April 11, 2010

Believing Is Not Seeing
John 20: 19-31
A Sermon by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart
Confirmation Sunday

“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

Today eight youth have been confirmed.  These youth, like Thomas, were not there in that upper room on Easter night. 2000 years later, these youth have heard stories, but have not seen the risen Christ, nor touched his wounds with their own hands.  They have not seen, and yet they have come ... to believe.

This morning, I speak to our whole confirmation class, ... and I invite you all to listen in.

As I said at our first meeting with you and your parents, and as Andrea and I have repeated throughout these intense weeks of study, retreat, field trips, and service, confirmation is another beginning in a life- long faith journey.  In our order of worship, are these words, “confirmation seeks to make firm what has gone before.”  What has gone before – caring parents and extended family who shared faith traditions, - and brought you to church.  What has gone before –  Sunday School, Bible stories, communion, prayer, watching faith lived out in loving service.  What has gone before - God’s Spirit working in you. What has gone before – baptism and parents and a community that have told you in word, action and song that you ... and all people ... are welcome to the love of God.>>READ MORE

April 4, 2010

Roll Back the Stone   
Luke 24: 1-12
An Easter Meditation by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart
 

Resurrection is a mystery.  It has always been a mystery.  It was a mystery to the first followers of Jesus.

The first witnesses of resurrection weren’t immediately joyful and they certainly were not triumphant.  They were scared.  What they experienced was shock and fear and confusion.

According to Luke’s gospel, the women who went to the tomb in grief, did not find the body of Jesus.  They were perplexed by this ... and then frightened by the two messengers.   Then... they remembered Jesus... and the things he had said and done.  Then, returning from the tomb, they told all this to the other followers.

What had happened?  They weren’t sure.  But if they didn’t know what to believe they did know that Christ was alive. In all four Gospel accounts, Christian community began at the place of impossible possibility:  the empty tomb.>>READ MORE

April 4, 2010

I Dream A World
John 20: 1 – 18
An Easter Sunrise Meditation by
The Reverend Andrea Davidson
 
I dream a world where man
No other man will scorn,
Where love will bless the earth
And peace its paths adorn
I dream a world where all
Will know sweet freedom's way,
Where greed no longer saps the soul
Nor avarice blights our day.
 
These are the words of Langston Hughes, an early twentieth century Harlem Renaissance poet.  Langston Hughes is what many call a “Dream Keeper.”  His poetry gave voice to the struggles of his community, and challenged the notion that their oppression was inevitable.  His words are a refusal to look allow the scorn, the greed, the violence, and oppression of his time to have the final word.  He dared to dream of a different kind of world.>>READ MORE

March 28, 2010

Palms, Poetry and Passion
Luke 22:1-2, 7-13; Luke 23: 44-49
A Palm Sunday Meditation
By the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart
 
While I was living in Boston, my sister Sharon visited me. And one day we walked across Kenmore Square.  Kenmore Square is where several main city roads come together and several other cross streets as well. You add that to the well-earned reputation of Boston drivers and you’ve got some excitement on your hands as pedestrians.  We had crossed the first street, we made it to the first sidewalk, but that was no guarantee of safety, as a frustrated taxi driver nearly hit us while running a light and cutting across the sidewalk corner on which we were standing!  Sharon, an actor with a flair for the dramatic, took off after the taxi, hitting it, yelling, and wildly gesticulating.  Once we regained the relative sanity and security of the corner, we made it across another street in the square and saw that an ambulance was parked on the side.  Sharon pointed and shouted, “See?! There they are just waiting to scoop up the next victims!”  The ambulance driver got on the loud speaker and warned, “Yes, and you could be next!”

There are many dangerous intersections when we dare to venture by faith  into the public square.  We can stand on the corner, immobilized by fear, but that does not insure our safety.  And in cities that are the seats of political, economic, religious power the dangers can seem more subtle, but can be equally lethal.>>READ MORE

March 14, 2010

Forgiveness
Luke 15: 1-3, 11b-32
A Sermon by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart
(Preached by the Reverend Jim Lockwood-Stewart)

Our theme during this season of Lent has been turning walls into tables.  Our sanctuary art created by Clark Kellogg this morning offers us a glimpse of walls beginning to break apart and break open.  It’s a spirit vision.  It’s a cry of hope.  It’s a dream of restoration, of divisions healed, animosities set aside. It’s a vision of community.

There is perhaps no single quality more crucial in that process of healing and restoration at any level, from the most deeply personal to the most broadly global, than forgiveness.  Dag Hammarskjold wrote, “Forgiveness is the answer to the child's dream of a miracle by which what is broken is made whole again, what is soiled is made clean again.”  It’s not just a child’s dream ... it’s our dream, our hope.  That what’s broken can be fixed.  What’s lost can be found.  What’s separated or estranged can be brought together again.  This morning’s scripture reading is a parable about relationship broken and restored.>>READ MORE

February 21, 2010

What Do I Know?
Deuteronomy 6:20-24; Job 38:1-7
A Sermon by the Reverend Ron Parker  

I see from the brochure in the bulletin that during Lent this year we are exploring what we can learn from representatives and practices of other religions.  That leads me to wonder about how I am perceived. Was I invited to preach today as a representative of some unfamiliar faith?  Probably.
 
In that spirit, I would point out that the title of this sermon can be pronounced two ways:  “What do I know?”  and “What do I know?”  I’ll have to leave it to you to decide which is the most appropriate.
 
Of course, if you listen to NPR on Saturdays, you know that this also implies, “What do you know.”  Unlike those on “What do you know?” this morning we ultimately have to answer our own questions without any celebrity contestants playing for us.
 
You know some things that I don’t know and I know some things that you don’t know … first of all, because you are standing over there and I am standing over here. But even more, we know and see differently because we have different histories and different life stories.>>READ MORE

February 14, 2010

Heaven and Earth

Exodus 34: 29-35    Luke 9:28-47

A Sermon by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart
 
We live where heaven and earth come together ... all the time ... Usually we don’t realize it.

This day in the church year is called Transfiguration Sunday.  On this day we re-tell and remember the story of Jesus going up the mountain to pray with three of his disciples, Peter and John and James.  While praying there Jesus’ appearance changed, he shone with glorious light.  As he was transfigured before them, the dazed and amazed disciples watched as Moses and Elijah joined Jesus in what one scholar calls “a salvation history summit conference” on top of the mountain.

Transfiguration Sunday is the last Sunday before the season Lent.  After Christmas we enter the season of Epiphany..., which means showing or manifestation – God made manifest in the world.  We ask, “Where and how is Christ known?” “How can we wake up to what God is doing in the world?  In us?”>>READ MORE

February 7, 2010

Art of Imagination
Luke 5: 1-11
A Communion Meditation by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart
 

I begin this meditation on the Art of Imagination with the confession that I feel unworthy.  I consider myself neither an artist nor particularly imaginative.
 
I feel a bit like Jon Stewart, when he introduced the Kennedy Center’s tribute to Bruce Springsteen last month.  He said, “I’m not a music critic, nor historian, nor archivist.  I cannot tell you where Bruce Springsteen falls in the pantheon of the American songbook. I cannot illuminate the context of his work, or its roots in the folk and oral history traditions of our great nation.  But I am from New Jersey.”

I may not celebrate my artistry or imagination, but I celebrate that God calls ordinary unworthy, overwhelmed, wounded, working people... like me... like you... like the fisherman Simon.  Because God, the Artist, has quite an imagination! Thanks be to God!>>READ MORE

January 31, 2010

Progressive Christianity and the Bible
Matthew 22: 34-40
A Sermon by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart

What are you learning?  ... Someone asked me this question a few days ago.

It’s a great question.

In your work, in relationships, in your studies, in nature, in your practice, in your body, in the world, in your life– What are you learning?

When I was asked the question, I was energized by the first answer that came to me: I am learning Spanish.  I am also learning much more than that. And I know I’ve got a lot to learn!

What are you learning?>>READ MORE

December 27, 2009

Kujichagulia
Matthew 2:1-12
A Sermon by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart

I am grateful that today members of our community lead us in recognizing the observance of Kwanzaa. A new way home for many in this community.  Kwanzaa is a week-long cultural holiday from December 26th to January 1st established by and for people of the African Diaspora.

In the mid 1960s Kwanzaa was created to affirm, restore and empower roots of African identity and culture following 250 years of slavery followed by systemic suppression.

Today we reflect on the second Kwanzaa principle, kujichagulia, or self-determination:  “to define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves, and speak for ourselves instead of being defined, named, created and spoken for by others.”>>READ MORE

December 13, 2009

Expected Home
Zephaniah 3: 14-20
Luke 3: 8-16
A Meditation by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart
 

You are waiting.... watching.... at the window... longing, aching, for your loved one... to make it home.  Staring into the dark night, watching the roads, hoping at every light and sound and movement, waiting for your loved one to come home.

The unexpected turn of Advent is that it is God who waits.  We are God’s loved ones.  We are expected home.  Rejoice!

We think of Advent as our season of anticipation, as our time of waiting and longing.  But the deeper more wondrous and abiding truth ... is that Advent really is the story of God’s longing, God’s waiting for us.>>READ MORE

December 6, 2009

Preparing the Way
Malachi 3:1-4   Luke 3:1-6
An Advent Communion Meditation
by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart
 

You will not see John the Baptist on too many Christmas cards. A locust-eating wilderness dweller crying out “Repent!” doesn’t quite hit the right note for Hallmark’s Countdown to Christmas, or Macy’s “Believe!” campaign.  Actually, Jim and I received one Christmas card that did have John the Baptist on the front of the card. Inside it said, “Merry Christmas ... you brood of vipers!”
 
