Preacher: Julia BakerScripture: Luke 16:1-13 “You cannot serve God and wealth.” Metal hangers clank against each other. As do those words. It’s a Friday afternoon at Goodwill and I am here after a long hard day of work at the hospital. I rationally tell myself that I am here because I need a dress for…
Tag: Julia Baker
Held in the Tapestry of God’s Peace
Preacher: Julia Baker Scripture: Philippians 4:1-8 When I was 28 a relationship that marked most of my 20’s, with the man I thought I would marry, came to a very ugly and sad end. The morning after I woke, after having sobbed myself to sleep, and the verses we read in Philippians were with me….
The Lord’s Prayer
Preacher: Julia Baker Scripture: Luke 11:1-13 The Lord’s Prayer… At this moment, churches around the globe, in every language are praying this prayer. This beautiful prayer that I would guess has been spoken more than any collection of words in human history. A prayer that, for many of us, we didn’t even memorize consciously but…
God, What Would You Have Us Know Today?
Preacher: Julia Baker Scripture: Luke 8:26-39 The author Elizabeth Gilbert has a practice where she writes letters from God to herself writing at the top of the page — “What would you have me know today”?” I have done this practice over the last years, finding it especially helpful when the press of the world…
The Anointed One
Preacher: Julia Baker Scripture: John 12: 1-8 I keep thinking of Mary walking among the stalls of the marketplace, a year’s worth of wages tucked under her garments. The weight of those coins. The weight of what she knows in the deepest place of her that she must do, her conviction with each step. I…
ALIGNING WITH THE TRUE NORTH OF GOD
By: Julia Baker Colossians 3:12-17 I love this week of Christmastide,there is a liminal nature to these daysthat offer a sacred quiet. The Light has come, we no longer sit in darkness. And we look toward… In these threshold days many of us reflect on the year pastand the one ahead. As I do this…
ALL SAINT’S DAY – Apprenticing to Grief
By: Julia Baker John 11: 32-44 The last 10 years of my life I have been an apprentice to grief. Most of it centered around losing people — through the end of relationships anddeath. Often one grief touches all other pain, the personal tender spills out rubbing up against the grief when I see a…
BEYOND OUR UNDERSTANDING
Phillippians 4:4-9 The day after a relationship ending betrayal — the Spirit gifted me a profound mercy that flowed into my shattered heart and mind. I woke with this verse Philippians — “The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” What shimmered that day to…
Miracle Love
Guest Preacher Julia Baker Backward Miracle Every once in a while we need a backward miracle that will strip language, make it hold for a minute: just the vessel with the wine in it— a sacramental refusal to multiply, reclaiming the single loaf and the single fish thereby. I am often asked what my poems…
Carried in Our Belovedness
Guest Preacher: Julia Baker Mark 3:20-35; Psalm 130 Years ago in a poetry class I was given a prompt to write a letter to America. I chafed at the initial assignment. Immediately all my social critique about our capitalist society with a deeply ingrained military industrial complex and colonizing global presence whooshed into view. As…
Washington City Church of the Brethren 