A Deeper Dive for Authentic, Hopeful, Worshipful Faith: Recent Episodes
Manito Presbyterian Church
Weekly sermon content from Manito Presbyterian Church in Spokane, WA.
Whatever your past experience church has or has not been, you are invited to be a part of our conversations and happenings. We live in confusing, divisive, isolating times and it is our prayer that you will experience authentic hope in the midst of it all.
We seem to be faced with a fundamental choice of whether we are going to fully embrace the reality that God has placed before us, or choose to believe and act based on the gaslighting of others. This is a primary ethical choice for Christians.
Typically, we are blind to countless evidence of God’s grace; by nature, we are so dull and rebellious of heart that we take for granted our creation, preservation, and salvation as entitlements (cf. Ps 103:2; Isa 40:21; Rom 1:21). In the biblical tradition it is different: “believers do not look at the universe and its fate from the angle of their personal interests but rather contemplate it as it appears in the light of God’s will.” —Clifton Black, quoting Otto Piper
Western culture has tended to be an extroverted culture and a “can-do” culture. Prayer too easily became an attempt to change God and aggrandize ourselves instead of what it was meant to be – an interior practice to change the one who is praying, which will always happen if we stand calmly before this uncanny and utterly safe Presence, allowing the Divine Gaze to invade and heal our unconscious, the place where 95 percent of our motivations and reactions come from. –Richard Rohr
Over time, God transforms our desire to control and exert power over others into a spiritual will to use power for the benefit of others, especially for the undeserving and the "least of these."
“God wants humanity to be His creature. Furthermore, He wants us to be His PARTNER...God wants light, not darkness. He wants cosmos, not chaos. He wants peace, not disorder.” ― Karl Barth
"The covenant is not only quite as old as creation; it is older than it. Before the world was,before heaven and earth were, the resolve or decree of God exists in view of this event in which God willed to hold communion with man, as it became inconceivably true and real in Jesus Christ" -Karl Barth
"On the basis of the eternal will of god we have to think of EVERY HUMAN BEING, even the oddest, most villanous or miserable, as one whom Jesus Christ is Brother and God is Father; and we have to deal with him on this assumtion. If the other person knows that already, then we have to strengthen him in the knowledge. If he does not know it yet or no longer knows it, our buisness is to transmit this knowledge to him." -Karl Barth
"To be pilgrims means that men must perpetually return to the starting-point of that naked humanity which is absolute poverty and utter insecurity...The veritable pinnacle of religious achievement is attaned when men are thrust down into the company of those who lie in the depths. Where this is overlooked, the first must become the last, for only the last can be the first" - Karl Barth
"To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world" - Karl Barth
Creed
God has created the peoples of the earth to be one universal family. In his reconciling love, God overcomes the barriers between sisters and brothers and breaks down every form of discrimination based on racial or ethnic difference, real or imaginary. The church is called to bring all people to receive and uphold one another as persons in all relationships of life: in employment, housing, education, leisure, marriage, family, church, and the exercise of political rights. Therefore, the church labors for the abolition of all racial discrimination and ministers to those injured by it. Congregations, individuals, or groups of Christians who exclude, dominate, or patronize others, however subtly, resist the Spirit of God and bring contempt on the faith which they profess.
Scripture Readings
Karen Bart
Old Testament: Genesis 45:15 (Link to text: https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=611754268)
New Testament:Luke 15:20 (Link to text: https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=611754296)
Homily: To receive and uphold one another
Scott Starbuck
Focus: “The area of the Church stands in the world, as outwardly the Church stands in the village or in a city, beside the school, the cinema and the railway station. The Church’s language cannot aim at being an end in itself. It must be made clear that the Church exists for the sake of the world, that the light is shining in the darkness.” ― Karl Barth
"Religion is the possibility of the removal of every gound of confidence except confidence in God alone." - Karl Barth
"We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousandfibers connect us with our fellows; and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects" -Herman Melville
“Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point.” -C. S. Lewis
“Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him.” -Martin Luther King, Jr.
“The ordinary think inside of the box, the extraordinary think outside of the box, but genius thinks inside, outside, below and above the box.” -Matshona Dhliwayo
Scripture Readings
Shirley Russell
Old Testament: Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18 (Link to text: https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=603296864)
New Testament: Luke 14:28-33 (Link to text: https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=603296917)
Sermon: Detachment or Focus?
