Christmastide is a time of re-enchanting. The frankly supernatural aspects of Christianity can’t be swept too far under the rug, this time of year. The season comes laden with glimpses of the heavenly realm intersecting with earth; the light casting away the works of darkness.
Month: December 2020
From Revelation to Imagination
Anne Snyder
If June to December was a time to try to make sense of truths we were seeing, truths too long veiled beneath the hum of “normal,” 2021 will be a time for mapping a way forward.
The Sound of the Genuine
Howard Thurman
There is in every person something that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in herself. . . . There is in you something that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself. Nobody like you has ever been born and no one like you will ever be born...
The Season of Advent
Saint Charles Borromeo
In 16th century Milan, when plague struck the city, privileged leaders fled to their private estates and left the common people in destitution and disease. While the city’s leaders fled, their bishop Charles Borromeo hastened to minister to his flock, lead them in prayer, and encourage reasonable health measures be taken. Saint Charles Borromeo’s heroic virtue echoes through the ages and speaks to us today in our own contemporary situation. Specifically, Borromeo’s pastoral message speaks to our society today in his brief reflection included in the Liturgy of the Hours Advent Office of Readings. These readings serves to reorient the Church to God through the timely celebration of Advent. Borromeo emphasizes the import of Advent for recognizing the gift of Christ revealed in our time while eagerly anticipated and longed for throughout salvation history. He further encourages a renewed discernment to prepare for Christ in our own hearts with the arrival of the Christmas season. The sermon is paired with a scriptural excerpt from the book of the prophet Isaiah 1: 21-27; 2: 1-5, and can be prayerfully reflected upon in conjunction with the sermon.
What Good is Ruth?
Melissa Florer-Blixer
Melissa Florer-Bixler, pastor of Raleigh Mennonite Church, invites us to consider the ways in which Ruth is a paradigm of how we include others. In particular, Ruth invites us to see how we belong to one another in faith, and this calls us to belong to our wounded neighbors.
Creation: A Pattern for Redemption
Mika Edmonson
These first verses of Genesis are often rife with controversy. In this sermon, Edmonson reminds us that these verses are foundational for our faith, giving us a pattern for God’s mighty acts throughout history. In them, we not only find revealed truth about how God created in the beginning, but a pattern for how God will redeem his world, and save his people.
Preparing for Death: Philosophy, Meet Theology
Heather C. Ohaneson
Theology and philosophy teach us that we prepare for dying by thinking about death, but we prepare for death by living well.
Illiberal Feminism
Leah Libresco Sargeant, Jennifer Frey, Susannah Black
“Free is not your right to choose, it’s answering what’s asked of you, to give the love you’ve found until it’s gone.”
In this event, co-sponsored by Breaking Ground and Sargeant’s newsletter Other Feminisms, Sargeant is joined by Susannah Black and Jennifer Frey to discuss what the politics of dependence looks like, and how our present culture asks women to reject their own nature.
Apocalypse, and After
Susannah Black
We’re nearly at the end of a year that has felt, sometimes, like the end of the world. And that calls for reflection: what has just happened, and what comes next? Our two pieces this week attempt an answer. Joel Heng Hartse offers a month-by-month retrospective of...
Sing, Choirs of Angels
Sr. Carino Hodder
“O, little town of Bethlehem,” said my devoutly Sikh taxi driver. “How still we see thee lie. Above thy deep and . . .” (I chimed in from the back seat, providing the elusive word) – “dreamless – thank you – sleep, the silent stars go by. Yet, in thy dark streets...