Westminster Presbyterian Church, Alexandria Va

It is Pentecost. While this morning you will not hear about the tongues of fire and the chaotic cacophony of that first Pentecost, rest assured that the Spirit moves. Whitney Fauntleroy preaches on Pentecost Sunday. The Scripture lesson is Romans 8:14-17.

Welcome to this "Picnic Sunday," the closest that Westminster gets to "casual Friday." But in the midst of all the woundedness in the world, how DO we have a picnic? Perhaps the ultimate point to be made in all of this is: in light of such loss and hardship that is out there and also with us here, you do not cancel the picnics. Jesus, after all, in the face of his people's despair, began his ministry at a wedding. Patrick Hunnicutt preaches on the Seventh Sunday of Easter. The Scripture lesson is Acts 16:16-34.

Gamaliel was a Pharisee: one of the foils of the gospel, the misguided bad guys who always got it wrong because they insisted on others getting it right. But in Acts, Gamaliel stands out as a person worthy of respect, and full of wisdom. Patrick Hunnicutt preaches on Acts 5:27-40.

The history of the church that chooses to divide and conquer with our privileges and preferences is long--it is indeed very long. This "us and them" mentality is seemingly so innate to our faith, we don't pause like Peter enough to ask, "Who am I that I should hinder God?" Whitney Fauntleroy preaches on the Fifth Sunday of Easter and Confirmation Sunday. The Scripture lesson is Acts 11:1-18.

Trauma lies at the heart of the Old Testament, and its many books offer a range of models for embracing potentially traumatic transformations. Two quite divergent models can be found in the book of Psalms and Job. The Psalter builds a temple in space and in time that envelopes and moves through trauma toward praise. The book of Job places trauma at the beginning and moves simultaneously into the dark reality defined by trauma and out of that darkness into a world after trauma, at once more free and mysterious than the world it attempts to leave behind. We will consider the impact of trauma on the formation of the Bible generally and the two particular responses in the Psalter and Job as models for resilience. Dr. Paul K.-K. Cho holds a B.A. in comparative literature from Yale University, an M.Div. from Yale Divinity School, and a Ph.D. in Hebrew Bible from Harvard University. He serves as Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible at Wesley Theological Seminary. He is author of Myth, History, and Metaphor in the He

Throughout the literature of the Bible, there is a link between the power of the voice and the omnipresent image of Shepherd. As a preacher, anytime I speak of “hearing the voice of God” or “Christ speaking to us” I know that a number of people will assume and hope that I am speaking symbolically; a number will look down at their bulletins in awkward silence; and a number will say to themselves “God has spoken to me, but if I say anything about it, people might avoid me.” Wherever you fall among these numbers, please stay with me. Larry Hayward preaches on the Fourth Sunday of Easter. The Scripture lesson is John 10:22-30.

Trauma lies at the heart of the Old Testament, and its many books offer a range of models for embracing potentially traumatic transformations. Two quite divergent models can be found in the book of Psalms and Job. The Psalter builds a temple in space and in time that envelopes and moves through trauma toward praise. The book of Job places trauma at the beginning and moves simultaneously into the dark reality defined by trauma and out of that darkness into a world after trauma, at once more free and mysterious than the world it attempts to leave behind. We will consider the impact of trauma on the formation of the Bible generally and the two particular responses in the Psalter and Job as models for resilience. Dr. Paul K.-K. Cho holds a B.A. in comparative literature from Yale University, an M.Div. from Yale Divinity School, and a Ph.D. in Hebrew Bible from Harvard University. He serves as Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible at Wesley Theological Seminary. He is author of Myth, History, and Metaphor in the He

Three times, Jesus asks Simon Peter, "do you love me?" And three times, Peter answers correctly. But like the church that Peter would come to represent, Peter did not always do so well with questions--especially when his own life was in jeopardy. Patrick Hunnicutt preaches from John 21:15-19.

There is an aspect of the resurrection of Christ that we don’t talk about often, an aspect that is part of a larger story we don’t tell enough. This aspect is the redemption not just of our own lives as individuals, but the redemption of the whole of the created order. Just as there is a “life to come” for individuals, so also there is a “life to come” for all of creation. Larry Hayward preaches from Revelation 1:4-8.

Perhaps the most important words the men in dazzling clothes speak to the women may not be, ironically, “He is risen.” Rather, the most important words may be “Remember…remember how he told you.” The reason these words are so important is that they are instructive. They chart the way the women come to trust the message that Christ is risen – and as such they form a way we can come to such trust as well. Larry Hayward preaches on Easter Sunday from Luke 24:1-12.

It is a regret of my life, perhaps not beyond repair, that I have not read more of Shakespeare. When I first started preaching, I encountered a phrase from Shakespeare’s As You Like It that has stayed with me for obvious vocational reasons: And this our life, exempt from public haunt, Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything. It is the “sermons in stones” that I remember. Larry Hayward preaches from Luke 19:28-40.