Scott Starbuck
Focus:“The terrible thing, the almost impossible thing, is to hand over your whole self–all your wishes and precautions–to Christ.” -C.S. Lewis
“You’ve got to think about big things while doing small things so that all the small things go in the right direction.” -Alvin Toffler
“This is our great challenge and consolation. Jesus comes to us in the poor, the sick, the dying, the prisoners, the lonely, the disabled, the rejected. There we meet him, and there the door to God’s house is opened for us.” Henri Nouwen
"It is said that the age of a tree can be reckoned by looking at the bsrk - one can also truly know a person's age in the good by the inwardness of the repentance."
- Soren Kierkegaard
“The True Self is not our creation, but God's. It is the self we are in our depths. It is our capacity for divinity and transcendence.” -Sue Monk Kid
"Every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving." -Albert Einstein
Old Testament: 1 Samuel 1:1-19 (Link to text: https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=603295174)
New Testament: Luke 18:1-8 (Link to text: https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=603295198)
Sermon: Self Advocacy
Scott Starbuck
Focus: “It keeps our hearts chasing after God's heart. It's how we bother God, and how God bothers us back. There's nothing that works any better than that.” -Barbara Brown Taylor
Scripture Readings
Jill Cathey
Old Testament: Deuteronomy 15:7-11 (Link to text: https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=603295429)
New Testament: Luke 16:1-13 (Link to text: https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=603295453)
Sermon: Heavy Realism
Scott Starbuck
Focus: “Perfect is the enemy of good.” -Voltaire
“Storms of every sort, torrents, earthquakes, cataclysms, 'convulsions of nature,' etc., however mysterious and lawless at first sight they may seem, are only harmonious notes in the song of creation, varied expressions of God's love.” -John Muir
“If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
– African Proverb
The goal of our lives is not simply self agency or mastery but even more surrender to and embrace of God's will and being.
At Christmas, we celebrate and honor those who are culturally considered lowly but are exalted in the love and work of Christ.
Advent is the time of your to hold lights of mercy in any and every darkness to guide all feet in the ways of peace.
Advent means “coming.” Advent is our yearly exercise of preparing our hearts, minds, homes, and schedules for the in-breaking of Jesus Christ.
Therefore, since it is by God's mercy that we are engaged in this ministry, we do not lose hear.
You will know them by their fruits. …A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.
Teacher, we know that you are sincere and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality.
So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Old Testament: Psalm 85 (Link to text: https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=593001011)
New Testament: Romans 6:1b-11 (Link to text: https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=593001062)
‘You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.’ Pilate asked him, ‘What is truth?’
Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.
For God is not a God of disorder but of peace—as in all the congregations of the Lord’s people.
“Faith seeking understanding,” in the words of St Anselm, is our hope. In the meantime, “wax on, wax off…breathe in, breathe out” can help us remember that we are called to live and serve in the present in humility, joy and confidence, because our future is assured through the grace and providence of God.”
Christ made it abundantly clear that only God knows the time and manner in which God’s Kingdom will be (re)established on earth. He also made it abundantly clear that it will happen, Christ will come again to usher it in, and we have been invited to enjoy it with him forever.
While the life and ministry of Jesus happened in a particular moment in human history, Jesus’ work continues, guiding us toward a future that is leading us toward the fulfillment of God’s Kingdom on earth.
Just about everything in our relationship with God is about newness, new-orientation, renewal, and transformation.
What makes us distinctively Christian is what we believe about Jesus of Nazareth.
Thank you to special guest John Owen!
By entering the Life of Christ now, lament moves to praise, and scarcity opens up to abundance!
The Apostles’ Creed offers us a succinct way of understanding what it means to be a Christian. Special thanks to guest pastor John Owen for today's Sermon.
Old Testament: Jonah 4:1–4 (Link to text: https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=578488307)
New Testament: Matthew 28:18-20 (Link to text: https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=578488338)
Sermon: Lord, I can't wait to see their faces, When I get the nerve to say
Focus:Our Lament might expose rot within and missed missional opportunities
“Unless we frankly recognize that Christ's birth and resurrection come forth from places of hopelessness and helplessness, we've not understood their meaning.”
― J. Todd Billings, End of the Christian Life
Suffering is a necessary condition for the human condition, and cognitive suffering is essential for our conversions to follow the messiahship of Jesus Christ.
Scripture Readings
Old Testament: Isaiah 50:4-9a
New Testament: Mark 15:1-39
As Christians, we always confuse the work of Christ on earth as a sign of an earthly kingdom.
Jesus heals our sin by forcing our gaze upon what life, undirected to Jesus, will do to God incarnate in Jesus.
God’s covenantal binding is expressed in interpersonal rather than tribal relationships, but with universal scope.
God transforms the secular motivation for covenant from acquisition, profit, and control to suffering relational love.
