Jan 17, 2021 |
The Need for Truth-Telling
| The Rev. Joyce Keeshin
The Need for Truth-Telling
.As we listen, we need to be able to hear the truth and speak the truth, even when it is uncomfortable. We are each made up of what has come before in our lives; our heritages and upbringings and relationships, our experiences and exposures, our learning and understanding. We are beautiful unique expressions of life and love, and yet we are also one. United as beloved children of God. As I reflect on our shared experiences of these multiple crises we're in, the need for truth telling has never been greater.
Jan 10, 2021 |
Wake Up! Choose Love
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Wake Up! Choose Love
John’s message isn't ‘feel bad’. John’s messages isn’t ‘beat yourself up’. John's message isn't one about shaming people, even when he uses harsh language. The harsh language is meant to wake them up. Wake them up to the reality that they are not choosing love. We have seen what we are capable of as a people when we do not choose love. We're seeing it right now and John the Baptist’s word to us today is to repent.
Jan 03, 2021 |
Awakened to the Reality
| The Rev. Melanie W. J. Slane
Awakened to the Reality
The beginning of Jesus’ story is so important. More important, apparently, than the next 25 years of his life. And so, we are awakened to the reality of how his life began. Jesus, God Incarnate, began his earthly journey seeking refuge, searching for sanctuary in a world that was hostile to the idea that the poor and the lame, the outcast and the blind, the orphan and the widow were Kings and Queens in the eyes of God. This was a message very unwelcomed by tyrants like Herod.
Dec 25, 2020 |
The Abundance of Good News
| The Rev. Joyce Keeshin
The Abundance of Good News
What amazing, good news we hear. The savior, the long-awaited Messiah has been born. Help is here. Salvation is here. And not only that he's been born in a humble place, an accessible place. The Messiah born truly among us, in a way our eyes and hearts can behold. We can soak in the comfort of this good news this morning. Longing for good news of any kind. Recognizing the extraordinariness of the good news here.
Dec 24, 2020 |
Everything is Interrupted
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Everything is Interrupted
They are surrounded by noise and inconvenience and then a birth happens. This is not how births are supposed to go. This is not how the story is supposed to go. And then the shepherds, this is not how their night is supposed to go. Everything is interrupted. Interrupted by the grace of God. This is an interrupting grace that transforms the lives of the people who are present in our story. This is not a story about the people who earned the right kind of Christmas. This is not the story of the people who got it just right so Jesus would come. There's nothing idealistic about it. It's too true of a story to fit into that mold.
Dec 20, 2020 |
Here Am I
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Here Am I
But this is the work that we are meant to do together as a church. We are meant to live a life in such a way that our eyes are opened to the reality of God constantly visiting us in this world and constantly inviting us into the work of blessing. It's hard right now. It's scary right now. It's so strange out there and we're feeling so isolated and alone. And the idea of being told it's our job to bless this world can feel overwhelming.
Dec 13, 2020 |
For God's Sake, Breathe
| The Rev. Melanie W. J. Slane
For God's Sake, Breathe
"Breath. The Ruach. The wind that swept over the face of deep at the very beginning of creation. The pulse of life. Find your breath. Use your voice. The breath is there for you from the moment you begin until you take your last. Breath is so essential to life, yet we often don't realize we're doing it. Evangelism works that way, too.
The beginning of new life in the Church requires these tools and more to guide her and provide support for the difficult process of giving birth to Jesus in the world. You too must visualize the Kingdom. Repeat the refrain of our mantras. Move with the Holy Spirit. Adapt. Change. Cry to God for help. Give thanks in all things and for God’s sake, breathe."
The beginning of new life in the Church requires these tools and more to guide her and provide support for the difficult process of giving birth to Jesus in the world. You too must visualize the Kingdom. Repeat the refrain of our mantras. Move with the Holy Spirit. Adapt. Change. Cry to God for help. Give thanks in all things and for God’s sake, breathe."
Dec 06, 2020 |
Your People Need Comfort
| The Rev. Joyce Keeshin
Your People Need Comfort
This Advent season we are again invited to prepare the way of our Lord. We are invited to enter the season in a quieter way. Acknowledging the tumult around us on so many different levels, allowing ourselves moments of respite, even rest. And in this quieter place might we listen more carefully, more intently, for the voices that guide us to Christ. Might we release any preconceptions of who those voices might come from, how the bearers that this good news will be dressed, or what they will eat, what they might say or do. Let us be open to how the Holy Spirit manifests before us and the invitation we are given to participate in this season of waiting and expectancy.
Nov 22, 2020 |
What's Next?
| The Rev. Gary Lubin
What's Next?
"You know, such a tragic experience can really bring the temporal nature of life and its meaning into very sharp focus. On a personal level it gets me to wondering, what is next, and I think in our guts at the very core of all our beings we all want to know what's next. The disciples wanted to know that too and they repeatedly asked Jesus, “What’s next?”."
