Revolutionary Fire: Pentecost 2020

This sermon was preached on Pentecost Sunday, May 31, 2020, online for Green Street United Methodist Church(Winston-Salem, NC). The text was Acts 2:1-13, and the service included a video of the Scripture read in English, French, Gullah, Mandarin, Portuguese, and Spanish. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uST9UEgsr30&t=2s One day in the spring of 1906, David Starr Jordan walked into his lab at Stanford University …

Blame, Denial, and Revelation: Coronavirus and the Man Born Blind

This sermon was preached at Green Street United Methodist Church in Winston-Salem, NC on Sunday, March 22, 2020. The text was John 9:1-41. Dr. Anna Carter Florence, a preaching professor at Columbia Theological Seminary, says that this story in John chapter 9 “is a story about time: before and after, then and now.” This story evokes …

Room at the Table

This sermon was preached on Sunday, October 6, 2019 at Green Street United Methodist Church in Winston-Salem, NC. The Scripture for the day was Luke 14:15-24. As an introvert, I have a love-hate relationship with social gatherings. I love being around people, especially friends and family, but sometimes social anxiety hits, or I’ve had one …

Peeling Paint and Graveyards at Dusk

Today I pressure washed my front porch. As I washed away dirt and grime and cobwebs, I watched my cheap but plucky pressure washer strip away some already-peeling paint on the steps, revealing a dark green long covered up in white. It made me wonder what this house looked like before I bought it, before …

God and a Woman

Last Advent, I was angry. As the #MeToo movement continued to grow, as I thought through my own #MeToo stories, as I grappled with the way the church did—or, more often, did not—respond, I was angry that I was being asked to celebrate a meek, obedient virgin. “Be it unto me,” we hear Mary say …

The Fruits of Our Labor

Once a month for the last ten months, I’ve made the trek out to Elkin, North Carolina to spend the better part of my Saturday at the Reeves Theater. Ordinarily, if I’m going to drive 45 minutes or more, it’s going to be to somewhere like Durham or Asheville. But what brought me to Elkin—a …

The Worlds Our Words Create

"And God said, 'Let there be...'" This is how creation happens in the Abrahamic faiths: not as a meticulously planned engineering project or even a work of magic, but entirely spoken into being. The Word not only communicates God's intentions, it accomplishes them. A Word created the world. I shared this reflection yesterday at the …

After the Burn

My husband was making homemade chicken and dumplings, and he asked me to whisk the gravy for a minute while he prepped other components of the recipe. As I whisked, I got a little overzealous and splashed some of the gravy onto my arm. I gasped aloud at how hot it was on the sensitive …

Moving On Without Moving

“Are you moving this year?” It’s a question that would be odd in most social settings, but among United Methodist ministers, it’s as common as “Where are you from?” as a conversation starter from late April through mid-June. The way our system works, ordained elders* are appointed** for one year at a time. These days, …

Here By Choice

“You’re a wicked woman, you know that? You’re a wicked woman!” “You know there’s a God. He’s full of mercy, but he’s also full of wrath.” “Shame on you, you wicked, pathetic woman. Wicked Jezebel feminist!” I was standing outside a health clinic, my way in blocked by a throng of protestors screaming these and …