St. Columba Kent, WA Sermons & More: Recent Episodes
St. Columba's Episcopal Church
St. Columba's is an Episcopal Church in Kent, WA. Sermons follow the Church calendar and are usually under 15minutes. Engaging, practical, and often social justice focused we aim to help the listener connect with God, understand scripture on a deeper level, and move to act to create a more just world together. Listen and come join us.
The Rev. Meghan Mullarkey
Text: Luke 15:1-10
"Our gospel today says, "And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, 'This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
So Jesus told them these two parables.
And these two parables are all about Jesus’ delight and joy when he spends time with humanity. Jesus does not care for all of our categories. Jesus does not think in terms of honor and dishonor. Jesus does not understand the concept of dehumanizing another person, and the closer I get to Jesus the more it baffles me too.
Just like God, Jesus sees a human and he sees one of his beloved and he desires to share food with them, to delight in them, and to celebrate this union."
The Rev. Meghan Mullarkey
Text: 2 Samuel 11:1-15 & John 6:1-21
"Where the crowd only say 5 loaves and two fish, Jesus saw food to feed thousands.
This way of being in the world is not for us to judge others who have less, but instead to look around at your life and wonder- where do you see scarcity where Jesus sees abundance? This is our question this morning. Where do you see scarcity in your own life, where Jesus sees abundance?
How do we dislodge ourselves from this scarcity mentality that leads us to a mindset of competition, consumerism, and ultimately exhaustion. How do we move towards the abundance of God that leads to freedom and new life?"
The Rev. Meghan Mullarkey
Texts: 1 John 4:7-21 & John 15:1-8
"We are an organ, we are a puzzle, we are the branches and Jesus is the vine.
When we lose sight of this truth we can’t put the puzzle together, we tend to the wrong part of our skin, and our branch withers.
We are all the branches on the same vine and we only thrive in this world when we remember this truth.
When we separate ourselves from the vine and the branches we lose our connection to God and one another, and we can’t survive, we wither and die.
But have no fear, as our first John passage reminded us this morning - there is no fear in love - this is not the end.
It’s Easter after all - we know death is not the end of any story that God is a apart of.
Grace abounds.
The vine is always being pruned, there are always new branches forming and new fruit on this vine that God tends.
There is always a place for you on the vine.
All we have to do is dare to see all the branches around us as part of us, connected to the same vine, this is when we bear fruit. "
The Rev. Meghan Mullarkey
Text: John 20:1-18
"Jesus overcame death to save the world, to create a new cosmic order, to invite us into new way of being.
And what does this new cosmic order look like? Jesus invites us into a world where a woman is the first to witness the resurrection. This is the new world that Jesus has died for.
A world where the ones who were told they have no voice, cannot be trusted, and who are stripped of their power,
find they hold power,
they are trust worthy,
and they have something to say that everyone needs to hear.
This is the new order that Jesus sets before us. And every day we stand at a threshold,
do we move towards this hope,
do we let Jesus defy all of our expectations, where we expect to see death, do we allow ourselves to be open to new life. "
The Rev. Meghan Mullarkey
Text: Mark 1:21-28
"Every single person and every single story is redeemable. I often struggle to believe this, but I know it is true. And do you know how I know that? Because Jesus says,
Love one another as I have loved you
Forgive others and you will be forgiven
Love your neighbor as yourself
These commands only make sense if you know that people can heal, if you know that every person on this planet has something within them that is worthy of love and forgiveness." Listen to hear more!
The Rev. Meghan Mullarkey
Text: Matthew 18:15-20
"Now, this is not a free pass to treat people poorly nor that we have to put up with poor treatment from others.
Nope. No way. Not here, not on my watch - you are a beloved child of God and deserve to be treated as such. And the people in this community should reflect that love back to you. And yet, Jesus knows, we will fail each other, we will have conflict, we will get on each other nerves, we will fail to reflect the image of God back to each other.
And Jesus says go to one another.
This is Jesus’ message to us this morning. As long as you feel safe, go towards one another."
The Rev. Meghan Mullarkey
Exodus 1:8-2:10
"When we realize our power is not meant to diminish others, but it is actually when we come together that are full power is actualized, the realization that a king is never what we needed, but an understanding that when our power is found within our community that all will thrive. "
The Rev. Meghan Mullarkey
Text: Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28
But here is what I am asking you to do with your anger, that Joseph’s brother’s couldn’t do or didn’t do, recognize it, honor it, and then wonder what anger is telling you about how you can love God, yourself, and one another.
See here is the issue, angers job is to protect us and to keep us safe, so when anger tells us there is a threat and we need to fight, this is a cue for us. Often when we are angry it is because we don’t feel safe. Angers job is to rise up and send us a message, that we want something to be different, that we feel threatened, our job now is to figure out how to be safe again - not to fight the first person coming our way who represents that threat.
