SIM News

From Law to Love in Action - The Rev. Sifontes

12/17/25

The Rev. Marisa Sifontes, Associate Rector of St. James Madison Avenue, New York, NY, shares her gratitude for funding that enabled not only her receiving an M.Div. but additional credentialing in justice, peace-building, and conflict transformation. This certificate rendered skills that she says, “I use every day in assisting my congregation to live into the Baptismal Covenant – seeking and serving Christ in all persons and respecting the dignity of every human being.”

As one of SIM’s first Becoming Beloved Community scholars, Marisa exchanged a distinguished legal career for service in Christ’s body after a very thorough and considered journey of discernment. The passion that drove her former career meets the passion that is her pastoral calling in a Law Day address for the Diocese of New York. There she relates that respect for and hallowing of the law must, sooner or later, intersect with justice because,

   “…Much like theology, the law is a living breathing thing — because it applies to living, breathing people. Which means those who work in law must remember that the basis for our statutes and regulations — and even the common law principles we apply — they all have a common root in justice. And what is justice if not the vision of God’s love made real in the world? It is putting into action the commandment Jesus gave us — that we do unto others what we would want done to us.”

Especially when the temptation arises to skirt the law’s just intent or become “silent in evil times,” Marisa offers encouragement to those who “have taken and will continue to take our places among those who speak the truth and make God’s justice real.”

SIM offers its gratitude for Marisa as, in the words of our colleague The Rev. Canon Stephanie Spellers, “the kind of leader we need right now.”

Read Marisa’s Law Day address in The SIMinarian.