More about Pastor Sarah

What I believe about the God who claims us:

I believe in the living and true God who was and is and ever shall be, the God who created the world good and who made everyone equally in God’s image and who is revealed to us in the Scriptures as the Living Word. I believe God is as close to us as breath and yet beyond our ability to comprehend, both immanent and transcendent. God’s sovereign love is a mystery beyond the reach of our minds. 

God cries out to us in a world that is wounded and in need of healing, calling us back to God’s self and inviting us to see and participate in God’s grand vision for creation. Through the prophets, God has over and again revealed to us that what God cares about is justice, mercy, and kindess, not just for those whom we like, or who are like us, but for all of creation. God seeks continually to redeem creation, to mend that which is broken, and to teach us to live not merely in this world but also into the possibility of God’s vision for us. 

I believe that this God walks with us on the journey towards fullness of life, rejoices and laments with us in our joys and our struggles, and persistently works against our complacency while directing our hearts toward the Kingdom of God.

I believe in a God whose reconciling act in Jesus Christ is a mystery, and who loved this world so much as to be willing to die for it. God’s love for us is realized in Jesus Christ, the Word made Flesh, God’s eternal wisdom, the substance of God’s own glory, the one called Immanuel by the prophets. Jesus Christ became just like us when he took on flesh, and gave us an example by giving of himself completely to those whom God loves. Jesus taught his disciples and the crowds who followed him about the mystery of the Kingdom of God, a place where the wounded are made well, the hungry are fed, and those who struggle in this life have everything that they need. Christ called us to have the faith of a child, which I believe is an invitation to view the world with new eyes. Children are more open to wonder, and to mystery, and God calls us to open ourselves to the same. 

The world that Christ saw was broken, but not irredeemable; though wounded, it could be made whole again.  One place where this healing is experienced is in the sacrament of communion. When we gather together at the table, we are brought close to the mystery of God in Christ, and through the power of the Holy Spirit we are again made into one body. We are asked to put down our division, and in humility to take up what unites us. Christ’s act of reconciliation, both in death and life, makes possible the reconciliation of humanity to God through grace, love of justice, and love of neighbor.

I believe in the Holy Spirit who moves within all of God’s creation, comforting us and abiding with us forever. The Holy Spirit is, of course, unpredictable. She moves where she will. She is not bound by convention, or by tradition, or even by “how we have always done things.” But she does create the conditions for deep faithfulness on the part of those who are open to receive her. The Holy Spirit creates and renews the church as the community, encouraging us in our lives as we seek to live more fully in God, with God, of God. 

This same Spirit also has the power to activate and transform the community of God in unexpected and powerful ways.  She speaks to us in God’s established Word as well as in new ways that transcend our categories and that shake us out of our embedded practices toward truer faith and practice. The Holy Spirit guides us in our daily living as divine inspiration, lending us vision and courage as we seek to love our neighbor and our God. The Holy Spirit is especially present in the sacrament of baptism, in which we are transformed by the Spirit as we are reborn into the family of God.

It is this God, a God of infinite love and grace, who inspires me continually to look beyond myself and to participate with my whole mind and soul in the glorious work of reconciling the world.  And so it is God “to whom alone I must cleave, whom alone I must serve, whom only I must worship, and in whom alone I put my trust.”