The Rev. Meghan Mullarkey
Texts: Genesis 45:1-15 & Matthew 15: (10-20), 21-28
"As we connect with our embodied experience of the world and find ourselves in deeper connection with God, we will long to be more connected to all people, we won’t allow differences to divide us, we won’t accept the poor treatment of other bodies around us, or the rejection of any body. We will know deeply, our connection to one another and to God. "
The Rev. Meghan Mullarkey
Text: Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30
"Oh, but to be good soil - if you are questioning your place in this parable I want to tell you two things that I know to be true.
Number one - You are a seed - your are a millions seeds with so much life in you. You are so abundantly filled with life, goodness, possibility, and potential that the good sower isn’t quite worried exactly where you will land, isn’t so much concerned if sometimes you get anxious with the cares of the world, get pre-occupied with your paycheck, or get overwhelmed about choosing the way of the Kingdom of God - this kingdom filled with grace and forgiveness, but so foreign to most anything we see or experience every day.
These days are going to happen. These seeds will find other purposes - nothing is wasted in God’s kingdom. Nothing is beyond redemption and repair. Not even death itself.
The second thing I know to be true - Some of your seeds will find good soil. You will bear fruit hundred fold. Nobody who is open to God - no one who is open to love, grace, forgiveness, and humility does not bear fruit in this world. It may be hard, we may not always get it right, but if we seek these things, if we desire these things from God there will be fruit. "
The Rev. Meghan Mullarkey
Texts: Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30 & Romans 7:15-25a
"We work to make this space accessible and welcoming for people of all ages and abilities. Our soft spaces, our liturgy of the word for our children, our welcoming of loud noises at unplanned times - yes, we create our space intentionally to be welcoming, but we do it for a deeper reason than just to make sure everyone feels invited-
We do it because we believe all ages and people of all physical and intellectual abilities have something to reveal to us about who God is - we try to prepare a place at the table for everyone because we believe everyone has something important and of value to bring and to teach."
The Rev. Meghan Mullarkey
Text: Genesis 21:8-21
"Let’s take our first lesson this summer about anger from Sarah. Don’t stuff it away or ignore it or place it on to some undeserving soul - whether that be Hagar, Ishmael, or the woman on the passport help line, instead wonder what anger is telling you about yourself, What is it that you really want? How is it that you want to live? Does it align with our call to love God and love our neighbor?
When you let anger do what it has come to do you might be surprised to find on the other side of that anger is God’s blessing, for you and all those you encounter. "
The Rev. Meghan Mullarkey
Text: Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26
"And thats why we come here
because as much as we want to live alone
we cant, we are connected and we are one body
as much as we want to kill hope, it rises within in us
it continues to be birthed, and it feeds on things
we cant help but see and we cant help but feel
the kindness of the stranger, the love of the friend, the child
I just heard squealing with joy in anticipation for the Eucharist
and Jesus came to remind us of what already flows through our veins
and Jesus came to say it is here and it is now
and yet we live in a world that separates and divides
and hurts and deceives and makes us hate
our desire to be connected and our hope for a better world."
The Rev. Alissa Newton
text: Acts 2:1-21, 1 Corinthians 12:3b-13
"Nobody expects Pentecost.
We expect lots of things.
Comfort, affirmation, stability, health, agreement. Dinner.
We might even feel entitled to some of those things.
But not Pentecost. Nobody expects Pentecost.
I am certain the disciples did not expect it, this violent emergence of the Spirit of God into their small upper room with the closed windows and locked doors."
The Rev. Meghan Mullarkey
Text: Acts 17:22-31, 1 Peter 3:13-22, John 14:15-21, & Psalm 66:7-18
The Rev. Alissa Newton
text: John 14:1-14
"Trusting in God is a really different sort of endeavor than simply inscribing a correct cognitive belief."
The Rev. Alissa Newton
text: Luke 24:13-35
"The other thing I can’t get over in this passage is the last line, how finally Jesus was made known to them in the breaking of the bread. Of course he was. He was with them the whole time, on the road, in their sadness, while the hearts burned within their chests. But they don’t realize it’s him until he breaks bread. Because things have be broken for transformation to happen, right?"
The Rev. Meghan Mullarkey
Text: John 20:19-31
"This is what I want you to hear this morning, I think the key to vulnerability, healing, and peace in our lives - is forgiving and loving ourselves.
I’m just wondering this morning, if we can forgive ourselves, for the harsh ways we talk to ourselves, maybe we can forgive those in our lives who have spoken harshly to us.