John’s cries to prepare the way of the Lord wake us up to the unsettling, startling season of Advent during which we wait for, long for Christ to be born anew and for the radical change that birth brings. Awaiting radical change can be scary.  
 
You’ve probably heard the popular prophecy, “Jesus is coming – look busy!” Unfortunately that is how many of us spend our Advent. But John’s cry from the wilderness is not “look busy!” John’s cry is, “Look!”  Take a hard look at our world and ourselves ... and change.>>READ MORE

November 22, 2009

Do Not Fear
Joel 2: 21-27   Matthew 6: 25-33
A sermon by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart
 
Jesus said “Do not worry.”  He said, “Do not be filled with anxiety about your life, what you will eat or drink, or how you will clothe your body.  Is not life more significant than nourishment and the body more significant than clothing ... Do not then be filled with anxiety about tomorrow, for tomorrow will have its own share of anxiety.”  That’s true enough.  But isn’t that just another thing to worry about?

I have a confession to make.  I worry.  I get anxious.
Have any of you ever... worried?
Some of us are Olympic gold medal worriers.  Anyone here?
Have you ever had someone say to you: “Don’t worry?”
Did you stop worrying? ... or did it tick you off?

 We can easily see that worry wastes human energy.  Worry distorts perception of reality.  Worry does not foster wisdom. It tends to drive us toward desperation.  We minimize good and magnify bad news. We catastrophize, envisioning worst possible scenarios.  I excel at what I call anticipatory anxiety.>>READ MORE

November 15, 2009

Inside Information
I Samuel 2: 1-10    Mark 13: 1-8
A Sermon by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart

As Jesus came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!”

They sat down, facing the Temple, on the Mount of Olives.  Jesus said, “Do you see these great buildings?  Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.” “You’re impressed by this grand structure? There’s not a stone in the whole work that will not end up in a heap of rubble.”

Some things do seem too big, too great to be destroyed ... too strong not to last.  But one after another human creations that seem too powerful to fall, come to an end.  For good ... and for ill.  The rise ... and fall ... of the Roman Empire. The building and tearing down of the Berlin Wall.  The crash of Wall Street.  Cathedrals, walls, skyscrapers, monuments, regimes, even institutions officially deemed “too big to fail” fail.  The rock, the very earth beneath our feet... rests upon flowing magma.  I’m reminded of the observation in the 13th Chapter of the Letter to the Hebrews ... “We have here no continuing city.”>>READ MORE

November 8, 2010

Next of Kin
Ruth 3:1-5; 4:13-17
A Meditation by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart
 
Whither thou goest I will go. Where you dwell there will my dwelling be.  Your people shall be my people, my darling. And your God I’ll gladly come to know. (sung)

Jim Strathdee set these beautiful words of love from the Book of Ruth to music. Ruth, widowed Moabite daughter-in-law, speaks these words to her widowed Israelite mother-in-law Naomi.

Years earlier, Naomi and her husband Elimilech had left Judah, the land of their family and faith, to escape famine.  They came to the more prosperous but inhospitable land of Moab as refugees, and they had two sons. Then Naomi’s husband died and both her sons married Moabite women.  Ten years later both of her sons died.  Naomi was left a foreign widow with no children, the most destitute among the destitute.  So she decided to risk the journey back to Judah, where the famine had subsided.

Both of her Moabite daughters-in-law, Orpah and Ruth, began the journey with her.  But Naomi realized that her land would be as foreign and hostile to them as theirs was to her.  So she told them to go back to their own mothers’ houses, to their futures in Moab.  She kissed them goodbye. Orpah turned back.  

But Ruth “clung to her.”  She refused to leave Naomi saying, “Where you go, I will go.  Where you live, I will live.  Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die, there I will die also.”  This vow, made to a mother-in-law from a different land, a different culture and religion, expresses the depth of human love and commitment.>>READ MORE

November 1, 2009

Since we Are Surrounded ...
Hebrews 11:32-12:2
An All Saints Sunday Communion Meditation
by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart

We are not alone.  Sometimes we feel alone.  We may feel abandoned or cut off.  But none of us, ever, is alone.

We are surrounded by... a cloud of companions... witnesses ... spiritual ancestors... friends in faith ... people who have gone before us and who are with us now ... people who are a part of us ...always.

Hebrews chapter 11 is filled with the names of people who lived and died and rejoiced and suffered and conquered and struggled and did everything by faith.  By faith Abraham offered, by faith Moses was hidden, by faith the people crossed the Red Sea, individuals and communities who lived by faith... they shut the mouths of lions, they wandered, they were tortured, imprisoned.  They were not perfect.  They were not always "successful." They did not always survive.  But they persevered even in suffering. In death as in life, they lived by faith.  

These witnesses inspire and challenge and accompany us.  We need their lives and witness.>>READ MORE

October 25, 2009

Shout Out
Mark 10:46-52
A Sermon by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart

In the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, Bartimaeus is the only person Jesus healed whose name we know.  His name is given in Mark’s Gospel, and it is given twice.  First in Aramaic and then in Greek: Bar-timaeus, son of Timaeus.  Two times he is named. Perhaps... Mark has a reason for this.

In Aramaic Bartimaeus could mean “son of shame or dishonor” – and there he was, a blind beggar sitting by the side of the road, his cloak spread out to catch charity dropped by passersby.  Bartimaeus, son of Timaeus, knew shame.

In Greek Bartimaeus could mean, “son of honor or dignity” – and there he was, a child of God, worthy of respect no matter what, a blind man who could see far more than the disciples who surrounded Jesus.  Bartimaeus, son of Timaeus, knew honor.

One name ...Two meanings.   Which identity, which name would Bartimaeus claim?>>READ MORE

October 11, 2009

Who Can Be Saved?
Job 23: 1-9, 16-17  Mark 10: 17-31
A Sermon by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart
Epworth United Methodist Church, Berkeley

Jesus was on the road again. A woman ran up to him, knelt before him and asked, “Good Teacher... what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

Jesus didn’t accept her compliment, or offer any reassurance about inheritance.  Rather, he reminded her of the commandments.  At this she smiled, for, basically, when it came to commandment keeping, she was in pretty good shape. She was, after all, pastor of a United Methodist Church in Berkeley.  And so she said, “I have loved and kept God’s commandments, and I have served steadfastly in the offices of the church at all of its connectional levels!”

And Jesus looking upon her loved her and said to her:   “You lack only one thing:  Go, sell whatever you have and give it to the poor.  Then come, follow me.” Hearing these words, this woman went away grieving, for she had many possessions.  She had an environmentally friendly car, nice robes, a home, a million books, a pension fund, and a laptop computer.  Now some of these she might be able to give up, but surely Jesus could not expect her to give up her pension.  So she turned and walked away in sorrow.>>READ MORE

October 4, 2009

Ten Commitments
Exodus 20: 1-4, 7-9, 12-20
A World Communion Meditation by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart
Epworth United Methodist Church   
October 4, 2009

World Communion Sunday ... a challenging, promising, audacious day.  It’s clear that in so many ways World Communion is not a reality.   We are divided and torn and separated in countless ways. And yet it’s also clear that in the promise of World Communion lies our hope.

Our Scripture Lesson this morning is the account of Moses bringing the people of Israel 10 words from God, words we know as the Ten Commandments.  On their journey to becoming a people, to becoming God’s people, the Israelites gathered at Mt. Sinai. Out of smoke, fire, cloud, lightning, thunder, earthquake, the first words they heard were these Ten Words ...  
 
... These ten words show how to behave toward God and how to behave toward each other.  At Mt. Sinai, all the people chose commitment to these ten words.  All the people -- as community and as individuals.

I like “ten commitments.” Commitments freely made in gratitude and hope.  Commitments are also what turn words into action.>>READ MORE

September 27, 2009

For Just Such a Time
Esther 4: 6-17, 7: 1-10
A Sermon by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart
Epworth United Methodist Church, Berkeley

Who knows? Perhaps you are exactly who you are and where you are for just such a time... as this.  Perhaps you are exactly who you are – with all your flaws and gifts, with all your cleverness and sadness...and perhaps you are positioned exactly where you are – with all the insecurity and ambiguity, power and powerlessness of this place... Perhaps you are here for a purpose.

The who... where... when... of your life, colliding with the realities of community and the world in which you live, call you to act boldly... for a purpose.

This morning, let’s enter into the story of Esther and meditate upon it.  Who knows? Perhaps it will help us to reflect on our purpose for just such a time as this. >>READ MORE

September 20, 2009

Facebook Faith  
Psalm 1    Mark 9: 30-37
A Sermon by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart
Epworth United Methodist Church, Berkeley
 
This morning’s Gospel reading describes two ... powerful, and... uneasy ... silences.  The first... silence... happens when Jesus tells his disciples what to expect.  They have followed him as the Messiah ... the one anointed by God to lead and liberate the people ... and now they hear him say ... “the Son of Man will be betrayed into human hands... and they will kill him ... and three days after being killed he will rise again.”  Imagine that silence ... each of the disciples looking at their own sandals, hoping against hope that someone else would speak up ... but no one did. According to Mark’s Gospel, “they did not understand what he was saying, and they were afraid to ask him.”

