Sermon: "It's the Little Things", Psalm 67/Acts 16:9-15 (May 26, 2019)

(I decided to try recording my sermon on my phone this week, so of course my mom called me right in the middle of preaching 😂 Lesson learned: make sure ALL alerts are off before worship! Enjoy this sermon with its brief comedic interlude...)

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I don’t know if you noticed, but this week’s scripture readings are a pretty dramatic change from the previous several weeks. For most of Eastertide, we’ve been reading long, dramatic stories of epic visions and miracles in the early Church. We’ve seen Peter’s vision inspire the inclusion of gentiles in the Christian movement; we’ve seen him bring a woman back from the dead; we’ve seen Paul transform from a persecutor of Christians to one of their greatest leaders, thanks to a significant team effort; and of course, we’ve seen our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, conquer death itself. But today, we have two brief readings, merely seven verses each. And not only that; they’re kind of…boring. I mean, after a month of dramatic transformations and resurrections and triumph, we get—what?—a song reiterating what we already know about God and a story about Paul chatting with some ladies? Um…no thank you. Can we get some more miracles and crazy visions, please?

Sermon: "You Can't Sit with Us!", Psalm 148/Acts 11:1-18 (May 19, 2019)

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As we approach the end of May, all the graduation announcements and “end-of-school” countdowns from students and teachers alike bring me back to that most magical time of life: high school. Love it or hate it (and I tended towards the latter category most of the time, myself) high school is a time of intensity—intense preparation, intense emotions, intense changes, intense loyalties…but most of all, intense identity politics. Few people can look back on their teenage years without recalling the all-important social hierarchy. (If you’ve blocked those years from your mind and need a refresher, just check out literally any teen comedy movie and it’ll all come flooding back to you.) A lucky few managed to transcend social groups, but for most of us, we knew where we belonged and where we definitely DIDN’T belong. We knew if we were cool or uncool, and if we didn’t necessarily fall neatly into one of those categories, we knew EXACTLY where we landed on the spectrum between the two extremes. 

Sermon: "The New Butterfly Effect", Acts 9:36-42/Revelation 7:9-17 (May 12, 2019)

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Have you ever heard of “The Butterfly Effect”? First identified by meteorologist Edward Lorenz, “The Butterfly Effect” is the idea that if one tiny modification is made in the initial conditions of a system, that change can dramatically alter the result. For example, the flapping of a butterfly’s wings can create miniscule changes in the atmosphere, the effects of which can eventually compound to actually change the trajectory of a massive typhoon. In other words, “The Butterfly Effect” tells us that it’s virtually impossible to predict any result with 100% accuracy, because even the smallest unexpected variation in conditions can have dramatic implications for the outcome. This is why in the 21st century, with all of our technological advances and scientific knowledge, we still aren’t able to predict whether or not it’s going to rain on any given day with any amount of certainty—you never can tell when a mischievous butterfly’s been messing around with the atmosphere. 

Sermon: "Faith Formation is a Team Sport", John 21:1-17/Acts 9:1-20 (May 5, 2019)

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Since I’ve only been here for about five months now, you may not know this about me, but I think it’s time for me to come clean: I have absolutely no interest in sports. Zero. None whatsoever. It doesn’t matter if it’s a team sport, an individual sport, a winter sport, a summer sport, a field sport, a water sport—I just don’t care. And yet, in spite of my resounding indifference to all things athletic, last summer I found myself traveling to Belize on a mission trip in which our primary responsibility was to organize a soccer camp for a community of Mennonite kids. In case you’ve ever doubted that the Holy Spirit has an ironic sense of humor, I offer you exhibit A.

Sermon: "Rock of Ages: Resurrection", Isaiah 65:17-19, 23-25/Luke 24:1-12 (April 21, 2019--Easter Sunday)

(This sermon is the last in our Lenten Series, "Rock of Ages", in which we're exploring how rocks can symbolize different characteristics of God and of ourselves.)

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Over the past six weeks of Lent, we’ve explored all the different things that stones can teach us about our faith. We talked about the pitfalls of wanting to be in control and how fighting God’s sovereignty is like a softer stone trying to scratch a diamond. We discussed how God’s faithfulness doesn’t lift us up and away from our problems but keeps us going in the midst of them, like standing on a submerged rock to keep from drowning. We considered the stones NOT thrown—how we can build the kingdom of God here on earth if we choose to lay down our weapons and use them as building blocks, instead. We gave thanks that commitment to God can make us feel like we’ve come home, and we realized how important it is to surround ourselves with reminders of that commitment, whether in the form of massive stone monuments or in a holy meal or sacred font. On Palm Sunday, we were challenged by Jesus, as we considered whether WE might be the “stones” that he calls upon to shout out in witness to God. And on Maundy Thursday, we remembered that our brokenness doesn’t keep God from using us to build God’s kingdom—we can still be the rock upon which the Church is built, even when we feel deeply flawed and unworthy.

And finally, today we arrive at Jesus’ tomb with the women and see the stone rolled away. Today, the stone reminds us not of our struggles or our brokenness, but of resurrection. Thanks be to God!

Rock of Ages: Maundy Thursday 2019

For the last six weeks, our Lenten theme has been "Rock of Ages". One of the ways we explored this theme was by building a "Prayer Cairn" in the Narthex: people were invited to bring in stones from their homes, their sidewalks, the park, or wherever they found them and put them together in a pile. Each stone represented a particular prayer of the person who brought it in.

People got so creative with their rocks!

I had some stones available if folks forgot to bring theirs in, but I was impressed by how many people remembered, week after week. I also really enjoyed the fact that many people make a point to show me their stones before adding them to the cairn, saying, "Isn't this rock so cool?!?" Personally, I chose my stones based on what caught my eye as I was thinking about a person or situation. I feel like every time I had a prayer on my heart, there'd be a stone lying in the path right ahead of me. It was pretty incredible.

Sermon: "Rock of Ages: Our Brokenness", Numbers 20:2-12/Matthew 16:13-19 (April 18, 2019--Maundy Thursday)

(This sermon is the sixth in our Lenten Series, "Rock of Ages", in which we're exploring how rocks can symbolize different characteristics of God and of ourselves.)

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Have you ever felt like the world was broken?

I remember being a kid and believing that life was fair. It wasn’t an active conclusion that I arrived at; I just assumed that “fair” was the default setting of the world. That as long as you were honest, did your best, and worked hard, everything would always be okay. Jesus loves me, God is good, the world is fair—these are the “truths” that shaped my childhood.

But as I grew up, I began to better understand what really motivates humanity. Justice and mercy are not the universal standards that I once thought they were. People are often far more motivated by greed, self-interest, and fear than by compassion and care for others. Our leaders don’t always have our best interests at heart. Hard work doesn’t always lead to success. Kindness won’t guarantee that others treat me the same. The world that I see reflected around me now is a far cry from the world that I once believed God intended for us. Our world is profoundly, irreparably broken—WE’VE broken it—and it terrifies me.