Tag: Faith-based community organizing

The Capacity to Act

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Sermon for Sunday, April 6, 2025 || Lent 5C || Philippians 3:4b-14

Two-thirds of the way through this sermon, I’m going to bring today’s second reading into it, but first I need to set the stage. Today, we’re talking about power, which is one of those tricky words because it can mean many different things to different people. We’re going to talk about three understandings of power, and I hope you will stick with me because the third one is the one we are aiming for.

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To Catch Us All

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Sermon for Sunday, January 26, 2025 || Epiphany 3C || 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a

Multiple people asked me to expand on my sermon from last Sunday about common cause. They asked me what I thought they could do to counter the forces of fracture and disintegration in our society. So I’d like to take the time this morning to dwell on one particular call to action, which, handily, springs from today’s reading from First Corinthians. This call to action is so simple that anyone can do it, but it does take time and attention to grow into a dedicated spiritual practice. The call is simply this: with God’s help, expand and deepen your connections with other people.

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The Stories We Tell

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Sermon for Sunday, April 14, 2024 || Easter 3B || Acts 3:12-19; Luke 24:36b-48

As I prepare to head off on sabbatical tomorrow, I’d like to use our sermon time today to talk about what I’m going to be doing and why. Ever since joining with a group of other local clergy two years ago to learn about faith-based community organizing, I have grown increasingly fascinated with storytelling. This may sound strange because I’ve been writing novels for a dozen years. But for some reason I’ve never linked being a writer with being a storyteller. I think this is because writing novels is a solitary experience, while storytelling happens in community. Faith-based community organizing coalesces around the stories people tell about themselves and their communities, their struggles and successes, their hopes and dreams and nightmares. These stories become the building blocks for specific justice-oriented actions that seek to improve the lives of everyone in the community.

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