Moving to Substack

Thank you for visiting Rev. Mia's sermon blog. I am moving to posting my sermons over on Substack, starting from Sunday, March 9, 2025. You can find them at https://proclaimia.substack.com/.

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Sunday, May 19, 2024 - Holy Listening

This sermon was preached for Day of Pentecost Sunday, May 19, 2024 at St. Mark's, East Longmeadow. The texts for this sermon were: Acts 2:1-21, John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15, and Psalm 104:25-35, 37. May God’s word only be spoken and God’s word only be heard. In seminary and priest training, we spent just about as much time learning how to listen well as we did learning how to speak and teach. This is because the key to all loving relationships is skillful listening. And good connection is all about listening to understand rather than listening to respond. Now one of the most important types of listening priests and chaplains-in-training are drilled on is called reflective listening. At its most basic, reflective listening is simply reflecting back to the people what they just said. Your response is your understanding of what they said. Done without skill, it can sometimes land as sort of annoying. Yes, yes, that’s what I said. But the deeper skill to reflective listening is ...

Sunday, June 2 - Stretch out

This sermon was preached for Sunday, June 2, 2024 at St. Mark's, East Longmeadow. The texts of this sermon were: Psalm 139:1-5, 12-17, 2 Corinthians 4:5-12, and Mark 2:23-3:6. In Rabbi Sharon Brous’ recent book on faith, community, and connection, The Amen Effect, Rabbi Brous tells a story from one of her days as a seminary student. She describes being in the midst of a joyful worship celebration at the synagogue one Saturday. As the congregation burst into spontaneous dancing, she noticed a forlorn figure making her way to her. The woman explained to Brous that her mother had recently died. The mourner wanted to know if it was okay for her to join in the dancing. As a seminary student, Brous began making all sorts of calculations in her head: Jewish mourning customs would prohibit the daughter from dancing so soon after the mother’s death but at the same time, the dancing was in the context of worship…Finally, totally flummoxed and afraid of getting it wrong, Brous po...

Sunday, January 19, 2025 - Replenishing

This sermon was preached for the third Sunday after Epiphany on the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend, Sunday, January 19, 2025. The texts for this sermon were: Isaiah 62:1-5, 1 Corinthians 12:1-11, John 2:1-11, and Psalm 36:5-10. A few years ago a friend and colleague of mine, Mother Emily García, wrote a Godly Play story about the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. for the children of her then parish. She had noticed that her very well-educated students could analyze the political motivations of many important historical figures but weren’t being taught about their religious motivations or theology. Sure enough, she writes about telling this story to a group of students at her church, ages 3 to 8. As she laid out the first image of the story, a photo of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., one student said, “Well, we all know him, but what does Martin Luther King have to do with church?” The story Mother García wrote goes on to answer that st...

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