The next... silence is after they arrive in Capernaum.  Jesus heard the sounds of arguing along the way there. When they entered a house, Jesus asked the disciples what they were arguing about. The Gospel says, “but they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest.”  Talk about an awkward silence.  How do you tell Jesus that what you had been arguing about on the journey to his passion who was the greatest among you?

Silences ... prompted by a lack of understanding ... or deepened by fear, or exposing false or foolish behavior ... silences are windows for the soul ... allowing us to see and be seen in essential ways.>>READ MORE

September 13, 2009

From the Same Mouth
Psalm 19: 1-4     James 3: 1-12
A Sermon by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart

Epworth United Methodist Church, Berkeley
 

“Use your words.” I was sitting in Espresso Roma Café when I heard this three-word phrase spoken over and over like a litany by different parents from different tables and at different volumes – to very small children.  “Use your words.”  When young children urgently need to communicate, particularly when they are in pain, or upset or angry, they are taught and reminded, “Use your words.”

We do learn to use our words... for good... and for ill.  Language has power to name, to express, to inform, to question..  Words have great power to hurt and to heal. To quote the film “Spiderman,” “with great power comes great responsibility.”>>READ MORE

September 6, 2009

Common Ground
Proverbs 22: 1-2, 8-9, 22-23   Mark 7: 24-30
A Communion Meditation by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart
Epworth United Methodist Church, Berkeley

Some of you know that I make it a practice to acknowledge E-tickets whenever I see them.  I don’t mean E-tickets for flights or films. I’m talking about E-tickets. Disneyland. ...

... Now I say “E-ticket” whenever I see entitlement in action.  E for Entitlement -- from economic advantage, power, privilege, race, gender, class, sexual orientation, E tickets can be found in exclusive neighborhoods, expensive cars, politically correct communities, expansive egos, and honor societies.  My mom and dad were working class folk of immigrant parents who did not espouse complex political theory or Biblical hermeneutics, but as in the parables of Jesus they recognized bosses and workers, landowners and peasants.  A and E tickets.>>READ MORE

August 30, 2009

Music is Love
I John 4: 7-12    Matthew 25: 34-40
A Meditation by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart
On the occasion of Jerry Asheim’s 20th Anniversary at Epworth

Several weeks ago I responded to a late afternoon phone call at the church.  It was from a woman who needed a song.  Her father had died the week before.  The funeral was to be the next day.  He had a favorite hymn.  She was trying to find it.  He had been Methodist.  She grew up in the Methodist Church in Central America. They could not find it.  She searched on the internet and finally found the words, but she could not find the music..  I told her that we had a variety of hymnals, that I would look for it, and that we were about to have a staff meeting, so I would also ask our church musician, Jerry Asheim, and would call her back that evening.>>READ MORE

August 23, 2009

Summer Movies
Ephesians 6: 10-19
A Sermon by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart
 
When our sons Andrew and Josh were 6 and 12 years old we visited England. Now, you may know the Tower of London as the location of the crown jewels and site of ancient historic tragedies.  But for our guys – it was all about the weapons! The Tower -- fortress, prison, scaffolding (6 year old Andrew informed us that the first recorded execution there was in 1388). We visited, at great length, the sword room, the weapons room, the arms and armors room, the cross bow room, the cannon room, displays of axes maces, the traitors’ gate, bloody tower, ... sigh.>>READ MORE

August 16, 2009

Shelter Dinner
I Kings 3: 3-14  John 6: 51-58
A Sermon by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart
 

... Today’s Gospel text is difficult. Few preach on it, especially in progressive Christian circles. In eight verses, Jesus talks about eating his flesh and drinking his blood seven times!

Early Christ Followers were even charged with cannibalism, with being “flesh-eaters” because of these words and because of their practice of shared meals.

Today these words at communion can still evoke reaction. One person told me, “That “bloody religion” talk always disturbs me... I can’t believe you’re preaching on that... at Epworth?” ...

In the verse immediately following our text the disciples said:  “This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?”>>READ MORE

August 9, 2009

Waiting
Psalm 130:5-7
A Sermon by the Rev. Andrea Davidson

We all find ourselves waiting, at some point in our lives.  We wait for food at restaurants.  We wait for lights to turn green.  We wait for the sun to lavishly decorate the horizon as it sets in the evening, radiating brilliantly burnt orange, amber and gold. We all wait!
 
A story is told of a “homeless man, down on his luck, who went into a church that was known for its rather ‘uppity’ social reputation. Spotting the man’s dirty clothes, the ushers stopped him outside the church door and asked if he needed help.
 
“I was praying,” said the homeless man, “and God told me to come to this church.” “Well,” said the ushers. “Perhaps you should go back and pray some more. You may get a different answer.”
 
The next Sunday the man was there again, and again the ushers stopped him at the door.  “Well, did you get a different answer?” they asked him. “Yes, I did,” said the man. “I told God that you don’t want me here, but God said, ‘Keep trying, son. I’ve been trying to get into that church for years and I haven’t made it either.”  Apparently, even God has to wait sometimes.>>READ MORE

August 2, 2009

Sin, Karma, and Denial:  Living With the Wrong We’ve Done
2 Samuel 11:26—12:13a; Matthew 5:3-11
A Sermon by the Reverend Ron Parker  
 
Sometime in the twenty-four hours before I’m scheduled to preach a sermon, I invariably find myself wishing that there were someone I could blame for the sermon title that is printed in the bulletin.  What was I thinking?  
 
Well…I know what I was thinking.  I was thinking what I always think, “Look at the scripture readings that the Lectionary assigns to this day; pick the weirdest and most difficult one and see what you can make of it.”
 
That’s how we all got stuck with the story of David’s getting the wife of his trusted commander Uriah pregnant and then arranging to get Uriah killed to cover up the matter. Except it is not completely covered up because the prophet Nathan comes and confronts him and so our story ends with David saying, “I have sinned.”
 
So that’s our text for the day, “I have sinned.” ... How uplifting.>>READ MORE  

July 26, 2009

Time to Wake from Sleep
Romans 13:11-14 and Matt 24:36-44
 A Sermon by the Reverend Mark Lancaster
 
Time to Wake from Sleep…  Good morning. Grace to you and peace from God our creator and the Lord Jesus Christ.

My, Oh my,  don’t we human beings seem to think we are the very center of God’s universe. Mind you, we have made a real mess of creation—with poverty and disease and war and rapid environmental degradation. But even if humans are not the center of it all, I agree with Jeffrey Sachs,  that for the first time in human history we do have the potential to eradicate poverty, hunger and disease from the face of the planet and to stop climate change in its tracks—we need only the will. And part of that will means remembering what our grandparents taught eons ago—there is enough of God’s good earth for everyone’s need but not enough for everyone’s greed.>>READ MORE

July 19, 2009

Sermon Series:  COME ALIVE:  BODY, SOUL, HEART AND MIND
Come Away
Mark 6: 30-34, 53-56
A Sermon by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart
 

They returned to Jesus and reported all they had done and taught.... then they fed 5000 ... then Jesus walked on windswept waters ... then crowds followed them everywhere seeking healing. These stories are told one right after the other in the sixth chapter of the Gospel of Mark.  These were all things Jesus and the disciples did.  These acts served others, surprised them, and restored the people. Jesus and his weary, overwhelmed followers were deeply engaged with the real needs and fears of thousands who needed food for body and soul.

I can imagine strategic instructions for just such a time if this were a United Methodist endeavor.... a task force established... how to prepare for large gatherings ... how to heal ... how to pray...  what to teach.   I can picture an organizer’s training manual describing techniques they would need to learn and know in order to carry out the work they had to do.  But Jesus words to his disciples in the midst of all this were quite different.  He said to them,

Come away....
to a deserted place....
all by yourselves...
and rest a while.... >>READ MORE

July12, 2009

Sermon Series:  COME ALIVE! BODY, SOUL, HEART AND MIND
“Dancing With All Your Might”
2 Samuel 6: 1-5, 12b-15
A Sermon by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart

When have you danced “with all your might?”   ... A dance of victory, community, ecstasy, creativity...?

2 Samuel 6:5, “David and all the house of Israel were dancing before the Lord with all their might, with songs and lyres and harps and tambourines and castanets and cymbals.”  ... What kind of passion called forth such praise?  ...What kind of promise flowed through that dance?  Loving God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength means dancing with all of your might.

In the last three weeks millions of people around the world have remembered Michael Jackson.  Poet Maya Angelou wrote a tribute to him that reads in part,
... Sing our songs among the stars and walk our dances across the face of the moon... We were enchanted with his passion because he held nothing.  He gave us all he had been given..">>READ MORE

July 5, 2009

Global Praise
2 Samuel 5: 1-5, 9-10    Mark 6: 1-13
A Communion Meditation by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart
(podcast has testimonies of Molly Brostrom, Todd Schafer, Christina Kellogg and Pam Liew www.epworthberkeley.org <http://www.epworthberkeley.org/> )
 
It is our practice at Epworth to send forth members of this community as they embark on a long journey, as they move other places– we send them with our love and prayers, and as we send them forth we too are commissioned, sent out-- to love God, to learn, to serve others....throughout the world that God so loves.

