Recent Sermons

Tonetta Landis-Aina
~ Job 42 ~Final Sermon in Sassy Love, Sacred Faith series ~

Not too long ago, I read of a woman whose teenage son was killed in a car accident, his life cut short much, much too soon (Newsom). On the morning of his funeral, she decided to begin the day by reaching for her Bible. This mother – who must have been dealing with aching despair and the abyss of grief – decided to read the divine

Read More “Sermon- Sassy Love, Sacred Faith 8.5.18”

Tonetta Landis-Aina
~ Job 38-41, Sermon 4 in Sassy Love, Sacred Faith series ~

Cleveland Park, I’m aware that over the course of these last few Sundays you may have grown suspicious of me. I’ve talked to you about the cockamamy book of Job . . . about a nearly incomprehensible conversation in heaven which results in an ethically dubious divine test on earth. And I’ve talked to you about a man who responds to that test with sass, curses,

Read More “Sermon- The Scandal of God’s Freedom 7.29.18”

Tonetta Landis-Aina

What is theodicy?

• Word theodicy was invented by 17^th century thinker, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
  • Made up of two words, “theos” = God/ “dike” = justice
  • The word literally means “justifying God” (Ehrman).
• “Theodicy, in other words, refers to the problem of how God can be ‘just’ or ‘righteous’ given the fact there is so much suffering in the world” (Ehrman 7).
• An attempt “to rationally defend a supposedly all-loving God against the lamentable whys in the world”

Read More “Coffee Hour Conversation- Theodicy 7.22.18”

Tonetta Landis-Aina
~ Job 9:1-4;32-35, Sermon 3 in Sassy Love, Sacred Faith series ~

“I don’t know how my mother walked her trouble down/I don’t know how my father stood his ground/I don’t know how my people survived slavery/I do remember that’s why I believe/I don’t know how the rivers overflow their banks/I don’t know how the snow falls and covers the ground/I don’t know how the hurricane sweeps through the land every now and then/Standing in a rainstorm I

Read More “Sermon- May it Please the Heart”

Tonetta Landis-Aina
~ Job 3, Sermon 2 in Sassy Love, Sacred Faith series ~

July 4th was a good day for me. I spent the morning with my wife and son at the Independence Day parade in Capital Hill. We met up with friends and it was the kind of hot that makes summer burn in the memory with a kind of fond despair. In the evening, we met up with other friends and made the trek to the Jefferson

Read More “Sermon- Cursing Back to Life 7.15.18”