Pastor Elisabeth describes the background to Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem when the people shouted “Hosana”— save us from the cruelty of the evil empire. Rather than the violent overthrow the people expected, Jesus taught that “the greatness of God is expressed in serving life, serving people. It is expressed in love, a love that disrupts…

Pastor Elisabeth explains the Parable of the Fig tree as a reaction to Rome’s Pontius Pilate’s brutal suppression and calls for more violent resistance to the empire. The gardener resists the landowners order to eliminate the unproductive fig tree, but the gardener advocates to care for it longer. So too, we care for each other…

Pastor Elisabeth asks, “Is it possible to be so consumed by God’s love that the worries and fears that we have take a back seat?” She describes Jesus becoming transformative light during the Transfiguration, and soon after telling people they are the light of the world. Keeping in touch with this burning, transformative light restores…

Does loving our enemies mean we love the oppressor and ignore injustice? Perhaps our understanding of love should include restorative justice for the victims and the oppressors.

Dr Cindy Acker describes  Coretta Scott King’s work for justice as based on a a deep sense of being called to work for justice as a spiritual life. She advocated for civil rights, peace, economic justice, LGBQ+  rights, women’s rights,  and other issues, all based on an understanding of God’s love for all.

Pastor Elisabeth is home sick with a respiratory illness. Member David Santschi recounts the story of the other magi by Van Dyke and offers some reflections.

Pastor Elizabeth invites us to ponder as Mary must have pondered, and wonder what this experience of the Holy must have meant for her and for us each Christmas. This humble birth of a Savior, at a time when only Emperor Augustus was allowed to be called Savior must have been deeply unsettling. How can…

Pastor Elisabeth imagines some likely details of the night of Jesus’s birth , sings a little of “Mary Did You Know?” and urges us to “hang out” at the manger to appreciate the eternal joining us in love. We also enjoy a quartet singing Mozart’s Ave Verum Corpus and conclude with the congregation singing “Silent…

We celebrate the second Sunday of Advent and raise the flag of Peace. Pastor Elisabeth reflects on John the Baptist receiving the Word of God in the wilderness, and notes that the Word does not come to the powerful and that grace arises from below. As we distress over issues of the world, she reminds…

Pastor Elizabeth begins noting that Mary was the most unlikely person in the Roman Empire through whom God would act magnificently. She quotes Howard Zinn, who writes that the history of humanity includes people acting terribly, but more often is the story of people acting magnificently in the face of difficulties. She concludes, “This season…