Scripture: Acts 2:14a, 36-41As the early followers of the Way of Jesus begin their public ministry, Peter preaches to the citizens of Jerusalem. His speech is convicting, but also told from his own experience of having failed along the way… in the complexity of our modern lives, how do we take hope when we have ... Read more
Scripture: John 20:19-29The Rev. James Gertmenian joins us, inviting us into “Upper Room Stories” in the unsettled times after Jesus’s resurrection. Into these times, Jesus comes to offer peace… but a new and different peace that makes a claim on all of us who receive it.
Scripture: Ezekiel 37:1-14The prophet Ezekiel sees a vision of bones coming to life… in a particular place. In times in which we are feeling lifeless, we are invited to remember how God can yet breathe life: into us, into connected community, and into community connected to home and place.
Scripture: John 9:1-41The story of Jesus and a man who was born blind invite us to ask what might be healed beyond sight in Jesus’s healing works. The story also asks us to consider who we make invisible, and how disability has too long been used as a way of erasing and excluding.
Scripture: John 4:5-26Jesus meets a Samaritan woman at a well. After so many years laboring to draw up what will sustain her life amid isolation and pain, can she, can we, believe that God has drawn near to share—and teach us to share—water of life that will nurture us all?
Scripture: John 3:1-17A man named Nicodemus visits Jesus at night, because he is changing his mind, and maybe he doesn’t want anyone to see him change. Jesus describes rebirth in the Spirit as a flow of air or water… how can we be faithful people accustomed to changing, adapting, and growing in faith?
Scripture: Romans 5:12-19As we begin in Lent to retell the story of how Christ’s love reaches beyond those walls we have created between ourselves and God, we begin with Paul’s retelling of Genesis, through which the church has often viewed sin. How can we retell this ancient story of how “things fall apart” in a ... Read more
Scripture: Matthew 17:1-9The story of Jesus’s transfiguration invites us to know that in Christ God has come not to glory in dazzling visions, but to touch us, our lives, and our pain.
Scripture: Deuteronomy 30:15-20God presents the people of Israel with a choice: to walk in paths of life, or paths of death. Yet, many times we shrink back from choosing… why? How does God’s grace allow us to be brave and choose to walk towards life, even when we miss a step?
Scripture: Matthew 5:13-20The Sermon on the Mount continues with a challenge to those who try to follow Jesus: be in the world, but change it, rather than being changed by it. When we sometimes feel small in the face of the sorrows of the world, is there encouragement for us in finding ourselves to be ... Read more
Scripture: Matthew 5:1-12Jesus begins his sermon from a mountainside by proclaiming blessings on people who would be unexpected by the times they lived in. How can we join them today?
Scripture: Matthew 4:12-23The Rev. Charles Erb joins us, offering stories of how disciples have been called through the years. Often by the lakeside, often by church camps, always by Jesus.
Scripture: 1 Corinthians 1:1-9The apostle Paul writes to a divided and dividing church in Corinth, hoping to retell the story of God’s beloved community, and hoping to remind us all that we are all saints when we are united in God’s mutual care for us and calling to us.
Scripture: Matthew 3:13-17As Jesus is baptized in a vision of the Holy Spirit, we might wonder: is this special blessing because of all Jesus will do, or because of all Jesus has been? How can we value the belovedness of each person more than their activity? Can we slow our busy lives enough to make ... Read more
Scripture: Matthew 1:18-25In our Advent and Christmas stories, angels appear in unsettled times with songs of glory and the reminder to, “Be not afraid.” We are called to echo back that song of fearlessness in loving action…
Scripture: Matthew 3:1-12John the Baptist comes proclaiming one who is to come. So often we have heard that cry as one that is coming to judge our spiritual “housekeeping.” Maybe, instead, the invitation is simply to find room for the Holy to be born in us… just as “In the Bleak Midwinter” invites us to ... Read more
Scripture: Isaiah 2:1-5The carol by Christina Rosetti, In the Bleak Midwinter, begins with the world frozen, solid, and unchangeable. Yet Christ will come to this landscape. The prophet Isaiah invites us to imagine the earth itself reshaped according to God’s purpose and care. How can we hold onto a hope that might yet melt all ... Read more
Scripture: John 6:25-355,000 people who have been miraculously fed go seeking Jesus for the recipe for this miracle. Yet Jesus reminds us all that God’s miracle is in the gathering community in which the sharing of daily bread can sustain all.