Written by: United Theological Seminary September 27, 2018

“Beloved is Where We Begin”: Sermon by Claire Curran

Beloved is Where We Begin

Claire Curran

Judson Baptist Church, July 23rd, 2017

Perhaps like many of you, I grew up in a small church where I routinely heard, God loves you. And if I’m being honest, I thought, that’s nice. I don’t really know what that means for my life. And I wouldn’t really until this past year, when I went to seminary.

The shift was very subtle. Just two letters actually. B and e, added to loved. Beloved. A lot of my work is writing and communicating the stories of the climate movement. I love words, their shape, sound, and meaning. And there is just something about beloved that gets right to my core, far more than love or loved ever had.

I’ve been trying to sort out why that is. And something about it is that love seemed to be something that happened to you. Where as beloved, is both the truth of who we are, and a way of being. Henri Nouwen, a Dutch Catholic priest writes in his book Life of the Beloved that “from the moment we claim the truth of being the beloved, we are faced with the call to become who we are. Becoming the beloved is the great spiritual journey we have to make.”¹

So all at once, beloved is both who we are, and who we are called to become. It’s not just that God loves us, it is that we are the beloved. But belovedness isn’t a credential on a resume, not a certification course you can take and then check off the list. As Nouwen says, belovedness is the very core of who we are, and we are called to live every more deeply into that belovedness.

You might be thinking: loved, beloved what’s the difference? And why does any of this matter? Especially as justice seeking people, what does this mean for the world we seek?

First, what is inherent in being God’s beloved is that all of God’s creation is beloved. I can’t name my own belovedness, without in turn naming yours. I am not beloved because of any special things I did. Belovedness is grace, given freely to us all. I am because we are, and we are beloved.

Embracing the truth of our belovedness isn’t a flowery, feel good gesture, it is a radical act. The Beguine women knew this well. The Beguines were a lay religious group in late 12th-mid 14th centuries in Northern Europe.² The theology they developed was rooted in their identity as God’s beloved which allowed them to “trust the truth of their own experience and engage in public theological discourse.”³ They saw themselves primarily as God’s beloved, with God’s love and being coursing through their veins, a part of their very being. In naming their belovedness, they named their power and asserted their self determination against the hegemonic powers of their day.

Naming our belovedness tells a new story that directly subverts the story of the domination and oppression. Belovedness is the birthright and truth of every being, of all of creation. This is especially powerful for those of us with oppressed identities. Black Lives Matter. Yes, and more than that, Black Lives are Beloved, worthy, beautiful, infused with the image of God. Queer Lives are Beloved. Indigenous Lives are Beloved. Differently Abled Lives are Beloved. You, dear one, are beloved.

Affirming our belovedness makes social transformation possible. When we know ourselves as beloved, we know ourselves as the loving, justice-making creatures God intends us. That realization calls us into the holy work of social transformation. We cannot work for wholeness and justice in the world when we deny our own belovedness. It’s damaging to our very souls, and cuts us off from our source, our connection to the divine and all of creation.

If we think we can deny the truth of truth of our belovedness, just listen to our psalmist, “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.”

Our belovedness comes from being creatures of God. As the psalmist asks “where can I go from your spirit?” They find no answers. Everywhere we can go, every corner of creation is suffused with the spirit of God. All of creation is God’s and is beloved. We cannot flee from God. Just as God is in creation God is also within each of us.

The psalmist goes on “For you created my inmost being, you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place; when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.”

There’s so much here. First, these two references to God forming us, knitting us in our mother’s womb, in the depths of the earth. For me this reinforces the notion that as much as we are of God, we are also of the earth, and that the earth is beloved. God’s belovedness can be found throughout creation, and in and through creation we are formed, beloved.

Second, we praise God because we are fearfully and wonderfully made. Belovedness is wonderful, pure, and true. For me it’s often also frightening. I am beloved, I am a child of God put on this beloved creation at this distinct moment in time in human history, when we face a crisis like none ever before, poised on the brink of inhabitability for the human species. What then does it mean for me to be who God made me to be, how do I fully live into my belovedness? What is uniquely and urgently mine to do on this earth?