If we can forgive ourselves for all the should’s we’ve put on ourselves, maybe we can forgive other’s for all the should’s others have put on us."
The Rev. Alissa Newton
Text: Matthew 28:1-10
"It’s so hard, friends, not to fall down and shake in the face of terrifying events. It is Easter morning, and we too are surrounded by scary things. We too are making our way through a world that is not turning out the way we had hoped.
So many times in the recent past I have stood here and preached about hope in the face of fear and disappointment and death...
I have wondered, as the women must have that morning two thousand years ago, if the job now is simply a graveside visit, to remember what we hoped for and do our best to honor the corpse of that hope.
But this is Easter morning, friends. And God did not defeat death by avoiding it, but by dying and showing us that death is not the end."
The Rev. Alissa Newton
text: Matthew 21:1-11
"Holy Week gives us the opportunity to teach our bodies how to follow Jesus. So that after practicing staying faithful to our beloved friend here, we are able to recognize the opportunities to do that same work, out there."
The Rev. Meghan Mullarkey
Text: Ezekiel 37:1-14 & John 11:1-45
"Even on Holy Saturday hope waits, even on Holy Saturday there is something to hope for. Humanity has done its darkest most violent act, we killed the light of the world. And God’s says, this is not what will define you, instead what will define you is this knowing, death has no power over God. You can hold on to hope, if you can push past the fog, if you be still and listen for the rattling, you will know that in God’s kingdom, even dry bones can live. "
We hope you will join us in walking towards the cross with Jesus this Holy Week and celebrating in his resurrection. Holy Week begins on April 2nd and ends with Easter on Sunday, April 9th. Listen here to learn more about Holy Week and how we embody these services at St. Columba's!
The Rev. Alissa Newton
text: John 9
"I bet that I am not the only person in this room that has had a remarkable experience of God at some point in your life. And I bet I am not the only person who doubted that experience almost immediately."
The Rev. Meghan Mullarkey
Text: John 4:5-42
"Jesus comes to her from a place of vulnerability. And I love that she calls him on it, she names his lack of a bucket to get water. They both recognize that in this moment he needs her. Jesus does not come in and say I am God bow down to me, instead he comes as a tired and thirsty Jewish man without a bucket to get water, he comes to humanity in a place of real human need. Jesus comes vulnerable but then he speaks of gifts and truths that are more powerful than any earthly need, more powerful than even food and water, which sustains all people regardless of race, class, or gender."
The Rev. Meghan Mullarkey
Text: John 3:1-17
"Besides, of course the bumper sticker, one of the most influential things to help me out of my existential crisis, was the book on On Religion by John Caputo. The main premise of the book claims that it is not in fully coming to know someone that allows us to love them, but love is actually the desire to know more. Caputo says, we never fully know ourselves, how can we expect to ever fully know God or anyone in our lives for that matter. The second we think we know ourselves, our friends, a partner, a child, or God, is the second we put them in a box they cannot get out of. The second we actually stop being able to know and see the fullness of who they are." Listen now!
The Rev Alissa Newton
text: Matthew 4:1-11
"At every one of these moments Jesus chooses for, and with, us. It's a great transition from the Season after Epiphany when we are all about Jesus being incarnated to this moment where Jesus actually chooses his incarnation. He chooses not to be different and apart from us. In the face of hunger and danger and coercive power Jesus chooses to be human. To be for us."
The Rev. Meghan Mullarkey
Text: Joel 2:1-2,12-17
"What part of your story, your body, your life, needs God to tell you - “I trust you on your journey.” Because the more you trust yourself the easier it will be to come together with God, to hear God’s compassionate voice and find healing. The more you trust yourself, the quieter those negative voices will be that don’t come from God. The quieter those voices are, the easier it will be to hear the whisperings from God that say, “you are enough. You are my beloved whom I am well pleased.” All else has been washed away.
May this be our Lenten journey - returning to this voice."
We apologize that the audio is hard to hear - you can follow along or just read the sermon by clicking here.
Martin Pommerenke
Texts: Matthew 17:1-9 & 2 Peter 1:16-21
"Even though God is beyond all thought and description, God still works wonders in this world. Holy encounters happen in the ordinary things of life, yes - but also in mystical experiences. Not those of long ago, but even right now." Listen now!
The Rev. Alissa Newton
text: Deuteronomy 30:15-20, Matthew 5:21-37
"If all I have to do is not kill you, well I can do that and go on my way, do what I need to do. But if what I'm actually charged with is loving you, taking care of you, being in touch with this baseline reality that we belong to each other and that is how we enter into relationship with God? Then suddenly just not killing you doesn't seem like I'm fulfilling the assignment, does it?"