In the face of evil and hatred, God unilaterally disarms human ways of responding and chooses, instead, to bind Godself to a covenant of grace.
“There was nothing exalted about Christ’s life and death…unless you had faith to see through them. To stand up in front of people twirling your tongue about them was to parade a fundamental misunderstanding of the gospel.” Barbara Brown Taylor
Scripture Readings
Karen Bart
Old Testament: Psalm 50:1-6 (Link to text: https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=572961664)
New Testament: 2 Corinthians 4:3-6 (Link to text: https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=572961688)
“Christ’s death has somehow put us right with God and has given us a fresh start. Theories as to how it did this are another matter.” --C.S. Lewis
“We become free as we let go of our three primary energy centers: our need for power and control, our need for safety and security, and our need for affection and esteem.” –Richard Rohr
“There is meaning in every journey that is unknown to the traveler.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer
For God’s Christmas to hold seed and bloom, we need to allow our hearts and souls to be plowed through humble repentance and joyous expectation.
Christmas is not something “magical” to divert us from dreary lives, but the joyous consummation of God’s complex relational work with all peoples.
Each Present Christmas Presents the Future Christmas and Culmination in our Lord Jesus Christ.
This movement from self-possession to a more complex, inspired, and receptive vision of things is, I would suggest, relevant to the process that brings Jacob from a discrete, “mind of winter” view of his children to one that allows him to see them as flowing, feeding one another, growing, passionate, and capable of transformations. – Aviva Gotlieb Zornberg
Characteristically, then, Jacob leads from behind: he is the thinker, the one who projects in images and words, the director behind the scenes. This is, properly speaking, the position of the hunter, tracking his prey from the rear. Jacob comes into the world behind: “After that (aharei khen), his brother emerged, holding on to the heel of Esau; so they named him Jacob” (25:26).
Leaving all support systems behind him, Jacob moves into the world of the night. Here, nothing is clear, all is shifting, phantasm, illusion. And here, paradoxically, Jacob finds his ground of truth.
Jacob searches for his authenticity among all the “lendings” of the theatrical wardrobe. What Isaac senses is the “smell of my son,” which transforms the costumes of insincerity. It is ultimately the essence of his son—permeating clothes and skins—that registers as blessing.
-- Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg
Abraham’s laughter, through which he communed with others, was a “pseudo-language,” in which “silence is the essence.” Now this essence is explored to its full, almost intolerable, extent. To live in a world in which the essential is experienced implicitly, wordlessly, is to return to the base out of which laughter, feeding, and ultimately speech emerged. -Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, The Beginning of Desire (p. 172)
"Abraham bears the whole world with him in his personal anguished search. To roam, implies full exposure to the hazards of experience. The resonance of —“fool”—lingers on: the radical “folly” of those who abandon safe structures and fare forth on unmapped roads." -Avivah Gottlieb Zornber, The Beginning of Desire (p. 130)
All the pathologies of openness and closedness relate to imaginative obtuseness. According to the midrash in Bereshit Rabbah (36:1), the Flood people see God as blind, indifferent, callous to the world. What follows is that human beings feel themselves free to be likewise blind, indifferent, and callous. --Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, The Beginning of Desire, p. 56
The powerful implication here is that God’s original intention can be consummated only by Adam’s free perception and desire. Only when Adam comes to feel the solitude of the angelic, unitary existence is he split into two separate beings. He must, in a sense, diminish himself, come to know the rightness of a more complex form of unity. -Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, The Beginning of Desire, p. 37
Throughout our worship series focused on a single psalm each week that becomes part of the New Testament playlist, our regular order of worship has been changed from a linear progression to a kaleidoscopic experience centering on the psalm.
Key changes and new elements include:
Embodiment: the Psalm becomes a spoken Word through deeper congruence with the emotional self.
Meditation: a five-minute moment of silence for reflection and note-taking after the Embodiment which ends with the Passing of the Peace. Please note your feelings and memories in the space provided in the bulletin.
Reflection: a homily suggesting the emotional and theological connection of a section of the psalm with a New Testament writer.
Engagement: The Engagement continues after worship in Discussion in the Gathering Place where others are invited to share their notes and “ah ha’s.” Look for a group gathering at the big table near the stained-glass windows in the Gathering Place.
Throughout our worship series focused on a single psalm each week that becomes part of the New Testament playlist, our regular order of worship has been changed from a linear progression to a kaleidoscopic experience centering on the psalm.
Key changes and new elements include:
Embodiment: the Psalm becomes a spoken Word through deeper congruence with the emotional self.
Meditation: a five-minute moment of silence for reflection and note-taking after the Embodiment which ends with the Passing of the Peace. Please note your feelings and memories in the space provided in the bulletin.
