The Gift of Elders

January 19, 2020

I want you to know that I’m not comparing myself to Moses from this story from Scripture this morning. First off, I hope I don’t complain anywhere near as much as he did about his people. I actually brag about how lucky I am to serve alongside all of you, and many of my fellow […]

Our Surprising Part

January 12, 2020

Whatever it was that John was expecting, it wasn’t this. John’s been out in the wilderness for a while by now, but nothing quite prepares him for when Jesus shows up. John is one of those characters I wish more children’s plush toys and coloring pages were made to depict. Could you imagine that play […]

Gift of the Magi

January 5, 2020

The first time I heard the Muslim call to prayer was at sunset. My seminary classmates and I were staying at Tantur, an ecumenical retreat and study center just south of Jerusalem, a few miles from the boarder wall with the Palestinian Territories, next to Bethlehem. We were on the roof of our dorm, having […]

Aggressively Prepared

December 24, 2019

Advent, the month or so leading up to Christmas Eve, is a time of getting ready, of preparing. Preparing for Jesus to come again and make this tired old world new again through love, a time for the fires of hope, peace, and joy to be built, ready to roar into life at the mere […]

How Are We Going To Do This?

December 15, 2019

I Grew up around strong women who regularly changed the world. These were powerful women who saw something they thought should happen, and did something about it. It wasn’t a question of what was easy or possible. Instead they gathered people together and asked “So, how are we going to do this?” When I was […]

Sitting in Silence

December 8, 2019

Learning to be comfortable in silence was hard for me to learn. I grew up learning the power of good storytelling from both sides of my family, and no one was particularly surprised that I met my husband through a storytelling show, called the Moth, that he hosts to this day. In Seminary and Therapy […]

Thank You, God, for this Harvest

November 24, 2019

My first seminary internship was as a farmer. Princeton Theological Seminary likes to be fancy, so our internships were called Field Education, but I don’t think when it was established in 1812, working on a farming training center north of Tokyo was exactly what Archibald Alexander, PTS’ founder, quite had in mind. And yet […]

Two Rich Men

November 17, 2019

Standing at the arcade counter on my annual summer vacation, I had all the tickets my money could buy. The summer before, my parents told me that they weren’t giving me more money for the arcade – so I came up with a plan. I would save every dollar I could during the […]

In the Image of God

November 10, 2019

Good morning. It is good to be here with you all this morning. Particularly, it’s good to be up here with you all this morning. You may recognize me from sitting in the back with my cup of decaf coffee, where I simultaneously try to protect my coffee from the kids and wrangle the scissors […]

Partnering with God’s Mission in the World

October 27, 2019

The early church ran on a shoestring. It wasn’t that the community wasn’t generous; far from it. They were radically all in. They pooled all of the resources they had, and cared for each other out of a common purse. Imagine that stewardship campaign; “We are asking for 100% of your income this year, and […]