Category: Sermons
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If you want community, you’ve gotta stick around to make it so.
Love requires us to continually revisit our contracts of care. The question knocking on the door today is the same one Jesus asked the Galileans 2,000 years ago: how do we love and look after each other when so much has been lost and changed?
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How to Survive an Avalanche: Instructions for an Apocalypse
This is week two of our series titled Yours, Truly. It’s an invitation of sorts, to all of us, to lean in. When winds are strong, you have to lean against them harder to press on. Just like that, we’ve come upon times now when we have to lean in harder than ever. Last week,…
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In the Name of Jesus: the Death of Sonya Massey & the Cult of Imperialism
Like many, I believe that Sonya knew that her life was about to be handed over to the authorities. She rebuked the power of death, and her body was broken.
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The Great Recruiter
But a god who recruits relinquishes control. And as anyone knows who’s worked with a team before, or who’s loved small children: relinquishing control can be scary. Because the outcome is ours to co-create with God. But the payoff is tremendous, because by recruiting us, instead of gatekeeping, God recovers us from isolation.
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Pay Attention [Queering Genesis]
During this sermon series, Queering Genesis, with a focus on the life of Joseph, we’ve been exploring how God can be understood and made known through even the lives of unconventional people. It may be that you sometimes feel like a very conventional person. Or it may be that you don’t. Either way, you are…
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Re-Member the Body: a Mid-Pandemic Queer Invocation at Amherst College
While I was at Amherst, spring – this time – was always my favorite time of year. It still is today in Maine, where I live now with my wife and our animals. Yes, of course I loved spring here because it marks the evaporating smell of soy sauce on the sidewalks, but spring is also…
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No Cure Necessary [Disabling Lent]
Today, we’re continuing our Lenten series titled “Disabling Lent,” an exploration of disability justice, anti-ableism, and God’s image through the whole and holy lives of disabled people. And in particular, I want to contrast two events recorded in the Gospel commonly attributed to John. Neither of these stories are inherently about disabled people, but I…
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Guilt, Shame, or Transformation
I had two ideas for what I wanted to talk about today as we continue our series titled Ojalá. Last week, M encouraged us to release our judgment and self-judgment and to prevent perfection from preventing us from what is good. The week before that, S kicked off the series and invited us to be…
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Self Care, Community Care, and Collective Healing
Today is our last week in this short series titled “What Helps, What Hurts.” Two weeks ago, S kicked us off, and she talked about systems of mutuality. And last week, K reminded us that God’s capacity is in every person. And mostly, I feel like they’ve said everything that needs to be said. To…
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Holy Children, People of Play
Up on the ground level, far from our roots, we are susceptible to commodifying even our joy – a hustle culture that lures us to ossify our happiness into an income stream. We live in a culture where people of color must achieve far more than white people do in ministry, in our careers, in our…
Ophelia Hu Kinney 