The Rev. Meghan Mullarkey
Text: Isaiah 58:1-9a, [9b-12] and Matthew 5:13-20
Note: The sound improves a couple of minutes in!
"And instead of living into our God given power, our God given light, we get caught up on where we are on the ladder and we begin to believe what the ladder tells us about who we are, our position in society, and our worth.
And some people may be in quotations better positioned than others, but no one wins, because almost everyone can find someone above them and someone below them, this way of living is always a trap. "
The Rev. Alissa Newton
text: Matthew 5: 1-12
"You've heard this list before. It's one of the most comforting and familiar texts in our scripture. I think what we don't often get is that what Jesus is doing here is building a world. He is giving a thesis statement for the world that he holds in his body and is living into reality, in his life."
The Rev. Meghan Mullarkey
Texts: Isaiah 9:1-4, 1 Corinthians 1:10-18, Matthew 4:12-23, Psalm 27:1, 5-13
"If you have ever repented you may remember feeling shame, dread or guilt at what you have brought before God. You may have found that you discovered a part yourself that you have been subconsciously working so hard not to see and the discovery feels painful. But seeing these parts of ourselves is not the repentance in and of itself. This first part, is just recognizing what was already there inside of you, or maybe inside of a history you are a part of. Repentance is actually the exciting part, the next part - that is filled with hope for what we are turning away from and excitement for what we are turning towards. " Listen now!
The Rev. Alissa Newton
text: John 1:29-42
"There is grief in loving a child – there just is – because they change so quickly. There is also deep joy in accompanying a human being in the process of becoming herself, bit by bit and day by day. Some days are hard. Some are transcendent. Grief and love often walk hand in hand. Children are not the only humans who change over time.
The first thing that strikes me as important in our gospel today, is not what John says, but what he does ... John makes room for transformational change. He lets go of what has been true for him in favor of what is true for the world."
The Rev. Dan Morrow
text: Matthew 3:13-17
"This is the basic problem with basing our own self-worth, or the self-worth of others, on anything besides the compassionate and all-encompassing love of God. Values based on anything else are by virtue of the fact of their finitude ultimately divisive. In other words, God’s infinite love for you and for me and for all creation is the only thing big enough to define everything and hold everything together in love. Every other thing that seeks to define is too small."
The Rev. Meghan Mullarkey
Text: Philippians 2:5-11 & Luke 2:15-21
"I have imagined God wondering, “what if I sent my son to come to earth as a baby? As a baby to a poor family, born in one of the lowest place a human can be born, a manger, would this reveal to humanity the kind of power that will bring peace on earth? The kind of power that could heal a world. If accepted, if understood, if only they would turn and see a new way of living and being and moving. "
James Wyatt
Text: John 1:1-14
“From the very beginning of all things, there has been light—‘the true light, which enlightens everyone’—shining in the darkness. That light came into the world when the Word became flesh, and the darkness did not overcome it. And that light is shining still, right there before the face of God, and the darkness still has not managed to overcome it.”
The Rev. Alissa Newton
text: Luke 2:1-20
"Christmas isn’t big. It’s small. God with us is not about big presents or perfect family gatherings. God with us is about messy babies and smelly shepherds. It’s about you and me in all our smallness being trusted with God’s love, and slowly over time becoming trustworthy to share that love with the world around us."
The Rev. Alissa Newton
text: Matthew 1:18-25
"The story of Joseph tells us that these broken dreams are opportunities to imagine, and to trust, that God is with us. The story of Joseph, like the story of his son, can also be our story, a story about trusting God with the brokenness, and choosing love and risk in the face of the common tragedies of our lives. "
The Rev. Meghan Mullarkey
Text: Matthew 11:2-11
"I wonder if it would help you, like it diid for me, to imagine these people in your life, these people who you tried to love and could not accept it or could not love you back how you needed, I wonder if you can imagine these people transformed. Think of all the harm and hurt between you both or between them and those you love and imagine understanding, compassion, and love from those broken people, not for those people who have hurt you, but from those people towards you, imagine them offering you compassion. Imagine they are healed.
For some of us this won’t happen in this lifetime, but think of all the hurting broken people in your life and take a moment to imagine them healed. How might they respond differently to you, if they were healed? How might they accept your love differently? This is ultimately, the world that we hope for, a world where all are transformed. This is ultimately, the work we try to do here together, we try to heal and accept God’s grace and forgiveness so that we can grow in our compassion so we can go and be Christ hands and feet in this world. "
The Rev. Alissa Newton
texts: Isaiah 11:1-10 & Matthew 3:1-12
"The kingdom of heaven is near, John the Baptist says. And if we believe him we might become dissatisfied with anything less.
Imagine this holy mountain, Isaiah says to us. And if we can join in that imagining, then maybe we can turn our heads around and look for a world where no living thing is harmed."
