A sermon by the Rev. Jered Weber-Johnson on September 4th, 2022

The costs of following Jesus include all we possess, and all we hold dear. But like a mother concerned for her children, Jesus seems to believe that the old ways, the ways of neighbor love and welcoming the stranger, the ways of treating everything as gift instead of possession, the ways of grace and peace, are ways worth passing along, worth giving our lives over to. Choose these ways, he is saying. Choose life.

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“Stop Whining and Find Something to Do.” Be Christ. No one else is available.

Great sinner that I am, what I adore about Jesus is that he has the audacity to not only welcome sinners like me at his table but he chooses to be seen publicly feasting with my kind and loving us in public. And let’s face it, the stories at the sinners’ table where Jesus is are juicier and we sinners are far more interesting that those seated at the judgy, self-righteous, holier-than-thou tables.

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Sermon for W.E.B. DuBois Feast Day

Too often churches, non profits, and even radical organizations make the fatal mistake of not recognizing the essential agency of those most affected by the issue. We, the free individuals and allies of our time, are not what will bring forth the great social transformation that we desire on our own. Whether you believe in change through a ballot box or revolution, no matter how much organizing and planning you do, the impetus for social transformation is in the so-called nameless masses, those on the margins, whose bodies, created in the image of God make change happen.

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Go and Do Love: Embodying Mercy and Compassion in Our Wounded World

We are walking that treacherous road from Jerusalem to Jericho today. We see and will continue seeing bodies of children in classrooms, women’s bodies, bodies with ovaries, differently-abled bodies, Black and Brown bodies, same-gender-loving, gender-non-conforming, and gender-expansive bodies, all stripped of their human rights, robbed of their dignity, beaten down by colonial evil, and left for dead, if we do nothing.

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Sermon for Pauli Murray’s Feast Day

People gonna rise like the water,
gonna to shut this pipeline down
I hear the voice of my great granddaughter,
saying keep it in the ground.

I had my arms linked with one of my movement grandmas, a pastor wearing her collar, and I sang this song through tears while she was ripped out of my arms and thrown to the ground by a police officer. We sang this tune against the backdrop of our beloved earth being torn up for profit.

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“But first….”
A Case for Coming to Church

Many of us here today are carrying a lot on our shoulders. Not only the joy of the Pride Festival and all it represents to the LBGTQ community and to those of us who support and admire your courage, your resilience, your pride in who you are, but we also carry the blessings of summer weather, and the things in our own lives that sustain and nourish us— a moment of connection with someone we love, a sunset, a garden, the effusive love of a pet.

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