Reflection: a homily suggesting the emotional and theological connection of a section of the psalm with a New Testament writer.
Engagement: The Engagement continues after worship in Discussion in the Gathering Place where others are invited to share their notes and “ah ha’s.” Look for a group gathering at the big table near the stained-glass windows in the Gathering Place.
Throughout our worship series focused on a single psalm each week that becomes part of the New Testament playlist, our regular order of worship has been changed from a linear progression to a kaleidoscopic experience centering on the psalm.
Key changes and new elements include:
Embodiment: the Psalm becomes a spoken Word through deeper congruence with the emotional self.
Meditation: a five-minute moment of silence for reflection and note-taking after the Embodiment which ends with the Passing of the Peace. Please note your feelings and memories in the space provided in the bulletin.
Reflection: a homily suggesting the emotional and theological connection of a section of the psalm with a New Testament writer.
Engagement: The Engagement continues after worship in Discussion in the Gathering Place where others are invited to share their notes and “ah ha’s.” Look for a group gathering at the big table near the stained-glass windows in the Gathering Place.
“To recognize that the Psalms call us to pray and sing at the intersections of the times--of our time and God's time, of the then, and the now, and the not yet--is to understand how those emotions are to be held within the rhythm of a life lived in God's presence.”
― N.T. Wright, The Case for the Psalms: Why They Are Essential
Throughout our worship series focused on a single psalm each week that becomes part of the New Testament playlist, our regular order of worship has been changed from a linear progression to a kaleidoscopic experience centering on the psalm.
Key changes and new elements include:
Embodiment: the Psalm becomes a spoken Word through deeper congruence with the emotional self.
Meditation: a five-minute moment of silence for reflection and note-taking after the Embodiment which ends with the Passing of the Peace. Please note your feelings and memories in the space provided in the bulletin.
Reflection: a homily suggesting the emotional and theological connection of a section of the psalm with a New Testament writer.
Engagement: The Engagement continues after worship in Discussion in the Gathering Place where others are invited to share their notes and “ah ha’s.” Look for a group gathering at the big table near the stained-glass windows in the Gathering Place.
Fools say in their hearts, “There is no God.” They are corrupt; there is no one who does good.
The Lord looks down from heaven on humankind to see if there are any who are wise, who seek after God.
Have they no knowledge, all the evildoers who eat up my people as they eat bread, and do not call upon the Lord?
O that deliverance for Israel would come from Zion! When the Lord restores the fortunes of his people, Jacob will rejoice; Israel will be glad.
In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
Throughout our worship series focused on a single psalm each week that becomes part of the New Testament playlist, our regular order of worship has been changed from a linear progression to a kaleidoscopic experience centering on the psalm.
Key changes and new elements include:
Embodiment: the Psalm becomes a spoken Word through deeper congruence with the emotional self.
Meditation: a five-minute moment of silence for reflection and note-taking after the Embodiment which ends with the Passing of the Peace. Please note your feelings and memories in the space provided in the bulletin.
Reflection: a homily suggesting the emotional and theological connection of a section of the psalm with a New Testament writer.
Engagement: a layperson shares how the particularities of the psalm connect, challenge, trouble, or liberate their own soul. The Engagement continues after worship in Discussion in the Gathering Place where others are invited to share their notes and “ah ha’s.” Look for a group gathering at the big table near the stained-glass windows in the Gathering Place.
Throughout our worship series focused on a single psalm each week that becomes part of the New Testament playlist, our regular order of worship has been changed from a linear progression to a kaleidoscopic experience centering on the psalm.
Key changes and new elements include:
Embodiment: the Psalm becomes a spoken Word through deeper congruence with the emotional self.
Meditation: a five-minute moment of silence for reflection and note-taking after the Embodiment which ends with the Passing of the Peace. Please note your feelings and memories in the space provided in the bulletin.
Reflection: a homily suggesting the emotional and theological connection of a section of the psalm with a New Testament writer.
Engagement: a layperson shares how the particularities of the psalm connect, challenge, trouble, or liberate their own soul. The Engagement continues after worship in Discussion in the Gathering Place where others are invited to share their notes and “ah ha’s.” Look for a group gathering at the big table near the stained-glass windows in the Gathering Place.
Throughout our worship series focused on a single psalm each week that becomes part of the New Testament playlist, our regular order of worship has been changed from a linear progression to a kaleidoscopic experience centering on the psalm.
Key changes and new elements include:
Embodiment: the Psalm becomes a spoken Word through deeper congruence with the emotional self.
