First Mennonite Church of San Francisco

"Why do we not do the good we want to do? That question has resounded throughout history. Paul’s poignant writing about this in the passage we just heard feels as current today as it did 2000 years ago. We have the desire to do good, we even know what the good is, but we can’t do it. And we don’t understand why we can’t! For we don’t do the things we want to do but rather the things we hate. Some other force, some other energy in us keeps us from doing the good we desire. For this series, we’re identifying that force, that energy as the shadow." See https://blog.menno.org//sermon-the-good-we-want-to-do-an/

"What is the shadow and how does it get formed? The poet Robert Bly writes: 'Behind us, we have an invisible bag and the part of ourselves our parents don’t like we to keep our parents’ love put in the bag. Then we do a lot of stuffing in high school. We spend our life until we’re 20 deciding what part of ourself to put in the bag and we spend the rest of our lives trying to get (those parts) out again.'" See https://blog.menno.org/2021/02/23/sermon-shadow-dancing/

"Animated by the pain of a loving God, may we confront those things in us and in the world that separate us from each other, that separate us from the land and its creatures, and that separate us from the Spirit of Life. By the power of that Spirit, may we see and name that demon and call it out as the antihuman, antilife spirit that it is. And as the demon departs, may we find ourselves and each other definitely disheveled but returned to our full humanity again." See https://blog.menno.org/2021/01/31/sermon-possessed/

"When we can release our egos, at least a bit, release our small graspy selves, then we form within ourselves an empty, receptive place in which the Shekhinah can dwell. When we can release, at least somewhat, our right to control our future, our need for certainty about it, our plans and strategies to get what we think we want out of it, our fears about it then we form within ourselves an empty, receptive place in which the Sheknihah can dwell." https://blog.menno.org/2020/12/20/sermon-overshadowed/

"I’ve never known a year in which our collective psychic state so closely matches the beginning of the Advent season. That’s because, in the Christian calendar, Advent always begins with apocalyptic Scriptures, texts that seem to be describing the end of the world as we know it and that are rife with fear and instability. Why begin a season where we are anticipating the birth of Christ child with such fear and trembling? Why pair Apocalypse with Advent?" https://blog.menno.org//sermon-beyond-fear-and-hyper-vigi/

What is the time we are in right now? What is our season? Paul the author of this passage is not referring to seasons of the year when he talks about the times and the seasons. Paul is using the Greek word kairos for both of these words, and kairos has a very different meaning than the other word ancient Greeks used for time, chronos. Chronos, as is probably obvious, refers to chronological or sequential time. Kairos refers to a proper or opportune time for action. Kairos time means the right time, the crucial time to act. When someone in our culture says, It’s go time, that might capture some of the meaning of the word kairos. https://blog.menno.org//sermon-what-are-we-called-to-do-/

"Somewhere in your lineage, and probably not very long ago, I can guarantee you that you had ancestors who lived through things unimaginably difficult to us now, who somehow made it through so you could be here today." https://blog.menno.org//all-saints-day-sermon-the-convict/

"Just as, last Sunday, we talked about how cultural supremacy or exclusivity may unconsciously keep us from extending a full welcome to people, how might unconscious class supremacy or exclusivity do the same? " https://blog.menno.org//sermon-class-and-the-welcome-table/

Who walks into our congregation and instantly feels welcome and is invited to take a seat? Who stands around the edges and isn’t sure they’ve heard a clear invitation? Who doesn’t intuitively understand the way we do things at the table and has to do the work of figuring it out and fitting in? https://blog.menno.org//sermon-whos-got-a-place-at-the-we/

"I tend to think of the demonic as the will to power the will to dominate that exists in each one of us, along with the capacity to love and be compassionate. When that will to power infests groups of people who then create social structures that concretize domination and who create philosophies or theologies to legitimate that domination then evil powers have come into the world. These powers are bigger than we are and are hard to eradicate once loosed upon the world. They become normalized, even, hidden within the larger structures of our society." https://blog.menno.org/2020/08/24/sermon-satan/