*One year ago,  we sent forth the Brostrom Schafers to Rwanda (aka Kigali 5);   * A few weeks ago, we sent forth Epworth’s Nicaragua Team to Nueva Guinea; * Years ago we sent forth the Pipers to Nairobi, Kenya;   *months ago – Wenger/Rhude family to Chiapas, the Liews – to an adventure in New Zealand; several college students to university;

*When they return to this place – for a visit – or to stay—how do we learn from their journeys of body, mind and soul? >>READ MORE

June 28, 2009

One-Touch Healing
Psalm 130   Mark 5: 21-43
A Sermon by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart
 

From the midst of a large crowd, Jairus, came to Jesus for help. Jairus was a ruler of the synagogue, a religious leader who had faith in Jesus.  He came to Jesus and fell at his feet, begging repeatedly, “My little daughter is at the point of death.  Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well and live.”  Immediately Jesus went with Jairus. And the crowds pressed in on him.

There was a woman in the crowd who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years.  For twelve years she had been bleeding. Scripture tells us that this unnamed woman “had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse.” ...
 
...This woman who had suffered for twelve years -- did not give up – she did not give up her faith, her voice, her agency.  She did not give up and she did not give in - to fear, despair, anger. She risked reaching deep and reaching out, engaging, connecting with the liberating power she recognized in Christ.>>READ MORE

June 21, 2009

The Prodigal Father
Luke 15: 11-32
A Sermon by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart
 
Walter Francis Reilly Lockwood, my father, died 27 years ago at the age of 63 years from the ravages of a hard life and alcohol. I remember him today with great love.  My Dad was a deeply beautiful and deeply flawed human being.  He was uneducated and very intelligent.  He was sentimental and he was violent.  He was fun and he was scary.  He harnessed himself and his passion to a milk route to support his five daughters. When I was little I was afraid of him.

Even as a young child, life experience and the teaching of scripture posed a theological challenge for me. The image of God the Father was disconcerting to me. I couldn’t reconcile the God of Jesus with God the Father in my life.  I couldn’t see how God the Spirit was the same as a wrathful God of vengeance and violence.  I couldn’t understand a God of love who would lay down his life for others in Jesus and a God who would let innocents suffer. I know many who struggle with this today. >>READ MORE

June 14, 2009

IN CHRIST
2 Corinthians 5:14-17
A Sermon by The Reverend Jim Lockwood-Stewart

This morning’s reading from Paul’s second letter to the church in Corinth bears in many ways the crowning promise of Paul’ own spiritual journey.  He said, “If anyone is in Christ Jesus, that person is a new creation.  The old has passed away, the new has come.”  For Paul entering into the power of Christ changed everything in his life ...  For two thousand years Christians have been preaching about a new creation … and yet so much of the church’s life … so much of our own lives … seem to be caught up in old ways … so much of our lives seem more enslaved than freed, more weary than reborn, more desperate than hopeful.

I saw a cartoon once that showed a scowling preacher looking out from the pulpit and saying “This is my fourth sermon on the transforming power of the Gospel.  Why do you look like the same old bunch?”>>READ MORE

May 31, 2009

New Wine   
Acts 2: 1-21
A Pentecost Sermon by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart
As written...not as preached!

Epworth is entering a relationship with Nueva Guinea, a community in the Nicaraguan rain forest.  In particular, we have begun an intercambio, a mutual relationship with the teachers, students and parents of Ruben Dario High School, a school of one thousand students.  Lloyd Elliott is leading our community in this. Our first team to visit Nueva Guinea went in March.  A second will go in June.  And today, Pentecost, we begin forming Skype friendships between our two communities.

Two members of the team going in June have talked with me about having some anxiety -- because they do not speak Spanish, and they do not know if or what they can bring or do anything for the school. I don’t think that my initial response was helpful to them.  

Because I said,  “Exactly! How exciting!” >>READ MORE

May 24, 2009

Lifted Up
Psalm 47   Luke 24: 44-53

A Sermon by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart
 
This week Dr. Huston Smith, described in the press as “Religion’s Rock Star,” is turning 90 years old.  He has been our neighbor in Berkeley, our teacher in adult study, and a dear friend.  Author of 15 books on world religions, he’s just published his autobiography, Tales of Wonder: Adventures Chasing the Divine.

 Huston Smith, great scholar and explorer of world religions, recently said:   “One of my favorite prayers was written by a 9-year old.  His mother found it scribbled on a note beside his bed: ‘Dear God, I’m doing the best I can.’”

Perhaps, instead of feeling that nothing we do is ever enough, that everything we face is too much, we can pray with this 9-year old boy, “Dear God, I’m doing the best I can.”>>READ MORE

May 17, 2009

God’s Friends
John 15:9-17    The Shack by Wm. Paul Young, pages 84-85
A Sermon by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart

Angry and overwhelmed by horrific loss of his youngest daughter, Mack Phillips meets God for 48 hours in Wm. Paul Young’s novel, The Shack.  In the shack, Mack meets God in three persons.  Now, traditional language in the church talks about Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, or we would say Creator, Christ, and Spirit.  Here, in The Shack, this three-person God is:  a large extravagant African American woman, a distinctively Asian woman who was still in the midst of shimmering movement, and a Middle Eastern man in a plaid shirt that would not stand out in a crowd.

This novel has stirred up controversy among Christians offended by its creative, unorthodox and joyful vision of the Trinity.  I think that The Shack is a flawed but fabulous invitation to “re-think relationship” in God and with God.>>READ MORE

May 10, 2009

Singing Home
John 15: 1-8     I John 4: 7-21
A Sermon by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart
 
Sung:   O, had I a golden thread, and needle so fine; I’d weave a magic strand of rainbow design, of rainbow design. In it I’d weave the bravery of women giving birth.  In it I’d weave the innocence of children over all the earth, children over all the earth.

I celebrate Mother’s Day as one who has never given birth, whose mother has died, and who at age 56 is just beginning to heal from childhood wounds, as I learn how to parent myself.  Yesterday in the Pastor’s Book Group we discussed Maya Angelou’s new book, Letter to My Daughter. Maya Angelou never gave birth to a daughter, nor raised one, but she writes, “I have thousands of daughters....”  In this ... letter to her ... daughter, Angelou writes,  

“The human heart is so delicate and sensitive that it always needs some tangible encouragement to prevent it from faltering in its labor. The human heart is so robust, so tough, that once encouraged it beats its rhythm with a loud unswerving insistency.  One thing that encourages the heart is music. Throughout the ages we have created songs to grow on and to live by.” (p. 85)>>READ MORE

May 3, 2009

The Stone Rejected by the Builders
Acts 4:5-12
A Sermon by the Reverend Eun-Joo Myung

As Easter people, we are in the middle, between Easter and Pentecost.  Almost a month ago, it was Easter. I would like to start over again from that moment of the story.

Jesus died on the cross, but no sooner had he died than a rumor began to circulate, a rumor that he had risen from the dead!  Jerusalem is filled with that rumor.  Even the disciples were at first incredulous.  When the women told them that they did not find the body of Jesus in the tomb, they wouldn’t believe them.  There were also two disciples, whose names was not told us in Luke’s gospel, going to Emmaus from Jerusalem. They shared the rumor with “the stranger” who had joined them on the way after they had given him a full account of Jesus’ crucifixion and the empty tomb.>>READ MORE

April 26, 2009

Whose Children Are We?
1 John 3:1-17
A Sermon by the Reverend Ron Parker

As I wind up an extension cord in my basement, I notice myself doing it exactly the way my father taught me more than fifty years ago:  put the two ends together, wrap it from wrist to elbow, slide the loop through the center of the coil and over the top, cinch it down.

Not only that … as I hold the cord, I notice that the wrinkles on my hands have begun to resemble the ones I watched coil those cords a half-century earlier.  Whether we like it or not and for good or for ill, all of us are our parents' children.  Sometimes it’s a blessing.  Sometimes we have to fight against it.>>READ MORE

April 19, 2009

Limited Offers
John 20: 19-31
A Sermon by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart

We live our lives behind locked doors. We lock the doors to our houses, our cars,our schools our churches.  We lock doors because we are afraid.  Because there are real and imagined threats.  We lock doors to protect ourselves, our loved ones, our property, to safeguard our privacy – in rooms, homes, and offices.  We lock gates at playgrounds and parks.  We lock ourselves in and others out because we suspect, and sometimes rightfully so, that if we do not, we will lose... something, or we will be harmed, or placed at risk.>>READ MORE

April 12, 2009

Ready Or Not
Mark 16: 1-8
A Meditation for Easter Sunrise Service
By the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart

Whether the world is ready or not,
Whether the church is ready or not,
Whether you and I are ready or not,
Christ is risen.

Resurrection means that truth will not stay buried,
That justice cannot be kept down,
That love shall not be destroyed by death.
Christ is risen.>>READ MORE

March 29, 2009

Voice of Thunder
Jeremiah 31:  31-34
John 12: 20-33
A Sermon by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart
 

On Friday the Oakland Arena was filled with 20,000 people for a memorial for four slain police officers.  Many tears were shed, tears of sorrow and loss for families, friends, community.  Many words were spoken in honor of lives given in service to others.  Many tributes were read, memories shared, many official and authentic speeches.

But the power was in the gathering itself.  The power was in who was there, who was not there. The power was in ritual without words –processions, formations, salutes, pictures, bagpipes, folding flags, the silence, the space between words that allowed the unspoken to be heard, - - the questions, the challenges, the relationships, the complex violence of a broken soul and a broken system that brought us to the Arena.

