Friends,

Yesterday, I preached about the situation on the ground here in Minneapolis and the ways it connects to Jesus' experience of baptism. This is the story in which a voice from heaven says, This is my child, my beloved. This one gives me great joy.

Lest we get the wrong idea—that this story is a cozy moment between Jesus and John the Baptist and God—I reminded people that John the Baptist was anything but apolitical. Jesus received a baptism into a way of life transformed away from the empire’s violence and toward God’s way of love. That way of life led John the Baptist and Jesus both to be executed by the state.

In our rite of baptism, participants make these promises:

Celebrant: Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?
People: I will, with God’s help.
Celebrant: Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?
People: I will, with God’s help.

Our baptism calls us to lives led with defiant, embodied, joyful love. Seeing God's image in every person—regardless of immigration status, party, and even regardless of their employment with oppressive organizations. Telling the truth, protecting and serving our neighbors, and proclaiming God's love for all people: That's the way of Jesus.

So: remember your baptism. Wherever those actions are happening, the Holy Spirit is moving, and we’re going to be there with God’s defiant, embodied, joyful love.
You can listen to the sermon here.

In addition to the many ways people are living out their baptismal promises locally here in Minneapolis this week, there are two more ways you can act. Looking further out, stay tuned for ways to put your faith into action with other members of GEC and interfaith groups around the state by caucusing and marching on Palm Sunday to support feeding the hungry, healing the sick, and welcoming the stranger.

With love,
Susan+



Being the Beloved
In my sermon, I promised to share more with you about being God's beloved. Here are a few thoughts.

Some of us have been given a deep sense of trust that we are loved. Maybe we got that from a parent or a grandparent, a partner, a friend, a teacher, a coach. Lots of us never heard from a trusted person that we are loved just for existing. And even those of us who have heard it over and over again, we know how easy it is to forget. The machine of capitalism runs on creating the anxiety that we are not ok, and we hear that message so often that it’s encoded in our bodies and our minds. So just about every morning, before he leaves for school, I turn to Luca and say, Not nobody, not no how, can ever make me stop loving you.

I want him to hear his belovedness loud and clear every day. Because I know, and you know, how easy it is to forget.

If this resonates with you, the Christian writer Henri Nouwen wrote a book called Life of the Beloved that speaks to this very issue. I commend it to you. He says that just as God calls Jesus the Beloved, so God calls you, and every other person, Beloved.

“Though the experience of being the Beloved has never been completely absent from my life, I never claimed it as my core truth. I kept running around it, always looking for someone or something able to convince me of my Belovedness. I think you understand what I am talking about. Aren’t you, like me, hoping that some person, thing, or event will come along to give you that final feeling of inner well-being you desire? Don’t you often hope, ‘May this book, idea, course, trip, job, country, or relationship fulfill my deepest desire? But as long as you are waiting for that mysterious moment you will go on running helter-skelter, always anxious and restless, always lustful and angry, never fully satisfied.”

Nouwen invites his readers to listen to that voice calling you Beloved, and to choose to trust God’s voice calling you Beloved, and to live from that truth.

It is a daily choice, sometimes a moment to moment choice, to go to that well, that spring, in the midst of all the self-doubt and fear that grip each of us all the time.
There’s something extraordinarily courageous and defiant about choosing to believe you are already beloved in a world that tells us that we are nothing. If you can trust that God will never stop loving you, then you can, with God’s help, live out your baptismal promises to honor the dignity of every human being and to strive for justice and peace. You can live out those promises with courage and integrity and gentleness in the face of all kinds of oppression.

Tags: Rev Susan, Belovedness, Baptism

[In a world that seems increasingly chaotic and broken, many of us feel helpless and afraid. We may question what we can do to make a difference. To build collective courage, in this space we will share examples of how individual members of GEC are practicing the way of Jesus, in private action or in the public arena. How might you find inspiration and hope in the small steps others are taking?]

