Sermon archive for category: Rev. Javier Almendárez-Bautista

The Rev. Javier Almendárez-Bautista reflects on how Jesus’s teaching draws us out of isolation and into community in a noisy, easily distracted world where authentic connection takes effort (Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30).

The Rev. Javier Almendárez-Bautista reflects on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:1-21) and the hope it offers for our own broken world: “God doesn’t need more preachers, politicians, or heroes. God just needs you to join the throng of those who have witnessed God’s justice and love, a cloud of witnesses who choose life not in spite of but in the face of calamity, persecution, war, grief, death, and loss. Are you ready to learn new ways of belonging and being together?”

The Rev. Javier Almendárez-Bautista discusses the story of Stephen (Acts 7:55-60) and mourns the recurring violence against black people in our communities: “I am saddened like many of you by what we have lost with the passing of this young man. I am saddened every time lives are stolen from us before we get the full story. I am saddened every time a life is cut short before they get to do the good work they have been placed on this earth to do.”

On Holy Saturday, the Rev. Javier Almendárez-Bautista asks what it means to wait (esperar) for Easter joy to arrive: “The streets are too quiet for me. Where I long to rejoice as Easter bells ring, all I do is dread the alarm of ambulance sirens. The days flow together; the future seems uncertain. I don’t know how to run and tell the good news of Jesus’s resurrection filled with joy. I feel like the best I can manage is to sit still and wait.”

On Palm Sunday, the Rev. Javier Almendárez-Bautista asks “What does Christianity have to say to people who are suffering? What does Jesus have to say not to those of us who are calm, cool, and collected but to those of us who live in fear? That question has been haunting me for the last few weeks.”