The second Black Lives Matter challenge from FMCSF youth: Defund the police. Follow the link to the Anti-Police Terror Project website and find your state and city. Then email your elected officials! https://blog.menno.org//black-lives-matter-three-week-cha/

The youth of FMCSF invite you to a 3-week challenge in support of Black Lives Matter. Week one: watch, read, and listen! https://blog.menno.org//black-lives-matter-three-week-cha/

"[Jesus' example] shows that righteous anger and nonviolent action can create a new system from the ground up. What if we were able to do something like that with the police system, whether that is severely defunding or completely abolishing it? What new and unrecognizable system would be in its place? I believe we can look into queer history to see a glimpse of what that could look like." Thank you Stefan for your powerful word on Sunday! https://blog.menno.org/2020/06/28/sermon-pride-sunday-202

"The God of the Christian scriptures (rooted in the Jewish tradition) is a God who hears the cries of enslaved people and fights for them and sets them free. The God of these scriptures walked on earth not as a rich man or someone in a position of power, but instead as one poor and dispossessed by the empire of his time. This is the God of the imprisoned, the sick and the undocumented. This is a God that rages at injustice and grieves with those who are brutalized. This is a God who takes sides against the rich and powerful, who pulls tyrants from their thrones and sends the rich away empty. This is a Black Lives Matter God who is raging in the streets at the injustice of our current reality." https://blog.menno.org//06/19/call-to-action-juneteenth-2/

We were present at solidarity marches in 3 cites in one day! #BlackLivesMatter #JusticeforGeorgeFloyd

We will include this prayer in our service tomorrow. We are grateful for others to pray it with us. Lord have mercy. LITANY FOR PENTECOST 2020 God of the enslaved and God of the crucified, meet us in our anger, our despair and our grief at another Black life suffocated by the enduring violence of white supremacy in this country.... Meet us with the fire of your Holy Spirit sent to renew the world. May this fire refine our vision, separating truth from lie, separating an uprising born of enduring oppression from state-sponsored, white supremacist violence. Meet us with your justice embodied by Yeshua and the prophets, who overturned tables, disrupted the status quo, and unflinchingly spoke truth to power. Amplify our cries for justice as we say the names of precious lives lost: George Floyd Ahmaud Arbery Breonna Taylor Mario Woods Michael Brown Eric Garner Philando Castile Sandra Bland Stephon Clark Trayvon Martin Oscar Grant May the fire of the Holy Spirit ignite transformation and healing. We pray for a righteous revolutiona society that no longer oppresses Black bodies. Where Black struggle isn't exploited for white prosperity. Where the powerful are torn from their thrones and the people can live in beloved community. This is the message of Pentecost: that God is birthing a new world. Come Holy Spirit, birth the new world in the shell of the old. AMEN.

Join with communities of faith all over the country this weekend to lament the astounding loss of life due to COVID-19 in the United States. Grief is sacred work. https://sojo.net/media/national-day-mourning-and-lament

For the past two Fridays we have been honored to hold a vigil of love and protection for the synagogue, Congregation Sha'ar Zahav, where we meet for worship. Together with CSZ, we are committed to creating a world where no worshipping community needs an armed guard to meet in safety. https://www.jweekly.com//at-my-synagogue-ill-take-20-menn/

To kickoff our Advent season, with a theme of "Wings, Wisdom, Womb: Dwelling in our Feminine Divine," Sheri offered an reflection on the face of the Feminine Divine known as Spirit or Shekinah, within the Jewish tradition. If you missed it this Sunday, it's now up on our blog!

Last Sunday, Todd Wynward, a licensed minister in Rocky Mountain States Mennonite Conference, talked about Reverend William Barber's "Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival," which is scheduled to hit 25 states across America May-June 2018 and the ways in which FMCSF can get involved. The link is below for more information.

A new blog post is up! Read Sheri's sermon from last week, "Happy are those who mourn."