Sermons & Such - Haven Berkeley Faith Community

What does it mean to follow Jesus, not just in what we believe, but in how we live? Drawing on his own experience of religious harm and his search for a more life-giving relationship with faith/religion, luca reflects on the difference between performing a faith and practising it.

What does it mean to being again without having to erase where we’ve been? In the opening teaching of Haven’s All Things New series, the story of Nicodemus becomes an invitation to consider renewal as a process of becoming curious again, letting go of what no longer serves us, and making room for the Spirit’s mysterious work.

What does it take to speak when everyone around you is saying something else? In this teaching from Haven’s recurring Everyday Heroes series, we meet Micaiah, a little-known prophet who refuses to echo the 400 voices telling King Ahab what he wants to hear.

As the Collective Care in Uncaring Times series comes to a close, this teaching invites us to consider what collective care looks like when we look beyond the immediate moment. Reflecting on Corinthians and Revelation, we explore the idea that we are invited to collaborate with the Divine in building communities and a world that can outlast us. Even when disappointment, loss, and uncertainty make...

Teaching Team Speaker Sylvia Williams continues Haven’s Collective Care in Uncaring Times series by exploring Jesus’ command to “love one another and asking what it looks like for a church to become known by its love. Drawing from the stories of John and the Book of Ruth, Sylvia reflects on the power of accompaniment, generosity, hospitality, and community across differences. Drawing from her own...

Continuing Haven’s series, Collective Care in Uncaring Times, Leah explores what it means to pursue repair in a world increasingly shaped by disconnection and relationship rupture.

In this teaching, Leah continues Haven’s series, Collective Care in Uncaring Times, exploring how truth-telling is an essential act of collective care.

Continuing this season’s series, Collective Care in Uncaring Times, Leah explores what Jesus meant when he spoke of God as Abba, a nurturing parent whose character is defined by compassion, generosity, and care.

In this compelling Pride Sunday teaching, speaker Jenny Kwan explores the intersection of psychology, spirituality, and social exclusion through the provocative claim that “disgust is not the voice of God.”

In this deeply personal and theologically grounded teaching, guest speaker luca reflects on burnout, trauma, interdependence, and the spiritual damage caused by cultures of endless productivity and self-sufficiency.

In this opening teaching for Haven’s new series, “Collective Care in Uncaring Times,” Leah explores how communities of compassion can resist the hostility, isolation, and exhaustion of the modern world.

Guest speaker Remi Shores (they/them) reflects on the Emmaus road story in Gospel of Luke, exploring what it means to live in a story whose ending we can not yet see.

In Resurrection Amidst Fear, Leah wrestles with the tension between the Easter proclamation and the very real fear shaping our world today. Grounded in Matthew’s resurrection account, she highlights how the women at the tomb experience both fear and great joy, revealing that resurrection does not eliminate fear but transforms how we live within it.

In this Lenten teaching inspired by the Tell Me Something Good series from A Sanctified Art, our guest Speaker Sylvia reflects on three healing stories from the Gospel of Mark and what they reveal about care, community, and justice.

In this week of the Tell Me Something Good series, we explore the story of the woman who anoints Jesus’ feet in Luke 7. While others judge her past and her presence, Jesus recognizes her act as a profound expression of love and gratitude.

In this opening teaching of the Tell Me Something Good series, Leah exploresJesus’ parable of the Great Banquet and what it reveals about the heart of God’s Kin-Dom.

In this teaching from the Everyday Heroes series, Leah turns to the story of Rahab to explore courage, faith, and resistance from the margins.

In this new series, Everyday Heroes, Leah invites us to look beyond biblical “heroes” we already know and toward the quiet courage of everyday people who resist violence and preserve life. Centering the story of the midwives Shiphrah and Puah in Exodus, the sermon explores how faithfulness can take the form of moral courage, sacred skill, and strategic resistance.

In this final Sunday of Advent, Pastor Leah reflects on how love calls us to move through fear and into solidarity.

In this Advent message, Leah explores what it means to practice hope when life veers off the path we thought it “should” follow.

In the final instalment of Adulting in Faith, Pastor Leah explores what it means to grow into mature, justice-oriented faith through the practice of solidarity.

What does it mean to keep growing in faith once we’ve already “grown up”? In this teaching, Pastor Leah invites us to explore “centered-set” spiritually: a faith not defined by boundaries of who’s in or out, but by our collective movement toward the Divine center of love and justice.

In this third installment of Adulting in Faith, Leah leads a trauma-informed and deeply honest conversation about money, faith, and what it means to mature spiritually through our use of resources.

In this timely teaching from the Adulting in Faith series, Pastor Leah addresses how we can mature in our faith while living through escalating violence and division.

In the opening message of the Adulting in Faith series, Leah explores what it means to grow up spiritually, both as individuals and as a community.