Sermons & Such
When Israel was a child, I loved him,
and out of Egypt I called my son.
The more I called them,
the more they went from me... (Hosea 11:1-2)
Just as a parent longs for closeness with their child, the ancient writer Hosea says, God longs to connect with us as people. But how do we restore relationships in the midst of hurt, or betrayal, or misunderstanding? As we reflect on winter as a season of longing, listen to Leah's message below, or read the notes here.
At a time when the prosperous in ancient Israel were flourishing, God sent a message to his people: Just because you are doing well, does not mean all is well. As the prophet Amos noted,
"....because you make the poor pay taxes on their crops, and exact a grain tax from them, you will not live in the houses you built with chiseled stone, nor will you drink the wine from the fine vineyards you planted.
Certainly I am aware of your many rebellious acts and your numerous sins. You torment the innocent, you take bribes, and you deny justice to the needy at the city gate" (Amos, 5:11-12)
By calling out the successful in society for their clever dealing, their shrewd success, and their complacency towards the poor, God re-directs their attention away from their own profit and towards the poor and those in need. So at a time where the rich ascend in our own churches and society, how do we stand with the poor? Listen in for more of Amos' message, or read the notes here.
You've heard the story of the Velveteen Rabbit--a beautiful stuffed animal run ragged by the loving attentions of a child. Yet through trying to find his purpose as a toy, the rabbit moves towards wholeness--towards being and feeling real.
But what does it mean to be real, and whole again? This week, we're thinking with the ancient writer Micah about what it means for the world to be made whole again--for broken people to heal and flourish, for communities to come together and countries to be at peace. Yet to get there, we need to pay attention to what we've been ignoring or pushing away--both in our own selves and in the world around us. Listen in below for more on moving towards wholeness, or read Leah's speaking notes here.
![By Liesel (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54a725b7e4b03d35acc7bbf7/1480699786653-7B1U7PM4D69MOM02Q4DA/image-asset.jpeg)
By Liesel (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Don't feel much like Decking the Halls right now? Too in touch with the pain, injustice, and fear this year has triggered? You're in good company. This Advent at Haven we will not paper over pain and lament with Holiday wrapping, but rather we will sit in the discomfort and longing, and call out to God to break into our world again. As we do so, we'll look to the Minor Prophets for inspiration, as they too lived in dark times but yearned and lamented for the Light of God to break through the darkness.
This first week, we look at Habakkuk, and how he speaks into our longing for encouragement. Listen along or read the notes.
"Money, power and influence: three resources hold sway in our world today, much as they did in the first century Roman Empire. Is there anyone in the news these days who you think is motivated by these three resources in any way?
"Is there anyone in this room who is anxious about who in this country wields the resources of money, power and influence? Any of you scared about how those resources are going to be used for better or worse over the next few years?
"And are you yourself motivated by money, power and influence? Are you anxious about your finances? Do you enjoy positions of influence at work, in the community, in the church….?"
This week, Liz Milner considers the purpose of money, success, and power. When we have resources--or when we desperately want them--what do we use them for? Listen below for more on living with the end in mind, or read Liz' notes here.
"Historically, the church, like most other social groups, has a hard time with tension and a hard time with mess. We tend to do one of two things:
We either withdraw from places of tension and mess and try to establish our own neatly-tended and weedless gardens...
Or we get sucked into the power game, the empire game. We start thinking, if we can just get enough control, we can tamp down on all these weeds for everyone.
But God isn't like that. He wants to bring in as much good wheat as possible. And he is patient. He's willing to endure the mess now, for as long as it takes to get the most wheat..."
So what do we do with a messy, difficult, and at times painful election season? Listen in or read the notes for more on living and voting well, both during Election Day and afterwards."
Day laborers in the ancient world had a hard lot in life. They were powerless to secure stable work, and sometimes struggled more than slaves, because was no guarantee they would have work to meet their family’s needs on a given day.
So they hung out in the marketplace waiting for someone to come hire them. When they found work, they worked from sunup to sundown, twelve hot hours in the Palestinian sun.
So this is the setting for Jesus’ story, in which a landowner goes to the market place at dawn, and gets some workers who agree to work for a denarius, a day’s wages. Then he hires more workers, hour after hour. At sundown they line up for their pay, newest workers first. The latecomers get a denarius—a day’s wages—so the others assume they will get more. But even those who started at dawn get the same wage.
And that doesn’t seem fair, right? Why would a manager do this? Listen in to Leah’s message, below, or read her notes for more.
"Have you ever had a leather bag or shoes, and they smell so good when you first get them? And maybe it’s nice and clean and tight, but over time it starts to stretch and wear out, and those awesome shoes you had now look quite worn.
"Well that’s what Jesus seems to be talking about when he says not to put old wine in new wineskins... Here’s how I see it. Wineskins are our spiritual practices -- and wine is the abundant life and connection to Jesus he is offering. But if we try to put new connection into old practices... it doesn't work so well."
