Wisdom is the architect of all things, the builder of the world, the one who formed creation. That’s how the passage from the Wisdom of Solomon describes this cosmic person, this divine personality, all-powerful and full of benevolence. She pervades and penetrates all things, it says, she is God’s power, the breath of God. In… More
Sermons
Worship is more than preaching. Each worship gathering draws from the wealth of gifts of the community. We have rotations of volunteers who share the responsibilities of preaching, song leading, and service planning. We take turns reading the assigned Scripture readings for the day. The high point of our worship is our time for response and sharing. Since we believe that anyone can offer an interpretation of the Bible, we provide time in our worship for people to offer their own reflections on the Scriptures and the sermon.
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The God Who Works
At the end of our Isaiah passage, God declares the shortcomings of all metaphors: “For I am god and there is no other, I am God, and there is nothing like me.” We are talking about gender and God – how is God like a man, how is God like a woman, what are God’s… More
The God Who Gave You Birth
Well, I’ll be honest. I’m not a patient person at all, and although for some odd reason I enjoy philosophy, I’ve never had much patience for thinking about gender or theology. Gender is at once too simple and too complicated for me to dwell on. Maybe it’s too hurtful. Theology feels like navel gazing or… More
God of our ancestors
In our passage from Exodus, when Moses talks with the burning bush, he asks the fire about its identity, about how to tell others about who this is, what kind of deity could this be. “The God of your ancestors”—that who this is, the voice says to Moses. This weeks begins our two-month series on… More
Epiphanies
The magi see signs in the night sky, celestial revelations, announcing that the long-awaited Jewish king, the Messiah, has been born, and they want to pay their respects. After traveling for months across the desert, the magi, probably from Persia, finally arrive in Jerusalem. Jerusalem because, after all, that’s the kind of place where kings… More
Immanuel
This isn’t just the story of Christmas,
just something we hear during this season,
as we reflect on a few passages;
but the story of the bible, the whole thing, is one long story
of a God who has always been finding ways to be with us,
to draw close to us,
to struggle with us,
to rest with us,
because God likes us. More
A new heavens and a new earth
“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth…and there was no more sea,” no more chaos and difficulty… “See, God’s home is among the people” (Rev 21: 1, 3). It is a vision of heaven. God literally brings heaven out of the sky and sets up house. It is a vision of God’s ultimate homecoming for us, and for God. More
“Do not fear, O Soil”
In this passage from the book of Joel, we hear God speaking, not to human beings, but to soil and animals. We get to eavesdrop on their conversation, to listen to the sorts of things they talk about, God and the soil, God and the animals, when they chat. More
Exiles in prison
If we’re committed to the welfare of this country, to the people around us, to the people exiled from us in prisons, in detention centers—if we find our welfare in their welfare, how do we make sense of the contradictions? The contradiction that to be for the welfare of prisoners involves being against the welfare of the society that builds prisons, a way of life that depends on incarceration. What does it mean for us to be committed to peace, here, in this place where God has put us, when sinister violences hold it all together? More
Not Forgetting
Growing up, I would at different times ask my mom, “what was the best time of your life?” I asked her this question repeatedly, year after year, I suppose always waiting to hear something different. Every single time, she’d reply, “well, my life is pretty good right now.” I just knew though, that there had to be another answer—I figured that the best time of her life had to be when she was a smooth-skinned twenty year old, her potential yet unhampered by kids and the weight of domesticity. Or maybe it was another time. Whatever the case, the best time of her life couldn’t be right then—why would it be? She always seemed to be eluding the question by not telling me about a time that lived on, resplendent in her memory, as the BEST time of her life. More
The potter’s wheel
Repentance is how we say yes to God’s vision for our lives—to let go of all the ways we try to be something we are not, to release our grip on visions for life that aren’t good for us, visions that aren’t good for our neighbors, and instead entrust ourselves into God’s care, to trust that God will remake us and our world with the goodness we need. Jeremiah’s prophecy about the potter’s house is a word of judgment, a call to say no to what causes destruction in our lives and in our communities, in order to say yes to God’s goodness, to say yes to God’s grace. More
to plant
There’s a tree in my backyard, actually a neighbor’s yard, but it’s branches reach above our house, a canopy of leaves over our backyard. A month ago there was a tree guy doing work on it, cutting away a dead branch that stretched toward our house. I asked him how old he thought the tree was. At least 150 years, he said. I stared at it from my backyard office for the rest of the day, thinking about what it’s seen. In it’s early years, it would have watched as Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation set enslaved people free, free from their Southern masters. Maybe the tree was planted in celebration of that liberation. An oak tree bearing witness to the end of slavery. More
