The title Revelation comes from the Greek word apokálypsi, or ‘apocalypse’, which in Greek means literally, the lifting of the veil. Ordinarily, a veil conceals or obscures that which lies beyond it, and when the veil is lifted, one sees clearly. But in this book the reverse is the case. John, the exiled poet of Patmos lifts a veil, and what we see beyond it is exceedingly less clear than what we expected to see… Sermon begins at minute marker 4:32 Scripture: Revelation 13.1–18 Photo by Juan...
Jun 29, 2025•14 min
Join Christine Sine as she reflects on the Tree of Life and Revelation. Revelation 21.1–7, 22-27; 22.1–5 Image: Tree of Life by Gustav Klimt, public domain
Jun 22, 2025•23 min
In our first of a six-week series on “Revelation and Resistance,” we step - with some well earned fear and trembling - into the wild, the wondrous, the terrifying, the evocative world of apocalyptic literature. With so much to UN-learn about the book of Revelation, Pastor Megan invites us to begin again. What IS this ancient genre of literature, why and how was it written, and for whom and what purpose? As a revelation of Jesus the Christ, named in just the first few verses of the book as the ru...
Jun 15, 2025•21 min
Jesus left a legacy of stories, and as Luke ends and we reread Acts and the Epistles, we remember his disciples spread his teachings and established the church by telling his and their stories over and over. During worship this Eastertide season, we have the gift of hearing members of the congregation reflect on the practices that flow from our congregational covenant. Those 11 practices, along with the covenant, were affirmed by the congregation 10 years ago. We invite you to listen deeply to t...
Jun 01, 2025•27 min
Jesus left a legacy of stories, and as Luke ends and we reread Acts and the Epistles, we remember his disciples spread his teachings and established the church by telling his and their stories over and over. During worship this Eastertide season, we have the gift of hearing members of the congregation reflect on the practices that flow from our congregational covenant. Those 11 practices, along with the covenant, were affirmed by the congregation 10 years ago. We invite you to listen deeply to t...
May 25, 2025•27 min
Jesus left a legacy of stories, and as Luke ends and we reread Acts and the Epistles, we remember his disciples spread his teachings and established the church by telling his and their stories over and over. During worship this Eastertide season, we have the gift of hearing members of the congregation reflect on the practices that flow from our congregational covenant. Those 11 practices, along with the covenant, were affirmed by the congregation 10 years ago. We invite you to listen deeply to t...
May 18, 2025•31 min
Jesus left a legacy of stories, and as Luke ends and we reread Acts and the Epistles, we remember his disciples spread his teachings and established the church by telling his and their stories over and over. During worship this Eastertide season, we have the gift of hearing members of the congregation reflect on the practices that flow from our congregational covenant. Those 11 practices, along with the covenant, were affirmed by the congregation 10 years ago. We invite you to listen deeply to t...
May 11, 2025•37 min
Jesus left a legacy of stories, and as Luke ends and we reread Acts and the Epistles, we remember his disciples spread his teachings and established the church by telling his and their stories over and over. During worship this Eastertide season, we have the gift of hearing members of the congregation reflect on the practices that flow from our congregational covenant. Those 11 practices, along with the covenant, were affirmed by the congregation 10 years ago. We invite you to listen deeply to t...
May 04, 2025•32 min
Palmer Becker is a Mennonite pastor and writer whose three-part distillation of Anabaptist values has become a common refrain in Mennonite circles: 1) Jesus is the center of our faith. 2) Community is the center of our life. 3) Reconciliation is the center of our work. And according to Paul’s letter to the church at Corinth, reconciliation is a gift entrusted to us by God. Guest preacher, Randy Detweiler (from AMBS - Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary, Elkhart IN), reflects on reconciliation...
Apr 27, 2025•28 min
“Why do you seek the living among the dead?” sounds like a chastisement. Until we remember that the only reason that ANYone knows that Jesus’ tomb is empty is because a whole crew of faithful women showed up at the place of death, with the intention of attending to the dead. Indeed, it is only by returning again and again to the tombs of today’s Empires that we can be gathered as resurrection communities who follow Jesus’ call to “storm the gates of Hades” which shall never prevail against us. M...