So how do we know what to do when it's time to change our wineskins? We're in a new series of talks on the stories that Jesus told so listen below or read Liz's notes to learn more!
Peter kept having this vision: eat the unclean food. This goes back to the law of Moses, when the Israelites were told that they needed to be clean to live in camp. Unclean people were removed from society, living outside the camp until their sickness or impurity has expired.
This came from the belief that being ceremonially unclean was highly contagious… whether it came from sinful behavior, contact with animals or eating certain foods, or even a skin disorder or a woman’s monthly period.
This understanding of clean vs. unclean people shaped how they saw the world, their role in it, and the role of others.
So what is God saying to Jesus’ follower Peter, when he tells him to eat unclean food? And what is he saying to us about who is part of our community? View this video we watched together:
And then listen to Leah’s message below, or check her sermon notes for more.
My friend Charles is a pastor in Manhattan, and he was born in Korea. He came over to America as a young man... and started becoming a student of American culture. And Charles noted two messages from American pop culture that he kept hearing over and over, saying:
“Everywhere I look in American culture, I see two messages. And the first is to be a good person and make the right choices. The second is to be a successful person, to succeed in whatever you do. Be a superhero! Fight for justice and be powerful.”
That means you go to the best school, be the top of your class, get a promotion. Find the perfect life partner, have a successful life that allows you to buy a house and a nice car—and then send your kids to another successful college…
We believe that great things will happen if you are successful and good. So it’s very tempting us to live in pursuit of these things, thinking that then, I’ll be happy, I’ll be satisfied, life will go well.
But there are downsides to these paths. Like when you try to be good and follow all the rules— and yet you get bested by the folks who don’t play by the rules.
Or you pursue success—and then it comes up short when you actually get it. You get the new job... and it gets old so fast. The big wedding day is awesome, but is marriage just happily ever after? Or the baby we were supposed to want won’t sleep through the night. The money will buy us stuff we like—but it doesn’t take away the feelings of dissatisfaction we have in the world. So perhaps morality and success aren’t the path to joy…
So what’s the solution? How can we restore connection to God and others? Listen below, or read Leah’s notes for more.
"When Jesus brings up the marriage of the [Samaritan woman], he’s bringing up her story. And her story is a very sensitive one.
Yet it may not be for the reason the church has often suggested—that this woman has loose morals, that she’s a sexual sinner...
Instead, there may be cultural and circumstantial factors at play. In recent years, we’ve started to have conversations between cultures, where we come together and read the Bible, and say “oh my gosh, we’re reading this differently.”
And this has happened recently with this story, where westerners are reading this alongside women from Africa. And these African women are saying, “oh... ...this woman’s infertile.”
And that may be a wise interpretation. We know the culture of the day. Women in this time had no capacity to initiate divorce... She didn’t have the power to choose her husband. She’s essentially the property of the husband, who acquires her to bear his children.
So either, she’s lost five husbands to death, or she’s been rejected multiple times…"
This week we talk about making connections by crossing boundaries, as Jesus does when he talks to a lone woman from an opposing tribe. Whether it’s the fierce boundaries between Jews and Samaritans, or the categories that divide us from our fellow humans today, there are ways to move toward connection. Listen below or read Leah’s notes for more:
"I remember the first time I experienced contemporary worship—people singing songs to Jesus in an intimate way. I was in college as a freshman, and had met this guy who was saying, “I’m starting a group for theater people who want to talk about God.”
And I thought, ehh, I’ll show up.
This group of people were in a small room in the basement of the arts dorm, and somebody pulls out a guitar and starts playing these simple love songs, "Jesus, your name is like honey on my lips."
And I was struck by how weird it was… These folks are singing these love songs to God..."
So it can take a while to get into worship. But some people really get into worship—like King David, dancing in the streets. Check out Leah’s notes or listen in for more about connecting with each other and with God through song:
"When I was in my early 20s, I felt pretty lost. I had grown up in a conservative Baptist church. And conservative isn’t just an adjective—it was the actual name they called themselves!
And I also realized I was gay, and everything I had been taught told me that this was the part of myself that I needed to excise and kill. So I tried very hard to do that. I went to Exodus ministry and prayed and fasted on Sundays to not be gay anymore.
And it didn’t work.
So I was really struggling with life and faith, and a lot of self-loathing.
And I had some friends who were forming this little community in San Francisco. And when I was 24 I showed up, and said,
“You know, I’m a deeply committed Christian and I’m also gay. I have no idea how those two go together, but I’d like to try and figure it out with you all.”
And afterwards, this guy who was the conservative Baptist regional area director for missions—he was very, very conservative, kind of like the ideological watchdog—he comes up to me and says this:
“Tim, I don’t know what all I think about homosexuality. But I know that you are a gift. And I wonder if it isn’t a gift to you.”
