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Sermons by The Rev. Javier Almendárez-Bautista (Page 5)

All Things to All People

The Rev. Javier Almendárez-Bautista discusses Paul’s surprising claim in 1 Corinthians 9:16-23 that he became all things to all people: “The Apostle Paul invites us into a new world. He invites us to become full-fledged citizens of no man’s land, that place that calls all our allegiances into question so that we might truly learn the ways and customs of another. And in this world that offers us impossible and inflexible choices about who we consider a worthwhile ally or a potential adversary, about who is worth our time and who isn’t, what would it look like for you choose otherwise? To become the kind of person willing to love those you weren’t supposed to love?”

A Way Through the Wilderness

On the Second Sunday of Advent, the Rev. Javier Almendárez-Bautista reflects on the strange opening of Jesus’s story in Mark 1:1-8, which begins in the wilderness and asks us if we are willing to follow a wandering Messiah: “the way of Jesus winds its way through the wilderness road, far from the places you know and love.”