Nov 15, 2020 |
Discomfited by the Anger
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Discomfited by the Anger
We are so discomfited by the anger of God that we ignore what God is angry about. We are so overwhelmed by the possibility that God is right about us in these areas where we have fallen short of the love for which we were made. So we say, "well, I just can't hear what God saying because God's just being so bombastic. All of this language about fiery judgment and weeping and gnashing of teeth, I just can't hear what you're saying God. I need you to be nicer to me and then I can hear." We are tone policing our Lord and Savior.
Nov 01, 2020 |
Not the End, but the Beginning
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Not the End, but the Beginning
When I hear this vision of people standing before the throne, great throngs of every tribe and race and people and nation standing before God with gratitude and love, I immediately think of the lines I see all across the country of people standing to vote. I don't think about everyone dying and going to the right place when they die, I think about everyone living here and now and participating in the changing of this world here and now with joy and hope in their hearts. My joy is in recognizing how much the people around me love our world and want it to be better.
Oct 25, 2020 |
Love Prevails
| The Rev. Joyce Keeshin
Love Prevails
Yes, we may be very set in our different views, even to the point of not being able to hear the words of others. But might we not refuse to allow our minds to shut down our hearts? Might we refuse to allow our minds to shut down our hearts? Might, in our hearts, we find a truer understanding of the other? Might you see the fully human, deeply fallible condition of us all and embrace that as our common ground? Our space where we can love God and let God be God. Our space where we can love our neighbor as ourselves.
Oct 18, 2020 |
Jesus is not a Cynic
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Jesus is not a Cynic
Imagine God coming into this world in the flesh to teach, to heal, to remind us of God's power and grace. And in the middle of trying to work with us to help us see this world as a place worth loving and caring for, working for healing, recovering, in the middle of that work, two people walk up to him and go “Yeah, but are you a Republican or a Democrat? Which side are you on?” Seems a little petty in that case, doesn’t it?
Oct 11, 2020 |
This Work is About Joy
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
This Work is About Joy
But what I want us to remember is that when it comes to racial justice healing and reconciliation, like all real justice and all real healing and reconciliation, when it comes to this, God is doing the work anyway. The question is not, “Will God destroy racism and make things right?” That's not the question. The question is. “Will we join with God in that work?” That's the actual question. When it comes to the work of love and healing in the world, when it comes to reconciliation, the question for the Christian, the question for the Church is not, “Is God even here doing it?” Our question is, “Can we recognize the powerful presence of God?” And “Will we roll up our sleeves and join in the work?”
Oct 04, 2020 |
A New Way of Living
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
A New Way of Living
"...it turns them violent and their violence is turned towards God. But that violence comes from that sense that God is getting in the way of their lives. That belonged to them, on their terms and in their ways. Their insistence, their radical insistence, that their life belongs only to them and their property belongs only to them and the world belongs just to them and will be made in their image turns them so violent and makes them so blind that when Jesus himself shows up, when the son of God, and in the parable the son of the vineyard owner, shows up they kill him. We don't even recognize God when God is in our midst because we're too busy protecting ourselves and our things and our identities and our sense of the way things are supposed to be."
Sep 27, 2020 |
Challenging Worldly Authority
| The Rev. Joyce Keeshin
Challenging Worldly Authority
"In our humanity sometimes we stubbornly resist before we go forward. At other times we fail to follow through. It's our human inclination at times to hold to the status quo, protect our turf. It's our human condition to not always get things right. So, how do we, in our lives, understand and experience authority, earthly authority, and God's authority? How do we understand and discern what's in play? How do we recognize the way of righteousness? And walk that way?"
Sep 20, 2020 |
Here To Do The Work
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Here To Do The Work
"I don’t know what the outcome of our work will be. In terms of, will I produce the right amount of justice, freedom, and peace? Will I personally participate in the work enough that I’ve earned my status as Christian, as Beloved? But the gospel today tells me to get rid of that fear. To drop my judgment. To cease from trying to figure out who deserves what. And simply to roll up my sleeves while I have my breath in my lungs and do the work God has given me to do. Trusting that in that work I will be participating with you, participating with God in the work that needs to be done in this world. The work of love and healing, of freedom and peace, of justice and reconciliation. This is the work that God gives us to do and this is the work we participate with God in."
Sep 13, 2020 |
Why We Should Forgive
| The Rev. Melanie W. J. Slane
Why We Should Forgive
"...we have very few chances in this life to help fellow sojourners experience heaven and offering forgiveness is one of the most direct ways to bring God to others. We forgive because we have been forgiven. Mercy flows from God to help us heal a broken world. Reconciliation, possible, even after many years of estrangement and kindness is amplified when humility and generosity of spirit direct and rule our hearts."