As I hope you can hear, the fear in that is also the wonder and the joy. What does it mean for me to be alive at this time? What does it mean for you to be you, utterly beloved, full of promise and skills and gifts that only you, truly only you can give to this world? The fear is only in that we will not have the strength or courage to answer. And yet again, beloved is where we begin, it is our very being, and our source for the sacred work that is ours to do.

When we source our work for social transformation from an abiding sense of our own belovedness, we are able to fully honor the belovedness of others, and together birth ourselves and the world anew.

You’ve probably heard this quote before, from author Marianne Williamson, who says “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.” What’s really interesting is that for many people, maybe it’s true for you, is that it’s easier to accept that other people are beloved, than to accept that we ourselves are beloved. Perhaps too we are afraid of our own belovedness means for our lives. It might seem easier to hide from the truth of who we are but as our psalmist, and poet Jan Richardson remind us, insistent voices continue to whisper the truth of who we are: beloved.

We are called to be and become, ever more deeply, the beloved. When we do, we don’t stay curled up in our homes, in comfort, resting assured. No belovedness does the very opposite, it sends us out into the world to reclaim and renew the belovedness of all beings. Theologian Cynthia Moe-Lobeda writes, “It seems that the love to which Jesus calls us emerges from a way of perceiving the world and of being in it, as well as a way of acting and feeling in response to it. It is the perception that the neighbor bears infinite worth and is irrevocably beloved by God; she or he is, before all else, a creature beloved by God.”⁴

So my challenge for you today is to see yourself and every being you encounter as God’s beloved. One of my spiritual practices is to see each person as a landscape, because when I look out at the ocean or a mountain or a forest I not only see the richness and beauty of God’s creation I am overwhelmed with a knowing that the world is beloved. And so in the morning I do my best to remind myself: Everyone I meet today is a landscape, within each of them lives a universe of experience, joy, and struggle. They are crevices and canyons and folds, where living waters flow and forests are born. God, help me to see and honor the wholeness of who they are, and who you are in and through them.

Beloved is where we begin. It is who we are, it is who we are called to be in the world. May you slow down to hear the voices of God swirling around you whispering, you dear one, you are my beloved. May you find the strength and courage to bring the truth of your belovedness fully to the world. Amen

Citations:

1. Life of the Beloved, by Henri Nouwen, 2002.

2. Theologian Cynthia Moe-Lobeda discuss the Beguines in her book, Resisting Structural Evil: Love as Ecological-Economic Vocation, 2013.

3. From the Beguine women, quote by Cynthia Moe-Lobeda

4. Resisting Structural Evil: Love as Ecological-Economic Vocation, by Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, 2013.

Claire Curran is Communications and Outreach Manager at Minnesota Interfaith Power & Light. Claire received her BA from Gustavus Adolphus College where she studied Religion and Peace Studies. She is also a dancer and company member at One Dance Company in St. Paul. Claire is pursuing her M.Div. with a concentration in Social Transformation at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities.

