Sermon archive for category: Rev. Javier Almendárez-Bautista

Acts 2:1-21, John 14:8-17, 25-27
I’m going to let you in on a little secret…. Every Pentecost Sunday, at least one person walks up to me just before church begins, brow furrowed with concern. This person is often one of the readers for today and are looking down at their bulletin, mouthing out words: Parthians, Medes, Elamites, Mesopotamia, Judea, and Cappadocia, Pontus, Phrygia, and Pamphilia. How am I supposed to say these words? The secret … is simple. If you say it with confidence, no one will know the difference…

John 5:1-9
Javier reflects on the Gospel reading, where Jesus heals a man who has been an invalid for 38 years.

Luke 24:1-12
Javier discusses his visit to Jerusalem’s Holy Sepulcher and the feeling of being perplexed that Jesus’ message is sometimes not what we expect.

Philippians 3:4b-14
In 2009, a young musician stood before the cream of the crop of the political establishment and announced he was working on a concept album. An album, he noted, of someone whose life embodied hip-hop, Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton. That artist, of course was, Lin-Manuel Miranda, then only 29 years old. And the vennue was the White House during one of President Obama’s first famous poetry jams.

The Rev. Javier Almendárez-Bautista reflects on Luke 9:28-36 (The Transfiguration): “What we call productivity is in reality the noise we make to prove to people that we are worthwhile… I hope that we will make room for being, just being, in a culture obsessed with busyness. I hope that—come what may—Christ may visit us on a lone mountain top and that he may walk down with us, wherever the road may lead.”