Brown Memorial Park Avenue Presbyterian Church

My name is Katherine, as you have probably gleaned by now. I have been a resident of Baltimore for about a year now and I work as a Mitigation Specialist. If you all were my family, or people who had known me over the years, this is the time you would ask me WHAT is … Continue reading For the Sake of Ten

One of the tropes in this story is that Mary chose the better part–sitting at the feet of Jesus. And her sister, Martha, chose the lesser part because she was busy at work. But this encounter is way more complicated than our gender biases and the NRSV translation allows. Today we’ll get reacquainted with the … Continue reading The Better Part

In the face of major transitions in our lives, we each respond differently. Transitions are of all sorts. They are exciting, like starting a new career. They are sorrowful, like the death of a loved one. They are unexpected, like the onset of chronic pain or symptoms that don’t go away. They are  long anticipated, … Continue reading I Will Not Leave You

Last week on Pentecost Sunday, we found ourselves in the farewell discourse from the Gospel of John. And today, Trinity Sunday, we continue our journey through the final conversation Jesus has with the 12 disciples before his execution. Jesus has a bad case of what I like to call the ‘long goodbye.’ Do you … Continue reading Queer the Trinity

The arrival of the Holy Spirit is flashy in the Acts version of the Pentecost story. We hear the story of the early Christians together, receiving tongues of fire on their heads, speaking and understanding languages that they couldn’t previously, a rushing wind blowing through the room. Rev. Lenny Duncan, ELCA minister and author of … Continue reading We Do Not Speak on Our Own

Last week, Michele preached about Paul as he sat down by the water with Lydia, worshipped God in the open air, and welcomed new people into the fold from an unexpected place. If last week was about baptism, this week is about imprisonment and liberation. Paul and Silas are walking by the river, praying, and … Continue reading Why Are You Looking Up?

It seems that God was playing a major game of telephone with Paul that night when he had a vision about a man in Macedonia. Or frankly, Paul misremembered his dream–because he sure didn’t meet a man in Macedonia in this story! We know what that’s like when it comes to dreams, don’t we? Some … Continue reading Lydia the Baptized

Over the course of the next month, with the exception of Confirmation Sunday, we will be exploring three different women in the books of Acts. The lectionary was kind this year and gave us three dynamic women: Tabitha, Lydia, and an unnamed, enslaved prophet. This morning we start out in Acts chapter 9 with the … Continue reading Tabitha the Resurrected