And that was just a revolution in my whole thinking…"
We were honored with Tim Otto’s giving of his time to talk with us today. If you'd like to hear more about the gift of community, tune in below, or find our podcasts on iTunes under “Haven Berkeley”!
When we're new to a community, it's easy to want to blend in and be interesting, funny, and attractive by other people's standards. There's no shame in this--many mammals do this!
And yet, to have a life filled with meaning and joy, it's important to get connected to who we really are. This week, Leah explores the story of Gideon, a man who's hiding out in a desperate situation when God sends him a message... and how does he respond?
To find out what happened to Gideon--and get a sense of where and what journey you may be on--listen in below or read Leahs's outline:
At the end of the talk, we got to hear Bryan Stevenson speak about his journey in working for prison justice. Watch the whole thing (or just from 22:50 on) for a powerful reminder of the connection that's possible when we continue on our journeys, even when the going gets hard!
Sometimes it feels like our world is flying apart...especially with a crazy election season magnifying the real tensions that threaten our communal life. But as brain scientists in the last 20 years have shown us, our brains are hard-wired for connection with human beings. This recent scientific evidence only reinforces the ancient wisdom that many of our cultural traditions have held for centuries: that people do better when connected to others in significant ways.
Listen below, or review Leah's outline, as she begins our fall series pondering the power of connection (to one another, to ourselves, and to God), and the problems that arise when we're disconnected. Also check out this video from the end of the teaching, that reminds us of the possibilities that can open up when we choose to open ourselves to another and choose connection.
"... and in that moment it was like... something cracked, in my whole understanding of the life I was living, of the family I was a part of. The ground underneath me fell apart, and it doesn't feel normal. This can't be real, what's happening right now.
"But it is, and I don't know how to put together what this is going to mean. It was a moment in my life, of what I would call profound dissonance."
What do we do with dissonance, when we're hearing something we didn't expect or weren't prepared for? Is it a sign that we're hearing things wrong... or can God actually speak to us in those moments?
Listen to Leah's reflections below, or read the outline to absorb what it means to listen for God, when what you're hearing doesn't make sense.
". . . For those of you who have been through that season in life, of preparing to get married. . . you probably know that wedding planning is one of the exercises in getting to know your future spouse.
You fall in love, and then you engage in this. . . hell for however many months, and if you're still in love on the other side, you get married!
For Jason and I, we had this whole list of places we needed to go and venues to check on. . . and it was a Saturday, and I guess I didn't eat a very big breakfast. And Jason is very efficient, saying, let's get these things done and we can go on with our day.
Logically, I would agree with that. But around 11:30, my body started to feel a bit differently. . . . "
What's up with our bodies, and how do they integrate with the rest of us? And how can we use our bodies to connect in with God? Listen below, or read the notes to hear more about embodied practices you can take to connect with and listen to God.
"A few years back, I was in a situation where I had to make a decision.
I was in the process of working with a team to open a coffee shop and community center in Worcester, Massachusetts. And I was really excited – I had written in a journal years before that I wanted to open a coffee shop and community center where kids could learn how to use video equipment and make videos and put together stories, like in the news business where I had worked before.
Also on my team was my boyfriend. . . and things were pretty cool. But then the boyfriend surprised me with a breakup, and not very nicely. I tried to stay on that team but I couldn't. It was too painful to be near him and I was pretty broken up – so I quit.
Crazy, right – I quit my dream job?
And then I started looking for a new job. . ."
Want to hear more of Liz' story? Check out the audio message below, or read the notes to hear more about how she has cultivated a practice of listening to God!
"So... 1968 was the peak of a season of great unrest in our country.
There was a lot going on: the Vietnam war was raging, there had been protests happening for years, the civil rights movement had protests going on for years.
And it came to a head on April 4th, 1968, when Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated... in the wake of King's death, there were more turbulent demonstrations, particularly black activists who were protesting police violence. There was a shootout in Oakland... this kind of thing was happening throughout the country.
And it was an election year. There were campaigns going on. So, it probably feels very resonant for us..."
....This week we start a series called "Listen," asking how we can hear God amid everything else in our lives. Starting with the present day, we go back to 1968 and then back to the time of the Roman Empire, when Jesus gives us the story of a good shepherd whose sheep hear his voice.
Early Roman image of Jesus as a good shepherd.
But what can we learn from sheep about hearing from God in the midst of chaos? Listen in (or read the notes!) to find out, below:
"I'm going to share with you a meme that came up multiple times in my facebook group this week. Perhaps you saw it:
Obviously this is a response to the conversation over #blacklivesmatter versus all lives matter. How do we interact with that? If Jesus was here today in this conversation, what would his response be?
...But Jesus didn't tweet. Social media wasn't a thing in the first century. What was a thing was going to hear somebody in person. He preached, that was his version of communication..."
And yet Jesus preached as much with actions as with words. In our final talk on living the love, listen in (or read the notes) for a practical example from Jesus about how "love serves" in the midst of inequality:
