Sermon Archives

hope
April 1, 2018

Last at the Cross, First at the Tomb

I like to think I’m pretty familiar with the women of the Bible. From Ruth, to Deborah, to Tamar, and even Shiphrah and Puah, I’ve read these stories. I know these stories. I’ve thought a lot about these stories. I like to think that I reference them often. And I know that the Black church […]

December 31, 2017

What Makes a Good Life?

What makes for a good life? You can find one vision of a good life at a blog called mrmoneymustache.com. Since 2011 the host of this website, who calls himself Mr. Money Mustache, has been handing out opinioned arguments on how people ought to be managing their money and their work lives. His basic point […]

December 10, 2017

Preparing the Way for Blessedness

What does it mean to be blessed? I feel as if we live in a world where we have a tendency to say things without really thinking about what they mean, and this word is no exception. On Instagram you can find pictures of manicures and pedicures, or family, or even one’s dinner with the […]

December 3, 2017

Enthusiastic Collaborators

What do you think a holy person looks like? When you get to know someone, what clues suggest to you that this person may be holy? Do you know holiness when you see it? Consider Tom. Almost every Sunday, Tom came to church all alone and sat in the same chair. He was a quiet […]

December 18, 2016

Seeds of Hope

A few months ago during sharing time, I spoke about the peace accords in Colombia and how they were drawing to a close. After a war of more than 50 years, a war responsible for displacing 6.4 million people (second only to Syria), the FARC guerrilla group and the government planned to cease hostilities and […]

November 20, 2016

A New Mennonite Disaster Service

During the recent presidential race, a kind of disaster occurred in the American social fabric. It feels that this election cycle was one of the most angry elections in decades. From voters and candidates, we heard appeals to violence, stories of sexual assault and sexual harassment, animosity toward immigrants, hostility toward Muslims, charges of email […]

August 21, 2016

From Suffering to Glory

Many of us in this congregation know a thing or two about suffering. We’ve lived through car accidents that damaged major parts of our bodies. We’ve miscarried children. We’ve endured the surgeries, radiations, and chemotherapies of cancer. We’ve trekked through the desolate territory of cold, bitter relationships. We’ve sat beside people we love who have […]

May 24, 2015

Pursuing Peace, Living Hope

There are so many stories and events from around the world that can leave us feeling hopeless and discouraged. These stories, which we hear and see on the news and internet, which we read in the papers, are all about what’s wrong in the world, where the latest natural disaster has happened, how many casualties […]

March 1, 2015

Grieving Well

On November 11, 1971, my grandmother was killed in a traffic accident. At dusk that evening, she was driving a tractor with a wagon attached behind the tractor. A drunken man, traveling about 60 miles an hour in a zone marked for 40 miles an hour, crashed his car into the back of her wagon. […]

February 22, 2015

The Ritual of Remembering: Funerals and Memorial Services

Today we begin the season of Lent, and we also begin a worship series on the rituals of loss and remembrance; a series on death and dying. You might be asking: Why a death and dying series for Lent? There are a number of reasons we are doing this. One reason for this series is […]

Page 2 of 4