Advent is a time to step back and reflect on our relationship with Jesus, our commitments, and our time. We surely don’t prepare by disengaging from this world. We are called to frame our daily lives by living into  mercy, love, and justice, and when we do this, we will be ready for Jesus. Sermon begins at 12:15.

There are moments in our lives where the temporal and eternal meet. You see it at weddings in the kiss. You see it in the river water rushing by when we baptize. We feel it when we miss people now gone onto the great eternal when we gather and partake of our traditions and rituals that keep us together. This is the best we can hope for—that we have moments where we can glimpse the eternal love of God. Sermon begins at 13:45.

No matter how lifeless or bleak something is, something else is always being born. There can be no new life without darkness and death. Winter always precedes spring. Sermon begins at 11:54.

It wasn't Rabbi Kushner who first gave us permission to ask God about unjust suffering. It was Job. Job--among the most mysterious and elegant and overlooked books ever written, found right-smack-dab in the middle of the Bible--well, Job was the first (and in my opinion the best) at making sense out of the how's and why's and redemptive potential of suffering. Sermon begins at 11:20.

Engaging the thin spaces in our lives, remembering all those who have travelled with us and live in eternity, and making a path to connect with them. Sermon begins at 18:20.

We are homegrown and everything about us comes from the time, talents, treasure, and beauty of this community. We are a community practicing radical hospitality that loves each other and it is a principle we are dedicated to. The problems of this world are spiritual, and together, we make steps to rectify these matters in the homegrown ways we know and believe in. We have plenty to grieve—but like the widow—we keep going relentlessly. Sermon begins at 14:25.

Fight like hell, don’t stop until you lose…for your defeat is your victory…your peace and your blessing. Sermon begins at 13:59.

Today, we are joined by the Belmont Chamber Singers, under the leadership of Dean Entsminger

Not only is waiting “for” God a faithful response and a means to spiritual growth, we are also urged to wait “on” God. In other words, our seemingly small mustard seed-like faith takes root, and is nourished, and mysteriously grows when we accept the divine invitation to be Waiters "on" God. Sermon begins at 12:15.

How do we open our eyes to truth? We need to wake up; we need to pay up; we need to shake up. There is a cost to the work of seeing in this world for what it is. Then, we have to work toward the dream that is for us all, toward this Beloved Community, and then we realize that all this work—it frees us! The light we receive frees us all! We are changed by awakening to the world and her needs. When you see the light and you’re willing to pay—all of our systems get shaken up. Sermon begins at 12:37.

Where do you put your trust? There is deep suffering when we buy into a system the pursues profit at all costs. How do we insert ourselvess to disrupt this system? Sermon begins at 10:45.