Preaching Exilic Hope in the Climate Crisis
November 1, 2023 : 10:00 - 11:30 am by Zoom
One of the reasons pastors avoid preaching about the climate crisis is that breadth and depth of the questions it surfaces. These questions are less about policy and more about our deepest theological convictions. They are questions of human purpose, Christian hope, and the character of God. The biblical text is not afraid of such questions. This workshop will lift up the scriptural witness of God’s exiled people as a model for preaching exilic hope in the face of ecological loss.
Facilitator: The Rev. Dr. Jerusha Matsen Neal
Jerusha Matsen Neal, Assistant Professor of Homiletics at Duke Divinity School, is an ordained ABC(USA) pastor who has served as a Global Ministries mission partner in the Fiji Islands through the United Methodist Church. She has spent her ministry preaching in cross-cultural spaces and bridging denominational communities.
Her book, The Overshadowed Preacher: Mary, the Spirit, and the Labor of Proclamation (Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2020) challenges preachers to leave behind false shadows of approval to embrace the overshadowing Spirit of God. The book she is currently writing, Holy Ground: Preaching, Climate Change, and the Apocalypse of Place (Baylor University Press) engages the climate crisis through the sermons of South Pacific communities displaced by rising tides. A former actress and playwright, she has also authored a collection of dramatic monologues, Blessed: Monologues for Mary (Cascade, 2012).
This workshop is part of a monthly workshop series on preaching, the first Wednesday of every month from 10:00 to 11:30 am. For an overview of the series, Click Here