Meditation: a five-minute moment of silence for reflection and note-taking after the Embodiment which ends with the Passing of the Peace. Please note your feelings and memories in the space provided in the bulletin.
Reflection: a homily suggesting the emotional and theological connection of a section of the psalm with a New Testament writer.
Engagement: a layperson shares how the particularities of the psalm connect, challenge, trouble, or liberate their own soul. The Engagement continues after worship in Discussion in the Gathering Place where others are invited to share their notes and “ah ha’s.” Look for a group gathering at the big table near the stained-glass windows in the Gathering Place.
Throughout our worship series focused on a single psalm each week that becomes part of the New Testament playlist, our regular order of worship has been changed from a linear progression to a kaleidoscopic experience centering on the psalm.
Key changes and new elements include:
Embodiment: the Psalm becomes a spoken Word through deeper congruence with the emotional self.
Meditation: a five-minute moment of silence for reflection and note-taking after the Embodiment which ends with the Passing of the Peace. Please note your feelings and memories in the space provided in the bulletin.
Reflection: a homily suggesting the emotional and theological connection of a section of the psalm with a New Testament writer.
Engagement: a layperson shares how the particularities of the psalm connect, challenge, trouble, or liberate their own soul. The Engagement continues after worship in Discussion in the Gathering Place where others are invited to share their notes and “ah ha’s.” Look for a group gathering at the big table near the stained-glass windows in the Gathering Place.
“The psalmist is brutally honest about the explosive joy that he’s feeling, and the deep sorrow, or confusion.”
–Bono
“The songs are not pretty. They’re not nice … but they’re honest. I think we’re trying for honesty, which is very, very hard in our culture.”
– Eugene Peterson.
Throughout our worship series focused on a single psalm each week that becomes part of the New Testament playlist, our regular order of worship has been changed from a linear progression to a kaleidoscopic experience centering on the psalm.
Key changes and new elements include:
Embodiment: the Psalm becomes a spoken Word through deeper congruence with the emotional self.
Meditation: a five-minute moment of silence for reflection and note-taking after the Embodiment which ends with the Passing of the Peace. Please note your feelings and memories in the space provided in the bulletin.
Reflection: a homily suggesting the emotional and theological connection of a section of the psalm with a New Testament writer.
Engagement: a layperson shares how the particularities of the psalm connect, challenge, trouble, or liberate their own soul. The Engagement continues after worship in Discussion in the Gathering Place where others are invited to share their notes and “ah ha’s.” Look for a group gathering at the big table near the stained-glass windows in the Gathering Place.
Throughout our worship series focused on a single psalm each week that becomes part of the New Testament playlist, our regular order of worship has been changed from a linear progression to a kaleidoscopic experience centering on the psalm.
Key changes and new elements include:
Embodiment: the Psalm becomes a spoken Word through deeper congruence with the emotional self.
Meditation: a five-minute moment of silence for reflection and note-taking after the Embodiment which ends with the Passing of the Peace. Please note your feelings and memories in the space provided in the bulletin.
Reflection: a homily suggesting the emotional and theological connection of a section of the psalm with a New Testament writer.
Engagement: a layperson shares how the particularities of the psalm connect, challenge, trouble, or liberate their own soul. The Engagement continues after worship in Discussion in the Gathering Place where others are invited to share their notes and “ah ha’s.” Look for a group gathering at the big table near the stained-glass windows in the Gathering Place.
Throughout our worship series focused on a single psalm each week that becomes part of the New Testament playlist, our regular order of worship has been changed from a linear progression to a kaleidoscopic experience centering on the psalm.
Key changes and new elements include:
Embodiment: the Psalm becomes a spoken Word through deeper congruence with the emotional self.
Meditation: a five-minute moment of silence for reflection and note-taking after the Embodiment which ends with the Passing of the Peace. Please note your feelings and memories in the space provided in the bulletin.
Reflection: a homily suggesting the emotional and theological connection of a section of the psalm with a New Testament writer.
Engagement: a layperson shares how the particularities of the psalm connect, challenge, trouble, or liberate their own soul. The Engagement continues after worship in Discussion in the Gathering Place where others are invited to share their notes and “ah ha’s.” Look for a group gathering at the big table near the stained-glass windows in the Gathering Place.
“The glory of God is a human being fully alive,” wrote Irenaeus of Lyons some two thousand years ago. One of the reasons I remain a Christian-in-progress is the peculiar Christian insistence that God is revealed in humankind—not just in human form but also in human being.” ― Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith
The more specific we are, the more universal something can become. Life is in the details. If you generalize, it doesn't resonate. The specificity of it is what resonates.