The Rev. Alissa Newton
Text: Isaiah 2:1-5, Matthew 24:36-44
"Anticipation is the best. And, it is also the worst. It depends what you are anticipating, what outcome you are imagining in your mind as you move toward the anticipated event."
The Rev. Alissa Newton
text: Luke 23:33-43
"Could Jesus have won? Could Jesus have made something else happen by using the power of the God who made every single thing, the God who holds all the universe in God’s hand? Could Jesus have squashed and destroyed these Empires who worship the sort of power that leaves powerlessness and destruction in its wake?
The lesson here, friends, is not that Jesus could have and didn’t.
The lesson here is that this is exactly what Jesus DID. "
If you have been wondering why St. Columba's is exploring putting together a robotics team at church, listen to why our vicar, Meghan, is excited about this opportunity and how it could enrich our community.
The Rev. Meghan Mullarkey
Texts: Isaiah 65:17-25 & Luke 21:5-19
"All of God’s promises are available to us today and yet we live in a world that rejects this Kingdom, that murders this King. We know the end of this story for Jesus, or at least we know what happens when Jesus gets to Jerusalem, that ultimately, Christ is rejected by this world’s order. A loud and resounding no, to God’s Kingdom present here and now. And yet, the truth of God’s promises live in and around us regardless of whether or not we or the world accepts it or sees it. We cannot kill God for when we try - God will overcome death and rise again. God will go into the depths of hell to be present with us and show us again and again that God’s is more powerful than death, more powerful than any destruction we could see or experience on earth. "
The Rev. Alissa Newton
Text: Luke 6:20-31
"Today we are holding close all those who belong to us, and re-membering them. Putting them back into place in our hearts, our minds, in the community of faith that in truth they have never left. "
The Rev. Alissa Newton
text: Luke 19:1-10
"I will never connect to the people who I don’t think are good, without a place to learn how to do it. Church, when we do it right, is a place where we get to practice belonging to everyone, where we agree to do our best to live as if it is possible to love everyone, even though nobody is good, not even us."
The Rev. Meghan Mullarkey
Text: Luke 18:9-14
"Is there a way to re-train our brains to begin by seeing the humanity of both of these people? To look at the Pharisee and the tax collector and first see God’s love for them and God’s image reflecting off of them. So that we are not tempted by the binary, that we refuse to rank people at all because ranking is not how the Kingdom of God works. Remember we start at the lowest place, we identify with the lowest ranking people in society, thee first will be last and the last will be first. We go to the last place and we find God’s love just as abundant and his grace just as free."
The Rev. Whitney DeVine
Text: Luke 18:1-8
"Over the years I have changed on the continuum of 'do I give to a need' vs 'do I need to give?'"
Alissa speaks to us about how she thinks about pledging financial support to St. Columba's and invites you to consider giving as well.
Micah Kurtz
text: Luke 17:11-19
"God is no capricious deity requiring gratitude as payment for grace."
In this weeks from the Associate Vicar, Meghan discusses the richness of Allhallowtide in our church tradition and all the opportunities you have to participate in it.
"Allhallowtide has something to teach us and reveal to us about our relationship to death. I believe that as a church we can be blessed by marking these days together. We can face our fears and our grief, we can face each other and know we are not alone, and we can take comfort that those who have gone before us are with God and continually shaping us and our church."
The Rev. Meghan Mullarkey
Text: Luke 17:5-10
"And then Jesus says you, my disciples, when you live into your faith, you are like a slave. Your faith does not elevate you above other people, but just the opposite, this faith in God leads you to the lowest place, every time." Listen to hear more.
The Rev. Alissa Newton
text: Luke 15:1-10
"Tax collectors and sinners were people who, according to the culture and society that Jesus belonged to, should have been ashamed of themselves. They were the people who made bad choices, whose very presence was enough to disgust the righteous. And Jesus isn’t just spending time with these people, according to the scribes and Pharisees. Jesus is treating them like people who don’t need to be ashamed. Eating, drinking, welcoming – it sounds like fun. Jesus is offering these people his time, his welcome, and his company at table – which is no small thing. I daresay he is enjoying them. Breaking bread with another person is, as we know, an act of relational belonging."
The Rev. Meghan Mullarkey
Text: Luke 14:25-33
"Maybe many of us can’t fully do this, but with much of Jesus’ visions for God’s kingdom on earth, I believe it is an invitation to glimpse God. If you, like me, sitting here today, cannot fathom a world where your family is not set a part as something different, something special, something secure, I think Beck’s term is helpful here, how can we work to widen our circle of affections? " Listen to hear more!
