Jesus worked on the Sabbath so a woman in stooped subservience could be freed. 

What if Jesus told a funny story and only the truly faithful laughed?

For more information about the church or the preacher, go to www.montereychurch.org. 

Martha and Mary, the latest biblical rivals, and what appears to be Jesus weighing on which is better. Will it be a matter of Cain and Abel redux, or will this turn out in a better way? Tune in and find out!

Overcoming our studied unseeing is a central aim of the gospel, at least according to Luke.

www.montereychurch.org 

This is a second attempt with this sermon, with less ambient noise.

When Jesus sent those seventy out, he spent as much time instructing on the manner in which they were to behave on the mission as on the purpose of the mission. Maybe we should spend time on that too. But, look out. The implications of how they were to behave are no light matter. 

For more information about us, or to be in touch, go to our church website, www.montereychurch.org. 

Also, the comic mentioned in this sermon is Sebastian Maniscalco. You can find the bit here.

When a demon named Legion occupies a man to violent ends, it's nearly impossible not to think of when a Roman legion occupies a Jewish village to violent ends--which is probably what Luke was up to in telling this story as he did. 

For more information, or to be in touch, go to our church website: www.montereychurch.org. 

Martin Buber used familiar words but in unfamiliar ways to name a way of relating that is as present as it is surprising, as commonly open to all as it is a rare treat when it arrives. Pentecost Sunday is the perfect day to consider I-Thou relating as it calls to mind Jesus, Resurrected, breathing on the disciples and saying, "Receive the Holy Spirit." By this sermon, may thou so receive as well.

For more information, or to be in touch, go to our church website: www.montereychurch.org. 

Of pavement and dandelions, uniforms and free range, settled matters and unsettling truth.

Why does patriarchy persist, and how can the church resist?

The book referred to: Why Does Patriarchy Persist?

The video referenced: The Still Face Experiment

Church web address: www.montereychurch.org

If you've never spent time with Tabitha, now's your chance.

On the Sunday after Easter, we Christians have the chance to stoke anti-Semitism in our midst. What Christ would have us do is something altogether different. There is no place for anti-Semitism in our faith practice, and any theology or preaching that proclaims otherwise is false. 

At the 30th reunion of the class of 1989 of Phillips Exeter Academy, of which Liz is a member, there gathered to discuss goodness and knowledge in education at Exeter a panel of classmates who've gone on to become educators--in the order appearing on this podcast a professor of computer science and artificial intelligence, a physician who teaches medical residents, a professor of English and Zen priest, a professor of political theory, and two current members of the Exeter faculty, one an instructor in health and human development, and the other the chaplain of the school.

The quality of the audio varies person to person. Here's how to scroll though if you like: Todd Neller is at 5:00; Ming-Hui Fan is at 16:00; Bernie Rhie is at 25:00; Jacob is at 37:06; Brandon Thomas is at 52:07; Heidi Carington-Heath is at 58:27; and Chris Artzer asks a fantastic question at 1:04:20. 

Here's the prompt:

John Phillips wrote in his deed of gift: “Above all, it is expected that the attention of the instructors to the disposition of the minds and morals of the youth under their charge will exceed every other care; well considering that goodness without knowledge is weak and feeble, yet knowledge without goodness is dangerous, and that both united form the noblest character, and lay the surest foundation of usefulness to mankind.

Easter isn't about re-creating that first experience of resurrection that's so long ago and that we've heard countless times; it's about reinforcing the strange good news to which the resurrection is signifier. We look in the wrong direction for resurrection when we look to that ancient tomb and those faithful women. We should be looking forward to where Jesus has gone ahead.

Jesus' "triumphal entry" might just be street theater, satirical with the aim of subversion. The question is, are we in the mood for this?

In which we revisit one of those problems that has no clear solution. In which a classic dialectic begs for a middle way. In which the art of being human is as a sailboat tacking into the wind, a straight line made by way zigzag.

...and then listen to Sheela and Liz discuss it on this, which isn't a sermon but the bi-monthly radio program. 

Compassion is "suffering with." No wonder it can be so hard. The last thing many of us would ever do is admit our own suffering, so why on earth would we, and how on earth could we, allow into our lives other people's suffering?

