Friday Formation
I’m preaching at United Church Chapel Hill on Sunday and I thought I’d share my sermon with y’all, not because you are churchy, but perhaps you might find resonance with what I am saying. I like to reserve these Friday posts for thinking together and nurturing community and critical thinking. I hope my sermon does that for you!
I’ll be back on Monday with the Contemplative Threads for the Community. Upgrade before Monday to get the Contemplative Threads post! It’s designed to nurture you throughout the week and practice a kind of mindful contemplation for the sake of activism! Then, I’ll write a mid-week piece on the political roundup and what’s facing us; then, I’ll be back next Friday with a Formation post! I really hope each of you are doing well and leaning into the liminal spaces of becoming with one another!
Sermon for United Church of Christ Chapel Hill (please do not quote or cite without permission or attribution)
21 May 2023
Rev. Roberto Che Espinoza, PhD
What Kind of Tables do we have? What Kind of Tables should we have? It’s a question I’ve been asking myself for years. I don’t know that I have the answers to the 2nd question entirely, but I have some thoughts that I’d like to share!
Luke 14 gives us some insights for this question & along with the Bible, I’d like to reflect on some of my lived experience as an activist-scholar to help us imagine another possible world with Tables that are right & just for the world we long for.
We find ourselves in the liminal space of after the resurrection and before the birth of the church, or Pentecost, as the Tradition has called it. It’s the time when the Spirit becomes known in material ways. Yet, we find ourselves in a space & place of liminality. This is nepantla, a Nahuatl term meaning in-between. We have been so focussed on practicing resurrection these last several weeks that we may have lost sight of who’s sitting at our tables. Who’s occupying our time? By whom are we surrounded? So, in this rich space of becoming, this liminal space of not yet, let us ask ourselves: what kind of tables do we have right now and what kind of tables should we have?
