In this Palm Sunday teaching, Leah considers the spectacle of Jesus' entry into Jerusalem and compares it to other traditions, with the hopes that we might better understand what Jesus was communicating engaging the day the way he did, and how that can sustain us now.
Between Loss and Hope
“Jesus Wept” by Tabitha Kaylee Hawk. Oklahoma City Memorial. https://www.flickr.com/photos/tabithahawk/14384061966/in/photolist-nV55uo-4CFZXW-pff7NE-7cf4p9-229Fs3-3VwEJ-81Gv6r-2ky5x2A-scgA6R-aYLHac-eeGMSC-23BWkof-4x5tHS-7V8K9y-9dsPvL-sd3AmR-gqXTxi-gqXzLE-e51Wer-eaLsz3-278q7bE-4iFh4w-7JJa8E-2iMtEnW-eaLqgL-eaLqBd-eaLr3L-a699p2-eaLrrm-CQhFc-LTV4x-eaLrHm-EDTAh-9y7kwb-ehBV1n-dsmDY7-8YXaNk-7aNp4M-bUadH-4d3Gs3-dKvrip-4S53DD-LTV96-4S53Cp-acqnBj-LTLpN-LTV7x-sctoM-i4P3W-5DH6d7
This is a teaching by Leah Martens to mark the anniversary of a year since the pandemic began. In this "Story That Sustains Us", she revisits a story about Jesus being present to two sisters in the delicate place many of us have been inhabiting this year between loss and hope.
Review Leah’s notes here and listen to or watch the teaching below.
Transfiguring Transcendence
Theophanes the Greek, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
In this teaching, Katie Kay helps us pivot in Lent to the latter part of the Stories That Sustain Us from the gospels, by looking at one that has mystified and inspired Christians through the ages. Here she shares her thoughts on the Transfiguration, and how that story may connect with us and sustain us today.
Listen to Katie’s teaching or watch the video below.
Walking on Water
In this teaching on another famous Jesus story, Leah looks at Matthew’s account of Jesus walking on water toward his disciples. In doing so, she invites us to consider how God might be present to us in challenging seasons, and how we might respond.
Read Leah’s notes here and listen to or view the teaching below.
The Good Soil That Gives Life
In this teaching by Connections Pastor Jeanne Wong, we look at one of Jesus’ most famous parables - a parable about a sower, seed, and soil - as we consider how this story might speak to us about the beauty of faith in Jesus and the transformation it can bring.
Read Jeanne’s notes here and listen to or watch the teaching below.
When We Emerge
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from Washington D.C, United States, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
This teaching by Pastor Leah Martens is the next in our "Stories That Sustain Us" series, looking at the life of Jesus through gospel stores. In this teaching, Leah starts by considering the recent performance of Inaugural Poet Amanda Gorman (pictured above), and then turns to the story of Jesus preaching at his home synagogue in Nazareth. Her teaching considers how that moment can inform our own understanding of Jesus, as well as what it means to "emerge".
Read Leah’s notes here and listen to or watch the teaching below.
From Water to Wine
In this second teaching in the "Stories That Sustain Us" story, Leah takes a look at a famous story - Jesus' first miraculous sign in the gospel of John.
Review Leah’s notes here and listen to or watch the teaching below.
The Stories That Sustain Us: An Introduction
In this teaching, Leah kicks off our 2021 series with a personal story and an invitation to consider together “Stories that Sustain Us” from the life of Jesus, as related though the gospels.
Read Leah’s notes here and listen to or watch the teaching below.
Advent 4: Sacred Surprises
Sebastiano Mazzoni, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
In this last service of Advent, Leah shares the 4th and final teaching in the "Journey to Joy" series, reflecting on two different stories from different parts of the Bible that may help us frame the celebration of Christ's coming we're engaging this week.
Review Leah’s notes here or listen to or watch the teaching below.
Advent 2: Proclamation In the Wilderness
In this second teaching in our “Journey to Joy” Advent series, Katie Kay explores the proclamation of John the Baptist, and asks us to consider what it means that the good news of Christ is proclaimed in the wilderness.
Check out Katie’s notes, or listen to or watch her teaching below.
Advent 1: Look Up
In this first teaching in our Advent series, Pastor Leah lays the groundwork for beginning the Advent "Journey to Joy" together, even at the end of a challenging year. We also look together at a couple of the traditional texts for the first week of Advent, and consider their invitation to "look up".
Read Leah’s notes here, or listen to or watch the teaching below.
Healing the Collective
This final teaching in our series “Remembering there Collective” was given the week of 2020’s US Presidential election, and the day after Joe Biden was declared the President-Elect. In this teaching, Leah considers what healing for a divided country might look like with wisdom from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians.
Read Leah’s notes here and listen to or watch the teaching below.
The Rituals That Build the Collective
In this service kicking off the 2020 Election week, Leah asks us to consider how elections function in our culture as a civic ritual, and looks to Paul's instruction around a faith ritual, the Lord's Supper, for guidance on how to engage this week.
Read Leah’s notes here and listen to or view the teaching below.
Gifts for the Common Good
In this teaching, pastoral intern Katie Kay shares with the community a vision for how we might think about what the Apostle Paul calls “Spiritual Gifts” that might break conventional norms and let each of us live into who we’ve been made to be.
Listen to the teaching or watch the video below.
Remembering the Collective: An Introduction
Photo by <a href="/photographer/float-30719">Dora Mitsonia</a> from <a href="https://freeimages.com/">FreeImages</a>
In this teaching, Leah begins a new series, called “Remembering the Collective”. Throughout this series, we’ll be considering how we hold on to a sense of collective identity, even in the midst of the physical distance the pandemic has required. This series will draw from Pauls’s first letter to the Corinthians. In this teaching, she anchors the series in an analogy Paul references about the collective centered on Christ being like parts of a body working together.
Review Leah’s notes here and listen to or view the teaching below.
The Legacy of the Exile
In this final teaching in the Faith In the Exile series, Leah explores some of the ways that exile made a lasting impact on the exile community and shaped the religion that would be known as Judaism. As we continue our own 2020 exile, some of these adaptations of the ancient exiles might be instructive for us too.
2nd Isaiah Speaks to the Exile
In this teaching, Leah looks at some texts that come from a part of the book of Isaiah that addresses the exiles and considers how the messages delivered might speak to us too.
You can read Leah’s notes or listen to or view the teaching below.
Sour Grapes and Rotten Teeth
What new insights did those in exile gain during their time in Babylon? And how might we benefit from some similar insights in our COVID exile? In this teaching, Leah continues the Faith In the Exile series by looking at a text about a unique proverb in the exile season, and considers how God seemed to be speaking into it through the proper Ezekiel.
You can read Leah’s notes here or listen to the teaching or view the video below.
Speaking Truth In the Exile
In this third teaching in the series, "Faith In the Exile", Leah looks at the practice of lament and considers the role it played for the exile community in processing pain and suffering. We look at the poem in Lamentations 3 and consider how cultivating practices for lament might be an important component in navigating faith in the pandemic exile and beyond.
Read Leah’s notes here or listen to the teaching via audio or video below.
The Work In the Exile
Photo credit: H
This is the second teaching in a series called "Faith In the Exile". This series focuses on the experiences we are living through in 2020 and asks if our tradition might hold wisdom for us in the era known as the Babylonian Exile. In times of crisis, one of the ways we cope is to examine our histories and the stories that have formed us. This teaching takes a look at how that was done by our ancestors in the exile, the ways their work in that time touches us still, and in what ways we might follow their lead in our own exile experiences.
Review Leah’s notes here, listen along, or view the teaching below.