The temptation of Jesus in the wilderness isn't an experience of temptation in general. It's more specific, the temptation as to how he would, and would not, exercise power in the world. Therefore, if our Lenten discipline is to "give something up" and is done with the aim of imitating Christ, then what we should focus on "giving up" is exercising what power we find ourselves to have at any given moment in such a way as dominates, choosing instead to exercise this power as love, which is to be freely offered so to be freely received. There is no coercion in this; there is no captivity in this. Love empowers and frees, which is what Christ accomplished in the wilderness. We might do so in the wilderness of Lent as well, and beyond.

I don't know why it's the weightiness of glory that stood out to me this year as we're to consider "glory" once again....Maybe it's that I've never really been able to enter these stories as they seemed about weightless ecstasy, a lofty journey of the soul in to light free of all heft...Maybe it's that the unseriousness of our common life as of late is really getting to me...Or maybe it's just that I've always been heavier than I'd like to be--and I suppose I mean that in all its meanings. The fact is, I've always been someone to take this whole thing rather seriously. Worse, I fear it's church that has me in an ever-tightening feedback loop of substantiveness....Yeah, I realize now it's this regular practice of seeking encounter with the divine that would also have us be a rather heavy presence out there amidst a world that lately prefers air-spun silliness...

I find it touching--such magnanimity as makes our deepest insecurities the least interesting thing about us, such magnanimous regard as makes that one aspect of ourselves we find most loathsome and shameful actually so unimportant that it's only hardly noticed, only summoned and spoken of to the most bring ends. Who cares that you're imperfect, that you're aging, that you're recovering from any number of things, that you're forgetful sometimes? So not important. What's important is that you're a vessel of love.

This is a conversation, not a sermon but an episode of WSBS's Religious Roundtable, at the spur of this article in the Harvard Divinity Bulletin.

When what we want is stories of "in addition to" but what we get is stories of "instead." 

It's been forever, it seems, that we've reading old texts and interpreting them for meaning. It's a bizarre practice, one you might think we can get over. But in the age of the Twitter mob. it might be newly important.

What does it matter what we believe? Nothing, if our belief never takes on matter. That's Gnosticism, and it just never seems to go away.

I'll admit, I can't relate to the fear "all Jerusalem" had as regards the magi. But I can muster fear at the prospect of life together now playing out amidst a social context of everything thrown into question, every once clear thing now thrown into doubt. When old values, long settled, have been upset; when established truths meet with deep skepticism (and, worse, eventual cynicism): that's pretty frightening. If we come not only not to know what we long have known, but also not to know how we're to come to know what's to be known, which then comes a doubt that there is anything to be known, that's frightening--a crisis not only of authority but, more fundamentally, of epistemology.

"The birth of Christ invites us into such astonishment at life's loveliness, presses upon us the distressing awareness that it could all go suddenly wrong, pushes us to the edge of all we can muster: the awe, the hope, the fear, the wonder. And by this, God calls us--the mewing cry of a newborn, which makes all else secondary to the demand of succor and love."

This encounter between old Elizabeth, nor pregnant with John, and young Mary, now pregnant with Jesus: it's so very real. It's almost embarrassing--that it's there in scripture, that we're to talk of it in worship, bodies doing what no willpower could make them do but which they do because that's what they're made to do. women's bodies, burgeoning, bulbous and weighty, bone and brain and fluid and pain...This is so strangely,m astonishingly real."

"See, God's authority and human authority, though related, aren't always in accord. It's an obvious point. It's funny it's lost on Jeff Sessions. To say otherwise is to make the state equal in power and authority to the divine. And you know who really hates this sort of assertion, that the state is equal to God? Evangelical Christians..."

"His power flowed out of him like that woman's power flowed out of her, and depleting as as each might have been to the host, the effect his had on his environment was as evident as the effect hers would have had, though to her shame. Her flow kept her an outcast; his flow gathered crowds--until, that is, they'd in effect have traded places, him, bleeding and ashamed on the cross and her restored to full standing in her community...I love that understanding of him--absolute presence, immediate light amidst otherwise darkness, absolute power outpouring that it might find equilibrium in the world, everyone having enough of it (though not too much) in order to be free."