The Rev. Alissa Newton
text: Luke 14:1, 7-14
"I want us to notice how radical this idea is. Jesus does not say to the room full of haves that they should do charity work for the have nots. Jesus does say that what they really need to do is stop having parties and start investing in job programs or housing projects or to figure out a way to help the blind, sick, poor, and outcast find a way to earn status and privilege for themselves. No, Jesus says keep having parties, but change your guest list. "
The Rev. Alissa Newton
text: Luke 13:10-17
"Sabbath is any practice that aims to set human beings free. Sabbath is anytime we recognize the intrinsic value of people who our world wants us to ignore, or punish, marginalize, or fear."
James Wyatt
Text: Isaiah 1:1, 10-20, Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16, & Luke 12:32-40
"That’s the hope I cling to, that taste of God’s glorious future, that conviction that the way things are now is not the way they have to be, not the way they will always be. That hope is not just wishful thinking or naïveté. It’s messy, it’s tough, and it’s hard work. Because once we see the Promised Land, even as a glimpse from afar, we can’t be satisfied with the status quo, and that means we’ve got work to do.”
The Rev. Alissa Newton
text: Luke 11:1-13
"Harborview taught me a few reliable things about pastoral care. For instance, I learned that even those who are not religious at all may want someone to hold their hand and pray with them when they are hurt and afraid. I learned that it is not a good idea to give someone in the middle of a psychotic break access to the book of Revelation. And, I learned that if all else fails and I don’t know what else to do there is always the Lord’s Prayer."
The Rev. Meghan Mullarkey
Text: Amos 8:1-12 & Luke 10:38-42
"Women in the room hear me when I say the answer to your exhaustion is not to simply do less. The system we live in currently simply won’t allow it. Childcare is too expensive and too difficult to find. The labor you do around the house and the emotional labor you do to to keep so many people’s lives together is way too often made invisible, often times even to yourself. I know that is true for me.
But so many of us are exhausted. This goes for women, men, and nonbinary people a like. Exhaustion touches all of us. So many of us do need to do less, crave to slow down, pause, and take a deep breath. So many of us do desire to sit before God. And women, especially need to be liberated from the toll that being told we don’t need a day off and that showering is somehow a form of self care has had on our bodies.
What does it take for us to hear Jesus words as the words we’ve been waiting to hear, come sit and listen to words of liberation, of compassion, of love, of a new kingdom, a new way to live."
And a credit to Kimberly George (https://www.feminismschool.com/) and all the feminist scholars who have gone before and spoken to women's invisible labor and our need for liberation, so all may be free.
Listen now!
The Rev. Alissa Newton
text: Luke 10:25-37
"Who do I have to love, with this fierceness and wholeness that I also apply to myself? It’s a great question. It is a much more interesting test."
The Rev. Alissa Newton
text: Luke 10:1-11, 16-20
"Whether the people welcome Jesus’ vulnerable followers or not, the offer of relationship is made. Peace is extended, and the kingdom of God has come near. That’s the job. That’s work these seventy are sent out to do – not to convert or change or win or dominate, but to relate with vulnerability, to offer healing and peace no matter how that offering is received."
"There must be an umwelt, for God. God must have a way of perceiving the entire world, the universe, that is so much bigger and wider and so much more complete than ours is."
The Rev Alissa Newton
text: Luke 9:51-62
Stephanie Peirolo
Text: Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31, Romans 5:1-5, and John 16:12-15
"If wisdom is the ground of being then it is like gravity. I am not a physicist, I don’t understand gravity but it still keeps me attached to the ground. What if wisdom is, manifests, in everything.”
The Rev. Meghan Mullarkey
Text: Acts 2:1-21 & John 14:8-17 (25-27)
"Here is what I think, the Holy Spirit is present among us and the Holy Spirit shows up where we are. The Holy Spirit is meant to be a gift in our lives. So here is what I want you to know this morning, Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to be among us, because he knew we would need it on this difficult journey called life."
The Rev. Meghan Mullarkey
Text: John 17:20-26
"I want you to believe and have hope that as we teach our children and show one another this dream that Jesus has placed before us, we will come to find God’s love in ourselves and in one another, we will experience our undeniable connection, and having done these two things we will come to see that the world does know God. "
The Rev. Alissa Newton
text: Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5, John 14:23-29
"In my job as a pastor part of what I get to do is be with people and listen to people in their own times of darkness and sadness. I can't always offer much. I can't say 'this thing isn't going to kill you' or 'this relationship is going to make it.' I can't say 'the planet will be fine.' But what I can say is: God exists. God exists. And, that is a comfort to me."
