justice

"The Glorious Opportunity" | The roots of Martin Luther King's vision in Isaiah and the Gospel of John

The “steadfast love” of God is a central theme in the Bible. Meditating on God’s “steadfast love” anchored our ancestors whenever chaos, terror, and insecurity intruded. It can comfort us now when things feel unstable and unpredictable. Today’s readings invite us not only to receive the abundant and steadfast love of God, but to love steadfastly and abundantly, letting God’s love flow to us and through us.

On this weekend, the legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr invites us to carry forward a shared dream for a society that is just, equitable, and inclusive. Let us as we gather for worship, set an intention to let God’s love flow to us and through us so that all may thrive. “The Glorious Opportunity” is based on Psalm 36:5-10 and John 2.1-11, and preached on January 16, 2022.

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A long time ago, someone prayed the words of today’s psalm:

“Your righteousness, O God, is like the mighty mountains.”

Despite the challenges they and their world faced at the time . . .

"Easter Comes Toward Us" | How Easter moves the world (and us) toward a better justice

April 3, 2021. The Easter Vigil. A short spoken meditation based on Genesis 2.4b-9, Isaiah 12.2-6, Luke 24.1-12. I’m exploring the ways Easter comes toward us to bring the justice that always seems to miss us, the sacred justice that will enlist us if we will follow where Easter leads us—into the new humanity God desires for us—so that we can be a blessing to all that dwells on and in the Earth, our common home.

Easter always follows what gives it meaning—the agony of Friday’s crucifixion and the anxiety of Saturday’s painful waiting. Those two days frame our lives. They are symbols of the reality of our humanity; they show us how to live humanly and humanely.

We know the reality of pain and death. We know what it means to wait and wonder if good will ever come out of what is bad. . . .

"Health Matters" | Toward a Vision for Community and Economic Justice through Healthcare

My sermon on February 28, 2021. Theme: Health care for all is not only a human right, it's a metaphysical necessity. We’re all interconnected, you see? When one suffers, we all suffer. When one is healing we’re all being healed. That’s what it means that the whole world, the entire cosmos is the Body of Christ, and we are, individually members of it. A sermon based on Matthew 8.5-13.

About a year ago, on Sunday, March 1, 2020, just before all this change and challenge fell upon us, I explored the implications of Saint Paul’s vision for the way human beings can relate to one another. We were reading a section from his Letter to the Romans. From that ancient text I was explaining the Christian vision for the truth that we are deeply connected, physically and spiritually. . . .

Nourish Our Inner Lives: Second in the Series, "What Matters Most Now: Life, Love, Liberty in these Uncertain Days"

Here’s the second sermon in my fall sermon series: "What Matters Most Now: Life, Love, and Liberty in these Uncertain Times."

We’re facing a number of crises crashing in upon us. They threaten our wellbeing, personally and communally. We feel these threats in our bodies, minds, and souls. At the same time, we’re being summoned by God to engage this urgent moral reckoning as a nation.

The series aims to draw on ancient wisdom, freshly imagined, to help people recover habits and patterns for living in these times.

The series focuses on the universal feelings and experiences that unite all human beings. Charlie MacKesy’s book, "The Boy, The Mole, the Fox, and the Horse," does this beautifully, especially the way he brings together the four characters (boy=curiosity, mole=enthusiasm, fox=suffering, horse=wisdom). We will pair five of Charlie’s best sayings and joins them to biblical wisdom says to help ground us in these uncertain times.

This sermon was based on Proverbs 17.3 and a saying from Charlie MacKesy’s book, in which the boy says to the mole: “Isn’t it odd. We can only see our outsides, but nearly everything happens on the inside.”

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What are we going to do now?

Each week another worry. Each week another brick in the wall between Americans. Each week another weight drops on our shoulders.

We don’t all experience these crises the same way. There are those for whom the recent death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg isn’t a tragedy but an opportunity. There are those for whom the failure of the grand jury to indict Louisville cops in the death of Breonna Taylor isn’t a travesty of justice. There are those for whom the US Postal Service slowdowns, the voter suppression, and fact that America leads the world in COVID tragedies isn’t alarming. But for a majority of Americans today, all this is deeply troubling. It feels like our world is unraveling, our democracy is crumbling . . .

Thunberg and Monbiot: "Nature must be used to repair broken climate"

Greta Thunberg and George Monbiot testify that "the protection and restoration of living ecosystems such as forests, mangroves and seagrass meadows can repair the planet’s broken climate but are being overlooked.

"Natural climate solutions could remove huge amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as plants grow. But these methods receive only 2% of the funding spent on cutting emissions, say the climate activists.

"Their call to protect, restore and fund natural climate solutions comes ahead of a global climate strike led by young people on Friday and a UN climate action summit of world leaders in New York on Monday.”

Spread the word. The climate emergency is real.