Seattle Mennonite Church Sermons

Truth, Lament, and Healing

February 28, 2021 SMC preachers
Seattle Mennonite Church Sermons
Truth, Lament, and Healing
Show Notes

Summary: Jesus tells the truth about the violence his people were both experiencing and perpetrating. That truth-telling leads to lament: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem… How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” And only then, in the wake of truth-telling and collective lament, can people find their way to the imaginative, healing, liberating path of Jesus. The writing of Joanna Lawrence Shenk leads us into engaging some Mennonite-specific truth-telling and lament about Dr. Vincent Harding and his experience as a Black prophetic leader in the mostly white Mennonite Church from the 1960’s on. We want to be willing! May we tell the truth, lament, and courageously find our way along the healing and liberating path to our Mother Hen Jesus’ wings. [sermon begins at 20:15]

Scripture: Luke 13:1-9, 31- 35

Photo: Vincent Harding speaks at the Eighth Mennonite World Conference in Amsterdam, 1967. Box 19, Folder 8. Mennonite World Conference Records, 1923-2012. Mennonite Church USA Archives, Goshen IN.

Permission to podcast the music in this service obtained from One License with license #A-726929. All rights reserved.

  • Together - Text and music: Nathan Grieser 2014, rev. 2018 © 2014
  • As a Sigh Great with Yearning - Text: Pierre Jacob, English adap. Andrew Donaldson, © 2017; Music: Gaetan de Courreges; harm. Didier Godel © 1988

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