"We've been behaving for decades as if civilization is won, and therefore needs nothing more of us. We've been flirting for the length of my lifetime with cynicism, nihilism, as if we can take a tire-iron to the body politic just for the hell of it and not actually catch hell." 

As to the question of how to live together, "...it's a lot harder to figure when it involves isolated, atomized individuals crashing into one another, trying to elbow their way into and out of belonging, all without any framework or storyline to give the struggle shape or purpose..."

"Human beings have grown and evolved to respond sociably to the human voice--to hear in it a subtlety of meaning and nuance of intent, to express in it a desire to connect and to be understood rather than just to dominate, humiliate, and win."

This following a week when Kanye visited the Oval Office and mutual kissing-up ensued.

When taxes get better shelter than many people of the world and billionaires would have us be sensible.

"...every person a tourist, every dwelling a stopover, the whole world now a place for casual consuming rather than investing and taking care..."

Wherein we test a theory at the Temple treasury.

Pilate asked, "What is truth?" and in so doing he revealed that in him there is nothing to be revealed.

With Luke, we begin at the end, a glance at the apocalypse. But what would it have us do? 

Regret, repentance, second thoughts: why does John insist these things are crucial?

Maybe the world isn't as defiling as all that. Maybe the greatest risk is when we think we're at terrible risk.

The cross continues to confound. Meanwhile, before the Senate Judiciary Committee...

On Trinity Sunday, we baptize a little one in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; and he throws his hands in the air; and the rest is mystery.

The question about keeping the Sabbath isn't one of piety, it's one of justice. The question to ask isn't, "Do you keep the Sabbath?" It's, "Are you able to keep the Sabbath." An economy that doesn't allow its people to rest is an unjust one.

The Easter imperative sets in, and some discover they want to be done with it already. Gnosticism, that evergreen heresy, wants to keep its hands clean--if it even will admit it has hands.

Funny how there's always something to say.

You'll hear lawn mowers and other ambient noise because this was recorded with the windows open--our first gorgeous day in a long time! Liz has been wrestling with the notions of simulacrum and simulation, put forth by Jean Beaudrillard for a long time. With this, she might have finally figured them out. 

Sheela Clary is here to speak about her many realms of work (mother, writer, grant writer, story teller, etc.) and how her faith informs her sense of purpose in those realms.

Mark's gospel ends on a strange note--fear. It's not what we've come to expect on Easter. But when you think about resurrection and what it asks of us, fear makes sense.

Check out Julia Esquivel's poem, "They Have Threatened Us With Resurrection."

In this sermon, Liz considers the assumptions of white supremacy, even her own, and wonders more broadly about what sin-sickness God might be offering medicine for. As Moses lifted the serpent up that the people might be healed of their serpentine rhetoric, as Jesus was lifted up on the cross, God seems to have in mind medicine that we might be healed and might offering healing to our suffering world.  We're nearing the 50th anniversary of MLK's assassination. His thought about what plagued America, which he meant to be as physick in healing, were racism, poverty, and militarism. We have a lot of work of healing to do. God reveals the cure.

What do we mean when we talk about "religion"? And what happens to the essentially religious project of being a person among a people amidst the world when so many serious thinkers have given up on the task? Religion isn't the option we of the modern West might like to think it is. So can we engage the question more critically than just "Religion: yea or nay?" Can we have a more sophisticated and nuanced, and even critical, conversation evaluating religious impulse and expression as to how it serves in the world?

This sermon explores the strange, maybe surprising, connection between sexual encounters among people and God's timing amidst history. We could go silly in our naming it: "Double Entendre," or Coming to Completion," or, as one member of our congregation put it, "The Sexchaton," which had me laughing out loud in the receiving line following worship. But I decided to try a more earnest approach in labeling this, and I want to credit a conversation Emily Bazelon and Ross Douthat had on Slate's Political Gabfest, wherein they called us as a society to take "sex ed" more seriously and responsibly than just offering it as a course for credit in some high schools. This is my attempt to take up that responsibility. Why would the mainline church go silent in that conversation?

