Sermons on Prophetic witness
Jesus’s Temple Protest
Jesus’s temple protest reveals God’s heart for the oppressed and Jesus’s critical eye toward structures in society that exploit the poor. This passage challenges those of us who are more inclined to avoid conflict to speak truth to power. But it’s important to note that Jesus’s table-flipping isn’t for “both sides”—all tables are not the same. Knowing which tables need to be flipped requires the discernment that comes from being rooted in healthy community.
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…
I Find it Hard to Say by Lauryn Hill
In this message, Pastor T. C. talks about the themes of lament and formation for service in the midst of two epidemics: Covid-19 and Covid-1619 (the epidemic of anti-Black racism that has plagued the U.S. since the first slave ship arrived in 1619). The song for this week is “I Find it Hard to Say (Rebel)” by Lauryn Hill, from her “Unplugged” album. It was written after Amadou Diallo was killed by police in New York.
Lament
Lament is a neglected aspect of Christian worship in the Western world and perhaps especially in the United States. In troubled times when it’s clear the world is not as it should be—God’s dream of shalom is disrupted—God’s people cry out to God on behalf of the vulnerable, the abused, the marginalized. Lament is an important aspect of the Lenten season, since we are invited to reflect contemplatively on the ways we and our world are caught up in sin,…
The Prophet and the Wonk
Today in the United States and in the American church, there are a lot of reasons for the church to speak truth to power like the apostles in Acts 5. This prophetic role is essential. We are allegiant to Jesus and his Way is our law, even if that sets us at odds with the laws of the nations in which we find ourselves. Luke, however, masterfully juxtaposes the apostles prophetic stance with their solution-oriented administration of the cultural conflict…