Archive for the ‘Sermons’ Category

Text: Luke 8:43-48
Location: Chelsea Community Church, New York, NY
Date: September 15th, 2005

I believe that one of the most important things our faith can do to us is to help us pay attention to that which we would not normally pause and observe. Our rituals, our prayers, they are all movements of our bodies and our souls to stretch ourselves into realms of unknown, unthought-of, and unobserved things.

One of the things that I was thought to observe by various women of faith, is the ways in which God reveals Godself in the Bible. I keep asking myself: In what ways God becomes flesh through the bodies and ways of a woman? Catherine Keller says that “The divine is always becoming flesh – what else does the Eros desire? Of course, stories of God becoming Man have eclipsed the revelation of Her becoming Woman. But now, in our becoming, vision begins slowly to clear.” Read the rest of this entry »

Text: Proverbs 15:17
Location: Presbyterian Church Palisades, NY
Date: May 8th, 2005

In Brazil we say that if advices were good they should be sold. Contrary to this saying, the Bible is full of advices and the book of Proverbs is a collection of advices. The writer of the book says that “Fools think their own way is right but the wise listen to advice”. (Proverbs 12:15) Read the rest of this entry »

Text: II Corinthians 6:11-13
Location: Palisades Presbyterian Church, Nyac, NY
Date: March 6th, 2005

When I was a little boy, my mother used to tell me every morning that if I stretched my body three times before getting out of bed, I would become a big boy. I remember stretching my body until I almost disjointed myself because I wanted to be big. I would not get out of bed without stretching three times. Let me tell you a secret: it was not so long ago that I discovered that it wasn’t true. I didn’t actually get any bigger. In any case, the metaphor can be of use here: if we want to grow bigger in any sense, we need to stretch.

In the midst of a long letter to the Corinthians, the apostle Paul reminds the people about something I believe we constantly need to remember: the art and the need of stretching. He says: “… my heart is wild open to you. There is no restriction in our affections but only in yours. In return… open wide your hearts also”. Stretch… open wide Read the rest of this entry »

God: Why have you forsaken us? Tsunami and the Interruption of Our Faith [2]

Prelude – A Halting Song

Introduction – Claudio

Welcome everyone. Right after the beginning of the Iraq war, Prof. Janet Walton asked us all in a lecture she gave, what if we were to worship God with Iraq people? What would it change in our services? This is one question to be thought again today in this service: How to worship God after the Tsunami? How to make sense of our faith after this natural cause that has taken away the lives of 350 thousand people in Asia, and God knows how many more, who were left in despair and unspeakable loss?

It is amazing how much we have already forgotten about the tsunami. What did we do here at Union to help those who were affected by it? Lydia told me that our school has sent U$ 2.000,00 to a relief fund managed by the National Council of Churches. Have you got any e-mail from any professor or even our president about this situation? Well, let’s forget that. Read the rest of this entry »