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October 9, 2026

Alums Homecoming News Releases

Rev. Dr. A. Leon (Lee) Tredwell (’06) Honored As a 2026 Distinguished Alum

United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities is excited to announce that Rev. A. Leon (Lee) Tredwell, PhD—who earned his MA in Theology and Biblical Interpretation from United in 2006—has been selected as a 2026 Distinguished Alum. An accomplished preacher, teacher, and published author, Dr. Tredwell has championed biblical narratives that affirm the divinity of all people, regardless of their race, creed, color, class, gender, or sexuality. Adopted at age four, Lee was raised in the Baptist faith and felt called to ministry as a child. Even so, after earning a degree in Political Science and Sociology at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, he spent the first ten years of his professional life as a grain trader for Cargill. After connecting with Drs. Ralph and Alika Galloway, Lee found United, and his call was reignited. He remembers Rev. Dr. Carolyn Pressler (Professor Emerita of Biblical Interpretation, 1990–2020) and Dean Richard Weis* with great affection. Both teachers, he observes, “taught us to wrestle with the biblical text until it opened up and spoke.” They also introduced Lee to Black and post-colonial hermeneutics, and Rev. Dr. Weis led him to passages in Jeremiah 38 (Hebrew Bible) that sparked his interest in learning more about a Black character named Ebed-Melech. Lee also cites the influence of Rev. Dr. Christine Smith’s (Professor Emerita of Preaching 1992–2013) preaching courses on his life. In Colorado, at the University of Denver and Iliff School of Theology, Lee completed a joint PhD program with a concentration in Religion and Social Change in 2017. Ronald Smith, a former United student who nominated Lee for this award, notes, “Dr. Tredwell has demonstrated that he is an innovator and compassionate leader who has served both inside the academy as a professor of African American Preaching at Iliff School of Theology, University of Colorado, Boulder, and in the larger community; he has served as [a] pastor, civil rights and human rights activist, and [a] chief executive officer in Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Minnesota, and Texas.” Lee’s new book—Black, Queer and Blessed: My Story and the Biblical Story Churches Don’t Teach—was published in June 2025. As the description reads, “For all who believe God-Yahweh is angry, mad, disgusted, and against LGBTQIA+ folx, regrettably, you been had, misled, took, hood-winked and bamboozled! Black, Queer and Blessed, through lived experience and the excavation of the subjugated biblical narrative of Ebed-Melech, demolishes society’s antiquated mores.” The book is part memoir and part theological reflection on the Ebed-Melech revelation. In addition to his roles as teacher, preacher, and author, Lee has specifically worked to promote adoption of Black children from foster care and create affordable housing. These days, he serves as the pastor of Theology and Community Engagement at Allendale United Methodist Church in St. Petersburg, Florida. As Ronald Smith asserts, “Dr. Tredwell is the embodiment and an exemplar of United Theological Seminary’s mission, vision, and values.” * of blessed memory About United Founded by the United Church of Christ (UCC) as a welcoming, ecumenical school that embraces all denominations and faith traditions, United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities has been on the creative edge of progressive theological thought and leadership since it was established in 1962. Today, United continues to educate leaders who, through the eyes of faith, engage in the dismantling of systems of oppression, explore multi-faith spirituality, and push the boundaries of knowledge.

Lena K. Gardner (’15) Honored As a 2026 Distinguished Alum

[caption id="attachment_11955" align="alignnone" width="1920"] photo by Bethany Birnie[/caption] United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities is thrilled to announce that Lena K. Gardner—who graduated with an MA in Justice and Peace Studies in 2015—has been selected as one of our three 2026 Distinguished Alums. A highly respected social justice activist and community leader, Lena is the co-founder and executive director of Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism (BLUU), a nonprofit founded in 2015 that creates life-giving and life-saving opportunities for spiritual community and Black-centered organizing. According to Rev. Dr. Rebecca Voelkel (’13), Lena has “been a force in the Twin Cities’ religiously rooted justice ecosystem for the last 15 years.” Dr. Voelkel, Lena’s nominator, traces Lena’s justice-organizing acumen back to 2011, when she served on the Faith Organizing Roundtable—a body that coordinated religious communities’ opposition to the anti-marriage amendment. Lena went on to champion marriage equality in the 2012–2013 legislative session. After a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, shot and killed Michael Brown, Jr., an unarmed 18-year-old Black teen, in 2014, Lena played a key role in transforming the Faith Organizing Roundtable into the Multifaith Anti-Racism, Change & Healing or MARCH. “In that same period,” Voelkel notes, “Lena was a core team organizer of Black Lives Matter Minneapolis and served on its steering committee.” Lena was deeply involved, quoted in many national and local articles, and interviewed on Minnesota Public Radio after former police officer Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd in 2020. In April 2021, after a Brooklyn Center police officer killed Daunte Wright during a traffic stop, Lena co-wrote an article in the Sahan Journal demanding that Attorney General Keith Ellison prosecute the case, and that the Hennepin County attorney be removed. More recently, Lena embarked on another ambitious project. In May 2024, through the BLUU Cooperative Housing Initiative, she co-hosted a groundbreaking ceremony for an affordable housing complex for single parents in North Minneapolis. In a MinnPost article about the groundbreaking, Lena explained, “It’s really about trying to give back to one of the communities that made me…. We really see providing stable housing in a cooperative framework as one of the many paths to collective liberation and Black liberation. Ultimately, it’s about self-determination.” When Operation Metro Surge arrived in the Twin Cities in late 2025, Lena took action again. As Voelkel observes, she “returned to the MARCH steering committee…. When MARCH organized a clergy call (in five days) to which 700 clergy came, the ability to create and host such an amazing event owes part of its success to Lena’s relationships with communications specialists, graphic designers, and organizers.” Lena was also a driving force behind Neighbors Helping Neighbors (NHN), a mutual aid group she and Anna Stamborski founded in late 2025 to connect vulnerable ICE-targeted families with congregational networks whose members could provide shopping and transportation services. Through all of Lena’s indefatigable contributions to working for justice, Voelkel asserts, she “has focused on Black excellence, Black power, Black spiritual wholeness, Black beauty, and how non-Black folks can act in solidarity and followership of Black folks, particularly Black queer women. She has done so skillfully through building relationships across differences in ways that facilitate and deepen genuine relationships.”