Many opportunities to put our faith into action will occur in 2026. As we face the uncertainty of what's ahead I take comfort in the words of community organizer Jessica Craven:

"When we do this work we are standing on the shoulders of giants. We are standing on the people who came before us who fought through times that legitimately felt much more hopeless than this. We are standing on the shoulders of every union member, every activist, every suffragette, every civil rights leader or just trudger. You know, everyone who participated in the Montgomery bus boycott, everybody who went down for the Freedom Summers, everybody who has ever fought for anything in this country, we are standing on their shoulders. And even when we feel like we don’t have strength, they are sending theirs to us. And remember that that is important for two reasons, not just because they are sending us their strength, but because we are becoming repositories in which to store that strength so that when our work is done we become the shoulders for the next generation to stand on. And someday they will be saying we stand on the shoulders of giants and they will be thinking of all of you as well as everyone who came before. Never forget that. Your shoulders will be the platform for someone else to carry on this fight someday. But only if we stay in the fight now."

Tags: Faith in action

Friends,
On Sunday, Marion Larson preached for us, drawing connections between the few things we know about Joseph and the way his life impacted Jesus' ministry. You can listen here.

Today we mark the Feast of the Epiphany—and there are resources for you below to help you claim this holy day.

With love,
Susan+

Music, Poetry, and Prayer
for your Epiphany At Home
Today, on the Feast of the Epiphany, we tell the story of the wise ones who followed the star to find a newborn king in Bethlehem.

To celebrate Epiphany at home, read Matthew 2:1-12, and consider using the resources below in your meditation and conversations.

Refugee
by Malcolm Guite

We think of him as safe beneath the steeple,
Or cosy in a crib beside the font,
But he is with a million displaced people
On the long road of weariness and want.

For even as we sing our final carol
His family is up and on that road,
Fleeing the wrath of someone else’s quarrel,
Glancing behind and shouldering their load.

Whilst Herod rages still from his dark tower
Christ clings to Mary, fingers tightly curled,
The lambs are slaughtered by the men of power,
And death squads spread their curse across the world.

But every Herod dies, and comes alone
To stand before the Lamb upon the throne.

Prayer:
O God, by the leading of a star you manifested your only Son to the peoples of the earth: Lead us, who know you now by faith, to your presence, where we may see your glory face to face; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Chalking the Door
Family and friends of all ages can join in this simple practice.
Find out more here.

Long Way Round the Sea
Epiphany song by Low
Listen here.

Tags: Epiphany, Joseph

Friends,

Yesterday, the Rev. Anna Broadbent-Evelyn preached about Joseph's care for Mary and the unexpected baby she bore. God showed up in the midst of Joseph's personal catastrophe, with both comfort and a challenge that he hadn’t expected.

Sharing with humor and vulnerability about her own experience of giving birth, she spoke about Joseph's modeling of male tenderness. She contrasted that with many of the models of masculinity on display in our culture now and invited us to try a little tenderness. You can listen to the sermon here.

Where has God shown up in your own catastrophes before? Where is God meeting you with comfort and challenge now?

A few good shares for these last days of Advent are below. I hope we'll see you for Christmas Eve or Christmas Day - and if you're traveling and celebrating with loved ones, may you have a safe journey and return with hearts full and renewed to practice the way of Jesus in the new year.

With love,
Susan+

Tags: Rev Anna, Joseph, Tenderness, comfort

Friends,

On Sunday, I preached about Jesus using coded language from the Hebrew Bible to send hope to John the Baptist, who was in a Roman dungeon, awaiting execution. Jesus is carrying the torch for John, working for the same mission John gave his life's energy to serve -- God's vision of a world of love and justice. Today, in the midst of so much chaos and relentless spectacle of unconstitutional cruelty nearby, and scenes of hate and violence around the world, we need to look for the people carrying that torch today.

"When you feel like John, in the depths of the dungeon, calling out to God and asking, 'Where are you? Is there somebody else we should be waiting on?' I want to remind you that your despair is in the tradition – John felt it too. And God is a grownup, and God can take it. But when you’re down in that dungeon with John, remember what Jesus said: Go and tell what you hear and see. See the places where the hungry are being fed and the sick are being healed and the stranger is being welcomed. It’s Friday, but Sunday’s coming. And let the courage God gives you through those folks drive you to join in with your own acts of courage and kindness."

You can listen to the sermon here.

With love,
Susan+

Tags: Rev Susan, courage