Hagar

Epiphany celebrates the light of Christ revealed to all people. However, we are preconditioned to notice those who are strong, affluent, beautiful, and victorious. This is true not only for how we see the world but for how we read the Bible. This sermon series intends to help us see and appreciate the marginalized in scripture. By being challenged to notice and to compassionately understand those with little to no voice in the Bible, it’s our hope that these skills can be applied to compassionately see the marginalized all around us, so that, in the spirit of Epiphany, we may be able to celebrate the light of Christ shining through the “other.”

An Introduction & Job's Wife

Epiphany celebrates the light of Christ revealed to all people. However, we are preconditioned to notice those who are strong, affluent, beautiful, and victorious. This is true not only for how we see the world but for how we read the Bible. This sermon series intends to help us see and appreciate the marginalized in scripture. By being challenged to notice and to compassionately understand those with little to no voice in the Bible, it’s our hope that these skills can be applied to compassionately see the marginalized all around us, so that, in the spirit of Epiphany, we may be able to celebrate the light of Christ shining through the “other.”

A Criminal Justice Sabbath

The season after the Epiphany is a time in which we remember and celebrate that the light of Christ has come for all people. On this particular Sunday we will join with the Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon to participate in a Criminal Justice Sabbath, which is an opportunity to make connections between our faith traditions and the legal system we are part of, and to see our shared responsibility to participate in healing. To help us make these important connections, Dr. Graham Reside, Vanderbilt University Divinity School Assistant Professor of the Practice of the Sociology of Religion will speak on restorative justice and the sociology of incarceration, and he'll help us to ask how our religious and moral commitments can shape our approaches to crime and punishment.

HANDOUTS

Criminal Justice Statistics in the US

Disrupting Mass Incarceration

Christmas Eve

Longing in Darkness

The season of Advent is filled with longing. We long for rest; we long for special times with loved ones; we long for the re-enactment of traditions; we long. Isaiah’s prophecies about the nature and work of messiah ache with longing. Isaiah longs for a messiah who enacts justice, sets people free, and creates a new humanity out of the old. During this season of Advent, our sermon series will encourage this ancient longing by pondering prophetic poems about messiah, which will warm our hearts with hope and prepare us to sing, once again, “Merry Christmas!”