Sermons

The First Sunday in Lent

February 26, 2023

Today is the first Sunday in the liturgical season of Lent. Lent may be the most embodied of our seasons – okay, maybe second place after Advent, with all of its improbable conceptions, big pregnant bellies, and wearying journeys. But Lent is a close second: beginning with Jesus’ weakened, weary body stumbling out of the wilderness, ending with his crucified corpse buried in the tomb. And in between, Christians have traditionally marked Lent with some kind of fast.

I feel very attuned to this this year, because I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about my relationship with my body. And as important as our bodies are – I mean, we live our whole lives in them! – they are hard to talk about sometimes. Even here! In this congregation where we regularly affirm the dignity and beauty of creation, extolling the essential goodness of the birds and the fish and the rivers and the mountains, how often do we include our own bodies in that mix?

Personally, I could use that reminder. And I also think it’s the kind of thing we are called to as people of faith: speaking prophetic truth and love against the false stories told not only in American culture in general but also specifically in the American church. Because I think there is a gnostic-like disdain for the body alive and well in the church, particularly in evangelical Christianity. Gnosticism was a philosophy espoused by some in the early church that, among other things, defined material existence, including our physical bodies, as evil. Though the church ostensibly squashed this movement within the first century or two after Jesus, I think traces of it remain.

Transfiguration Sunday

February 19, 2023

It seems to me that lately we’ve been having a long run of very serious sermons, mostly drawn from every crisis that we hear about in the news. It makes my head swim just to remember the latest crisis. Particularly for the last couple weeks, I’ve barely been able to listen to the news or read the newspaper. I’ve been too distracted with what is right here in front of me. And while I applaud and cheer for all of you who are filled with passion to address these very real and very important issues, I confess that a lot of time I want to just run away to some other place or some other time where I can pretend that every day, and every way the world is getting better and better. I don’t get to pretend that, but that’s what I want.

The Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany

February 12, 2023

In bringing the Word today, Larry remembered Lisa Null and Merwyn Austin Nunes, asked a number of people to join him in reflecting on Black History Month, and invited the children into a brief show-and-tell. What follows is the automatic transcript from zoom of what was said, lightly edited for clarity

Larry: Thanks for that. So I always start off by saying, if you remember one thing that’s said today I’ve done my job. And I’m going to to start this sermon off just like I did 5 years ago.

I’m going to say, like 5 years ago, root for the Eagles.Yeah.

I’ve got a picture that I wanted to be on the screen, but it couldn’t be on the screen [holds up picture] This is my good friend Elizabeth Noll. She died on July nineteenth. I worked for her for 15 years. This woman and I was taking care of the lawn. It was the perfect job, because she didn’t want the managed look, she would have me. She would buy hundreds of dollars’ worth of bulbs, and I put them deep in the ground in the squirrels and the deer and the rabbits to dig them out and eat them. She didn’t care. She would just buy more, to love nature. She loved life, and so you know, so!

I was sad to see her go. She was a part of the Folklore Society here, you know, and she was a part of the Folk festival. She was Jewish, so she didn’t come to Carroll Cafe that often. But she did come one time, maybe once or twice, but it is their Sabbath, so mostly she wouldn’t do that. I actually asked her husband to come talk to the group today, he’s an orthodox Jew. And so throughout my years, working for them, I knew about the Jewish holidays because she would tell them to me, but I could never repeat them back to her. I didn’t understand the pronunciation, and I’m sorry.

Michelle knew her also, from the Hebrew home. Michele helped take care of this woman for the last 5 or 6 months or she was alive, so I asked Michele say a few words.

The Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany

February 5, 2023

Good people agree that we should seek peace, justice, and harmony in the world.   But what should we do when our efforts fail?  When carefully planned and executed strategies for change don’t work? When standing up for the right thing makes us a target of those in power?  When rulers and privileged people clearly care about nothing other than staying in power at any cost?  When social change movements falter and fail? 

What does Christian faith say to these questions?

The Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany

January 29, 2023

Holy One, Holy Wisdom, Holy Spirit, I trust that you guided my heart, head and hands as I wrote this offering, and pray you to be my guide as I offer it to my community. May the words I speak be received in love and curiosity by open minds and hearts, all in your name. Amen

Marjory reminded us a few weeks ago that epiphany means a sudden insight or flash of intuitive understanding, I hope we can always be open to such experiences.

Barry Lopez wrote: “I think when you’re young you want to learn the names of everything… But it’s the syntax that you really are after. Anybody can develop the vocabulary. It’s the relationships that are important.”  Lopez’s quote feels like an invitation to working with the relationships in the Beatitudes, especially in a time that calls us all to be open to epiphanies that enlarge our vision and our part in God’s creation.