Travel Faithfully: Muir Woods at Pentecost

Pastor Megan Rohrer visits Muir Woods in California to talk about Pentecost and our interconnectedness.

The Rich Young Ruler

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Date:	10-11-2009
Description:	Give all your money to the poor, or keep in for an emergency? The call to be vulnerable.
Key words:	poverty,stewardship,mark,jesus
Pastor :	Megan Rohrer
Sermon :	St. Cyprian's Episcopal
Scripture :	Mark 10:13-31; Amos 5:6-15

If only Jesus' followers were the same...

John 6:35-51

If you read between the lines of this week's text you'll find these words of Jesus:
anyone who comes to me I will never drive away...I should lose nothing of all that he has given me...Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life.

This is of course a tenant of Lutheran faith... there is nothing we can do that will secure our own salvation and more importantly nothing we can do to screw it up. If only those who followed Jesus could utter these words to those they disagree with. What if instead of chiding each other we had to affirm each other.

Dear Fred Phelps, (insert whomever you disagree with theologically) I am so glad that regardless of the vile things you do that nothing can separate you from the love of God(dess), just as nothing I do could ever separate me from the love of God(dess).

What if we could not dismiss or disown others? This means that we cannot get rid of or abandon those who are no longer profitable, we cannot step over those who sleep on the sidewalks, we cannot abandon those in need of health care or ignore the hungry.

And this spiritual quest lasts forever. Yikes, that could change who we see as our neighbor. I'm not sure what would be scarier, if we held ourselves to this standard or our enemy!

Sermon: Jesus brings the peanut butter and jelly!

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Date: 08-02-2009
Description: Sermon at Bethlehem Lutheran in Oakland 8-2-09. About the history and call for giving away food that perishes in churches, urban sharing and the current economy....
Scripture :John 6:24-35

Proper 13B/Ordinary 18B/Pentecost 9

Urban Share

Garden made from used pallets and milk crates

John 6:1-21

Jesus feeds 5000. A pretty spectacular story that if you've heard it a million times before may lose it's power. And with all the stories of miraculous healings and bringing people back from the dead, we may have already put this story in the category of things that God(dess) could do, but we could not.

But what if we could do it too? Two Saturdays a month we feed more than 200 and we only spend $600 a year on food. How is that possible? Well, we simply let people who have more than their daily bread, know there were others who were going without. And they bring their extra bread (actually they serve restaurant quality meals that are better than I eat at home).

At the Welcome Ministry, we use a philosophy that I call Urban Share. Urban Share is founded in the belief that we have all the supplies that we need, we just have to share it and communicate our needs to others.

Using this model of Urban Share we are working on a community garden project to enable churches and other organizations to create gardens to grow food, learn about hunger and meet the need that is so much more than a need for daily bread. Working with local gardening activists we have learned that it is possible to create raised bed, sidewalk, rooftop and lot gardens virtually for free by recycling materials that are common in urban environments.

Now we are working on connecting gardeners with organizations to teach them how to use the space and things they have around them to produce food for those in need in their communities.

Join our movement! Help us create connections, to fund this program, to reach out to more organizations and churches. Let's use Jesus' ability to feed large groups of people with the resources he found around him and his commandment from Mark "You go feed them" and go and do likewise.

Call to action- Help us feed 5000: The Welcome Ministry plans to feed an additional 5000 people this year, but we need your help. We will be growing produce in community gardens. How? Send us seed! Please send us one or more packets of seed (to grow food) in the mail along with your prayers - we will use your seeds to grow food and feed 5000.

Send seeds and prayers to:
The Welcome Minsitry
1751 Sacramento St.
San Francisco CA 94109

Proper 12B/Ordinary 17B/Pentecost 8

Healing from our Christian trauma.

Mark 6:14-29: John the Baptist's Head on a Platter

This text is gave me pause. How do you find "good news" in a story about a beheading. Particularly a story that exists as a foreshadowing of more death to come.

Yet, for anyone who has felt like the they have been stalked by death, chronic illness or who have been silenced by a political system that gets rid of hope and truth, this text may feel like it speaks to our situation. And perhaps it could be seen as "good news" because it speaks to our fears and anxiety.

But, as a pastor who works with those who don't have the ability forget their trauma - and sometimes feel like trauma of the past is still happening to them today I'm more comfortable when "good news" to provide hope for a better future.

The condition of being stuck in trauma is called post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It's something I'm getting intensive training to help people heal from. And the results have been stunning. I'd even say that it's been miraculous. Read Pastor Jay's thoughts about this work.

I wonder sometimes if Christians need trauma care. Death on a cross is a form of biblical terror and one that we keep inflicting on others - expecting others to live on a cross. Some Christians keep reliving and reenacting the cross ~ which to me seems to fit the mold for PTSD.

So perhaps the hope and healing comes in our remembering that this trauma is John's (and Jesus') not ours. We are alive and we should celebrate that. Even more so, we should do what we can to live fully, to improve our health and to heal from our trauma. And then of course work for all of this for our neighbors as well.

Baptism is one way that Christians seek to encounter their deaths. While we continue to remember our baptisms throughout our lives, we don't continue to live in a Good Friday space. Instead we strive to live in the resurrection, in our Easter.


"Good news" if you're reading this, it's safe to say that your head is still attached to your body. You are alive. Be Whole. Live in forgiveness. And Go in Peace.


Proper 10B/Ordinary 15B/Pentecost 6