Cori Berg (’98) Honored As a 2026 Distinguished Alum

United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities is elated to announce that Cori Berg (’98)—advocate, artist, and educator—is a 2026 Distinguished Alum. Cori earned her Master of Arts (MA) in Theology and the Arts in 1998, and for more than 27 years, she has integrated creativity, art, and spirituality into her field. Cori arrived at United in the 1990s, having majored in theater and minored in studio art during her undergraduate studies. “I knew I had an artistic voice,” she recalls, “but it didn’t make sense in any of the traditional contexts.” After seeing an advertisement for United’s Theology and the Arts program, Cori drove from Dallas to the Twin Cities to visit as a prospective student. A campus art exhibit by Merle Janis was all she needed to see—“this school had something I needed: strength, boldness, vulnerability.” For Cori, “life is liturgy.” She credits United with introducing her to “the freedom in a progressive faith.” At United, Cori learned to expand her creativity, which became a launching pad for a vibrant career. “United gave me a safe, nurturing space to explore, dream, and execute big things,” she writes. “I’ve continued that through the rest of my career as an artist, an educator, an administrator, and a speaker.” Art is central to Cori’s work and features prominently in her curriculum development for children. Her art was featured in the 2012 opening parade for the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge in Dallas, TX, a project that involved “seniors, children, and adults in all aspects” from a local Methodist community program. Ministry with Children and Spirituality, courses taught by Rev. Dr. Barbara Anne Keely (Professor Emerita, 1991–2015), were particularly formative for Cori’s future in education. “I remember she taught us to get on the floor and view the church nursery from a baby’s point of view,” Cori reflects. “I use this today over and over as I teach early childhood educators…. She introduced the idea of seeing oneself not as a separate body, mind, or spirit, but when one part of my being is suffering, to use the other parts to help lift that part.” More recently, Cori has been an active community member at Dallas Meditation Center, where she is known for her moving dharma talks that weave Buddhist themes into contemporary storytelling. In public schools and congregational settings, Cori has applied what she learned as a United student to the field of early childhood education, for which—nominator Rev. Jim Peck (’99) points out—she has become “one of the nation’s leading advocates.” When facing challenges in the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic, Cori leveraged her ingenuity and creative vision to support educators with online training resources. As a teacher and an administrator in spaces where lack of institutional funding and support are commonplace, Jim observes, “she uses her [United] education to work for justice and equity,” to “nurture relationships in the early childhood settings where she has served, with an expertise in working in settings in crisis to encourage recovery, healing, and new paths for serving the future.” In May 2026, Cori completed her MEd in Curriculum and Instruction at American College of Education, where she immediately enrolled to begin her EdD in Early Childhood Education. She serves as an executive director at the University of Kansas (KU) and anticipates returning to Dallas to live near her family at the end of the year while awaiting her next opportunity. We are delighted to celebrate Cori and her decades of faithful, innovative leadership in the field of early childhood education and art. About United Founded by the United Church of Christ (UCC) as a welcoming, ecumenical school that embraces all denominations and faith traditions, United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities has been on the creative edge of progressive theological thought and leadership since it was established in 1962. Today, United continues to educate leaders who, through the eyes of faith, engage in the dismantling of systems of oppression, explore multi-faith spirituality, and push the boundaries of knowledge.