Monthly Archives: April 2022

Easter Sermon: Jesus, Unbound + Children’s Story

Posted on by
“Mary Magdalene with Jesus, the Christ” by Janet McKenzie.

John 20:1-18

Early in the morning, around 5am, Mary Magdalene walks alone to the tomb where Jesus’ body lay. She has barely slept since Friday, when she watched — watched! — her teacher, her best friend, her soulmate, brutally murdered. The whole time she stood there, looking up at him, trying to communicate through her presence the unbreakable bond between them, that she was with him, he was not alone, she was there.

This was the person in whom she had experienced the most powerful embodiment of the Lifeforce, Creator, God. And this was the person who had helped her connect to that Lifeforce. Because of him, the veils had fallen away and she saw. She saw the glory of God, the radiant life energy that bursts forth from every branch, every stone, every flower, every person, from her. She felt it inside of her. She had never known herself to be so alive, and so loved, completely, just as she was. She had seen what that aliveness and that love can do — how it can empower an oppressed community, help them imagine new worlds, take big risks, do new things.

Continue reading →

Sermon: The Prophetic Mysticism of Wendsler Nosie Sr.

Posted on by

By Joanna Lawrence Shenk

This is the sixth sermon in our Lenten series on the Christian mystics called “A Voice to Call Us Home.” 

Luke 19:28-40

On this Palm Sunday and final Sunday of our series on mysticism, we turn to a contemporary mystic, Wendsler Nosie Sr. So far in the series, all of the mystics we’ve learned about have been Christian. This Sunday we expand beyond the Christian tradition, recognizing the mysticism in many other spiritual paths. Wendsler Nosie Sr. is also the only one of the mystics in our series who is still living.

Wendsler is a person who sees the connections between things. He sees the oneness. He sees the oneness of colonialism from its very beginnings far beyond this continent. He sees the oneness of the web connecting diverse peoples in the spiritual effort to resist and dismantle it. And he sees the power of prayer to make people one as they protect that which is sacred, no matter the cost. 

Continue reading →

Sermon — Thomas Merton: The One Thing Necessary + Children’s Story

Posted on by
Trappist Fr. Thomas Merton in an updated photo at the hermitage at Gethsemani Abbey (CNS/Merton Legacy Trust and the Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University)

This is the fifth sermon in our Lenten series on the Christian mystics called “A Voice to Call Us Home.” An audio version of the sermon is available here.

Luke 10:38-42

It came as a surprise to me when, in my early 30s, I felt drawn to becoming a monk. I was, by then, partnered with Jerome and so knew I wasn’t going to really be a monk, but I felt drawn to that life — to its simplicity, to the silence, the solitude, to the focus on what mattered. I was blessed during that time to find Hesed, an urban monastery in Oakland started by a female Benedictine monk that was devoted to the practice and teaching of Christian meditation. I became an oblate, or a committed member, of Hesed. As part of my commitment, I took vows, just like monks do. One of my vows was to what is called, in Latin, conversatio morum — ongoing conversion throughout one’s life, ongoing receptivity to transformation by the Spirit of God— which is really the one thing necessary, to quote Jesus from our scripture for today.  Throughout this time, the monk Thomas Merton was my spiritual guide, a man so completely unlike me but someone whom also longed for the one thing necessary, who had also taken a vow of conversatio morum.

Continue reading →