This episode is evidence of my home studio and the fact that this production is a one-woman show. You'll hear me laughing at my son as he walks through the room, my dog shaking himself dry after a much needed shower, and a HUGE Freudian slip that is the stuff of preachers' nightmares. (Hint: I do not in fact think my son Tobias is Jesus.) I could try to correct it but it would take a long time for me to figure out how to do that. Plus, it could be a fun game. Log onto the church's Facebook page and let us know you caught it. First five people to do so get next week's podcast free! Facebook address: Monterey United Church of Christ. Web address: www.montereychurch.org.

Can we have it both ways, strong and battle-ready though for an urgent mission of peace?

If war is a force that gives us meaning, is it riskier to consider the life of faith as just such a conflict or not to? 

Friendly beasts, magi and angels, facts and emblems, and how to read the Bible: another grab-bag sermon that might be like your stocking stuffed for Christmas morning. 

Christ-like living is more than mastering a few talking points. But talking points can be useful when all the shouting dies down.

Sometimes a difference of opinion is also a show of respect. Sometimes critical thinking is a show of devotion. Liz isn't in total accord with 2nd Peter, but she surprises herself to discover she is in some ways. When righteous living lands on the left...

This isn't a sermon, but a radio program that was aired on WSBS and recorded at their station in Great Barrington. It concerns an enormous issue, and only touches on one aspect of it. With much more to be said about the #metoo campaign and the events that precipitated it and the many more that have flowed from it, this is but the beginning of the conversation.

This sermon is the first of the new church year, from the 1st Sunday of Advent. If you're exhausted by everything going in in the world, if you scroll your Facebook feed in some compulsive need for soothing but also disturbance, then this might be just what you need to hear.

An sermon wherein Shakespeare, Hunger Games, Han and Luke, Matthew and Jesus, catharsis, and "the least of these" all come out to play, published with apologies for the recording glitch in the middle of it.

A sermon in which fiery Amos gets the better of Liz, preached on November 12, 2017.

A sermon concerning the proliferation of opioids, the grip of addiction (personally and socially), and the profits to made of it all, in which a line from "Thor: Ragnarok" is surprisingly apropos: "Proud to have it, ashamed of how he got it." From Nov. 5, 2017.

Liz preached this sermon in Monterey, Massachusetts on October 22, 2017.

Liz Goodman preached this sermon in Monterey on September 24, 2017.

Liz Goodman wrote this for the Lent 2018 edition of Journal for Preachers and preached it in Monterey on September 10, 2017

Liz Goodman preached this on October 1, 2017 at the Monterey United Church of Christ in Monterey, MA.

This sermon is to say good-bye to one of our beloved members. His last Sunday with us was Oct. 8, 2017.

This Sermon was delivered by Rev. Liz Goodman from the pulpit of the Monterey United Church of Christ in Monterey, Massachusetts, on August 6, 2017, 2016.  Introduction and closing music is performed by Eric Martin, with voice by Dan Wing.  We are grateful to Richard Weber for his permission to use his painting of Monterey for the album art.

This Sermon was delivered by Rev. Liz Goodman from the pulpit of the Monterey United Church of Christ in Monterey, Massachusetts, on January 22, 2017, 2016.  Introduction and closing music is performed by Eric Martin, with voice by Dan Wing.  We are grateful to Richard Weber for his permission to use his painting of Monterey for the album art.

This Sermon was delivered by Rev. Liz Goodman from the pulpit of the Monterey United Church of Christ in Monterey, Massachusetts, on January 8, 2017.  Introduction and closing music is performed by Eric Martin, with voice by Dan Wing.  We are grateful to Richard Weber for his permission to use his painting of Monterey for the album art.

This Sermon was delivered by Rev. Liz Goodman from the pulpit of the Monterey United Church of Christ in Monterey, Massachusetts, on January 1, 2017.  Introduction and closing music is performed by Eric Martin, with voice by Dan Wing.  We are grateful to Richard Weber for his permission to use his painting of Monterey for the album art.

This Sermon was delivered by Rev. Liz Goodman from the pulpit of the Monterey United Church of Christ in Monterey, Massachusetts, on December 11, 2016.  Introduction and closing music is performed by Eric Martin, with voice by Dan Wing.  We are grateful to Richard Weber for his permission to use his painting of Monterey for the album art.

