The Rev. Laura Everett, when not leading the Massachusetts Council of Churches as its executive director, calls herself “a moderately competent seamstress, mender, and textile artist.” She aims to learn with her hands what she longs for in the word: repair.
The theme of repair is central to her sermon series as chaplain-in-residence for Week Eight. She wrote to the Rt. Rev. Eugene Taylor Sutton, senior pastor of Chautauqua, that “we will spend the next week with our eyes up close on the textiles of Scripture, putting our hands on: Tamar’s torn dress, Isaiah’s worn garments, Jesus’s wool of the Good Shepherd, Tabitha’s cloaks for the widows, and the new garments of Revelation. … What God does, what God does before Adam and Eve are cast out, is repair. And beloved, this is fundamental to who God is. God is a mender. God longs to repair.”
Everett will preach at the 10:45 am. Sunday morning ecumenical worship service in the Amphitheater. Her sermon title is “A God Who Repairs.” She will also preach at the 9:15 a.m. morning worship services Monday through Friday in the Amp. Her titles include: “Visible Mending,” “Worn Out,” “Intimate Knowledge,” “Repaired by Community” and “The Promise of Repair.” As a pastoral note, the subject matter of Monday’s sermon is sensitive and may be upsetting, as it deals with the rape of Tamar.
Everett’s work as the executive director of the Massachusetts Council of Churches is focused on reconfiguring historic institutions for the inclusive, antiracist work of the 21st century. Ordained by the United Church of Christ, she is a graduate of Harvard Divinity School and Brown University. Everett serves as a regular teacher for Duke Divinity School’s Foundations of Christian Leadership Program, and co-hosts the podcast “Can These Bones” with Bill Lamar of Faith & Leadership. She believes the work of this moment is to notice and dismantle the racism that has divided this nation and the Church. She’s convinced that if we’re not all free, it isn’t the
gospel truth.
Everett is the author of Holy Spokes: The Search for Urban Spirituality on Two Wheels, and her writing has appeared in Religion News Service, the Christian Century, WBUR, GBH and The Boston Globe.
Everett lives in Boston with her wife Abbi, who has a far more interesting vocation as a public middle school Latin teacher.
