Sermons on Earth Care
Blessed are the Peacemakers, Not the Peacekeepers
Minister Lea Gilmore explore the Beatitudes reflecting on Matthew 5:9. We’ll explore how Jesus calls us beyond simply keeping things calm to the deeper, riskier work of peacemaking—telling the truth, pursuing justice, and seeking real repair in our relationships, community, and creation. Together we’ll consider how Christian peacemaking can include protest and civil disobedience, especially where racial and environmental injustice wound our neighbors and God’s world.
Hope in the Soil, Justice in Our Hands
Minister Lea Gilmore invites us to see that the healing of the earth and the healing of human communities are inseparably bound together. As we tend the earth with care and stand in solidarity with marginalized communities, we participate in God’s ongoing work of renewal, trusting that both creation and humanity are being drawn toward liberation, wholeness, and abundant life.
I Think That I will Never See a Poem as Lovely as a Tree
This sermon by Chaplain Annie Owens reflects on the spiritual and symbolic significance of trees, weaving together poetry, scripture, personal stories, and science. Through themes of resilience and interconnectedness—and the powerful metaphor of the axe—it invites deeper awareness and discernment. Ultimately, it calls us to rooted faith, critical thinking, and wise stewardship in a complex world.
Rev. Shannon Weston – April 21, 2024
This week we celebrate Earth Day in worship by focusing on plastics. Jesus said, “I came that you may have life and have it abundantly,” Jesus tells his followers. Unfortunately, we seem to have confused “abundance” with “excess,” and nowhere is that more obvious than in the ways we produce, use and discard plastics. Join us as we discuss the question, Do the plastics we create give us a better appreciation for the abundance that exists in God’s creation, or…