–Jacqueline Woodson
John Owen -Can we ever really go back to ’the way things were,’ when God’s Spirit is always calling us forward into God’s Kingdom?
A life is either all spiritual or not spiritual at all. No man can serve two masters. Your life is shaped by the end you live for. You are made in the image of what you desire. –Thomas Merton
If a person has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live.
–Martin Luther King, Jr.
There is a divinity that shapes our ends-but we can help by listening for Its voice. —Kathleen Norris
Today we need an "Emmaus road" experience in reverse. The disciples knew Moses and the Prophets but could not conceive how they might relate to Jesus the Christ. The modern church knows Jesus the Christ, but it is fast losing any grasp of Moses and the Prophets. Without the foundation of the Old Testament, we are like the foolish man who built his house on the sand. The house fell with a great crash. —Philip Yancey
“Jesus' willingness to accommodate Thomas' unbelief is a reminder that God can handle our doubt... and that the rationalist doesn't need to see, touch, or run a lab test in order to believe in the resurrected Christ… This is not a plea to accept what goes against reason, but it is an invitation to discover a faith that goes beyond it. The example of Thomas is for the stubborn skeptic in us all.” ― David D. Flowers
The resurrection does not solve our problems about dying and death. It is not the happy ending to our life’s struggle, nor is it the big surprise that God has kept in store for us. No, the resurrection is the expression of God’s faithfulness…. The resurrection is God’s way of revealing to us that nothing that belongs to God will ever go to waste. What belongs to God will never get lost. —Henri Nouwen.
In the presence of his integrity, our own pretense is exposed. In the presence of his constancy, our cowardice is brought to light. In the presence of his fierce love for God and for us, our own hardness of heart is revealed. —Barbara Brown Taylor
The great and merciful surprise is that we come to God, not by doing it right, but by doing it wrong. — Richard Rohr
Rev. Katie Stark, Missional Expeditor
Focus: God is at work in new and surprising ways that look different than the church most of us grew up with.
The Holy Spirit is inviting God’s people into a new imagination of mission and community by sending vulnerable into our midst.
What has happened to our ability to dwell in unknowing, to live inside a question and coexist with the tensions of uncertainty? Where is our willingness to incubate pain and let it birth something new? What has happened to patient unfolding, to endurance? These things are what form the ground of waiting. And if you look carefully, you’ll see that they’re also the seedbed of creativity and growth—what allows us to do the daring and to break through to newness. . . –Sue Monk Kidd
I guess God knew that dualistic thinking would be the direction religion would take. So the Bible says right at the beginning, “Don’t do it!” The word of God is trying to keep us from religion’s constant temptation and failure—a demand for certitude, an undue need for perfect explanation, resolution, and answers, which is, by the way, the exact opposite of faith. Such dualistic thinking (preferring a false either/or to an always complex reality) tends to create arrogant and smug people instead of humble and loving people. – Richard Rohr
The Grace of the Gospel is that it is not of us, controlled by us, or even really understood by us. We need to trust and listen.
The covenantal teachings of Jesus far exceed the expectations of the Pharisees. It is only by joining with Jesus that we can be transformed by his way of love.
Jesus commands us to the most significant work—his work! Being a Christian is participating in the ongoing work of Jesus Christ.
“Awake, sad heart, whom sorrow ever drowns; Take up thine eyes, which feed on earth;
Unfold thy forehead, gathered into frowns; Thy Savior comes, and with him mirth…” -George Herbert
Through the baptism of John the Baptist - Jesus finds his calling, the same way we can find our calling too.
Candlelight Gathering of Remembrance
“Comfort, comfort my people, says God.” There are many moments in our lives when we need comfort.
There are tough times when we yearn for consolation. The suffering people who looked for God’s Messiah were given a hope-filled image of God in the writings of Isaiah. It expresses the belief that no matter what happens to us, God will be there to comfort and support us. Christmas can be a time for many when we are in need of that reassurance and comfort. Perhaps we are grieving over the loss of a loved one, struggling with illness, or have experienced the loss of a job. We wonder how we will get through the holidays.
The signs of Christmas are the signs of healing, forgiveness, and joy; and the redemption of human life and nature. Jesus the Messiah came to bring light into all darkness.
Our Christmas preparations should make room for Jesus the Messiah; both the vulnerability of the baby Christ as well as the missional passion of the grown Jesus.
Despite all the activity that we generate during the Christmas Season, the true “Christmas” arrives according to God’s unpredictable timing and through his unforeseen agency. We are, then, to be ready to receive the Christmas gifts of God.
Having resolved not to “fall “ for false and corrupt shepherds, it is time to hone in, despite all the interference, on the vibrant signal of Jesus Christ!