Rituals are “outward and visible signs” of truths that run deeper than words.>>READ MORE

March 22, 2009

LIVING WATER
John 4:7-15   John 7:37-38
A Sermon by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart

The longest conversation Jesus had with anyone reported anywhere in the Bible is with a Samaritan woman... at a well. Jesus was tired and thirsty from his journey. He stopped and sat at a well in the Samaritan city of Sychar, in the heat of the noonday sun.

This morning’s Gospel lesson is just the very beginning of the story (I encourage you to read on in your Bible at home). Even in these few verses, there are so many things to consider.  The multiple ways Jesus and this woman cross boundaries:  A man and a woman talking in public? ... a Jew and a Samaritan? Jews and Samaritans were divided by a history of blame and discrimination, differences in religion and ethnicity, conflict over where God is to be worshipped.  

Even these verses encourage us today to cross society’s boundaries to look at so-called strangers, or enemies, with Gospel eyes.>>READ MOREW

March 8, 2009

Empty Fullness
Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16 / Romans 4:18-25
A Sermon by the Reverend Eun-Joo Myung
 
The so called “ancestor of faith,” Abraham received God’s promise a second time that he and his wife would have many descendants according to Genesis Seventeen. And he still had no child with his wife Sarah.
 
Do you think Abraham did believe God’s promise?  
 
I thoughtfully doubt it.  Although, we did not read it today, following today’s text, it is said, “Can a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old?” Abraham said to himself, “Can Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?” And he added, “O that Ishmael might live in your sight” (Gen 17:17-18).
 
However, Abraham became the ancestor of Faith.  Paul proclaims that Abraham was “hoping against hope” (Rom 4:18).  Paul, in this epistle, explains hope. “Hope that is seen is not hope” (Rom 8:24). Since hope can be unpredictable, it often takes us by surprise. Like Abraham and Sarah’s story!>>READ MORE

March 1, 2009

Water From Rock
Mark 1:9-15
A Communion Meditation by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart

Lent is a time to sing broken Hallelujahs, silent Hallelujahs, to pray imperfect prayers, to pause before praise, and go where the pain is.  Lent is a time to practice getting lost, to live with wild beasts and ministering angels, to dive deep into the wilderness of this world, to risk living between a rock and a hard place ... 

... Lent is a time to stop pretending... to stop pretending that we are already there. Joan Osborne's song "Hallelujah in the City" begins, "I have been unfaithful. I have been untrue." Leonard Cohen's song, "Hallelujah" ends, "It's not a cry you can hear at night. It's not somebody who's seen the light.  It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah.">>READ MORE

February 22, 2009

Such As No One On Earth Could Bleach Them
Mark 9: 2-9
A Sermon by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart
(content differs from sermon preached)

A Spanish father decided to reconcile with his son who had run away to Madrid.  He took out an ad in the city newspaper:  “Paco, meet me at Hotel Montana at noon Tuesday.  All is forgiven. Papa.”  When the father went to the square he found eight hundred young men named Paco waiting for their fathers.

This is the beginning of a story by Ernest Hemingway, first published as “The Horns of the Bull” in 1936.  It is fiction but there could not be a more true expression of our human longing for forgiveness.>>READ MORE

February 15, 2009

It's Not Complicated, but It's Not Easy
2 Kings 5:1-14
A Sermon by The Rev. Ron Parker

"Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man and in high favor with his master.... The man, though a mighty warrior, suffered from leprosy." (2 Kings 5:1)

Naaman had two problems:  first, he was a great man, highly favored by the king; second, he had leprosy, a disease considered shameful in his culture.

"Wait a minute," you say, "This sounds like only one problem -- one problem and one great benefit."

I suppose, in one sense, that's true: leprosy is a problem, the favor of the king is a good thing.

What made them both problems was not the external circumstances of the king's favor and his skin disease.  What made them problems was that he let them define his internal sense of who he was.>>READ MORE

February 8, 2009

WHILE IT WAS STILL DARK
Isaiah 40:21-31   Mark 1:29-39
A Sermon by the Rev. Odette Lockwood-Stewart

At last month’s Board meeting of Berkeley’s Food and Housing Project we learned that the number of new homeless families, people homeless for the very first time, has increased over 150% in the last six months.

At a Suicide Hotline in New York City, there has been a 28% increase in calls in the last two years.  Alan Ross has worked at the Samaritan hotline since 1984, and has directed it since 1991. He said this week, it’s  “Like nothing I’ve ever seen.  150 calls a day … one every 10 minutes... even before the stock market went into its nose dive in September, it was a dark time.” (New York Times, February 3, 2009)

Theodore Roethke’s poem begins, “In a dark time, the eye begins to see. I see my shadow in the deepening shade...”>>READ MORE

February 1, 2009

Seaside
Mark 1: 21-28
A Communion Meditation by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart

**= projected image change - pictures of Seaside and Capernaum

**Seaside. Seaside Hospital was abandoned in 1996.**  From 1961 to 1996, it was known as Seaside Regional Center for the Mentally Retarded, a Connecticut state facility.  Before that, beginning in 1958, it was Seaside Geriatric Hospital. ** Before that, between 1919 and 1934, it was Seaside Sanatorium, a residential hospital for children with tuberculosis of the bone.

I located and visited Seaside two years ago and took these pictures because Seaside is where my mom, Maria Yolanda Wilgochewicz Lockwood, Mary, spent ten years of her childhood. **>>READ MORE

January 25, 2009

Transforming Power
Jonah 3: 1-5, 10
Mark 1: 14-20
A Sermon by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart
 

”Violence repels us, but violence also attracts us.
Violence alarms us, but violence also entertains us.
Violence destroys us, but violence also protects us.”

These words come from a study from the World Council of Churches entitled, Why Violence?  Why Not Peace?  

In 2001 the World Council gathered to begin a Decade to Overcome Violence, saying,   “We come together from the four corners of the earth aware of the urgent need to overcome violence that pervades our lives, our communities, our world and the whole created order.  We launch this decade in response to a deep yearning among our peoples to build lasting peace grounded in justice.”>>READ MORE

January 18, 2009

INFREQUENT VISIONS
I Samuel 3:1-10   John 1:43-51
A Sermon by the Rev. Odette Lockwood-Stewart
 

“People were not listening to God in those days, and God did not speak.  Word from the Lord was rare in those days.  Visions were infrequent.”
This is the context for God’s call to the prophet Samuel ...
 
... I just heard an interview with Jamaican American Hip Hop musician will.i.am.  He talked about inspiration.  He said, “When inspiration calls, you don’t switch it over to voicemail. You pick up.  You hold a conversation.”... Not necessarily.>>READ MORE

January 4, 2009

HOME BY ANOTHER WAY
Isaiah 60: 1-6   Matthew 2: 1-12
Communion Meditation by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart

Epiphany means showing, appearance, manifestion -- God’s presence shown throughout the world.  On January 6th we celebrate Epiphany, God’s presence shown to all the world through the Magi ... There is much we do not know about the Magi ...  

... We do know they were wise. They paid attention to their studies of history, sacred texts, and the night sky.  They paid attention to dreams and wonder and the signs and significance of Jesus’ birth. Overcome, they knelt, and worshipped, and gave gifts to the Christ child.  Wisely, they also paid attention to the power of King Herod’s fear. Refusing to cooperate with Herod, they went home by another way and saved the life of Jesus.  This was their greatest gift.   James Taylor wrote a song about this story... >>READ MORE

December 28, 2008

UJIMA
Luke 2: 22-40
A Christmas and Kwanzaa Meditation
by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart

There is an East African story about a very old man, a healer, named Modupe, who lived high on a mountain top all by himself.  But he was not lonely.  His friends and neighbors lived just down the mountainside in the valley below.  One day... Modupe... set his mountaintop home on fire! He did this... in order to save his neighbors... from a flood.  For you see, when the villagers saw smoke and flames coming from Modupe’s house, they all rushed up the mountainside to save their neighbor.  Even those who could not walk were carried to help as it was the practice and experience of the people that every one was needed.  When the villagers reached Modupe’s house, suddenly they heard a crash and roar from below.  They looked down and saw that the dam had burst and flood waters were raging through the valley, destroying their homes, their crops, everything.

Weeping over all they lost in the flood and fire, the villagers soon realized that, by coming to save Modupe, they had saved themselves. Modupe offered to share his crops, and they knew they would rebuild community together.  

I am moved by Modupe’s sacrifice.  I am inspired by his name, which means, “I am grateful.”  But this year, this Christmas, this Kwanzaa in particular, the power of the story for me rests in the truth that Modupe knew how to save his community, because he knew they would show up for him.>>READ MORE

December 24, 2008

Christmas Eve Meditation
by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart

Our 5:00 Christmas Eve service at Epworth is a wild and wonder-full retelling of the story of Christ’s birth for children... of all ages.

I love the story about a more traditional Church Christmas pageant, and a little boy who decided to... improvise.  Cast as the innkeeper … he was ready … When Joseph and Mary came to his door and asked for a room, he took one hard look at them and said, “You’re in luck!  We just had a cancellation!”

However the hospitable innkeeper who finally welcomed Mary and Joseph actually said it, and for whatever reasons, … a whole lot of people said “no” before they every reached his door.

