Seeking Authentic Voice

The readings that we chose for the service tonight were all picked specifically for this service because they lift up the role of women in scripture, named women. But there is another reading that has been floating around in my head. It’s there reading from the fourth chapter of the Gospel of Luke where Jesus enters that temple:   Luke 4.14-23 (referencing Isaiah 61:1) 14  Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. 15 He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone. 16  When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:  18 ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,    because he has anointed me    ...

My seminary advisor was a renowned New Testament scholar, one of his protege students turned out to be Sarge Thomas' daughter, Amy, who taught one of the New Testament classes I took. Small world. Anyway, one day my advisor was talking to me about something, I don't recall what exactly. I do remember he said to me that he thought that the reason I didn't ask a lot of questions in class was because I had grown up in the Mormon church and that church doesn't encourage thinking and questioning.  No doubt I was raised to be the good girl, quiet, well behaved, and my childhood goal was perfection. However, I'm not sure if that's exactly why I was quiet in class. I suspect it had more to do with fear. I've mentioned before that Faithwalking course a number of us have taken and are taking, invites us to look deep at our lives, to ponder the things we learned about ourselves before we were 20 years old, especially the things that hurt us, shamed us, and left us feel...

What are the things that I don't know that I don't know? This is the primary question that Faithwalking asks each person to consider. And then, how can I begin to know what I don't know? One way I can do this is to learn to listen differently. Instead of listening for only 3-9 seconds before I begin to decide what is right or wrong about what another is saying, before I begin to formulate my argument back, before my autopilot reactive response that is formed by previous wounds and hurts kicks in, I can decide instead to listen differently. I may not ever agree with what you say, but I can listen with the idea that what you are saying is true for you, and maybe I can learn something from that. At the very least I can be fully present to you and hear what you say. At some point in time each one of us has been broken, deeply truly broken, shamed, hurt, rejected, embarrassed, neglected or abused. Listening for right or wrong/ agree or disagree will close me off to somet...

Over twenty four years ago I began a process of deep listening to God. I had a volunteer ministry in a hospital offering massages to parents of sick children. Being a licensed massage therapist was prayerful, profound work for me, that took me to places of deep listening. I listened to people. I listened to God. I listened to myself. Eventually I discerned from all this listening that I needed to do more. So I entered a dual degree program to acquire a Masters of Divinity and a Masters of Social Work, intending to be a hospital chaplain providing opportunities to guide people into deep healing of mind, body, and spirit. I had not yet decided if I was going to do this as an ordained person, that came later. It was difficult to listen to God and discern if I was called to the priesthood when I was already in seminary, surrounded by people who had already made that decision and had it affirmed by the lay committees, diocesan committees, and Bishops. Eventually I did make that decision an...

Although I am preaching without a manuscript here is the gist of what I intended to say for Easter 2B, commenting on the readings appointed for the day. What I actually said was more, and included comments from the members of the congregation.  Here are portions of the readings I was commenting on:  1 John 1:1-2:2 "that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all"  and from the Gospel - John 20:19-31"When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you."  I woke up last Sunday, Easter, to find a story a friend of mine posted on his Facebook page.  Following the Great Vigil he came outside of his church last Saturday night and was awestruck by the full moon. He knelt to take a photo of it with his cell phone and while kneeling a car drove up to him. Two police officers got out of that ca...

One year my family and I moved into a new house. The backyard was large with lots of trees and grass. There was one oddity to the yard, a 3 by 5 foot section that was weed-filled. We figured it must have been an herb garden at one time, but now it was nothing but entangled weeds, the result of years of neglect. Not long after we moved in my husband, Dan, and I, decided to dig up the weedy section and let it return to grass. So we took shovels and went outside and tried to dig. We tried and tried, but to no avail. The weeds were too thick and the ground was too impacted by weeds, completely root bound. We called a landscaper to come help, and a few days later a couple of guys showed up with shovels. I started to laugh and thought to myself, "This I have to see." The guys made a valiant effort to dig here, then there. But after several vain attempts they gave up and left. A few hours later they returned with a tractor and dug up that root bound piece of earth. Afterward we fill...

Meditation on The Traditional Last Seven Words of Jesus, with scripture references from the Gospel of John Begins with singing this slowly twice: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Pilate brought Jesus outside and sat on the judge's bench at a place called The Stone Pavement, or in Hebrew Gabbatha. Now it was the day of Preparation for the Passover; and it was about noon. He said to the Jews, "Here is your King!" They cried out, "Away with him! Away with him! Crucify him!" Pilate asked them, "Shall I crucify your King?" The chief priests answered, "We have no king but the emperor." Then Pilate handed Jesus over to them to be crucified. How often do human beings break God’s heart? Surely God must weep over the refugee crisis in this world and all the ways and means that human beings turn other people into objects, subhumans, demeaning and diminishing others? God weeps over th...