Sermons on politics
City on a Hill
This week’s sermon continued our exploration of Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, focusing on the metaphor of being the “light of the world” and a “city on a hill” (Matthew 5:14). Pastor highlighted the historical appropriation of this metaphor by figures like John Winthrop and U.S. presidents, including Reagan and JFK, to frame America as a moral beacon. However, the sermon challenged this narrative, redirecting us to Jesus’s original intent: a vision for his disciples as a new and alternative…
#2 Be a Good Neighbor
In this message, Pastor T. C. approaches the second way to be Christian (Be a Good Neighbor) from the standpoint of engaging with politics. To be a good neighbor, we must care about the policies that affect our neighbor’s lives and the collective well-being of society. This is what it means to seek the shalom of the city.
Family & Privilege
In this message, Pastor T. C. confronts an important relational dynamic that affects forging family: privilege. Pastor T. C. draws from Jesus’s teachings and from the letters of the apostle Paul, as well as pointing to a new resource on privilege by Dominique Gilliard entitled, Subversive Witness.
From Volk to Spoke
In this sermon, Pastor T. C. kicks off a new teaching series on Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Kingdom allegiance. In this election season, polarization and partisanship aren’t the primary problem—injustice is. What we can learn from the Scriptures, the life of Jesus, the of the early church, and the example of Dietrich Bonhoeffer is resistance to injustice and being a faithful witness to the Kingdom of God. This message highlight’s Bonhoeffer transformation from his time in Harlem in 1930. He went…
The God Who Takes Sides
As we continue in our series, Loyal-love: Exploring God’s Character and Mighty Deeds, we reach the Passover narrative. While we rightfully celebrate the liberation of the Israelites in the this story, we are less prone to celebrate God’s judgment upon the unjust Egyptian policy of slavery and Pharaoh himself. Why is that? God’s Loyal-love compels God to take sides; God sides with the oppressed. In this message, Pastor T. C. explores the current phenomenon of “Bothsidesing” that creates a false…