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Humiliation is used to expose people as outside of the norms of society—norms that benefit power and maintain oppressive systems—and, at its worse, humiliation works to render people who are outside invisible. Humiliation removes their stories from the canon, their images from picture books and school library shelves. Humiliation takes away necessary medical care. Humiliation…

At our best, I hope, our weekly proclamation in this place and at this time in the midst of our messy lives is a ride out of a hell on a millenia-long parade with Jesus at its head. That the water poured over the baptized is a key that opens locks. That the music we…

“If only” in all these situations hides the blame that says the hungry are responsible for their hunger. The farmers are responsible for greater cost required for more sustainable agricultural practices and for the government policies that disincentivize them. People of color are responsible for being driven out of farming by centuries of racist practices…

We often point to the gift of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost as the beginning of the church, the wild and unpredictable gift that led them to preach and be understood in every language, but rapidly systems were built and things were put in order. With a few big exceptions, much of the history of…

Pastor Lecia Beck 23 April 2023 — Third Sunday of Easter Acts 1:6-8; Psalm 34:1-14; Hebrews 5:7-14; John 5:25-29 Saint Thomas Evangelical Lutheran Church, Bloomington, Indiana Christ Calls Us to Rise Please click here for a printable version of this sermon. Hebrews 5:7-14  In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and…

Yet we know that our own wounds are not the only ones that matter to the one who created us, the one who redeemed us. God desires to draw all people to God’s self that they may know healing and wholeness, life abundant. Seeing and touching the wounds of Christ allow us to see and…

We know that grief may spend the night, but joy will come with the morning.  We know that Easter is hope beyond death – that those who died will rise, and we will join them in praise around God’s throne. We do not fear grief, but embrace this expression of love, known fully in the light of Christ’s Resurrection—…

I give you a new commandment, Jesus says, that you love one another, that you traverse the great chasms that form among you, and you do so in humility, in service. It is no small thing that Jesus showed this ritual. Because you can’t wash your own feet—not like this. You cannot tenderly hold your…

Unsurprisingly, Rome doesn’t take kindly to this challenge. As this week goes on, Jesus will talk with the people—plainly and in parables—about the corrupting consequences of power. He expose the Empire’s spectacle, its insistence that it brings peace through violence, love through hate, abundance through scarcity, when it only brings violence, hatred, and economic exploitation….

Will we believe Empire when it says there isn’t enough power to go around, and that violence is the only way to maintain peace, and that without Empire, chaos will reign? Or, will we pursue another way? Because there is another way. Jesus assures us that there is another way. And his reception of the…

We are called to name the people who have seen violence and injustice. We are called to name the coming deliverance. We are called to remember, because remembering is a form of justice. We are called to be witnesses who are upstanders, and not bystanders. We are called to be witnesses who interrupt violence, cut…

Live at the margins. It is easy for us to mistake this phrase. I mean, I am tempted to turn this phrase to “look to the margins. Which assumes, still, that I stand in the center. But no, we are called to live at the margins, to challenge ourselves to move away from the way…

After the human is divided into woman and man, everything seems to crumble. The people are more vulnerable to exploitation and blame, which happens almost immediately. After the trouble with the fruit, Adam will try to name Eve, to exert control over her. They seek power over each other. Eventually, God expels them from the…

We come today, to this day of fasting and repentance, to this Ash Wednesday, to confess to God, to tell the truth about our sin, and the truth is mostly this: that we have allowed ourselves to end in a million different ways each day, separating ourselves from all the ways God’s love flows through…

Jesus regularly went up mountains, and it was always for the view. It was to see the world, alive with hope. For Moses, Elijah, and Abraham—and for the disciples,—here on the mountain, they’re given a new way of seeing this sorrow-filled, frustration-filled, tragedy-filled life that will fuel them for whatever is to come. You see,…