morning.  It is a true joy to be with you this morning, to be reconnecting with a community that has played such a strong role in the formation of my faith and of my life.  It is a special joy to be here on Recommitment Sunday.  I love the tradition of recommitment at 8th Day.  Of taking the time and intention to individually and collectively discern our roles in the community.  So often this seems to only happen during times of crisis or discontent.  By having recommitment as a regular practice done every year and done publically, I believe the community is made stronger.

I remember my first experience committing to this community.  I had started coming to the church with my roommate, Hayley Hathaway.  I was going to the Unitarian Church and was pretty cynical what I perceived Christianity to be.  But I trusted Hayley and she was excited about what she was hearing and the people she was meeting in this small coffee shop church, so I joined her one Sunday and kept coming.  Coming to 8th Day I felt for the first time in a Christian community a place where I could fit ideologically.  A place where people were supporting and challenging one another to live their faith more deeply, where people were open about their struggles

May 27, 2012

Good Morning, I’m honored to be speaking to you today.  I want to talk about the blessing of impermanence.  As I’ve lived and learned and traveled this road of life, I’m learning myself, and beginning to understand.  I just experienced this impermanence about 10 days ago with the ending of the Thursday Night open mic; now I’m working in the Blessing.

There are thing I use to help me navigate my way to the island of equanimity; I want to share those with you. 

If you’re around me long enough I will tell you, “Thom Bell is the best songwriter and producer ever”.  He’s 1/3 of The Mighty Three Music.  The Mighty Three is something I share with One Voice One Sound, I’ll do that here another time; now I want to share with you My Melody performed by Deniece Williams, co written by Bell and Williams and Produced by Bell.  (Deniece Williams - My Melody 1981

May 13, 2012

Part of the wonder of going away is the different perception you have of the place you left when you return.  Nothing can be quite the same after a trip to Uganda.  There is much to share, but the more important sharing for today’s lectionary seems wrapped in the questions of how we “Love one another,” how we transcend differences and move to acceptance of ourselves and one another, how we become the “Beloved Community” Jesus among us, through one another.  First, my hope in sharing today is to hold up the “compelling story” of the early Acts communities in their struggle to transcend differences and learn to love one another as a struggle we still engage in our community today—with most of the same very human limits and short-comings.  Second, I also want to expose some of the ways our discomfort and even anger in community unfolds to us as our greatest opportunities to love.  Third, I want to point us to our journey toward being a fully loving community.  These resources are found in scripture, in exploring different cultures to reveal the connections which suggest the necessity of loving, and even laying down our life for, our brothers and sisters across the earth and in our community.

April 29, 2012

Texts:
John 10:11-18 and 1 John 3:16-24

I want to take just a few minutes today to talk about love. And if there is time when I'm done hopefully some of you can talk about it too. Now I want to emphasize that what I'm working on here is very much in process - these thoughts are provisional. I know most of us take our preachers here at Eighth Day with a grain of salt but I encourage you to add a couple more just for today's message.

These two passages, both arising from John the Elder and the community which gathered around him, share an immediate resonance - to love as God loves is to lay down your life for another. As beautiful as this is, I immediately feel myself pushing back against piles and piles of dusty theology books, trying to wiggle and writhe around the usual readings. You can already hear them: God's love is perfect; ours is weak. Divine love is self-sacrificing; human love is self-serving. Agape is immaculate; eros inevitably sullied.

April 22, 2012

Texts:

Isaiah 58: 9b-12
1 Corinthians 12:26
Matthew 6: 25-27

It is Earth Day today, so let’s begin with aprayer celebrating the beauty of creation.

From a poem by Robinson Jeffers:

“…to fling rainbows over the rain…
And beauty above the moon, and secret rainbows
On the domes of deep sea-shells,
Not even the weeds to multiply without blossom
Nor the birds without music…
Look how beautiful are all the things that God does.
God’s signature
Is the beauty of things.”

Amen

Good morning, friends. It is a privilege to stand in this space, and humbling, too, as I’ve tried to be open to the Spirit’s leading as to what words to bring you today.

April 8, 2012
Text I Cor. 15:1-24

Years ago I was talking with Elizabeth OConnor as she was completing her first book about the Church of the Saviour. She asked me what I thought of the title “An Easter People.” I said I loved it. She did too but her editors at Harpers persuaded her to change the title to “Call to Commitment” because they thought more people could relate to it. I like “Call to Commitment” too, and I still like “An Easter People” for its ring of joy and celebration.

Today let’s think about some more about our identity as a faith community.   A couple of months ago I shared Barbara Hall’s description of one way the early church thought of itself which was as an “eschatological community.” This identity came to mind whenever it prayed the opening of the Lord’s prayer: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.”

April 1, 2012

One of my best loved hymns which helps me with worship and adoration was written by a man who had been locked up in a tiny cell in an asylum. The words were found etched on the wall of his cell after his death.

Could we with ink the ocean fill and were the sky of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill and everyone a scribe by trade,
To write he love of God above would drain the ocean dry
Nor could the scroll contain the whole, though stretched from sky to sky.
Oh love of God, how rich and pure
How measureless and strong
It shall from age to age endure
The saints and angels’ song.

March 18, 2012                                                 

Good Morning!  Thank you for inviting me to be with you here this morning.  I bring greetings from Seekers’ Church!  We so enjoyed having Fred with us last Sunday as our preacher.  I think these kinds of exchanges are great ways for us to cross pollinate, to learn from each other, to see how other communities in our tradition are handling and dealing with the realities of living out our faith in the present era. 

In our scripture this morning we hear Jesus responding to Nicodemus who came to Jesus and asked, “How can we be born again?”  Nicodemus was an important person in the Jewish hierarchy, a member of the ruling council.  He came with some deep questions and a confession of sorts, calling Jesus “Rabbi”, and saying, “We know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him.”  Jesus responds and says that if you want to enter the kingdom of God you must be born again. 

3/11/2012

Thank you for the opportunity to share with you this morning.  I know some of you, and feel connected to this community through our shared experience of the life-giving power of the Church of the Saviour in its various expressions, and through helping provide a place for silent retreat for Eighth Day at Dayspring.  So, it is good to be here.

I want to use as my departure point today the passage in John’s gospel.  It is a unique and somewhat contentious passage for the anger apparently displayed by Jesus.  His temper flashes in a few other places, almost always with religious authorities.  But nowhere else does he express it physically, throwing over tables, pouring out the coins of the money changers, driving the animals sold for sacrifice from the temple with “a whip of cords”--making a scene.

So, we have reason to really pay attention to this passage.  We must ask, “What is Jesus angry at--or at least protesting forcefully against?”