This Sermon was delivered by Rev. Liz Goodman from the pulpit of the Monterey United Church of Christ in Monterey, Massachusetts, on November 20, 2016.  Introduction and closing music is performed by Eric Martin, with voice by Dan Wing.  We are grateful to Richard Weber for his permission to use his painting of Monterey for the album art.

This Sermon was delivered by Rev. Liz Goodman from the pulpit of the Monterey United Church of Christ in Monterey, Massachusetts, on November 13, 2016.  Introduction and closing music is performed by Eric Martin, with voice by Dan Wing.  We are grateful to Richard Weber for his permission to use his painting of Monterey for the album art.

This Sermon was delivered by Rev. Liz Goodman from the pulpit of the Monterey United Church of Christ in Monterey, Massachusetts, on October 9, 2016.  Introduction and closing music is performed by Eric Martin, with voice by Dan Wing.  We are grateful to Richard Weber for his permission to use his painting of Monterey for the album art.  

This Sermon was delivered by Rev. Liz Goodman from the pulpit of the Monterey United Church of Christ in Monterey, Massachusetts, on October 2, 2016.  Introduction and closing music is performed by Eric Martin, with voice by Dan Wing.  We are grateful to Richard Weber for his permission to use his painting of Monterey for the album art.  

This Sermon was delivered by Rev. Liz Goodman from the pulpit of the Monterey United Church of Christ in Monterey, Massachusetts, on September 25, 2016.  Introduction and closing music is performed by Eric Martin, with voice by Dan Wing.  We are grateful to Richard Weber for his permission to use his painting of Monterey for the album art.  

This Sermon was delivered by Rev. Liz Goodman from the pulpit of the Monterey United Church of Christ in Monterey, Massachusetts, on September 11, 2016.  Introduction and closing music is performed by Eric Martin, with voice by Dan Wing.  We are grateful to Richard Weber for his permission to use his painting of Monterey for the album art.  

This Sermon was delivered by Rev. Liz Goodman from the pulpit of the Monterey United Church of Christ in Monterey, Massachusetts, on August 28, 2016.  Introduction and closing music is performed by Eric Martin, with voice by Dan Wing.  We are grateful to Richard Weber for his permission to use his painting of Monterey for the album art.  

This Sermon was delivered by Rev. Liz Goodman from the pulpit of the Monterey United Church of Christ in Monterey, Massachusetts, on August 7, 2016.  Introduction and closing music is performed by Eric Martin, with voice by Dan Wing.  We are grateful to Richard Weber for his permission to use his painting of Monterey for the album art.  

This Sermon was delivered by Rev. Liz Goodman from the pulpit of the Monterey United Church of Christ in Monterey, Massachusetts, on July 31, 2016.  Introduction and closing music is performed by Eric Martin, with voice by Dan Wing.  We are grateful to Richard Weber for his permission to use his painting of Monterey for the album art.  

This Sermon was delivered by Rev. Liz Goodman from the pulpit of the Monterey United Church of Christ in Monterey, Massachusetts, on July 24, 2016.  Introduction and closing music is performed by Eric Martin, with voice by Dan Wing.  We are grateful to Richard Weber for his permission to use his painting of Monterey for the album art.  

This Sermon was delivered by Rev. Liz Goodman from the pulpit of the Monterey United Church of Christ in Monterey, Massachusetts, on July 10, 2016.  Introduction and closing music is performed by Eric Martin, with voice by Dan Wing.  We are grateful to Richard Weber for his permission to use his painting of Monterey for the album art.  

This Sermon was delivered by Rev. Liz Goodman from the pulpit of the Monterey United Church of Christ in Monterey, Massachusetts, on July 3, 2016.  Introduction and closing music is performed by Eric Martin, with voice by Dan Wing.  We are grateful to Richard Weber for his permission to use his painting of Monterey for the album art.  

This Sermon was delivered by Rev. Liz Goodman from the pulpit of the Monterey United Church of Christ in Monterey, Massachusetts, on June 12, 2016.  Introduction and closing music is performed by Eric Martin, with voice by Dan Wing.  We are grateful to Richard Weber for his permission to use his painting of Monterey for the album art.  