The sobering truth of our frantic-paced lives is that most likely we are like the harried and hassled innkeepers with no room left.  Like them, for all kinds of understandable reasons, we shut out things God wants us to let in.>>READ MORE

December 21, 2008

TRANSFORMED BY HOPE:  CHOOSING JOY
2 Samuel 7: 1-11
Luke 1: 46-57
A Sermon by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart

I wish you a very Mary Christmas!  ... M-a-r-y Christmas!
To understand the reason for the season ... to understand the meaning and the message of Jesus... listen to the song of his mother.

Every year Mary's song sounds urgency and promise, comfort and challenge.  Every year one Sunday in Advent, approaching Christmas, we give our primary attention to the one whose faith precedes Jesus‚ birth, the one whose courage welcomed Jesus, the one whose love wrapped around him like loving arms, the one whose revolutionary "yes" upended the accepted order of the world's people and powers. >>READ MORE

December 14, 2008

TRANSFORMED BY HOPE: CHOOSING COMMUNITY
Isaiah 61: 1-4, 8-11
John 1: 6-8, 19-23
A Communion Meditation by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart
 

“Pray the Devil Back To Hell” is the name of a new documentary film about women in Liberia who chose community every day against unthinkable odds. They chose community and transformed their homeland by hope.

In 1847, freed American slaves founded Liberia.  In 1989 Liberia was a war torn land of tyrants and warlords battling for power, wealth, ethnic superiority and control of natural resources.  Charles Taylor gained power and the presidency by giving men and very young boys guns, machetes, and drugs.  For years, the violence increased. Rebel warlords battled Taylor for power and control. The people suffered --hunger, violence, rape – 250,000 killed and millions displaced into camps.

In 2003, women--in a church-- met to pray—for peace--together.  They prayed for a new future for the children of Liberia.  Out of their stories of the horrors of war, and out of the depth of their prayers for peace, the Women’s Christian Peace Initiative was born.>>READ MORE

December 7, 2008

TRANSFORMED BY HOPE:  CHOOSING WONDER
Psalm 150 and Abraham Joshua Heschel*
A Sermon by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart

Jesus was Jewish.  You would think it unnecessary to remind Christians of this fact.  But this does not seem to be the case.  Amy-Jill Levine's book, The Misunderstood Jew:  The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus concludes with this sentence:  "If the church and synagogue both could recognize their connection to Jesus, a Jewish prophet who spoke to Jews, perhaps we'd be in a better place for understanding."  Christian Theologian Paul Tillich once said the following about Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel: "Abraham Heschel is the most Christian person I know.">>READ MORE

November 23, 2008

WELCOME THE SOUL

Psalm 100   Matthew 25: 31-46
A Sermon by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart
 

“Church sues for right to shelter homeless.” This was a news headline this weekl in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.  Brookville Borough, a municipality 100 miles northeast of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, cited and fined First Apostle’s Church for violating the zoning code when the church allowed three homeless men to live in the parsonage.  The American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal lawsuit claiming that the church was exercising its right to practice its religion in helping these homeless men.

Most of us, reading that headline, would shake our heads in judgmental disbelief ... from our safe and silent vantage point 3000 miles away from living next door to that parsonage.>>READ MORE

November 16, 2008

SUDDEN SEASONS
I Thessalonians 5: 1-11
A Sermon by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart
 

... In this morning’s text Paul responds to the question: When will the Day of the Lord come?  Paul writes: don’t worry about the specific times or seasons ... all you need to know you already know.  And that is that:  The Day of the Lord will come... and it will come... suddenly!  

Paul uses two images:  the first is a thief in the night ... No matter how secure you think are, a thief in the night is unexpected and scary. The second image Paul uses is labor pains.  No matter how prepared you are, or how great your expectations, the first pangs of birth are sudden and painful.

I was with my sister when she gave birth to her daughter, over twenty years ago. I’ll never forget it because at one point, she grabbed my arms and said, “I’ve changed my mind.  I don’t want to do this. I’m not going to do this.” And then she tried to stand up and leave the room!

The day of the Lord will come suddenly. Inescapably. Denial will not delay or stop God’s sudden season of fulfillment.>>READ MORE

November 9, 2008

CHOOSE THIS DAY
Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25
A Sermon by the Revs. Odette and Jim Lockwood-Stewart

This is an interesting time to be alive.  I know, it seems like everybody always says that ... but this is one of the times it‚s really true.  It‚s exciting.  It‚s even thrilling ... It‚s also pretty scary.

The 2008 election ...  We have seen images of celebrations around the world ... we‚ve seen young people and first-time voters in record numbers heralding a new day in American politics ... we‚ve seen pictures of and words from descendents, and even children, of slaves in utter amazement and inexpressible joy at having lived to see the day that a person of color was elected President of the United States.  We‚ve seen grace and delight in first-family elect Barack and Michelle and Malia and Sasha Obama ... different pictures than we‚ve ever seen before.>>READ MORE  

October 26, 2008

WHERE DO YOU LIVE?
Psalm 90:1-6, 13-17   Matthew 22:34-46
A Sermon by the Rev. Odette Lockwood-Stewart

In her book, The Grace of Coming Home:  Spirituality, Sexuality and the Struggle for Justice Melanie Morrison writes, “...You probably have a place, some special place, that may look very ordinary to others but to you is very precious because of something that happened there – an encounter in which you realized beyond all doubt that you were not alone and that you were loved. ... this special place may be a room in a house, a restaurant, a beach, or a forest where you once walked with a friend.  While you were walking, you found the courage to say out loud things you had never dared to say to another person (out of) fear ..., your friend touched your arm lightly and nodded as though to say, “It’s o.k.  You needn’t be afraid.”

At that moment in that place, you had a sense of coming home, of being found. Or maybe you were all alone...yet you sensed a presence, you felt called by name, and you knew you were loved for yourself ...and you have never quite been the same since....not because there are no more times of grief or doubt or disappointment, but because that memory of grace remains.  Whether you physically return to that place or not, you return there in memory – it has become holy ground.“>>READ MORE

October 19 2008

THE POLITICS OF JESUS
Matthew 22:15-22
A Sermon by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart

WWJD? “What would Jesus Do?”  You’ve heard the question.  The corollaries are inevitable.  I saw one written on a sidwalk on Shattuck Avenue, “Who would Jesus bomb?”  I saw another in the recent motion picture on overconsumption titled, “What would Jesus buy?”  Then, of course, there is the election year question, “Who would Jesus vote for?”  Or, on the website, “www.Jesusin2008” <http://www.jesusin2008” you/>  you can contribute to the campaign platform of Jesus presidential candidate!>>READ MORE

September 28, 2008

IS GOD AMONG US?
Exodus 17:1-7   Matthew 21:23-32
A Sermon by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart

“Othering” is a tactic being used today in political campaigns.  Ads about candidates and propositions attempt to define our security and well-being – economic, environmental, marital, through the condemnation, discrimination, distancing, and dehumanization of... others.

In postcolonial studies, “Othering” defines and secures empire’s positive identity by attacking or marginalizing an "other."  

In our daily lives it implies threat between the “other” who is --homeless, who has HIV/AIDS, who is different in race, gender, religion, orientation, age, language, culture, the other who is a stranger, who is addicted, a threat from “them” to “us.”

Jacob ... a high school student, wrote, “...we ‘other’ because ... it feels good to be part of the group in power, and by putting others down, we gain confidence and belonging.”

In-groups need out-groups to define themselves.>>READ MORE

September 14, 2008

YOU OWE ME AN APOLOGY!
Matthew 18: 21-35
A Sermon by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart

Murray spent a whole day saying he was sorry... to total strangers. He stood on the corner of Lexington and 51st in New York City, and apologized to each person passing by.  Even though Murray hadn’t done anything that warranted an apology, every stranger accepted his apology, saying,  “Don’t worry about it.” or  “That’s OK.”  At the end of the day, Murray shouted, “I could run up on the roof right now and holler ‘I am sorry,’ and half a million people would holler right back, ‘That’s OK, pal, just see that you don’t do it again.’”

Murray is a character in Herb Gardner’s play and the film called “A Thousand Clowns.”  Murray’s experience on that day reflects just how many of us feel we have been wronged and are owed an apology.>>READ MORE

September 7, 2008

LIVING AND WAGES
Isaiah 55: 1-2   Matthew 20:1-16
A Communion Meditation by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart

In the economy of biblical Palestine ... in the age of Roman rule ... in the days of Jesus ... those who owned land had both slaves and day laborers working for them.  Slaves were property.  Their lives were owned without wages to profit their owners.  Day laborers had no relationship and no guarantee of work or wages.  They might work one day with no work the next, ... or the next.  They stood in the marketplace ... or by the city gate... never knowing if their family would eat.

Jesus chose day laborers, those standing at the marketplace. Today - those standing on Fruitvale Avenue, or on Hearst and 4th street.   Jesus chose day laborers in a time of great unemployment in Galilee ... to compare God’s Kindom, the radical generosity and grace of God, the economy of the household of God, with common labor practices.>>READ MORE

August 31, 2008

AXIS OF RIGHT RELATIONSHIP
Exodus 3: 1-10   Romans 12:9-12
A Sermon by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart
(With Gratitude to God for the work of James A. Sanders, inspiration for this message.)

I recently received an e-mail message from my friend and colleague Dave Stark of Stiles Hall at Cal.  It begins  "Do you remember September 12, 2001?  National boundaries collapsed as an outpouring of sorrow and compassion flooded New York from around the world, sowing an Axis of Friendship.  Americans discovered friends in unlikely places, none more unlikely than Tehran, Iran.  Thousands of Iranians spontaneously lit candles in solidarity with the families of 9/11 and the American people."

