Sermons on Racial Justice
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Sermons on Racial Justice

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Bearing Abundant Fruit

Rev. Dries Coetzee discusses themes of integrity, sacrifice, courage, and community as essential elements for spiritual growth and social justice within the church and the wider global context. He reflects on how historical injustices, especially rooted in colonialism, slavery, and white supremacy, intersect with current American social and political realities and highlights the importance of acknowledging marginalized communities and living out authentic faith that combines worship with everyday ethics.

Telling Our Stories

Speakers Susan Saunders, Charese Jordan, and Ramon Lindsay discuss confronting racism through vulnerable storytelling within a church community. Centered on personal narratives spanning decades, they seek to foster understanding across racial lines and promote collective healing and justice. They share childhood and adult memories of experiencing racism, highlighting both overt violence and subtle systemic inequities. They encourage us to engage in honest conversations, build trusting relationships, and take active steps toward dismantling racism—not as a one-time discussion but as an…

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.

Here We Are Lord!

We welcome Rev. Laura Ingersol back to the pulpit, preaching on the theme: We are people who follow Jesus, and we are equipped for justice work. Hear the Word, grounded in the prayer that God will use each of us for love, hope, and transformation.

New Times and Old Times

In this Black History Month reflection, Rev. David Harris reflects on the tension and responsibility of speaking from a white perspective while lifting up the urgency of justice, equality, and diverse voices. Drawing on history, scripture, and personal experience, he challenges systems of racism, exclusion, and oppression, presents Jesus as a disruptor of unjust social orders, and calls Christians to a costly discipleship rooted in compassion, solidarity with the marginalized, nonviolence, and hope sustained by the Spirit.

The Anti-Occupation and Anti-Colonization Polemic Thinly Veiled in the Story of the Gerasenes Demoniac

It would be easy to hear the story of the exorcism of the Gerasene demoniac as an ancient story about mental health. It can be that. And, if we pay attention to Mark’s clues we will hear that it is a strong message against violent occupation and colonization then and now. Further, it challenges us to consider what we are willing to pay in wealth and privilege in order to live in the Kin-dom of God.

“Provoking Good, Fair-Minded, Hardworking People”

Jesus tells this story of the Laborers in the Vineyard in a way that intentionally challenges and provokes good, fair-minded, hardworking people. In doing so he calls us to reconsider whose voices we welcome to the table. We are called to stop privileging the voices of those who have been around doing all the work in the church and instead privilege voices who have just arrived or even those who have not come in yet. We might also reconsider if…
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