WomenTalkGod

72 // Walk This Way // Jacqui Lewis by Middle Collegiate Church

71 // Seen, Known, Loved // Jacqui Lewis by Middle Collegiate Church

70 // Good Grief // Jacqui Lewis by Middle Collegiate Church

69 // Give Us Free // Jacqui Lewis by Middle Collegiate Church

Join us for a Pride Month teach-in on the history of the House | Ballroom community as a Black Trans-Womanist theological discourse. How is the community a freedom movement and spiritual response to race, class, sexuality, and gender oppression? A panel discussion including Michael Roberson and Jacqui Lewis will examine the community’s ability to use the art of performance and place it in conversation with other historical struggles.

67 // Transformation // Rob Stephens by Middle Collegiate Church

The people of God this is Jacqui, with a thought for you as you are thinking of Pentecost and the sermon this Sunday. Or if you are thinking about a way to devote yourself in this beautiful season of spirit.

It is so interesting that on June 12, there are many converging historical dates. It is the 50th anniversary of the decision by the Supreme Court, to make interracial marriage legal, all the way around the country. In a case called Loving vs. Virginia.

It's also the anniversary of the death of Medgar Evers.

It is quite sadly, also the anniversary of the Pulse shooting. Where all of those young people, dancing in a place that felt for them to be a sanctuary, were murdered. Just for being who they are.

So I am holding all of that.

And also thinking about London and Manchester, and the bombings in the Middle East, as I write my sermon.

What are you thinking about?

So the text today draws us into the place were Jesus has died, has promised the disciples he is not finished living, if you will. Has asked them to go ahead to Jerusalem and he'd meet them there. And he does.

His love, his passion, and his fierce commitment to God defies death. And he meets them and he gives them instructions. He tells them to go and make disciples of all the nations. Baptizing them in the name of God, whom Jesus knows as his father. And in the name of the son and the Holy Spirit.

Now, if you do the exegesis on that you know that Jesus didn't have a baptism formula already, right?

Because he was fresh from the resurrection.

But the church has been really inspired by this text to think about our commission. Our great commission. To go and teach other people to know what we know, about God's love.

So I'm calling my sermon "Discipline".

What does it mean for us to have learning, lessons, teachings on this

Holy one whom some of us think of as Christ and Messiah and some of us think of as Rabbi. Some of us just think of as the most enlightened Buddhist that we know.

What are the lessons to be learned?

And in the particular time as this, when the world is on fire with anger… What does it mean for us to have discipline, to have teachings (because that's what the word discipline means…teachings), inspired by the rabbi Jesus, in times like these.

I'm going to be looking at his life on Sunday.

What does Jesus do any encounters a stranger?

Well, he speaks to them and makes the stranger the star of his story of what it means to love.

What does he do when people are sick? He heals them.

What does he do when people are hungry? He feeds them.

What does he do when he is encountering women who are on the margins? He puts them in the center.

Children? He puts them in the center.

In my discipline right now, I'm trying to learn to be more like my rabbi.

And I'm hoping you'll tuning on Sunday at 11:15 at the church. come in person or come online.

As You reflect on this. Read the text. But then go back to the Gospel of

Matthew and look at Jesus' life.

What are the lessons for you and me from the way he lived.

Let's think about it.

This week, for your preaching prep and your spiritual edification, if you will, we are going to talk a little bit about Acts:2.

Now, it’s Pentecost this Sunday, June 4 and every Pentecost I preach this text. I could preach others. We could think about Joel, we could think about the Spirit coming. We can think about Romans and the gifts of the Spirit. But no. I preach this text from Acts: 2 because it's an amazing text for people who are thinking about a multiracial, multicultural future. Which of course we are.

You know the story. All of those Jewish people from the known world have gone to Jerusalem for holiday. I think it should Shavu’ot, but I think I always mispronounce it. They're going to celebrate the giving of the law when Moses goes up on the mountain and gets the glory of God all over him gets the commandments given to him on a tablet.

Every time I say that I think about Cecil B. DeMille’s movie Exodus. Well all the special effects right? The music and Moses has the light all over him. There’s a kind of lightning rod fingers writing things on the tablet. Psst....You know it didn’t happen that way...

Anyway, everybody's in Jerusalem celebrating this “Giving of the Law” and what happens? The disciples are there and they are still excited about Jesus, the ministry of Jesus, the resurrection of Jesus and the sense that God is present everywhere.

They go to preach to these people in the city. and all the people that are gathered hear the good news of God's love and power in their own language. In their own language. The disciples are speaking Aramaic. How do they know how to speak in such a way that people from Libya and Syrian and all those name we can’t pronounce, can hear? But some how, there is a translation miracle and they hear it, in their own language.

What if the church today felt it was her job to preach the good news of Gods love in the language that people need in order to hear it and receive it.