The Most Rev. Melissa Skelton
text: Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5
"Today we get to see revealed, as the writer of the Book of Revelation says, that the home of God can be among mortals. God's love and faithfulness to us can be glimpsed in the promises of love and faithfulness that two people make to each other, and that we make all the time in our lives.
Micah Kurtz
text: John 20:19-31
"Certainty must at times give way to doubt, because only in doubt can we ever have faith."
The Rev. Meghan Mullarkey
Text: John 20:1-18
" This is the new world that Jesus has died for. A world where the ones who were told they have no voice, cannot be trusted, and who are stripped of their power, find they hold power, are trust worthy, and have something to say that everyone needs to hear. "
The Rev. Alissa Newton
text: Luke 21:1-12
"I know that we are supposed to be so happy, today. We are supposed to shout our Alleluias and experience deep and abiding joy.
Please stick with me – I want this too- but today is not primarily about elation. Today is also not primarily about grief.
Today is about healing. "
Maeve Wyatt
text: Isaiah 52:13-53:12, John 18:1-19:42
"Quite frankly I cant, and don't, believe in a God who wills harm. A God who desires to cause pain."
James Wyatt
text: Luke 22:14-30
"We are gathered together to make the past present, again."
The Rev. Meghan Mullarkey
Text: Luke 19:28-40 & Philippians 2:5-11
"This story of Holy Week reminds us that hope may not come how we want it. Hope may cause us to be disappointed and feel hurt. But without hope we miss Jesus and we miss joy. We miss the signs of God in the world. When we get too caught up in the pain and suffering that is around us, we’ll miss the beauty and goodness that is growing under our feet. And we will miss the power that resides in us all for change, change in ourselves, and change for our world."
The Rev. Alissa Newton
text: John 12:1-8
"We use symbols and sacraments, when words aren’t enough.
Mary doesn’t have the words to tell Jesus that she sees him, and loves him, and wants him to live and knows that he won’t.
So she does this. She pours out the most expensive thing to cover him with her love, her seeing, her knowing. Her gift fills the room and, I hope, his heart."
During Lent we invite you to take a moment to rest in your body.
Written by Kim Bobbitt
Read by Vibh Forsythe
The Rev. Meghan Mullarkey
Text: Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
The Fourth Sunday in Lent
"What I find fascinating about the story of the prodigal son, is that as many times as I hear it, my heart still warms at the image of the father running towards the younger son and when I hear the struggle of the older brother, I still find my justice barometer in my gut starting to go off - or is it actually my scarcity barometer? I never really thought these two could be mistaken for each other until I started to understand privilege and the mentality of scarcity and how it skews our understanding of justice. What does the father say at the end 'Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.” The younger son’s party takes nothing away from the older son, but why does it feel like it does in our gut?"
"Maybe this is how we all perish, friends. By living as if we can earn love and favor from God by just being better than, or separate from, other people."
The Rev. Alissa Newton
Text: Luke 13:1-9
The Rev. Meghan Mullarkey
Text: Genesis 15:1-12,17-18 & Luke 13:31-35
"The new covenant is made up of Jesus’s body and blood. This is a vulnerable God that we believe in. This new covenant where Jesus gives up his body and pours out his blood and calls all people to love one another as Jesus has loved us. " Listen to hear more!
The Rev. Alissa Newton
text: Luke 4:1-13
"In this morning’s gospel Jesus is tested three times, and we might want to intellectualize these tests. We might want to disassociate them from the physical experiences they describe. Instead, I want us to sit with the reality that Jesus isn’t tested only in his mind. These temptations happen to his body."
Martin Pommerenke
Text: Joel 2:1-2,12-17
"Ash Wednesday calls us to see God’s work clearly even when things are at their worst - even in death itself.” Listen to hear more.
The Rev. Meghan Mullarkey
Text: Exodus 34:29-35, 2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2, & Luke 9:28-36
"It is our job together as Christians to do this work in the world, outside of these church walls and within, to find out why God loves the person sitting next to you so much. And of course, we all struggle, what do you think makes this so hard to do?
Well for starters, we certainly, could not justify war or poverty if we saw all people’s glory. Knowing the light and goodness that lives within us all actually makes life more painful, doesn’t it? I believe this is why we shield ourselves from each other’s glory, because it is painful and scary, especially if that same person, with all that glory, has hurt us in some way or another. " Listen to hear more.
The Rev. Meghan Mullarkey
Text: Luke 6:27-38
"What if in reality all people in our lives are really our frenemies? Including ourselves. Maybe we are all struggling to love and all people are a mixture both friend and enemy. Or, maybe better yet, it is actually not a choice between who is your friend and who is your enemy. Maybe we blow up the binary. Maybe frenemy as a term actually makes no sense at all - just like the idea of loving your enemy.