The Church's commission, which is the foundation of its freedom, consists in this: in Christ's stead, and so in the service of his own Word and work, to deliver all people, through preaching and sacrament, the message of the free grace of God.
We reject the false doctrine that with human vainglory the Church could place the Word and work of the Lord in the service of self- chosen desires, purposes and plans.
Scripture tells us that by divine appointment the State, in this still unredeemed world in which also the Church is situated, has the task of maintaining justice and peace, so far as human discernment and human ability make this possible, by means of the threat and use of force. The Church acknowledges with gratitude and reverence toward God the benefit of this, his appointment. It draws attention to God's Dominion, God's commandment and justice, and with these the responsibility of those who rule and those who are ruled. It trusts and obeys the power of the Word, by which God upholds all things.
We reject the false doctrine that beyond its special commission the State should and could become the sole and total order of human life and so fulfill the vocation of the Church as well.
We reject the false doctrine that beyond its special commission the Church should and could take on the nature, tasks and dignity which belong to the State and thus become itself an organ of the State.
Welcoming the stranger and the refugee is not a super-Christian commitment. It is like welcoming your own family. It is just what we as Christians do.
If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.
Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much.
What does it take for each of us to "pick up our cross" and follow Jesus? Maybe less than you think
“For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted."
"Before I formed you in the womb in knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations."
Let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.
Now you must get rid of all such things - anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language from your mouth.
For though the LORD is high, he regards the lowly; but the haughty he perceives as far away.
Scripture Readings Old Testament: Psalm 27 - Link Here
New Testament:Philippians 2:3-11 - Link Here
Homily - All in All: The Appearing of What Appears John Hoffman
Focus: God's self-outpouring fills all of Creation (including us)! Although we cannot control when or how we will experience the presence of God, by being attentive and by connecting with each other we may become more attuned to the experience of beauty—in which Creation is revealed to us as God's brilliant, unnecessary gift.
Scripture Readings Old Testament: Psalm 8 Link Here
New Testament:1 Corinthians 15:20-28 Link Here
Homily - All in All: Where Are We Going? John Hoffman
Focus: When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to the one who put all things in subjection under him, so that God may be all in all.
Scripture Readings
Old Testament: Genesis 1:26-27, 31; 2:1-3 Link Here
New Testament:Luke 15:1-10 Link Here
Homily - All in All: Image Undivided John Hoffman
Focus: The image of God shines through each person in a unique way—the creation of humanity in God’s image is an ongoing act, which will not be completed until all human beings are fully and freely connected in love to God and each other. Therefore no person may be treated as dispensable or less essential.
Prayer for Illumination
Scripture Readings
Karen Bart
Old Testament: Psalm 16 (Link to text: https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=517594221)
New Testament:Galatians 5:1, 13-25 (Link to text: https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=517594242)
Sermon: A Biblical Perspective on Freedom
Focus: You were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another.
Scripture Readings
Phil Wikoff
Old Testament: Psalm 22:19-28 (Link to text: https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=517594176)
New Testament:Luke 8:26-39 (Link to text: https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=517594199)
Sermon: Tormented by Jesus
Focus: What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me…
Scripture Readings
Katriel Starbuck
Old Testament: Psalm 8 (Link to text: https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=517594137)
New Testament:John 16:12-15 (Link to text: https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=517594157)
Sermon: Personhood: An Antidote to Gaslighting
Focus: When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears…
Scripture Readings
Jay Stafstrom
Old Testament: Psalm 104:24-34, 35b (Link to text: https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=517594080)
New Testament:John 14:8-17, 25-27 (Link to text: https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=517594117)
Homily: Thinking Through What is “Spiritual”
Focus: Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.
Scripture Readings
Ann Hall
Old Testament: Psalm 97 (Leslie F. Brandt's Psalms Now)
New Testament:John 17:20-26 (Link to text: https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=517594059)
Sermon: Being “With”
Focus: As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.
Scripture Readings
Gary Guenther
Old Testament: Psalm 67 (Link to text: https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=517593996)
New Testament:John 14:23-29 (Link to text: https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=517594015)
Sermon: The Word of God
Focus: The Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.
Response: Down in the River to Pray
traditional
Lisa Phillips, Pamela Brownlee, Steve Goodner, Jim Price
Scripture Readings
Doug Hammond
Old Testament: Psalm 148 (Link to text: https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=517593951)
New Testament:John 13:31-35 (Link to text: https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=517593976)
Sermon: Christ’s Mandate
Focus: By this everyone will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another.