Wow We would be speaking in such a way that four year olds could get it. We would be speaking in such a way that millennials would get it. And they’d get it that we get it that their friends... their Muslim friends, and their Jewish friends, their Buddhist friends, their Atheist friends also beloved by God and they wouldn’t have to pick. Church friends they'd get it.

If we were speaking in the language of all the people who need to know it, we’d be more trans friendly. Because those trans women who are being persecuted need to know that God loves them.

If we were speaking in the language that people need to know it, we’d be speaking so that Muslims are having conversations with Christians, and Christians are having conversations with Jews, and Jews are having conversations with Buddhist. And none of us would would act like we have God in our own pocket and that we know all about what God desires. 


I am talking about a translation miracle.

In these hot mess times, we need to do Gospel. We need to do good news, by any means necessary. If it's got good news in it for the poor, for the marginalized. If it's got good news in it, for gay and trans and lesbian people. If it's got good news for people who have been hurt, wounded, disrespected, dispossessed by the church, then it is good news. And if it's not good news for them, then it is not gospel.

This Pentecost, think about the people on the margins who need to hear God's love, in a way they can take it in.

I think that's sermon we should preach. On our own devotional, help, support, reflection, imagine what you need to hear from God that lets you know how special, how amazing, how beautiful you are.

God loves you. Period.

CF: My name is Christina Fleming and I am the Communications Director at Middle Collegiate Church.

We are excited to be talking to the Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis today and looking back at the last few weeks of her preaching and what has informed that and how she has created this powerful series.

Jacqui, will you take us back to the last few weeks and talk about your intentions and how you have balanced both whats going on in the world and what people are going through personally. I see you doing that in such a masterful way. Can you break that down for us?

JJL: Christina, I am amazed at the words that have been coming out of my mouth for the past few weeks.

I think our listeners know that my Mom has been struggling with lung cancer for the last seven years and she finally past away on April, 25. On the way to Palm Sunday and Easter, on the way to our Revolutionary Love Conference, not only was I feeling a kind of a nondescript, diffuse grief about what is happening in the world but I was grieving the certainly, imminent death of my Mom.

And I think it got me in touch with a real vulnerable place in myself. A kind of stripped bare place in myself. Where quite frankly, I wasn’t thinking is this politic or I wasn’t thinking is this the right answer? I wasn’t thinking will people love this sermon. I was just in the prayer closet, so to speak, with my God.

I felt like there was a power pouring into my heart.

From what direction, I don’t know. Up? In? Out? But almost a palpable, direct power source that was giving me the space to grieve, permission to be unsure, and at the same time, certainty that God is God.

And so I felt like in a way Middle was overhearing a conversation I was having with God. And the conversations were as much for me as for anybody else.

And the message was, “Though there might seem to be evidence to the contrary, I am here. You (you plural) are loved, beloved. You are powerful. You are my partners, We can, together, You-Jacqui, humanity, Me, all of us, the Universe, we can make this different than it is. And I just, I don’t know, tried to channel that truth.

But,I also felt bold to claim revelation. “God is still speaking.” I felt that God was speaking to me what I need to hear right now. And people at Middle Church seem to really need to hear. We are grieving, forgive the colloquial, “It kinda sucks” and together we can Do something about it.

CF: What would you say to ministers who are in vulnerable places in their own lives or congregants who are hearing this and they can feel their own vulnerability? When you are feeling pretty vulnerable, how do you center yourselves, Jacqui? Suddenly we have a persona, a false self a patina between us and God and us and them. But the true power and maybe the best thing to idealize. Scripture that says: 2 Corinthians 12:9 “My strength is made perfect in your weakness.”

I think the humanity that we own, the nature of our selves, is that we feel deeply. We have pathos, we have sorrow, we have joy, we have laughter. And to be real, is to be the best gift to give ourselves and the congregation.

I think the aim is to be real. Vulnerable pastor, show your vulnerability. Show the truth to people helps them to be true.

And in terms of people who might be listening for devotion.

What have you got to lose?

If you are honest with your God, or your friend, your partner, your lover? It takes too much energy to mobilize a front for yourself.

Losing my Mom, has made me want more ferociously, to be honest, to be clean, to be true.

When your Mom dies your priorities are ordered for you. What is important? What is important is honest relationships. That includes The Holy.

The death of a parent makes you grow up. Maybe we put to death childish theologies or less grown-up ways of viewing the world. What if we have a grownup relationship with at grownup God?

That is what I have been preaching this season.

"I can feel mommy-ness in me, perhaps stronger than I ever have in my life. And this psalm makes me think of God-ness—there are signs of God everywhere."

In this episode of That'll Preach, Jacqui Lewis reflects on Psalm 31.1–5, 15–16. As we prepare for Mother's Day, Jacqui talks about seeing signs from her mother, just as she encourages us all to notice the signs from God around us.

To hear more from this text join us this Sunday in the East Village or online at www.MiddleChurch.org every Sunday at 11:15 AM.