Sermons

Text: Acts 2:1-21

Link to Zoom recording here.

Song: Trompeta en Cueros, by Grupo Folklórico Experimental Nuevayorkino

Prophecies.  Visions.  Dreams.  Tongues.  The Spirit hovers among & between us & each of us is within the freshness of that wind…Sometimes we feel it.  Sometimes we don’t…

But the disciples definitely felt it!   Who could possibly imagine the force of the wind that arrived on Pentecost?  In Acts 2:2, it says that a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven.  The text goes on in verse 3 by describing that the disciples saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 

It is exciting to me how the tongues seem to be distributed.  That they are separated reflects the reality of limitations, that not all of us will speak every tongue.  Perhaps the Spirit gives us 1 or 2 or a handful of tongues to speak…but even that is a huge surprise to the disciples, who originally envisioned their work as being more contained, as opposed to nourishing the entire diaspora of Jewish peoples. 

May 29, 2022
Text: Acts 16:16-40

The Zoom recording of Kathy's teaching  is here.

I stand before you this morning after yet another horrific mass shooting   Like many of you, I feel numb and at a loss for words as yet another sadly predictable and preventable event shatters the lives of more families who will never be the same.  There are many things that we can and should be doing to end the on-going carnage and create true safety for everyone.  In her book Rescuing Jesus: How People of Color, Women and Queer Christians are reclaiming Evangelism, author Deborah Jian Lee quotes Andrea Smith, indigenous feminist, author and activist, as saying “I think idolatry is when we only presume failure.  We don’t believe God can actually work through us to create a whole different church or a whole different world.” 

May 15, 2022

Text: Acts 11:1-18

In 1619, the first Africans brought by European slave traders stepped foot on the American mainland in Virginia.  These twenty or so Africans had survived the watery abyss of the middle passage and now stood on strange soil and at the cusp of a strange new world.  With dread and fear, they undoubtedly wondered what society were they being brought into?  How would they survive?  What future could they possibly have here?

In 1945, during World War II, the United States detonated nuclear weapons over Hiroshima and Nagasaki which leveled both cities and killed up to 200,000 people.  The new weapon enacted a bloodless, cold, new form of violence unlike anything the world had witnessed before.  Suddenly, all of humankind faced a future where it's self-annihilation was not only possible, but imminent and easy.  What new era of war lay ahead?  Will humankind have a future?  How have the stakes of international relations changed?

May 8, 2022

Text: Acts 9:36-43

The Zoom recording for Gail’s sermon can be found here.  It begins with Dixcy’s introduction.

From John Dominic Crossan:

My point, once again, is not that those ancient people told literal stories and we are now smart enough to take them symbolically, but that they told them symbolically and we are now dumb enough to take them literally. 

So I have been trying to read the Tabitha story symbolically.  Let’s see what you think.

The story says that Peter traveled to visit a dead woman.  We know she was a woman because for the first and only time in the New Testament the feminine form of the word disciple is used.  Symbolically the writer seems to be saying that Peter’s work was inclusive — men and women.  Otherwise, it would not be important to use the feminine form of the word.  Tabitha is her name in Aramaic — the common language of the time.  Luke, the writer of Acts, also gives us the Greek word for Tabitha: Dorcas. 

What are we told about Tabitha?  It appears she was a beloved leader in her community.  She devoted her time to helping the poor, specifically widows — typically the poor and discarded — with acts of charity.  She even made them clothes.  We know she was a leader in the community because the men sent men to Lydda to see if Peter would come — presumably to heal her.  The story just before this one in Acts 9 tells of Peter healing a paralyzed man named Aeneas, so the word was out that Peter could perform miracles.  Her community was suffering a great loss, enough to send for Peter.

May 1, 2022

Zoom Link to Marcia's teaching.

Introduction   This past Wednesday, a group of about 20 gathered on Zoom to reflect on and discuss this scripture from Acts.  The time together, listening and speaking, was a gift, further reminding me of the power and learning that can happen by reading, reflecting and sharing in community.  I have tried to weave threads of what I heard and learned into my remarks today.  And, I want to express my gratitude to Sito for convening us as we move toward Pentecost.

Additionally, since the figure of Saul/Paul is prominent in this scripture, I share that Luke’s gospel was likely written in the earlier 80s.  Paul by then had died, possibly in 64 CE.  His epistles to the early communities, eg Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, etc, were written throughout the 50s and early 60s.  We don’t know if Luke ever met Paul. 

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Through this season of Easter, we are journeying in the Hebrew scripture lectionary through the book of Acts, and we are using Willie James Jennings’ commentary on Acts as accompaniment to the lectionary passages. 