"Axis of friendship" is an obvious juxtaposition to the term "Axis of Evil," a term used in January 2002 by President Bush to describe an alliance of threat and terror.

Focusing attention on an "axis of evil" we move toward fear, distrust, and violence.  Focusing attention on an "axis of right relationship", we move toward love, hope, and peace. >>READ MORE

August 24, 2008

IN THE HOUSE OF PHARAOH
Exodus 1:8-2:10
Romans 12: 1-8
A Sermon by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart
 

In the Book of Exodus we read the story of the oppression ... and liberation ... of the people of God.  

Who did God choose to lead the Israelite people out of slavery to the Promised Land?  Moses.

Our Scripture lesson this morning, from the first chapter of the Book of Exodus, tells the context for the birth of Moses and the story of his survival.

Egypt had been hospitable to the Israelites, the marginal, the sojourners in their land.  But a new king came to power, one who forgot the history of the nation, of Joseph, and of how the Hebrew people had helped Egypt.

Economic times got hard, and the political future frightening. The new king noted in terror that these people, these outsiders, were growing in number. They were doing well even as aliens in a strange land.  He thought:  Perhaps they were growing strong at the expense of Egypt’s strength!  And, in a battle with Egypt’s enemies, who knew what side these outsiders would really be on?>>READ MORE

August 17, 2008

PROJECT TABERNACLE
Exodus 31:1-5   Exodus 35: 30-35   II Timothy 1: 1-7
A Sermon by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart
 

“Project Runway” is a reality TV show that fascinates me.  Sixteen aspiring fashion designers compete.  Every week, they are given a challenge in which they must create something that expresses who they are as a designer under unusual circumstances:  Take $75 into a grocery store (or a recycling center, or flower mart ... or fabric store) and in 12 hours design and create fashion for a television star out of the groceries!

Their creativity under pressure astounds me.  Judgment by the experts on the runway and it is harsh and clear. One designer is sent home each week: “...one day you’re in, the next day you’re out.”

We have been taught this.  We have been taught that creativity is a special gift that belongs to the few, and that is judged by comparison. But children know that they are all artists... until they are taught otherwise.>>READ MORE

August 3, 2008

WRESTLING AND RECEIVING
Genesis 32:22-31; Matthew 14:13-21
A Sermon by the Rev. Ron Parker

 
Wrestling and receiving,
struggling and snuggling,
striving and arriving,
questing and resting,
running and sunning,
rowing and flowing,
going and stopping,

Breathing out and breathing in.

Our very life relies on our heart's regular rhythm ˆ contracting ∑ relaxing ∑ contracting ∑ relaxing.  Without both, we die.

And what is a drumbeat without the silence between?>>READ MORE

July 20, 2008

SLEEPING WITH THE ENEMY
Matthew 13:24-30
A Sermon by the Rev. Steed Davidson

Some may think this a graphic title for a sermon, inspired by a movie title that deals with the issue of domestic violence. Sermon titles do not aim to shock but rather to arrest attention. Parables contain shock value and perform that work better than sermon titles. So using a shocking title for a sermon on a parable seems suitable.

This parable unsettles our sense what seems normal and calls us to imagine ourselves living into God’s purposes. But more so Jesus calls upon those who keep hearing this parable to enter into God’s time with the confidence that God’s time will flourish despite attempts to delay, frustrate or even to destroy God’s purposes. So for those who grow weary of doing good, believing in good, for those who think that their investment in faith and hope for a community of justice, peace and equality seems lost, Jesus offers this parable to tell us what God’s time looks like.>>READ MORE

July 6, 2008

DONE AND UNDONE
Romans 7: 15-25a
A Communion Meditation by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart
(full meditation and reflections of River Abeje on podcast: www.epworthberkeley.org)

Paul wrote,
 “I do not understand my own actions.”
“I can will what is right but cannot do it!”

Have you ever had the experience of observing yourself do things you know will harm to yourself or others?  Have you ever lived in the place between knowing what is good and doing what is good? I have.>>READ MORE

June 29, 2008

VACATION, VACATION, VOCATION
Matthew 5:13-16
A Sermon by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart
 

va•ca•tion:  A period of time devoted to rest or relaxation; A break, recess, holiday; leave, departure, the act of vacating. The Latin root of the word is vactus, past participle of vacre, to be empty.

Vacation is an emptying of life in order to rediscover life. If we were told to vacate the premises, we would know what that means.  We would leave the building.  Vacation is vacating the premises that occupy and dominate our time and attention, to empty our lives in order to rediscover our lives.  Vacation opens our hearts to vocation, to re-creation, to wonder, and to the still, small voice of God.>>READ MORE

June 22, 2008

DARING DISORIENTATION
Matthew 10:24-28, 34-39
A Sermon by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart

Have you ever walked out of a movie theater and felt disoriented, so that you had absolutely no idea where you parked your car? I have.  And if I’ve parked in a multi-level parking structure, I’m in serious trouble.

There is something about spending time in a dark place then moving into light, about dwelling for a while in someone else’s story, then suddenly trying to re-enter your own that’s a little dis-orienting.>>READ MORE

June 15, 2008

NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY
Matthew 9:35-38, 10:1-8
A Sermon by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart

We choose to follow Jesus ... only to discover that we are the ones chosen.  We aren't just called ... we are sent.  Jesus doesn't just gather us to him ...... Jesus gives us work to do. ... We don't have to be perfect... or good... or feel holy...to follow Jesus. That has never been the case.  Praise God.  In our Gospel text, the only two descriptions of any of the twelve named disciples were that one disciple was a tax collector, a Roman collaborator, and that another betrayed Jesus.  Hardly great qualifications for discipleship.>>READ MORE

June 8, 2008

PITCHING TENTS
Genesis 12: 1-9   Matthew 9: 20-26
A Sermon by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart

Abram wasn’t sure where he was going ... but he got up and went.  He wasn’t sure what the future held ... but he knew it required him to move. Abram heard God’s call ... and trusted God’s promise of blessing... and left his home in Haran for an unknown land. God said to Abram, “go from your country, go from your family, go from your home to the land ... that I will show you.”  ... We, too, are tent-pitching folks who need to find places of shelter and refuge from time to time on a journey whose outcome remains unknown. >>READ MORE

June 1, 2008

LIVES THAT MATTER
Romans 1:16-17; 3:22b-26
Matthew 7:21-29
A Communion Meditation by
The Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart

I want to tell you a story.  It is a story from Will Campbell, an 84-year-old Baptist preacher, writer, civil rights activist, truth teller, and ornery messenger of God. Get to know Will Campbell.  He was the inspiration for a comic strip character, Will B. Dunn, from the late Doug Marlette’s comic Kudzu.  When Campbell was a young man he met a trapeze artist in a small traveling circus.  Campbell asked him why he chose that particular way to make a living.  The man told him about the romance and travel and adventure of circus life and about the pleasure of bringing joy to “children of all ages.”  He told him that the job paid well. He also told Campbell about “the thrill of hurling through space,” then, at the last possible moment being grasped by two hands at the wrist, then hurled to the next set of hands, that swung him through the air, back safely to the platform. But finally he said what Campbell had not expected him to say, “Do you really want to know why I go up there on that **** thing night after night after night?” Campbell said he did. “... I would have quit a long time ago.  But my sister is up there.  And my wife, (and she’s kind of a risk-taking)-nut and my old man (who is) is getting older.  If I wasn’t up there, some bad night, man...smash!”  His foot stomped the floor with a bone-cracking thud.”    As the trapeze artist began to walk away Campbell asked him one more question, “But why do they stay up there?”  The man ... looked Campbell up and down and then said:  “Because I drink too much!” >>READ MORE 

May 25, 2008

I WILL NOT FORGET YOU
Isaiah 49:8-16a    Matthew 6:24-34
A Sermon by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart

A small boy was looking out the window at a group of older children playing.   He obviously wanted to go out, but seemed afraid ... then saw them turning to come inside.  His mother, who had been watching, said, “Here they come, let’s hide behind this curtain and they won’t know where to find us.”  To which the child asked, “What if they don’t look for us? ... ”What if they don't care?"

The fear of being forgotten lies somewhere between mildly troubling and totally terrifying.  “What if they don’t look for us?”  “What if they don’t care?” are deeply existential questions of our hearts.>>READ MORE

May 18, 2008

FUNDAMENTALS
Genesis 1: 26 – 2: 3   Psalm 8
A Sermon by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart

For seventeen years I served as a campus minister (at UCLA, SDSU, and at Cal,) and one of my favorite programs was called the “Last Lecture Series.”  We would invite a professor to give a public lecture as if it were the last one of his or her life.  The values, thoughts, poetry, questions, stories, and visions that flowed from these lectures given by scientists, artists, engineers, historians, and many others, were wildly diverse, often surprising and consistently challenging.

Last Spring, Randy Pausch, a popular computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, agreed to give such a lecture.  But between the time he agreed to do it and the date of the lecture, Dr. Pausch, 47 years old, married, with three very young children, was diagnosed with metastatic pancreatic cancer and was told that he might have 3-6 months of health remaining.  

