One Flesh (A Year W Sermon)

For the beginning of Lent, we're taking it all the way back to The Beginning, when God made the entire variety of human beings from one flesh. Yet ever since, it seems, we have been dividing and categorizing and ranking people because they are different. And from the beginning, women have borne the brunt of that division. But God loves our differences and God doesn't divide. So can we get a do-over? Can we begin again, better?  (Genesis 2:7-9, 15-25) Rev. John MacIver Gage, preaching.This sermon is part of our Year W project, spending a year listening for the voices of women, girls, and the divine feminine in the Bible with the guidance (and translations) of Prof. Wil Gafney and her "A Women's Lectionary for the Whole Church: Year W" (https://bookshop.org/p/books/a-women-s-lectionary-for-the-whole-church-year-w-wilda-c-gafney/17214332?ean=9781640654747)Join us Sundays for worship, LIVE! on-site and online via Zoom @ 10am ET. Connection info at www.NeedhamUCC.org.---The Congregational Church of Needham strives to be a justice-seeking, peace-making, love-affirming, LGBTQ-welcoming, radically-inclusive congregation of the United Church of Christ in Needham, MA.Church is the practice.Love is the point.