Season: Advent

Speaker: Mable Bakali

Location: 2212 S. Broad St.

About Talk: Mable Bakali compared our calling as Jesus-followers to Peter Parker’s reluctant teenage calling to save the world in the movie Spiderman: Far from Home. The good news is that we don’t have to drum up anything spectacular on our own; God is doing it. Our part is about showing up to our lives and engaging in the struggle. When we do that, we might even be surprised by joy.

Season: Advent

Speaker: Gwen White

Location: 29 West Tulpehocken St

About Talk: One could argue convincingly that the Christmas story is a story of fear. We could even say terror—let’s remember the famous circumstances of this visitation: Mary is a young unwed virgin. To announce the pregnancy as she must one possible result is that she would be condemned and killed. Another is that her betrothed, Joseph, deserts her and she has no means of income. Then let’s remember the follow up—she gives birth after laboring on a donkey as her oppressive government demands she journey regardless of her condition. Then let’s remember that after the birth she goes to the Temple as custom requires and an old man tells her that her soul will be pierced. Also in the child’s early life, she and Joseph have to flee to a foreign country as refugees as Herod’s men come to slaughter all the baby boys. Mary knew something about terror and about waiting for deliverance through it. The oppressive systems of our culture still press in. The darkness is still real and present. So we still must learn to wait for deliverance through terror. Mary was the first Christian in this regard. She was the first to give Jesus space to live inside her. And so this relationship began. It wasn’t about presenting a good image—that option was out from the start for Mary. It wasn’t about achieving moral or spiritual depth. It wasn’t about gaining skill or beauty. Or any achievements of any kind or any amount of hard work. It was about giving God space and letting God act. This sermon explores this giving of space and what it might mean for each of us to do the same.

Season: Advent

Speaker: Hana Lehmann

Location: 2007 Frankford Ave

About Talk: Advent is our ritual of remembering. Through the story of the annunciation, Hana helps us remember who Mary is and how that impacts how we know God. Leaning into the tension of colonial and revolutionary narratives, she explores the power of Mary’s imaginary throughout history through art and brings Mary into our contemporary context.

Season: Advent

Speaker: Kevin Chao

Location: 2212 S. Broad St.

About Talk: Kevin Chao leads us to consider how to go deeper into our waiting and engage our longing like Mary and Joseph did as they awaited the birth of Jesus.

Season: Advent

Speaker: Ben White

Location: 3800 Marlton Pike

About Talk: How do you wait in the face of terror? Will you listen to the angel in your dreams like Joseph and do whatever it takes to survive? Will you keep your tiny hope alive by evacuating your homeland? Is there some line you aren’t supposed to cross that you will cross anyway to get free from the domination of fear that will destroy you. What will it take for you to pick up everything and live in a new land, away from that culture of fear that will kill your child, the tiny child of your hope, the faith in Jesus still tender and growing within you?

Season: Advent

Speaker: Ben White

Location: 3800 Marlton Pike

About Talk: How can you remind yourself of what you’re waiting for. What has it all been for? If we pay attention to how we wait—like really crack it open and look at the inside of your waiting—we'll get John the Baptist' message. How do you wait with the discomfort of change is upon you? When John the Baptist is telling you, “Now is now. It’s time to move” What do you do?

Season: Advent

Speaker: Julie Hoke

Location: 29 West Tulpehocken St

About Talk: How does John the Baptist help us this Advent as we wait for deliverance? He reminds us to prepare our hearts. Repent. Turn around. Jesus is the light of life for all people. Everything else is darkness. All the expectations that are set up for us during this season, all the expectations we set up for ourselves, all of the ways we fill up our longings and try to satisfy them will not deliver us. Advent is an opportunity to pause and consider what we are waiting for; identify our deepest need and turn towards the Light.

Season: Advent

Speaker: Jonny Rashid

Location: 2007 Frankford Ave

About Talk: It sounds ridiculous, but there’s a reason Jesus tells us to have faith like a child. The children get it. The children know the hope that could come. They still see the world in the way that God does! I really think that. I think that’s why you have calls for faith, belief, and hope in the mysterious, even in godless Christmas movies about Santa.

Season: Advent

Speaker: Bethany Stewart

Location: 29 West Tulpehocken St.

About Talk: Prophecy is weird and most of the time we don’t know where to identify the prophetic or even who to consider as a prophet. Bethany takes the time to give us a more expansive view of the prophetic and highlights the prophecy of the Israelites’ freedom through the Prophetess Miriam and the deliverance that came through the delivery of Jesus many years later.

Season: Advent

Speaker: Jonny Rashid

Location: 2007 Frankford Ave

About Talk: The prophets wait for the impossible by remembering God’s faithfulness, and they participate in bringing about the faithfulness too. They wait actively and they do their part in bringing about God’s faithfulness. That’s how you wait for the impossible, not passively, but just as Miriam the Prophet does: with faith, trust, courage, and power.