Sermons & Such
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
This week, Leah started a new teaching series exploring what a period of history in our tradition might teach us about enduring and finding faith in a prolonged period of crisis and disruption, like we are living through now in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the struggle for racial justice, and more. In this first foundational teaching, she lays the groundwork for this new series by giving context for the period we’ll be looking to, the Babylonian Exile, and points us to a text that might help frame our own understandings of enduring exile today.
Review Leah’s notes here or you can listen to the teaching or watch the video below.
In this fourth and final teaching in the “Resurrecting Hope” series, Leah talks about jigsaw puzzles, eschatology, apocalypse, and future hope in the midst of so much grief and disorder.
You can read Leah’s notes here, listen to the teaching, or watch the video below.
In this teaching, Leah continues our series on “Resurrecting Hope”, looking at the story of Peter and Cornelius, and considers how the Spirit comes into situations that may seem impossible with new possibilities. In the midst of pandemic life, that is something I think all of us can appreciate.
Review Leah’s notes, listen to the teaching, or watch the video below.
Francesco Trevisani / Public domain
PC: Michael Coughlin
In this teaching given by Haven Teaching Team member Katie Kay, Katie tackles the question of how hope functions, and what it means to have hope without certainty. She explores another kind of resurrection story found in the New Testament that engages these questions, and invites us to consider hope in a helpful new way, in the midst of all the coronavirus uncertainty.
View Katie’s notes here, listen to the teaching, or view the video below.
On Easter 2020, amidst the Covid-19 pandemic, Leah began a new teaching series “Resurrecting Hope”. In this teaching she looks at the resurrection, as recorded by John, for some clues about what resurrection really is, and what it might tell us in terms of how hope might be present with us in a season of crisis.
You can read Leah’s notes here or listen to the teaching through audio or video below.
Emil Nolde - Crucifixion (1909) Hope found here
On Palm Sunday 2020, in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, Leah shares the final teaching in this series on the work of Girard. In this teaching she takes a look at how the scapegoating mechanism plays out in the final days of Jesus life, as well as shares insights from a personal scapegoating experience.
You can review Leah’s notes here or listen to the teaching or watch the video below.
In this teaching, Leah continues the conversation about Girard and his scapegoating theory, by turning to the life of Jesus and examining how he responded when he found himself in the middle of a scapegoating event playing out. How does Jesus respond at an attempt at stoning? This is the first teaching preached from home in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, and in it Leah considers how Jesus’ response to scapegoating might also inform our own responses to this crisis.
The audio and video also include a 5-minute practice at the end that might be helpful in connecting with yourself and God in this time.
Look at Leah’s notes here, or you can listen to the teaching or watch the video below.
Why do humans have such a violent streak, and why is it often targeted in such cruel ways at innocent people? In this second teaching in our Lenten series, Old Stories, New Lenses, Leah lays out the heart of René Girard’s theory on human behavior: the “scapegoat mechanism”. Here she explains his take on how violence is expressed in human societies and then uses that framework to look at the story of Joseph and his brothers in Genesis. This teaching provides the heart of the ideas we’ll be exploring through the rest of Lent.
Review Leah’s notes or listen to the teaching below.
Photo credit: www.quotecatalog.com
What might the perspective of a 20th century Academic who studied literature, anthropology, philosophy, and more tell us about human behavior and Jesus-centered faith? This is the question we’ll be exploring over the next several weeks throughout the season of Lent, as we look at our ancient biblical narrative through the lens of Rene Girard. It’s a new teaching series called “Old Stories. New Lenses.” First up, this week Leah explored Girard’s foundational insight that pops up in the first chapters of the Bible, having to do with why humans want what they want. It also might give you a clue about why it’s so hard to stop scrolling through that instagram feed.
Read Leah’s notes here or listen to the teaching below.
In this third teaching in the “Habits for Health” series, Leah considers a habit that might help order our connection with the Divine. By looking at the teaching from Jesus to his followers about prayer, including a puzzling parable, we consider together Jesus’ philosophy of prayer, and how growing in the practice might impact our holistic health.
Review Leah’s notes here or listen to the teaching below.
As children we begin to express ourselves by holding tightly to things that we perceive belong to us. In this teaching Leah considers a parable of Jesus and what it might tell us about how we hold on to our things (or other resources) later in life.
This teaching also considers the local story regarding Moms 4 Housing in Oakland. Find an update here from after the teaching was given about the victory achieved as a result of their advocacy.
Listen to Leah’s teaching below or review her notes here.
