What More Do We Have to Do? What does the Lord require of us? Most of us know the answer. According to Jesus, we are to love God and love our neighbor. So why is it so hard to do that? Why do we complicate things so much? IF we love and welcome folks, isn’t that enough? What more could…
“Whose Laws, Whose Love?” As our congregation prayerfully ponders becoming a Reconciling Congregation, we’ll try to listen deeply to what Scripture has to say about including those we once thought should be excluded. The story of the Ethiopian Eunuch is a powerful moment in the life of the early Church and has a message for us today. Join us Sunday…
You and Me and All the Saints of God All Saints Day is the moment when we pause and give thanks for the lives of the saints who have died in the last year. But more than that, we give thanks for all of those whose lives inspire us to more faithful live and proclaim the Gospel. And yet more…
…what would it look like to more faithfully share our lives and our possessions with one another?
The Generous Story of God Jesus’ famous saying “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and give to God what belongs to God,” invites us to ask a question “what could Jesus possibly mean, if everything ultimately belongs to God?” As we consider what it means to be faithful stewards of our resources, we’ll wrestle with what it means to be…
In This Together Disability Awareness Sunday reminds us that the Body of Christ includes people with all disabilities and challenges. It is an invitation to consider the ways that God might be calling us to make a way to include every beloved child of God. And finally – do we ever think of Jesus as a homeowner? And what does…
Is it All Rubbish? World Communion Sunday invites us to claim our connection to all Christians and, by extension, to the whole human family. Paul’s letter to the Philippians gives us an interesting perspective on this invitation – he dismisses every authoritative status he might claim as rubbish in the light of the Gospel. It’s a challenging way to think…
Mercy a Million Times Over As we celebrate “Kick Off Sunday” with pancakes (!) we’ll also look at one of the most wondrous and challenging ideas of the Church: forgiveness. The identifying mark of God’s nature is (should be?) the mark of the Church – mercy, grace and forgiveness. Join us Sunday, September 13 at 9:00 live or watch the…
The Only Church Jesus Has With Peter’s confession of Jesus as Lord, Jesus makes plain his explicit plan to establish the Church – the Body who will become the presence of Christ in the world after Jesus’ death. And for better and worse, we are the only Church that Jesus has. Join us Sunday, August 23 at 10:00 live or…
Crumbs Jesus’ encounter with the Syrophoenician woman is rich and confusing text! Why is Jesus being insulting to her? What’s the big deal about healing someone’s child just because she’s not Jewish? And what in the world could this story – set so firmly in the social, political, and religious understanding of the ancient world – have to say to…
Dangerous Waters, Dangerous People This will be pretty explicitly a Reconciling Ministries sermon. Joseph is rejected by his brothers because he is different. And different is scary. So his brothers sell him into slavery. The Disciples on the boat are fearful of the waters surrounding them, but Jesus walks fearlessly amid the storm and waves. We are not called to…
More Than Enough A central theme of Jesus’ teaching about the Kingdom: abundance. If our lives (and our society) is structured in such a way that some go hungry while others feast, we can be sure that it is not God’s vision for how we should live. But the good news is that there is enough and more than enough…