Seattle Mennonite Church Sermons

Relationships are a primary nourishment and fuel for a transformed community. Paul wrote letters only AFTER he engaged in relationship making. His work was able to flourish because he seeded intentional relationships with people that developed trust. How might we choose to nourish relationships in our lives, with our neighbors, with our community? How might we use Paul as an example to develop good trust in our relationships?Sermon begins at minute marker 4:28Acts 18:1-8Imag...

Just as the Jewish community at Thessalonica was disrupted by the arrival and teachings of Paul and Silas, so, too, are we disrupted by things we often don’t feel prepared for. What does it mean to look disruption in the eye and experience it as an opening for Jesus to enter our lives anew?Sermon begins at 5:03Acts 17:1-9Hymn: Voices Together, 553, How Many Times We Start Again. Text: Thomas H. Troeger (USA), © 2009 Oxford University Press. Music: Scottish traditional, The Scottish Mins...

The crippled man and the disciples both experience surprise and interruption in the norms of what they think might happen for them this day. The man expected the same - people offering him coins or ignoring him. It has been the same day in and day out for years. Peter and John expected to continue in their grieving and confusion at the loss of their mentor and friend Jesus, and planned to go to the temple for a routine prayer service. Neither expectation happens, and t...

In the aftermath of Jesus’ death and resurrection, Jesus offers comfort and presence to his disciples. He continues to remind them he has not come to establish a nation state, rather that the disciples would be the ones to carry forward Jesus’ mission. Requirements for this include more waiting, receiving the power of the Holy Spirit. Devotion to prayer may be what will prepare them for what’s next. But that isn’t here yet. They must prepare themselves to be led by the Holy Spirit. Sermo...

Jesus lives an increasingly life of truth-telling to civic and religious authorities. All the while he enfolds the marginalized and oppressed into a just and merciful embrace of care and love, calling disciples to do the same. Up to his impending death disciples cannot grasp what this will cost him. A woman enacting honor and love provides Jesus’ followers, then and now, with an example of unbridled recognition of who Jesus is. What is imprinted on our being? How can we break alabaster jars t...

News of wars, natural disaster, and human suffering greets us every evening, withoutfail. Where is God in this? Does God not see? Jesus warns his disciples of the temple’sdestruction, and worse, yet to come. Indeed, God in Christ does see what humanbeings are doing to one another. It is we who cannot stand to look, listen, or respond tothe fires, the famines, the faces of suffering around us. And yet, and yet. Jesus comesamong us to announce God is near at hand, God’s gracious will is carryin...

Struck by Mark’s mention that Jesus sits across from the treasury box in the Temple, observing HOW each person gives their money, Pastor Megan ponders what Jesus might observe in how SHE lives with her own money (and for this Way walked together, how WE live with ours). Would Jesus be glad that the widow gives her last mite and has nothing to live on, or might Jesus be praising the widow for revealing - by her courageous and some might even say confrontational act - the baked-in injustice of ...

Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem is a deliberate act of political confrontation with the Roman Empire’s powers-that-be. After casing the mostly deserted late evening Temple, he makes plans to return the next day to make a royal mess of things; to disrupt business as usual. The Way Jesus walks, the Way that Jesus calls us to walk (together!), is a Way lined with palms that leads to confrontation with Empire.Sermon begins at minute marker 5:03Mark 11.1-19ResourcesBibleWorm podcast: Episode 531 – The...

The cries of the suffering are not always polite. When we are suffering, can we let loose and trust our community to hold us? When our neighbors are suffering, can we build our resilience in the face of their screams for justice, for relief, for healing, for mercy?Sermon begins at 6:41ResourcesBibleWorm podcast: Episode 527 – The Healing of Bartimaeus, Amy Robertson and Robert Williamson, Jr.Image: Melissa KellyVT 610 Precious Lord, Take My Hand #73682 Words: Thomas Dorsey, Music: George Alle...

Jesus’ guide for discipleship invites us to rethink our expectations of what discipleship means and who disciples are. Embedded in the invitation is a deep look meeting the soul of our being with enduring love and perpetual hospitality to embrace the next steps of faith-filled following the Jesus Way. Sermon begins at minute marker 5:37Mark 10:17-31 ResourcesBibleWorm podcast: ⦁ Episode 526 – The Eye of the Needle, Amy Robertson and Robert Williamson, Jr.Mark: Believers Church Bibl...