Response: We Are One in the Spirit
Scholtes
We are one in the Spirit; we are one in the Lord;
We are one in the Spirit; we are one in the Lord;
And we pray that all unity may one day be restored.
Chorus:
And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love;
Yes, they’ll know we are Christians by our love.
We will walk with each other; we will walk hand in hand;
We will walk with each other; we will walk hand in hand;
And together we’ll spread the news that God is in our land.
(Chorus)
We will work with each other; we will work side by side;
We will work with each other; we will work side by side;
And we’ll guard human dignity and save human pride.
(Chorus)
All praise to the Father, from whom all things come,
And all praise to Christ Jesus, God’s only Son,
And all praise to the Spirit, who makes us one.
(Chorus)
Scripture Readings
Ruth Seignemartin
Old Testament: Psalm 23 (Link to text: https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=517593888)
New Testament:John 10:22-30 (Link to text: https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=517593911)
Sermon: Following Blind
Focus: “My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.”
Response: I Will Follow
Barbour
Pamela Brownlee
Scripture Readings
John Lemm
Old Testament: Psalm 30 (Link to text: https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=517592218)
New Testament:John 21:1-19 (Link to text: https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=517592245)
Homily: Productive Discomfort
Focus: Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?”
Scripture Readings
Betsy Hammond
Old Testament: Isaiah 6 (Link to text: https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=517320941)
New Testament:1 Peter 4:7–11 (Link to text: https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=517320967)
Homily: Biblical Leadership
Focus: Here I Am -- Send me.
Scripture Readings
Karen Bart
Old Testament: Jeremiah 31:1-6 (Link to text:https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=516375488)
New Testament:John 20:1-18 (Link to text: https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=516375516)
Sermon
Easter Mission Possible
Focus: I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.
Response: Christ Has Risen While Earth Slumbers
Bell & Maule/Welsh melody
Lisa Phillips
Christ has risen while earth slumbers; Christ has risen where hope died,
As he said and as he promised, as we doubted and denied.
Let the moon embrace the blessing; let the sun sustain the cheer;
Let the world confirm the rumor: Christ is risen, God is here!
Christ has risen for the people whom he died to love and save;
Christ has risen for the women bringing flowers to grace his grave.
Christ has risen for disciples huddled in an upstairs room.
He whose word inspired creation can’t be silenced by the tomb.
Christ has risen and forever lives to challenge and to change
All whose lives are messed or mangled, all who find religion strange.
Christ is risen, Christ is present making us what he has been:
Evidence of transformation in which God is known and seen.
Scripture Readings
Old Testament: Hymn 232
Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29 (Link to text: https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=515772252)
(Please sing the Refrain when invited.)
Refrain: Hosanna, hosanna, hosanna.
New Testament:
Matthew 21:1-11 (Link to text: https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=515772278)
Jill Cathey
Sermon
Kicking Up the Dirt
Focus: When Jesus entered Jerusalem, he bore their projections of who they wanted him to be just long enough to reveal who he really was, the covenantal messiah!
Response: Recitativo-Fantasia (from Sonata in A Major)
Johannes Kleinmann, cello; Tiffany Wang, piano
Scripture Readings
Steve Blewett
Old Testament: Isaiah 43:16-21 (Link to text: https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=515165674)
New Testament:John 12:1-8 (Link to text: https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=515165699)
Homily
Forget About It!
Focus: Although God’s will is consistently tenacious, the more we repent the newer and fresher our participation in it seems.
Scripture Readings
Jim Price
Old Testament: Joshua 5:9-12 (Link to text: https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=514468764)
New Testament:Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32 (Link to text: https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=514468675)
Sermon
Welcoming those Unexpected
Focus: Too often we find comfort in our status groups, rather than in the unfolding of the Kingdom of God.
Response: Amazing Grace (Hymn 280)
Arr. Excell/Newton
Scripture Readings
Katriel Starbuck
Old Testament: Isaiah 55:1-9 (Link to text: https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=513353207)
New Testament:Luke 13:1-9 (Link to text: https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=513353101)
Sermon
Deciding to lean into our vocation in Christ
Focus: Instead of waiting for “leaders” and “professionals” to get their act together for us, we are to offer Christ-transformative leadership for the world!
Old Testament: Psalm 37:1-11, 39-40 (Link to text: https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=507892198)
New Testament:1 Corinthians 15:35-38, 42-50 (Link to text: https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=507892353)
Sermon
Doubting Thomas or Divine Fool?
Focus: What I am saying, brothers and sisters, is this: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.
By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain.
Old Testament: Isaiah 6:1-13 (Link to text: https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=507891370)
New Testament:1 Corinthians 15:1-11 (Link to text: https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=507891404)