Eventually, for his family and for himself, he decided that even though he had resigned from the university to be with his family in the time he had left, and even though he had moved to Virginia to be closer to extended family, he would still return to the University to give his real “Last Lecture.” He did so in September 2007.>>READ MORE
 

May 11, 2008

GRACE TO BE RECKONED WITH
Acts 2:1-8,12-21
The Reverend Jim Lockwood-Stewart

Pentecost was a Jewish festival before it became associated with the birth of the Christian church.   Fifty days after Passover, the Jewish people gathered for this harvest related observance.  That’s what Jesus’ followers were doing when the holy spirit came upon them … as we heard a few moments ago.  It was dramatic … It was life changing … spirit like a powerful wind … spirit like tongues of fire resting on each of their heads.  There was ecstatic speech in varieties of languages.  It was one dramatic time.

It became known as the “birthday of the church” not just because those present became aware of the Spirit in a way they had never experienced it before.  It became the “birthday of the church” because it was the moment when Jesus’ followers really realized that they still had work to do.>>READ MORE
 

May 4, 2008

WISDOM TO KNOW THE DIFFERENCE
Acts 1:1-8
A Communion Meditation by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart

The prayer known as the Serenity Prayer is printed at the beginning of your worship guide.  “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
I returned yesterday from the General Conference of the United Methodist Church in Fort Worth, Texas, where 1000 delegates from 50 countries met for two weeks from 7 a.m. 11:00 p.m. ... every day ... to deliberate and make decisions on the doctrine, discipline, mission, ministries, practices and processes of this worldwide church of over 11 million members.  At its most brutal and disappointing, the General Conference voted 501 to 417 to retain language that considers “the practice of homosexuality incompatible with Christian teaching.”  ...  At its best the General Conference was faithful people struggling together in “holy conferencing” ... discovering and expressing hard truths, and moving forward together in some surprising and positive ways.>>READ MORE

April 27, 2008

GODS KNOWN AND UNKNOWN:

Learning from My Mother and the Dalai Lama
Acts 17:22-31; John 14:15-21
A Sermon by the Reverend Ron Parker

I don’t know whether Paul had been to Athens before, but today’s text tells us that he is wandering around the Areopagus – the square surrounding an important judicial court in Athens – gawking at everything like a tourist.  Think of it as like walking around Sproul Plaza on the Berkeley campus.  Like Sproul, just about every brand of religion, politics, sexual orientation, and social interest was represented there.  But it had one thing that I’ve never seen on the Cal campus:  an altar to “an unknown god.”  Most of the people at those tables on Sproul Plaza seem pretty certain of who God is or isn’t.  I think an altar to an unknown god is a good idea.  It keeps us appropriately humble.>>READ MORE

April 20, 2008

A FUTURE WITH HOPE
Jeremiah 29:4-13  John 14: 1-5
A Sermon by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart

Has anyone heard of the “EcoMom Alliance?”  There is a wave of “EcoMom parties” moving across the country.  The EcoMom Alliance hosts home parties to help bring and sustain positive change in every aspect of daily living.  While these “home parties” look a little like Tupperware parties or book groups, they are, in fact, environmental self-help awareness and action empowerment groups.

“I used to feel anxiety,” said Kathy Miller, an alliance member, recalling life before she started investigating weather-sensitive irrigation controls for her garden with nine growing zones.  “Now I feel like I’m doing something.”>>READ MORE                            

April 13, 2008

PRAYING THE NEWS
Acts 2: 42-47
A Sermon by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart

There is a scene I love at the beginning of an old Steve Martin film called “Roxanne.”  Martin is whistling and walking down the street. He stops at a newspaper kiosk, reaches in his pocket for a coin, places it in the machine, opens the door, takes a newspaper, opens it, begins to read, screams, refolds the paper, gets another coin from his pocket, puts it into the machine, opens the door, and places the newspaper back inside ... That done, he once again whistles and walks down the street.  A friend of mine says that he has placed himself on a permanent news diet.  He believes that no news is the only good news.>>READ MORE

April 6, 2008

BREAKING BREAD
Luke 24: 13-35
A Communion Meditation by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart

It was only days after Easter.  Cleopas and another disciple were making their way from the city of Jerusalem to a village called Emmaus.
It was after Easter. But these travelers were sad and scared.  They had seen the execution of Jesus.  They had heard stories of an empty tomb. They walked and talked over the seven miles between Jerusalem and Emmaus, trying to make sense of what they had seen and heard.  They had hoped that he would be the one, the one to redeem the nation, the one to save the people.  But they did not feel hopeful. They felt powerless ... and alone.  And even when Jesus himself came near and walked with them ... they did not recognize him ... I find comfort in this story.  I’m pretty sure that if Jesus came right up to me, walked along side me, asked me questions, and interpreted the whole Bible to me, I wouldn’t recognize the risen Christ either.  That’s why ... again and again ... we have to break bread together.>>READ MORE

March 23, 2008

I BELIEVE IN THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY
John 20: 1-18
An Easter Sermon by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart

This week, Dave Ross began his CBS radio broadcast with these words:  „Beware Easter!  He was troubled by the controversy about Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and the claim by some that if Senator Barack Obama did not get up and walk out of church, that meant he agreed with everything his pastor said from the pulpit.....  So Ross (and I) began to worry.  He warned Christians of the danger of staying in church on Easter when you just might hear some pretty outrageous things... things like Jesus rose from the dead and you can, too...

Well, here goes, church.  I'm about to say something embarrassingly outrageous:  I believe in the resurrection of the body.>>READ MORE

March 20, 2008

DURING SUPPER ...
John 13: 1-17
A Maundy Thursday Meditation
By the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart
 

A lot can happen “During supper...”
I remember sitting at supper while my mother pretended to eat, and watched to be sure her children did eat.
I remember sitting at supper in the stony silence before violence.
I remember conversations during supper so filled with laughter that we fell off our chairs.
I remember suppers that served up big news, sad news, good news.
I remember, during supper, getting to know someone for the first time.
I remember  -- suppers -- in prison, hospital cafeterias, cafes, shelters, small rooms, banquet halls, weddings, memorials, demonstrations, dates, vacations, supper alone, with family and friends, church suppers, again and again and again... a lot can happen during supper.>>READ MORE

March 16, 2008

COME, SEE, TASTE
Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29   Matthew 21:1-11
A Palm Sunday Sermon by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart

Ched Myers calls the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem “Political street theater.” Palm Sunday is the most dramatic threshold in the Christian Calendar.  Laurel Dykstra describes it this way:  “At Passover, the liberation of slaves is celebrated with a pilgrimage festival to an occupied Jerusalem.  Security is high and the situation volatile.  In this fraught atmosphere the kingdom movement stages a performance that lampoons the Roman imperial procession. The “king of peace” is not a warrior but a peasant healer who comes riding not a war chariot but a donkey, and crowds fill the streets celebrating an alternative vision.  Exciting, dangerous, transformative, participatory, nonviolent – this is street theater at its best. Hosanna!”>>READ MORE

March 2, 2008

A TABLE IN THE PRESENCE OF ENEMIES
Psalm 23  
The Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart

Yesterday, 400 people gathered in this sanctuary to celebrate the life of Tim Davis, a beloved member of this community.  In 2005, Tim was diagnosed with ALS, Lou Gehrig’s disease an illness that is always fatal, and that not so gradually and inevitably destroys the body while leaving the mind totally clear ...
... His friends were shocked when they heard that Tim was attending a church, let alone had joined a church!  When his close friend Jim asked, “Tim,... a church?  why?!”  Tim said, “Hey, in my situation, you need all the friends you can get.” ... ... We all need all the friends we can get... >>READ MORE

February 24, 2008

IN DEFENSE OF FOOD
Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7
The Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart

In his book, In Defense of Food, Michael Pollen challenges our fast food culture values: “that food is a product of industry, not nature; that food is fuel, and not a form of communion...”  

Pollan asks this question: “What would happen if we were to see food as less of a thing and more of a relationship?”>>READ MORE

February 10, 2008

Holy Eating:  Not By Bread Alone

Matthew 4:1-11

The Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart

Today we begin our Lenten theme, "Holy Eating," with the story of a famished Jesus who fasted 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness and then resisted ego and evil with tis truth:  human beings do not live by bread alone ... We are at risk of death by bread alone.  There is a growing phenomenon in the U.S. of people who are obese and malnourshed.  Holy Eating sees the connections between death-dealing poverty, empty calories, and deadened souls.>>READ MORE

January 20, 2008

Covenant In Action
Psalm 40: 1-11   John 1: 32-42
The Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart

John baptized Jesus. Then John testified to what he saw, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him...The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he shouted, “Look! Here is the Lamb of God!”  John’s disciples heard John ... and they followed Jesus.  Our text continues, “When Jesus turned, and saw them following, he said to them, ‘What are you looking for?’”   I love that the first words that Jesus utters in John’s Gospel pose a question, and the question is this:  “What are you looking for?”  Not “What are you looking for in a church home?” or “What are you looking for in a job, in a school, in a presidential candidate?”  But, -- What are you looking for?>>READ MORE

January 6, 2008

EPIPHANY
Isaiah 60:1-6   Matthew 2:1-12

The Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart

“Epiphany” means, literally, appearance, manifestation, showing forth of the light to the world.  During the season of Epiphany we remember the story of the Magi, wise ones from the East, who followed the rising of a star to Jerusalem on their journey to find the newborn King of the Jews.  These scholars and practitioners, from other lands and religion, traveled far, from Persia, Babylonia, to pay homage and to bring gifts to the infant Jesus, Immanuel, God-with-us.>>READ MORE