by Melissa Kelly | Dec 11, 2022 | Advent, Megan Ramer, Sermons, Year W
Formation and Family Jesus’ formation began when he was still in utero, when his mama sang the revolutionary songs of her own foremamas, and when Joseph drew a circle of family around a child not his own. Years later when Jesus’ own ministry proclaimed a liberation of...
by Melissa Kelly | Dec 4, 2022 | Advent, Dustin Wilsor, Sermons, Year W
Blessed Are You Among Women! Elizabeth exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” Who was the blessed woman, and what does it mean to be blessed in the first place? Dustin is an emerging Mariologist, and he walks...
by Melissa Kelly | Nov 27, 2022 | Advent, Amy Epp, Sermons, Year W
Annunciation and Story When Mary said yes to Gabriel’s invitation to be the bearer of Jesus, she did so as one in the long story of women partnering with God in creation. Each of us, like Mary, may be storytellers of God, helping to birth new things in our own...
by Melissa Kelly | Nov 20, 2022 | Fall 2022, Megan Ramer, Sermons
Mary the Tower An opening question for our sermonic adventure: Of all the Marys in our gospels, WHICH MARY is the Mary in John 11 and John 12? If you think you know the answer, your answer may be complicated by what you hear here. The biblical world has been shaken by...
by Melissa Kelly | Nov 13, 2022 | Fall 2022, Megan Ramer, Sermons
Representation Matters Drama heightens in the exaggerated, fantastical tragi-comedy that is Esther. After a moment of reluctance, Esther rises to the occasion to successfully execute a plan to protect her people (and literally execute – on a 75-foot-high stake...
by Melissa Kelly | Nov 6, 2022 | Fall 2022, Sermons
An Ode to Those Who Say NO Before there was Rosa Parks, there was Ida B. Wells. Before there was Esther, there was Vashti. And after all of them was Brenda Salter McNeil. Those who say “No!” stand on the shoulders of many others who also had the courage to resist...