Apr 20, 2025•1 hr 26 min
Join Rita Kowats as she explores the stories of Jesus healing the blind man and seeing Zaccheus. What lessons can we learn from (literally) blind faith and a spiritual curiosity that leads to climbing trees? Luke 18.31—19.10 Resources: Link to sermon text. BibleWorm podcast: Episode 529 – Loving God and Neighbor , Amy Robertson and Robert Williamson, Jr Image: Marvin Meyer on Unsplash...
Apr 16, 2025•16 min
Not a single palm frond or “Hosanna” in this year’s Palm Sunday reading. Luke’s version of Jesus’ procession toward and into Jerusalem instead records people throwing their coats on the ground. Rather than simply reaching for a fallen branch, instead those participating in Jesus’ political street theatre give something of themselves that costs them a little something; the way Pastor Megan’s spontaneously discarded cardigan resulted in a very cold experience of worship. Thank you to the child-pro...
Apr 14, 2025•26 min
This Lukan fable has a pretty clear message: Wealth creates an impassable crevasse between humans. Wealth is only one of the many things that can create impassable crevasses between people; so too can race and religion and immigration status, to name a few more. But I have to believe the fable is ultimately meant to inspire us to bridge crevasses before it’s too late. This sermon will take you to the midnight bedroom of Ebenezer Scrooge, to the summit of Mt. Rainier (aka “mama Tahoma”), to a jai...
Mar 30, 2025•33 min
In today’s parable, Death came to the youngest son, in that far-off land, and asked its question. “I see you’ve become destitute,” said Death. “Here you are very far from home, with no money and no friends. Now that even the pigs eat better than you, do you still believe that life is beautiful?” Perhaps to his own surprise, the son answered Death with a memory of Paradise. “In my father’s house,” said the son, “there were feasts, and friends, and fields. There was music, and dancing, and jewelry...
Mar 23, 2025•20 min
Jesus desires our ingathering, and we so often are not willing. Jesus goes belly up, like a fierce yet vulnerable mother hen in the presence of a fox, ready to take us under the shelter of her wings. Are we willing? And what might we learn from Jesus about lament? Sermon begins at minute marker 6:00 Luke 13.1-8, 31-35 Resources BibleWorm podcast: Episode 631 – A Lament Over Jerusalem , Amy Robertson and Robert Williamson, Jr Barbara Brown Taylor, “As a Hen Gathers her Brood,” The Christian ...
Mar 16, 2025•22 min
One familiar story which contains a familiar parable flows into another familiar story. Is there anything at all new to say about the Samaritan that’s called “good” or the Mary and Martha sisterly tiff? Unclear. But given our deep dive into Luke, and looking for threads, Pastor Megan notices two things: Luke is driving home that 1) we are meant to be moved with compassion, and 2) we are implored to listen to Jesus. Both are imperative in Luke’s gospel, and in Luke’s understanding of what it mean...
Mar 09, 2025•20 min
Visiting guest preacher Rachael Weasley shares about what her queer church plant is up to these days, and explores today's passage in a queer way. Sermon begins at minute marker 3:43. Scripture: Luke 7:36-50 Resources BibleWorm podcast: Episode 529 – Loving God and Neighbor , Amy Robertson and Robert Williamson, Jr https://bcmonline.org/ https://www.journeywithjesus.net/ Image: by Prafull Kawate on Pexels....
Feb 23, 2025•21 min
Fetus John the Baptist knew exactly who Jesus was, according to Luke. Adult John the Baptist sends emissaries to ask Jesus who he is. Jesus does not answer John’s question, but rather instructs the question-askers to simply report what they see and what they hear. It seems that, according to Jesus, his identity must be shown, enacted, embodied for it to be real. Similarly, our Anabaptist faith has a centuries-long history of being done, enacted, embodied. Our faith is a lived faith and has tradi...
