The Rev. Javier Almendárez Bautista considers Nicodemus (John 3:1-17) and the work of Jean Vanier: “I wonder if in the moments where we each feel the ground shifting beneath our feet, when someone stands before us and challenges the way we think, feel, and act in the world, whether we could hear Jesus in their words, beckoning us forward, urging us again and again to be born anew. I wonder if we, like Nicodemus, could sit more often with the discomfort of not being the expert and truly listen to the Spirit’s movement among us.”

Javier reflects on John 17:6-19. “Years ago, during my first years of seminary, I took my first class in Greek, one of the languages you need to study in order to read ancient manuscripts of scripture. And it was my first fall in North Carolina, which felt an awful lot like summer in Seattle, so the idea of climbing down to a basement classroom to rehearse strange words and grammar and verb conjugations wasn’t exactly ideal.”

The Rev. Javier Almendárez Bautista offers three suggestions for a more peaceful common life (Luke 24:36b-48): “We all bear wounds, proclaiming a peace that we don’t always feel. So what might this peace mean for us today? I’d like to offer a few suggestions… 1) turn off your phone every once in a while, 2) go deeper into your own spiritual life, and 3) go out proclaiming that peace into a world that needs to hear it. It sounds so simple, but it maybe some of the most challenging work we could ever do.”

On Maundy Thursday, the Rev. Javier Almendárez Bautista reflects on John 13:1-17, 31b-35: “This moment feels like the eye of the storm. Jesus, the great teacher and wonderworker, stops for just a moment before the culminating act of his earthly ministry and simply shares a meal with his closest friends.”

On Palm Sunday, the Rev. Javier Almendárez Bautista discusses Mark 14:1-15:47 (The Passion): “It’s all too easy to draw abstract conclusions about the meaning of Jesus’s crucifixion, all too tempting to simply see it as a God who desires punishment… but that is to miss the drama of the story, to miss the fact that before theologians tried to make sense of Jesus’s sacrifice, the disciples found it important to tell and retell and write down the story as they best remembered it.”

The Rev. Javier Almendárez Bautista discusses Genesis 9:8-17 and the story of Noah: “I wonder what it would look like for us to reimagine God back into the picture, to see God as one who is fully invested in the lives of God’s creatures, caring, grieving, remembering, to see God get down and work with us in the dirt, concerned with how our actions impact the world around us.”

Rev. Javier Almendárez Bautista discusses Matthew 6:1-6,16-21.  “The Christian faith is full of symbols that you can touch, feel, smell, and taste. The waters of Baptism, that first moment when people are welcomed into our community: they welcome us in, they are the sustaining force of life….”

The Rev. Javier Almendárez Bautista considers the prophet Jonah: “We are, by nature, picky about our heroes. We tend to have a selective memory of their ascendance and acceptance… It’s much harder for us to imagine what it might look like not simply to acknowledge the prophets who look the part but to hear the people who don’t quite make the cut.”

On the Fourth Sunday of Advent, the Rev. Javier Almendárez Bautista reflects on the Annunciation (Luke 1:26-38): “The way may not open for you and I by way of a burning bush or a pillar of cloud and fire. It may be that your call, much like Mary’s call, will come in the ordinary events of life.”

The Rev. Javier Almendárez Bautista contemplates the beginning of Advent: “The early Christian community had a tradition of observing the Lord’s day on Sunday, the day of Christ’s resurrection, instead of the last day of the week, the Sabbath. They used to call this the eighth day. The cycle of 7 days of creation, broken as it is, redeemed as the inbreaking of a new day shines forth every time we gather together. The eighth day of creation, when things will be made new.”