I think our work might actually be integration - befriending parts of ourselves that we don’t like so we can love ourselves which will allow us to love the world and all the people in it. "
The Rev. Alissa Newton
text: Luke 6:17-26
"Jesus does not believe in binaries. That last statement might surprise you, if you were paying attention to our gospel reading just now. 'Blessed are you who are poor…. woe to you who are rich
Blessed are you who are hungry….woe to you who are full.' I mean, these sound a lot like binaries, don’t they? It’s true that they aren’t the rankings we are used to, but isn’t Jesus basically sorting people here? I don’t think so. I think Jesus is doing something even more radical than flipping binaries – in this sermon on the level place, Jesus is complicating , and maybe even collapsing, them."
The Rev. Meghan Mullarkey
Texts: Isaiah 6:1-8, [9-13], 1 Corinthians 15:1-11, Luke 5:1-11
"I believe that God is meant to be experienced. Our faith is not meant to only be a list of beliefs we profess on Sunday morning. It is not in right thinking, but in right doing that we find ourselves in the presence of God. That is why our worship service is filled with prayer and movement, with real physical, tangible objects that are meant to connect us to God. "
Martin Pommerenke
text: Luke 4:21-30
"They want wonders, they don't want work. They want tricks, but they don't want transformation....there was no mystery of God worth knowing unless there was a parade that went with it."
" Who does Jesus belong to? Spoiler alert, friends. It's not us."
The Rev. Alissa Newton
text: Luke 4:14-21
"This morning’s gospel is many things. It is an odd tale of a wedding in a place no one cared about, with people who have no names.
It’s an upside down, unnecessary gift – the best wine produced at the end of the party. And it is the story of a mother who knows the world will not love her brilliant child, pushing him to reveal who he is, anyway.
The Rev. Alissa Newton
text: John 2:1-11
The Rev. Meghan Mullarkey
Text: Isaiah 43:1-7 & Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
"What does that mean to you, to remember your baptism?
In our Isiah passage, God tell us that God calls you by name, that you are God’s - and goes on to say you are precious in God’s sight, honored, and loved.
In the Episcopal tradition we do not believe you have to be baptized for this to be true, but we do believe that baptism orients us towards this truth. So when we get lost, or caught up in some flimsy identity that cannot contain us, we can re-orient to the most unchanging thing about us - we are God’s beloved."
Listen now.
The Rev. Alissa Newton
Text: Luke 2: 41-52
"This morning we’re invited to spend time with the image of God as a 12 year old, getting up to the usual sorts of things that 12 year olds get up to. This morning Jesus is experimenting with making his own choices, frustrating his parents, and doing what he wants to do without really thinking about the consequences for others. This not the way I usually think about God. It is a story that anyone who has spent time with a 12 year old can relate to."
"How would you describe God coming in to the world? Can words be enough? How many? One? Three? Six words?"
Micah Kurtz
text: John 1:1-18
James Wyatt
text: John 1:1-14
"It's one thing for us to denounce the hatred and division, the racism and nationalism, the greed and warmongering we oppose in the world....if we are going to show the Glory of Christ in this broken world we also need to live out the alternative. To show the world what a community built on love looks like."
The Rev Alissa Newton
text: Luke 2:1-20
"Tonight God and humanity are thrown together. And we are all invited to hold an impossible truth – that God came to be with us. Us. Humanity. Not just at our beautiful best. But in our real, wild, and ordinary lives."
The Rev. Alissa Newton
text: Luke 3:7-18
"So we stand here in our Advent wilderness, next to the people by the river with John and listen as they ask they next logical question. It’s such a vulnerable thing to say I almost wince every time I read it. What should we do? "
The Rev. Meghan Mullarkey
Text: Baruch 5:1-9, Luke 3:1-6, Canticle 16
"So how do we prepare the way of the Lord? We work to make space in our homes and within ourselves for something new to arrive. Instead of pushing our dark thoughts away or hiding our discarded belongings in the dark corners of our house, we make room. We get rid of the items that we no longer need, as well as the stories of our past that no longer define who we are. Like the popular author Marie Kondo tell us - we can thank these items and our old stories for what these things have given us and then we make room for new stories and new life to arrive. "
The Rev. Alissa Newton
text: Luke 21:25-36
"What if the goal isn’t to not feel sadness, or fear – but to get better at feeling them? To learn whatever it is that these feelings have to teach us?"
The Rev. Meghan Mullarkey
Text: John 18:33-37
"You can hear in our gospel passage today Jesus’ own discomfort with the label king or kingdom. How can Jesus make pilate or anyone understand that he may be a king, but when a crown is placed on his head it will not be made of gold, but of thorns? And that this was how it was intended to be, this was not a failed plan by our king, but this was actually by design. "