This Sermon was delivered by Rev. Liz Goodman from the pulpit of the Monterey United Church of Christ in Monterey, Massachusetts, on June 5, 2016.  Introduction and closing music is performed by Eric Martin, with voice by Dan Wing.  We are grateful to Richard Weber for his permission to use his painting of Monterey for the album art.  

This Sermon was delivered by Rev. Liz Goodman from the pulpit of the Monterey United Church of Christ in Monterey, Massachusetts, on May 22, 2016.  Introduction and closing music is performed by Eric Martin, with voice by Dan Wing.  We are grateful to Richard Weber for his permission to use his painting of Monterey for the album art.  

This Sermon was delivered by Rev. Liz Goodman from the pulpit of the Monterey United Church of Christ in Monterey, Massachusetts, on May 8, 2016.  Introduction and closing music is performed by Eric Martin, with voice by Dan Wing.  We are grateful to Richard Weber for his permission to use his painting of Monterey for the album art.  

Of vagabondage,

a path of least resistance

beckons and lies, right?

This Sermon was delivered by Rev. Liz Goodman from the pulpit of the Monterey United Church of Christ in Monterey, Massachusetts, on May 1, 2016.  Introduction and closing music is performed by Eric Martin, with voice by Dan Wing.  We are grateful to Richard Weber for his permission to use his painting of Monterey for the album art.  

This Sermon was delivered by Rev. Liz Goodman from the pulpit of the Monterey United Church of Christ in Monterey, Massachusetts, on April 3, 2016.  Introduction and closing music is performed by Eric Martin, with voice by Dan Wing.  We are grateful to Richard Weber for his permission to use his painting of Monterey for the album art.  

This Sermon was delivered by Rev. Liz Goodman from the pulpit of the Monterey United Church of Christ in Monterey, Massachusetts, on March 6, 2016.  Introduction and closing music is performed by Eric Martin, with voice by Dan Wing.  We are grateful to Richard Weber for his permission to use his painting of Monterey for the album art.  

This Sermon was delivered by Rev. Liz Goodman from the pulpit of the Monterey United Church of Christ in Monterey, Massachusetts, on April 24, 2016.  Introduction and closing music is performed by Eric Martin, with voice by Dan Wing.  We are grateful to Richard Weber for his permission to use his painting of Monterey for the album art.  

This Sermon was delivered by Rev. Liz Goodman from the pulpit of the Monterey United Church of Christ in Monterey, Massachusetts, on April 17, 2016.  Introduction and closing music is performed by Eric Martin, with voice by Dan Wing.  We are grateful to Richard Weber for his permission to use his painting of Monterey for the album art.  

This Sermon was delivered by Rev. Liz Goodman from the pulpit of the Monterey United Church of Christ in Monterey, Massachusetts, on March 27, 2016.  Introduction and closing music is performed by Eric Martin, with voice by Dan Wing.  We are grateful to Richard Weber for his permission to use his painting of Monterey for the album art.  

This Sermon was delivered by Rev. Nancy Taylor from the pulpit of the Monterey United Church of Christ in Monterey, Massachusetts, on March 13, 2016.  Introduction and closing music is performed by Eric Martin, with voice by Dan Wing.  We are grateful to Richard Weber for his permission to use his painting of Monterey for the album art.  

This Sermon was delivered by Rev. Liz Goodman from the pulpit of the Monterey United Church of Christ in Monterey, Massachusetts, on February 21, 2016.  Introduction and closing music is performed by Eric Martin, with voice by Dan Wing.  We are grateful to Richard Weber for his permission to use his painting of Monterey for the album art.  

This Sermon was delivered by Rev. Liz Goodman from the pulpit of the Monterey United Church of Christ in Monterey, Massachusetts, on February 7, 2016.  Introduction and closing music is performed by Eric Martin, with voice by Dan Wing.  We are grateful to Richard Weber for his permission to use his painting of Monterey for the album art.  

This Sermon was delivered by Rev. Liz Goodman from the pulpit of the Monterey United Church of Christ in Monterey, Massachusetts, on January 24, 2016.  Introduction and closing music is performed by Eric Martin, with voice by Dan Wing.  We are grateful to Richard Weber for his permission to use his painting of Monterey for the album art.