Sermons & Such - Haven Berkeley Faith Community

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.

Guest speaker Sylvia invites us to wrestle with one of the most difficult and often overlooked stories in scripture: the unnamed concubine in Judges 19.

Guest speaker luca offers a gospel-infused reimagining of self-care, one rooted not in consumerism or productivity, but in sacred rest and shared belovedness.

In this Pentecost teaching, Leah wraps up the Earthly Empire and Divine Kin-dom series by tracing the Spirit’s liberating work across Scripture, history, and today.

In this powerful teaching, Leah explores what true greatness looks like in the Divine Kin-dom, contrasting it with the domination and hierarchy of empire. Drawing from the gospel of Mark, she unpacks two parallel stories where Jesus flips the script on greatness, calling his followers to service, humility, and care for the most vulnerable.

In this storytelling-centered teaching, Leah weaves together three profound “scar stories” to explore how resurrection, resilience, and healing often show up bearing the marks of suffering. She begins with the familiar post-Easter story of Jesus inviting Thomas to touch his wounds, reminding us that Divine transformation doesn’t erase our pain, but honors it.

This Easter, Leah invites us to see resurrection not just as personal salvation, but as a profound act of resistance to Empire. In a time when powerful voices long for modern-day Caesars, Leah contrasts Ancient Rome with the Divine Kin-dom Jesus proclaimed: a vision built not on domination but on relational connection and justice.

In this teaching of the “Earthly Empire and Divine Kin-dom” series, Leah walks us through the last, harrowing chapter of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s life: his work in the German resistance, his arrest, and his ultimate execution. Amidst moral ambiguity and deep suffering, Bonhoeffer never stopped seeking Christ’s presence in the complexity of real life.