The theme for Acts 9:1-20 in Jennings’ book is Disrupting Life, and for sure disruption has always been a powerful backdrop to life on earth.  We live with it, both in small and massive ways.  Disruption can be creative as well as profoundly destructive.  The definition of disruption is: to break apart; split up; rend asunder; to disturb or interrupt the orderly course of a social affair, meeting, etc.  Disruption aptly describes the journey of the main character in today’s scripture, Saul, who as Paul will continue to dominate the story of the Acts of the Apostles.  But, Ananais is also worth our deeper and intentional attention.

April 24, 2022

Text: Acts 5:18-42

Listen to Zoom recording of Bill’s teaching here.

This biblical story in Acts is story is a classic confrontation of two powers: the power of God and the power of human authorities.  And there resides within the power of human authorities some varieties of how that power is expressed. 

What is obvious for all to see is the raw force of power exhibited by the religious leaders in punishing those who dare to proclaim an independence of thought or belief; a fidelity to something other than the accepted orthodoxy of the time.  And because the disciples insisted on holding to this new truth, it cost them their freedom.  Incarceration has forever been a power that ruling authorities have used to solidify control over their citizens.  Now, for a number of reasons, we have been taught that incarceration is what happens when you do bad things; only bad people go to jail.  However, this story clearly overturns the idea that only bad people go to prison.  These are Jesus’ disciples!   They are the good guys!  

April 17, 2022

Here is the link to the Zoom recording.

Text: John 20: 1-18

On the first day of the week, Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning, while it was still dark, and saw the stone removed from the tomb.  So she ran and went to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them, “They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don’t know where they put him.”

So Peter and the other disciple went out and came to the tomb.  They both ran, but the other disciple ran faster than Peter and arrived at the tomb first; he bent down and saw the burial cloths there, but did not go in.  When Simon Peter arrived after him, he went into the tomb and saw the burial cloths there, and the cloth that had covered his head, not with the burial cloths but rolled up in a separate place.  Then the other disciple also went in, the one who had arrived at the tomb first, and he saw and believed.  For they did not yet understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead.  Then the disciple es returned home.

But Mary stayed outside the tomb weeping.  And as she wept, she bent over into the tomb and saw two angels in white sitting there, one at the head and one at the feet where the body of Jesus had been.

And they said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken my Lord, and I don’t know where they laid him.”

When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus there, but did not know it was Jesus.  Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?  Whom are you looking for?”  She thought it was the gardener and said to him, “Sir, if you carried him away, tell me where you laid him, and I will take him.”

Jesus said to her, “Mary!”  She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni,” which means Teacher.

Jesus said to her, “Stop holding on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father.  But go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am going to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”

Mary of Magdala went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord,” and what he told her.

Christ is risen!   Christ is risen indeed!   Alleluia!

April 10, 2022             

Texts:
     Psalm 31:9-10
     Luke 18:31-34
     Luke 19:28-40
     Luke 23:13-25

I will begin by reflecting on the events of Jesus’ final week, and then I will share about my Lenten journey.

The drama of Jesus’ final week was breathtaking.

After two or three years of intense public ministry, Jesus senses that his earthly mission is coming to an end.  Three times he warns his disciples that he is going to Jerusalem to suffer and to be killed.  Understandably, his prediction is incomprehensible to the disciples who had given up their whole lives to follow him. 

For his last week, Jesus makes a point of organizing two events.  First, he creates a celebration by riding into Jerusalem on a donkey.  The crowd praises him as king and honors him by spreading cloths and leaves on his path.  This was offensive to the religious leaders who asked Jesus to put an end to the adulation.  Jesus gives them a rather provocative response, “If they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.”  

Text: Luke 13:1-9

You can watch the Zoom recording of Alice’s teaching here:

Sito asked me to do a teaching for Women’s History Month.  The first time I did a teaching at 8^th Day, called “Welcoming the Stranger,” was April 6, 1986 — ten days before our first daughter, Nancy, was born.  Today is ten days before Nancy’s first daughter will be born — so this seems very appropriate.

I couldn’t figure out a lot of connection with the Luke 13 parable of the fig tree for this teaching on Women’s History – other than some things take time.  Fig trees usually produce fruit at about three years – and sometimes they need not just time, but also nurturing and fertilizer before they produce.   This can be true for empowering any oppressed people.  That’s my only connection between the Gospel and this teaching.

General Comments About Some Recent History of Women

During most of American history, women’s rights were limited by laws brought to North America by English colonists.  Because of marriage and property laws, a married woman did not have a separate legal existence apart from her husband.  A married woman was a dependent, like an underage child or a slave, and generally could not own property in her own name or control her own earnings.  She did not own her own body.  When a husband died, his wife could not be the guardian to even her own under-age children.  Slavery laws in the United States were initially based on laws governing women in England.