Sermons
"Not Seven Times, but Seventy-Seven Times!" | Pastor Karen Boda (Assistant to the Bishop)
September 13, 2020 | 15th Sunday after Pentecost
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The absurd abundance and power of God’s forgiveness is given to you. Accept it and let God’s forgiveness transform your life. Let God’s forgiveness free you, so that you too can free others.
Unconscious Bias: A (Lutheran) Christian View | Pastor Katherine Museus Dabay
September 9, 2020 | Wednesday Meditation | Part 4 of the sermon series The Bible and Racial Justice
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Recognizing the uncomfortable truth of the sin in us individually and in the world and the way it moves is the first step towards the good news that God gives us grace and God gives us the power to change. In the same way, recognizing the uncomfortable truth of the racism in us and in the world is the first step towards the good news that we can do something about it.
Community | Pastor H. Julian Gordy
September 6, 2020 | 14th Sunday after Pentecost
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Love for one another, St. Paul writes in our second lesson, is the obligation we have to each other. The instructions Jesus gives in Matthew 18 about out how the church is to deal with offenders gives us a hint at how important the community of believers is. Perhaps one of the blessings of this difficult time of pandemic quarantine is that we may have a greater longing for connection with one another that we have in the past, and, in that, we may also come to value the community that is the body of Christ and our place in it.
Racism vs. Bigotry: What's the Difference? | Pastor H. Julian Gordy
September 2, 2020 | Wednesday Meditation | Part 3 of the sermon series The Bible and Racial Justice
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Bigotry is personal. Racism, on the other hand, is institutional and systemic. Pr. Bonner points out that “Racism is not merely disliking someone of another color.” He goes on, “Today many people confuse dislike, bias, personal discrimination, prejudice, or even bigotry with racism. Racism is a social construct based on institutionalized and systemic power for the purposes of control of resources, authority, and influence within society.”
What Does "Take Up Your Cross" Mean? | Pastor Katherine Museus Dabay
August 30, 2020 | 13th Sunday after Pentecost
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We see the cross so much that maybe we take it for granted, and it becomes detached from its meaning – especially the difficult meaning it has in this Gospel reading. So let's meditate on the cross: what it meant to Jesus's disciples, and what it means for us to take up our crosses today.
How the Bible has been Used to Justify Racism | Pastor Katherine Museus Dabay
August 26, 2020 | Wednesday Meditation | Part 2 of the sermon series The Bible and Racial Justice
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How have Christians referenced their faith and scriptures as they made cases in support of race and race-based institutions? And can we be sure that they were wrong?
Transformed | Pastor H. Julian Gordy
August 23, 2020 | 12th Sunday after Pentecost
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In this Sunday's readings, Isaiah writes of God's intention to transform parched places into Gardens and St. Paul encourages us to let ourselves be transformed. Transformation is the work of the Spirit, but it is work we are called and allowed to participate in. In the week's sermon, we hear the story of transformation in a small Delta town as an example of the transforming work we who are baptized are called and privileged to participate in.
Why the Bible Doesn't Talk about "Racism"
(and What it has to Say to Us about it Anyway) | Pastor Katherine Museus Dabay
August 19, 2020 | Wednesday Meditation | Part 1 of the sermon series The Bible and Racial Justice
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If you search the Bible for the word “racism,” you won’t find it anywhere. Why? Because the idea of “race" didn’t exist when the books of the Bible were being written. But through the Bible God still teaches us about some of the main issues behind the word "racism," like how we treat one another and how we respond to the "ways of the world."
The Faith of the Rejected Woman | Pastor Katherine Museus Dabay
August 16, 2020 | 11th Sunday after Pentecost
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But when we feel hopeless – that’s when we need to pray for faith like the Canaanite woman’s. A faith that sees the ancient hateful patterns of the world, and can stare down those patterns and say: “But that is not the world God promises us.” A faith that trusts in God’s promises for a better world and demands that they start coming true even now, even against all odds.
Pay Attention | Pastor H. Julian Gordy
August 9, 2020 | 10th Sunday after Pentecost
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Elijah went up to Mt. Horeb where Moses had met God in earthquake, wind, and fire. Elijah experiences the same extraordinary wonders, but God is not in them. God comes to Elijah in a "still, small voice," or a "sound of sheer silence." We find it easy to see God in the miraculous, but when we pay attention, we find God always present, even in the everyday.
Christian Freedom | Pastor Katherine Museus Dabay
August 5, 2020 | Wednesday Meditation
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"Freedom" is an important word for us -- both in our Christian faith and in our American culture. So what does the Bible teach us about how we live in freedom?
Loaves & Fishes | Pastor Katherine Museus Dabay
August 2, 2020 | 9th Sunday after Pentecost
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"That is how it works whenever some is close enough to Jesus to catch a glimpse of what he’s doing and how they could help. We blunder in with our ideas. We offer, uncomprehending, what little we have. Jesus takes ideas, loaves and fishes, money, a sense of humour, time, energy, talents, love, artistic gifts, skill with words, quickness of eye or fingers, whatever we have to offer. He holds them before his father with prayer and blessing. Then, breaking them so they are ready for use, he gives them back to us to give to those who need them." -N. T. Wright
Good Example | Pastor H. Julian Gordy
July 29, 2020 (Wednesday Meditation)
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For Lutherans, every baptized follower of Jesus is at once saint and sinner, but we remember some saints for their witness to faith and faithfulness. They are good examples of how we are to live. Pastor Gordy offers a remembrance of John Lewis and talks about how his life might inspire us to carry out the ministry of reconciliation we have been given in baptism.