Let us argue
This stuff weights me down—for you it could be the situation in Kashmir or all the ice melting in Alaska’s seas, or all of this and more. I feel it in my shoulders, the tightness in my neck. Each body carries weight that pulls at us in different ways. I’ve named public trauma here, but I know each of us, each of you, have very personal traumas and heartaches, intimate anxieties that mess with your head, that affect your day to day life. More
The earth shall answer
The Scriptures aren’t so much worried about the salvation of this person or that person, but in a collective future for the people as a whole. God saves a community, a people, God’s people, not just individuals, which means each person’s fate is bound up with all the others, my salvation is bound up with yours, and yours with mine. More
Prophecies of exile
Here’s the thing I learned from Amos this week, after reading through his prophecy. There’s so little concern with all the things I’ve obsessed about, as a Christian, for most of my life. God doesn’t waste time with the stuff I’ve always thought about as so important for my life, for my faith—all my conceptions about faithfulness, about what it means to love God, to live according to God’s will. More
Lovesick
Jesus doesn’t pray for himself by himself. Instead he prays for his friends in their company. “I am asking on their behalf… protect them from the evil one” (13:9, 15). Jesus is single-hearted, wholly for his disciples, worried about their future, desperate for God to watch over them. Life seems unbearable, unimaginable, without them. More
Peace I leave with you
“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” Jesus offers these words to his friends on his last night with him. Their evening together began with Jesus, taking the feet of his disciples into his hands, pouring water over each one and scrubbing them clean, then with a towel massaging them dry. As they ate their last supper, Jesus tells them that he loves them, that he will miss them, that he will always be with them, in their hearts, in their love, in their lives together, through the Holy Spirit, the divine comforter, the divine advocate, the presence of God. More
Do not be troubled
We hope for a world where he can thrive, where our neighbors and the children of our neighbors experience the fullness of life. We believe in the God of life, in a world held in God’s hands, like Jesus holding his disciples close, Jesus holding us close, washing us with love, refreshing us with peace. More
Breakfast
I dream of other worlds, ones like this one, with all of you there, but there’s something different, one difference that changes everything, the collapse of the old and a beginning for the new, like, for example, a world without guns, with no more weapons, without arms manufacturers and dealers, without rockets flying in and out of Gaza, a world without border fences and prison walls, a world without corporations making money off of detention centers and ankle monitors and bail bonds, a world without pollution, without factory waste dumped into rivers, without fossil fuel emissions, without the slow violence of environmental racism, a world without cancer, without disease, without sicknesses that sneak up on the young and lead to their death. I dream of worlds that still have all the people we’ve lost—your people and my people, your friends and mine, all our loved ones, even the ancestors we never met. More
Resurrection
This past year I’ve had two friends ask me why I’m a Christian. These are two people with whom I share a similar vision for life, a vision for a good world. We have similar commitments, in terms of how to picture ourselves in the world—everything is more or less the same, except for this one thing, which we return to in our conversations: Why do I need the added Christian thing? More
When did we see you?
Our Scriptures record a long discussion among the people of God, a back and forth over centuries, where one voice in the Bible is in conversation with another voice, one book speaking to another book, all about what it means to see God, to look at God’s face. More
Defiant hope
The U.S. government called it a felony, a felony to transport and harbor illegal aliens. But Southside Presbyterian called it sanctuary. When federal agents told the church to stop or else face prosecution, Southside offered a response, a letter they read at press conference, with church members gathered on the steps leading into the sanctuary, a wall of saints protecting the people inside: “We will not cease to extend the sanctuary of the church to undocumented people from Central America,” they declared. “Obedience to God requires this of us.” More
speechless
“And he was speechless” (Matt 22:12). That’s what the parable says about the man who was at the banquet without the right clothes, the man who didn’t have a wedding robe like everyone else at the wedding feast. When the king’s eye catches a glimpse of the man with ordinary clothes, the king confronts him with a question. “How did you get in here without a wedding robe,” without the proper attire? (22:12). He has nothing to say for himself. Nothing to say to the king. No response. Only silence. “And he was speechless,” it says. More
Frivolous God
This is a story about a frivolous God who doesn’t weigh costs and benefits. God instead makes decisions based on love. In the kingdom of heaven, the only law is generous love, all people as deserving of the lavish providence of God. More