Trinity

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The images mentioned in this sermon can be viewed here.

Throughout its long history, the Christian community has pondered a set of mysteries drawn from the life of Jesus. Mystery—this word, in its ancient sense, points toward something hidden, a dawning awareness that unfolds only slowly through musing, reflection, pondering. In this sense, these Christian treasures—Incarnation, Atonement, Resurrection, Trinity—are not fixed dogmas with singular meaning. In this series we will explore how these evocative images continue to disclose new meaning today, illuminating our lives as we hold the story of Jesus in conversation with our evolving understanding of justice, goodness, and reality itself.

Eating Meals: Hours of Hospitality and Eucharist

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In her memoir, The Writing Life, Annie Dillard muses: “How we spend our days is of course how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour and that one is what we are doing.” And we could add, what we do with this hour and that one, is sacred ground. What can feel mundane and ordinary to us—getting rest, doing work, eating meals, and paying attention—all this is truly the daily place where we can encounter the Holy. With the help of ancient voices from the monastic tradition, this series at the start of Ordinary Time will explore the common experiences of life, where we can welcome the Divine into the texture of our ordinary world.

The icon referenced in this sermon can be seen here.

Trinity Sunday

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Today, the first Sunday after Pentecost, we celebrate Trinity Sunday, a feast day the universal Church has commemorated since 1334 A.D. In one sense, every Sunday is a festival of the Trinity because the whole Trinity is at work in every moment, brooding over chaos and calling forth life, catching creation up into the dance of renewal and transformation. Co-equal, self-giving, mutually loving, the ancient picture of the Trinity as a dancing circle, perichoresis, invites all humanity into the all-inclusive feast of belonging.

Images referenced in the sermon can be found here

Voices from the Wilderness II, Gender: The Witness of Feminist/Queer Theology

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In Epiphany the church basks in the light of Christ revealed to us. Yet simultaneously we live in a world divided by difference, riven by power structures that alienate and marginalize. To our surprise, the light of God shines upon us from the other, as God listens attentively to the voice of cries from the wilderness. In showing his mercy to the oppressed, God is revealed to them in ways the powerful do not know, so that our salvation is wrapped up into listening to their voices.

This sermon series situates us as attentive listeners to theological voices that cry out from the wildernesses of oppression and injustice in our society. After laying a theological groundwork for attentive, non-reactive listening to marginal experiences of God, we will train our attention on three voices that are too often diminished at the table in American Christianity. Across the power-divide of race, we will hear the witness of black theology to the God who liberates. Across the power-divide of gender, we will hear from feminist and queer theologians who witness to the God who overcomes binaries. And across the power-divide of class, we will listen to Latin American theologians who discover the preference of God for the poor.