From the story of Creation to Jesus’s calling the Pharisees a “brood of vipers,” the serpent in the Bible is not the most inviting of creatures. Yet their rep is not always disreputable—in various cultures and religions, serpents are symbols for fertility and rebirth, guardianship of temples and sacred places, and medicinal healing. As in history and mythology, the association of serpents with the cross is a mixed bag. Larry Hayward preaches from Numbers 21:5-9 and John 3:11-15.

We come now to sermon four of five in a Lenten series entitled “Construing the Cross.” Through these sermons we are looking at different but complementary ways the Christian faith interprets the death of Christ on the cross: sacrifice, scapegoating, deliverance, tree and serpent. All these ways I hope prepare us to celebrate even more hopefully that day on which we will sing “Christ the Lord is Risen Today.” Larry Hayward preaches from Genesis 2:8-9, 15-17; Deuteronomy 21:22-23; Revelation 2:7; and Revelation 22:1-2.

What does it mean to “follow Jesus,” to “practice” Christian faith in an increasingly post-Christian culture? What makes us uneasy about claiming Christian faith in the current climate? Is there a difference between being a good Christian and just trying to be a good person? Does being a Christian mean we have to reject other religions? This 5-week Lenten series explores these and other questions as a way of helping us name in new ways our sense of Christian identity in contemporary culture. This week's topic is "Christian Spiritual Maturity." Please note: part 3 is not available due to technical difficulties. Dr. Kathy Staudt works as a teacher, poet and spiritual director at a number of institutions, including Virginia Theological Seminary and Wesley Theological Seminary.

This series looks at different but complimentary ways our faith seeks to interpret the death of Jesus Christ: as sacrifice, as scapegoating, as deliverance, as tree, and as serpent. Today the association we explore is that of the cross as deliverance. God moves through history bringing freedom. God moves through humanity bringing salvation. These gifts are part of the larger movement of God’s redemption of all of creation – found within and jumping out at us from the pages of Genesis through Revelation. Larry Hayward preaches from Exodus 12 and John 6.

What does it mean to “follow Jesus,” to “practice” Christian faith in an increasingly post-Christian culture? What makes us uneasy about claiming Christian faith in the current climate? Is there a difference between being a good Christian and just trying to be a good person? Does being a Christian mean we have to reject other religions? This 5-week Lenten series explores these and other questions as a way of helping us name in new ways our sense of Christian identity in contemporary culture. This week's topic is "Jesus: The Heart of Christianity." Dr. Kathy Staudt works as a teacher, poet and spiritual director at a number of institutions, including Virginia Theological Seminary and Wesley Theological Seminary.

In this series we explore differing but complementary understandings of the death of Jesus Christ: sacrifice, scapegoat, deliverance, tree and serpent. Today’s sermon explores the association of the death of Christ with the ancient practice of sending a scapegoat into the wilderness and the common phrase that ritual has bequeathed to our language. Larry Hayward preaches from Leviticus 16:7-10, 20-22 (KJV) and John 11:45-53.

In Christian tradition, we say as a matter of course that the death of Christ involves sacrifice: Christ sacrificing his life or his being sacrificed for us. Today we look at sacrifice as related to the cycle of life and death in nature: as in the cycle of all living things, Jesus's death bears fruit that changes the human heart and overcomes the power of sin and evil in the world. Larry Hayward preaches from John 12:20-26 in the first of a five-part Lenten series.

What does it mean to “follow Jesus,” to “practice” Christian faith in an increasingly post-Christian culture? What makes us uneasy about claiming Christian faith in the current climate? Is there a difference between being a good Christian and just trying to be a good person? Does being a Christian mean we have to reject other religions? This 5-week Lenten series explores these and other questions as a way of helping us name in new ways our sense of Christian identity in contemporary culture. This week's topic is "Christians in a Secular Culture: A spiritual path." Dr. Kathy Staudt works as a teacher, poet and spiritual director at a number of institutions, including Virginia Theological Seminary and Wesley Theological Seminary.

Between 1820 and 1850, the U.S. contended with a set of urgent problems: how to reconcile the ideal of liberty with the reality of racial slavery; how to square Christian belief with the removal of Native tribes from homelands coveted by white people; how to interpret the principle of “equality” vis a vis women, free people of color, and Catholic immigrants; how to invent a national identity and a robust nationalism in the face of conflict, demographic diversity, and geographical immensity. Underlying these conundrums—as we see in the literature of the era—was an unresolved contradiction about citizenship: were you an “American” because you pledged allegiance to the nation and its laws or because your ancestry connected you to the first colonists, those in the vanguard of “Anglo-Saxon Civilization?” And complicating it all was the righteous (but possibly self-serving) belief that God had destined Americans to be a new “Chosen People” and Am