Social Justice

This sermon continues our Lent series, “Covenant: The Ties that Bind.” By Joanna Lawrence Shenk and Sheri Hostetler Mark 11:1-11 Joanna: What does it mean to be part of Jesus’ prophetic, theatrical, peace parade today? What does it mean to follow Rabbi Yeshua, a Palestinian Jew, who was living under Roman occupation? What does it…

Mark 1:14-20 One of the people who helped  me reclaim Christianity when I was in my early 30s was Marcus Borg, a New Testament and Jesus scholar, who happened to be a close friend of my mentor Marianne Niesen. He actually achieved a measure of mainstream fame (for a New Testament scholar)  for a series…

The photos above show Nick Grillo and his husband, Kirk, and Sheri’s grandmother, Anna Troyer Hostetler Kurtz. Rev. 7:9-17  My grandma Anna was not a dainty, reserved, modest Mennonite woman. She was large-boned and brassy, opinionated and direct. It used to be said of her, “She wore the pants in the family.” My father was…

This reflection by Eli Ramer is from the third Sunday of our Back to the Basics Series: A Theology of Disability: God Calls Us Good. Back in the 1970s my mother was the co-director of a clinic for disabled people, down in Orange County.  Some were disabled from birth, and two thirds were young men,…

This reflection by Janet Kroeker is from the second Sunday of our Back to the Basics Series: A Theology of Disability: God Calls Us Good. You can find audio and video recordings of both her reflection and that of our other speaker, Peter Kangas, here. I Corinthians 12:4-13 I imagine most of you thought I’d…