Bethel Community Sermons

Michael Kim-Eubanks accompanies Ally - the woman who crashes an all-men party and who we will name because the Bible does not - as we learn from her example of agency and generosity activated by Jesus' presence. How might we be companions in the wilderness with them: to share in vulnerability and see each other when forces exist that seek to erase us?

Guest speaker Rev. Alicia Crosby Mack invites us to venture into the wilderness as a surprising place of possibilities and embrace what we find there with Jesus. She challenges us to name what we need from the wilderness - to seek, to hold, to discard, to process through, to reckon with, to negotiate - to go on to do whatever we're meant to do and be whoever we're meant to be.

Guest preacher, Erma Sinclair, preaches from the lectionary on 2 Peter, and explores the difference between knowing and understanding. She positions faith as not just a cognitive process of understanding, but also a deeply embodied experience of knowing, and talks about Jesus as one who knows the realities of imperial violence and suffering by entering fully into it. How might our faith grow deepe...

Pastor Michael continues our Epiphanytide series by exploring how Jesus invites his listeners and followers to reject the violence of casting others aside, and to both give and receive the work of making things right.

Pastor Erina continues our sermon series for Epiphanytide on the lectionary, and looks at the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount regarding kingdom identity. Through examining Jesus' teachings in Matthew 5: 13-20, she discusses how Kingdom identity is rooted in collective power and guided by God’s Law that is meant for life. 

It feels like we have been here before. Mass shootings, police violence, protests, critical analysis, and organizing. But the violence keeps going. How do we continue in the onslaught of violence?  In this Sunday's sermon, Barnabas Lin continues our series on Epiphanytide and navigates us through The Beatitudes. He subverts its use as spiritual platitudes, grapples with whether religion is th...

Pastor Erina continues our sermon series on Epiphanytide and preaches from Matthew 4 about the beginnings of Jesus' ministry. Through reflecting on this story, she gleans a couple insights for Jesus-following communities and shares some hopes and questions for our church community in 2023.  How might we foster community as a church in this moment, despite all the barriers we face? And how mig...

Guest speaker Barbara Hüfner-Kemper invites us to preach collectively through a decolonized and liberative engagement with the Bible called Bibliolog or Bibliodrama. Join us in exploring the story of the wedding at Cana as we embody and be curious about the characters and the manifestation of the divine, present in the here and now. 

Guest preacher, Erna Kim Hackett, shares her reflections on the Magi for Epiphany Sunday. By reflecting on the Magi's unexpected journey toward Jesus, she invites us to reclaim cultural practices, embrace community, and be gentle with our own evolution while reckoning with the undeniable opposition that will come from Empire as we journey. How might we make more room for stars and dreams and unkno...

On Sunday, January 1st, we had various artists from our community share some of the creative pieces they worked on during the Advent season, inspired by and engaging with the Magnificat.  Eric Chan shared about his woodworking project, creating a two-sided spoon that is inspired by Mary's declaration: "He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty." Nancy James sh...

Following a congregational sound reading and recitation of Mary's song, Jazzy explores the Magnificat as a song filled with loving rage as Mary's voice is pregnant not only with hope and faith but with despair, anger, and the heartbrokenness of her people passed from generation to generation as they have awaited the messiah. This sermon also considers the the compounding love formations and l...

Jill Gidlund guides us to play in Mary's song and look for a word or phrase that makes us have a little spark of inspiration - that somehow all this time later, these words could reach into you to inspire an idea, image or feeling that's something like joy. We invite you to take 10 minutes to play, or if you'd like, to simply enjoy Pastor Michael playing some beautiful music in the background.

Pastor Michael makes space to observe and receive Mary's song as an invitation into the work of Peace (shalom) that disrupts systems of oppression and reminds thr marginalized of their blessed and favored place in God's eternal work of making and enacting peace.

Pastor Erina kicks off our Advent sermon series- "Playing (in) Mary's Song"- by talking about the theme of hope in Mary's song, the Magnificat. She shares honestly about the difficulties of accessing hope in these times, but looks to Mary's practice of hope to ground and inspire. How might we access the communally grounded, intimate yet cosmic, and expansive hope she sings about? How might we draw...

Guest preacher Nichola Torbett speaks to the ways that a convening in Jerusalem forever changed how we relate to rules…and each other. Have we gotten the message? Nichola Torbett is a spiritual seeker, gospel preacher, podcaster, writer, resistance fomenter, dog-walker, and nonviolent direct action trainer. Driven by her passion for both spiritual formation and social change, she co-foun...

As the Spirit moves to make room and expand boundaries, the Jews are experiencing the massive transition in their communal and ancestral identity, along with feelings of zeal and jealousy. As we experience similar shifts in our faith and communal identities, what does it mean for us to pause and make room for the strong emotions that may come with those transitions?

Guest preacher Rev. Sabrina Chan speaks to how Acts 12 draws out the tensions of living in times when Empire seems to be winning and still God's liberating power breaks through. James is executed and Peter is rescued. What do we learn from the early Church of living in this tension - knowing that the resurrection of Jesus shows us God's power and that the last word is yet to come? How might God wa...

This Godly Play-style story presents the events from Acts 10, tracing Cornelius and Peter’s experiences that lead to their meeting and the Holy Spirit connecting them all as friends and followers of Jesus.

As God continues to expand the boundaries of what community and God's people looks like, Pastor Michael invites us to consider the ways that that work is uncomfortable, that loving our enemies - including them in community - is uncomfortable. We don't have to want to do it. God makes an invitation and we get to take our time.

Pastor Erina explores the rich faith legacy of the Ethiopian eunuch, and the work of the Spirit to expand the boundaries of the family of God.  How does the Ethiopian eunuch remind us of the boundless love of God? How does he invite us to embrace our own questions and curiosities rather than diminish them?

Rev. Riana Shaw Robinson delivers a forthright word as she addresses the wounds that only family can inflict on us through the story and stoning of Stephen. She invites the Holy Spirit to help us face the story that we have in pursuit of individual and collective healing and insists that nothing and no one can tell us we're not a part of God's family.

Guest speaker Sara Kwon continues our sermon series on Acts by looking at the power of complaint to transform community in Acts 6. She illustrates how the language of complaint, grief, and pain can help us find clues to the work of the Spirit and to where the Church needs to be disrupted. Who is being overlooked in our systems, theologies, and programs? Who of us have we forgotten, even in our alr...

Pastor Michael continues our sermon series on Acts by looking at the story of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5. He takes us through the various emotions he feels engaging this text- from troubled to fine to sobered- and challenges our impulses to conform to Empire through acts of performative faith and justice.

Guest speaker Rev. Dr. JJ Flag talks about the ways that Acts 3 has typically been interpreted while addressing the problems of ableism in the text. He leaves us with asking the question: What do we have to give?

Pastor Erina continues our sermon series on Acts by talking about competing visions of community for the Early Church and describing how the Spirit births a new community that resists the impulses of both diaspora and Empire. How might the Spirit similarly be stirring  among us, to move us from patterns of survival to sharing, and from competition to cooperation? How might the Spirit be resto...