A Queer Theology of Getting Dressed in the Morning
sermon by Caly McCarthy January 2025 Ephesians 6:11-18 Dress for success so you can smash the patriarchy unencumbered! Getting in touch with our own style can be an excercise in "micro-discernment," checking in with your body and the Spirit to hear "Yes!" "not quite..." "Definitely not," etc. An unapologetically incarnate spiritual practice. |
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How the Christmas Story Teaches Us to Resist Autocracy
sermon by Pastor Rachael Weasley December 2024 Matthew 2:7-21 How can we build peace and resist tyranny in the coming four years? The Biblical stories of Jesus' birth might have some ideas for us. So does this article at wagingnonviolence.org |
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Taking Feral Hope to the Ballot Box
sermon by Pastor Rachael Weasley November 2024 Mark 8:1-10 No matter what happens tomorrow, we will go into the future together, as a community of hope. Not a domesticated hope reliant on optimism or a belief that things are steadily getting better. But in my queer clergy colleague Cody Sanders’ words, a feral hope, acquainted with despair. A hope grounded in the mutual aid webs of ecosystems. A hope that isn’t something we feel, but something we do. A re-wilded hope that accompanies us to the grave like the women who go to anoint Jesus’s body, but do not find it in the tomb. A hope that works for peace, no matter how long the war goes on. A hope we do. |
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Collective Action and Sustainable Peacemaking
sermon by Pastor Rachael Weasley October 2024 Numbers 27:1-11 With so many huge issues ongoing- the violence in Gaza, climate change, anti-trans legislation- how do we grapple with efficacy in activism? When the work we do doesn't always seem to make a difference, the work of peacemaking is sustainable and life-giving when we find community belonging, and the presence of God, in the midst of collective action. |
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Our Transgendered Father of Lights
sermon by Pastor Rachael Weasley September 2024 James 1:17-27 James opens with a description of God as a luminous birthing father. A sermon about our inherent belovedness, Riot Grrrlz, compassionate mirrors, and working for justice. |
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Queer Power in the Christmas Story
sermon by Pastor Rachael Weasley November 2023 Luke 1:39-56 As you move through the Advent season, take a queer lens with you and find God creating power on the margins throughout the Christmas story. Our Mysterious Beloved Divine, grieving and inflaming the hearts of those working for justice, is constantly bringing forth new life. May each of us find our ways to be a part of it! |
Note: I was wrong about shepherds! While they aren't in the highest social classes, they are not unclean according to Hebrew custom of that time. Thanks for the fact check, E.!
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Exodus, Climate Change, and Process Theology!
sermon by Pastor Rachael Weasley October 2023 Exodus 17:1-7 & Psalm 95:1-7 Sometimes facing climate change can feel like a dead-end. But ours is a living God who will move with us through any version of the future, infinitely creative! Process Theology and Adrienne Marie Brown's book Emergent Strategies: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds help us face climate change with the resiliency and imagination that we need to join the cooperative and intersectional work of climate justice. |
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Palm Sunday as Protest
a sermon by Caly McCarthy at Cleveland Park Congregational United Church of Christ in Washington, DC April 2nd 2023 A CoH community member preaches at her local congregation about empire and Caesar, rest as revolution, and Palm Sunday as Jesus staging anti-imperial political theater! |
"Mary the Tower"
sermon by Pastor Rachael Weasley March 2023 John 11:1-27 There is new scholarship about ancient manuscripts of the gospel of John, showing Mary Magdalene to be potentially a much more important and powerful figure than church traditions have let on. Let us follow Holy Wisdom in uncovering and telling the stories we need, and following Her call to be "as much ourselves as is possible"! Inspired by research and music video by Elizabeth Schrader, and Diana Butler Bass's work here. |
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"Queerly Advent"
sermon by Pastor Rachael Weasley December 2022 Luke 1:5-56 In the Christmas story, God is active at the margins, honoring women of color and silencing men of authority. Say yes like Mary, to God's queer invitations. I'm grateful to these brilliant thinkers whose ideas which contributed so much to this sermon: *Erma Kim Hackett- I recommend her blog Feisty Thoughts: (https://feistythoughts.com/category/feisty-women/ *Brian G Murphy, at QueerTheology.com |
We had to trim the beginning of the video, so it starts kind of abruptly. Here you can read the missing beginning words and enjoy the full sermon transcript!
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A Moment With Moss
a short video by Pastor Rachael, shared in the October 2022 newsletter Inspired by Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer's book Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses |
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Jory Mickelson, seminarian
August 1, 2022 "No Longer Strangers" Ephesians 2:14-22 It's still not always safe to be queer in the USA, but we are already whole and holy in God's eyes. Including a town-coming-together story. |
Sorry, we forgot to hit "record" on a couple sermons this spring!
The written versions are excellent, though. Enjoy!
Joanne Gallardo, conference minister
July 11, 2022 "Adopted into a Queer Family" Ruth 1:6-18 There is no one or right way to be family, and the Bible is God’s really long memoir that includes all different ways to be in relationship with one another... Allow yourself to be a person adopted into a queer family. Honor your own journey. |
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Rachael Weasley, Community of Hope's pastor
June 6, 2022 "God's invitations have a Yes flavor" Luke 24:1-42 Where are we encountering resurrection in our lives, and where should our church go from here? Ends with a reflection time for a gratitude practice. |
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Rachael Weasley guest preaching at Seattle Mennonite
January 23, 2022 "The Parable of the Wind" John 3:1-21 The story of how our church was born, the story of our first whirlwind year. A story about my queer journey; and how life and God surprise us! |