I can talk about a woman who experiences a minimum of three healings in one healing story. The first is busting through all sorts of internal and external barriers to step out her door and into a crowd. The second is reaching for the hem of Jesus’ cloak to seize a cure for her illness. And the third is - with one word - being restored as family, reclaimed as belonging. I can talk about Jesus making a powerful one wait in order to give his full attention and presence to a marginalized one. And...

Tempted to avert our gaze from the mention of “evil spirit” or “demon”, instead Pastor Megan chooses to hold this story’s gaze and look for what may be true… then and now. What is true? What binds humans is indeed legion. What liberates humans is indeed Jesus. Who liberates humans is indeed us. Whew. Buckle up as we explore what makes demons tremble.Sermon begins at minute marker 5:05Mark 5.1-20ResourcesIntersectionality: In the sermon, I credit the origin of intersectionality to the women of...

Jesus' parables meet us in story form about ordinary livelihood understandings. Throwing these stories alongside life experiences of these livelihoods can provide spirit openings to fuller understanding of what it means to be kindom people. With these parables Jesus invites followers to be and embody kindom messaging without expectation and with generosity.Sermon begins at the 9:06 minute markerScripture: Mark 4.1-34Photo by Şahin Sezer Dinçer on pexelsHymn VT 519 God, Give Me Faith Like A Ch...

Christine Sine teaches us about where Jesus was most likely born, how the Inn we traditionally invoke probably wasn't what we consider an Inn at all. She reminds us of the Mennonite tradition of radical hospitality and encourages us into Chalking our doors as a blessing for all who enter our homes and to consider who we might be excluding from those homes and blessings.Sermon begins at minute marker 5:42Matthew 2: 1-12ResourcesBlessing, instructions and image of door chalking Image by Al...

Rita and Janet lead us through reflections for the Christmas season on angels and being angels.Sermon begins at minute marker 7:05Mark 1.1-20ResourcesImage: Photo by Julia Kadel on UnsplashHymn: 266 Where is this Stupendous Stranger. Text: Christopher Smart Hymns and Spiritual Songs ..., 1765, alt. Music: © 1989 Joan Fyock Norris. Permission to podcast the music in this service obtained from One License with license #A-726929. All rights reserved.

Pastor Megan contemplates modern day child prophets and the purposefulness of God coming embodied as a lowly infant. She shares the story of young girls from our community acting on their convictions and their callings. Sermon begins at minute marker 6:12 Luke 1.5-25, 57-80Image: by Anastasia Shuraeva on pexels Hymn: Hymn 223 - Bless’d Be the God of Israel. Text: based on Luke 1:68-79; Michael A. Perry (England), © 1973 Hope Publishing Co. Music: George J. Webb (USA), 1830; The Odeo...

“All of the people shouted with praise to God because the foundation of God’s house had been laid. But many of the older priests and Levites and heads of families, who had seen the first house, wept aloud when they saw the foundation of this house, although many others shouted loudly with joy. No one could distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the people’s weeping, because the people rejoiced very loudly. The sound was heard at a great distance.” Old and young, joy...

Jeremiah pens some of the most beautiful words of hope to his community. But those hope-filled words are smack in the middle of horrors. Pan back even just a few verses, and one can see that Jeremiah is writing from prison, where his people are under siege by the Babylonian Empire, their towns and cities are ravaged, homes and even palaces are in rubble, and the streets are filled with corpses. sigh. What does hope even mean in the context of such devastation and sorrow in Jeremiah’s world an...

When the Very Good King Josiah is informed that a long lost scroll has been found in the dusty corner of a closet, he rends his garments in mourning for himself and for his people. Despite his commitment to just labor practices, and the narrator’s assurance that he did what was right in God’s eyes, the rediscovered scroll of Deuteronomy makes clear that he and his people had been called to an even more radical life of justice-seeking. How might this story speak into our own desire to walk (to...

The prophet Isaiah writes poetry: to express deep love between God and God’s beloveds, to convey heartache, to cleverly and poignantly pierce through word play, to evoke hope and catalyze action, to faithfully proclaim the truest nature of God. If poetry is good enough for Isaiah, pastor Megan suggests, it might just be good enough for us. We hear of sacred love, heartbreak, longing, and conviction from poets Jane Kenyon, Naomi Shihab Nye, Marwan Makhoul, Maxine Hong Kingston, and Lucille Cli...