Feb 16, 2025•23 min
Jesus sees a woman and is moved with compassion to respond. But what about all the other women, humans, creatures, who also needed his compassionate response??? And what about the root causes of her suffering - Shouldn’t he have fixed the systems instead??? Jesus sees a woman - really looks at her - and is moved to respond. May we who seek to follow Jesus do the same. May we, out of (legitimate!) concern for scalability and systems, never overthink our way to paralysis when given the opportunity...
Feb 09, 2025•16 min
Sabbath was to be the fountain around which the garden of all public life and policy grew in ancient Israel. On six days the people were to work, tending that garden, ensuring its health and growth and accessibility to all people, and on the seventh day they were to participate in the proper end and fulfillment of all work: reception of the fruits of perfect sanctuary. In rabbinic tradition, it is taught that if the people observe Sabbath completely and perfectly even once, the Messiah will come...
Feb 02, 2025•16 min
Three major commemorations converged last week: the birth of the Anabaptist movement, the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. (and the broader movement of which he was part, including our Anabaptist ancestors, Rosemarie and Vincent Harding), and the anniversary of the first national collective action of Mennonite Action. Thanks to the Pastoral Team for Mennonite Action, we notice a thread through these significant commemorations: “the willingness of ordinary people to take actions that simultaneousl...
Jan 26, 2025•25 min
There’s lots going on in this story from Luke, and also in this sermon from Pastor Megan, and also in the story of our Anabaptist roots, and also in the congregational life of Seattle Mennonite Church. It’s all a bit of a mess, to be quite frank. But at the heart of all four stories (the gospel, the sermon, the history, and SMC today) is baptism and the co-creation embedded in a covenant community. Come along for the slightly wild ride! Sermon begins at minute marker 6:22 Luke 3.1-22 Resources B...
Jan 12, 2025•22 min
When the writer of Luke’s gospel litters his stories with the names of politicians and references to their political maneuverings, we are meant to pay attention. When the tale of a 12-year-old Jesus choosing to remain in the temple occurs DURING THE PASSOVER… and IN JERUSALEM… we are meant to notice. It is, after all, bookended with the story Luke will tell at what turns out to be the very end of Jesus’ life, also during the Passover and also in Jerusalem. What occurs in both occasions is a pote...
Jan 05, 2025•25 min
Since at least the 4th century, Simeon’s prayer has been among the last words spoken by Christians each night before the candles of evening prayer are extinguished. His words are the incense the church has sought to breathe while falling asleep and while lying in sleep for centuries: almost as if to say, how could we ever find rest in this world without clinging to our obscure certainty that even as we sleep God will speak her consoling word into all places? This sermon explores our shared longi...
Dec 29, 2024•21 min
As we wait for God’s “Big L” Liberating Love to be fully realized, we are called to BE God’s love of ourselves, for one another, and for all creation. We enter the story of Mary, and then Mary with Elizabeth, to see how this love begets more love and eventually changes the whole world. Sermon begins at minute marker 5:41. Luke 1.26-56 Resources BibleWorm podcast: Episode 617 - The Annunciation of Mary , Amy Robertson and Robert Williamson, Jr “ Continue ” by Maya Angelou Image: Henry Ossawa Tann...
Dec 22, 2024•21 min
Advent is a home for our longing that is at once ancient and new every day. We join our longing for the full inbreaking of God’s justice, peace, and liberating love to the longing of our forebears in the faith. Like them, we continue to wait while also being called into embodying our hope. Not because the conditions seem optimistic, but - in the face of any and all circumstances, with broken hearts - we “nevertheless / even now” enact our collective hope in the world around us. Sermon begins at ...
Dec 18, 2024•26 min
Jesus equips the disciples with power and authority, and then sends them to their ministries with no bread, no staff, no money, not even an extra shirt - nothing. Why? As we prepare to release Tyler to his ministry as our Pastor of Faith Formation, and as we too are released to our individual and collective ministries in the world, what is the wisdom we might glean from Jesus’ approach with the disciples? Sermon begins at minute marker 4:40 Luke 9.1-6 Image: Milada Vigerova on Unsplash Hymn: VT ...
Nov 24, 2024•20 min
What does it mean to sing “Holy holy holy is God” NOT to God, but to one another? Might Isaiah’s magnificent and poetic imagery of the seraphim singing their praise of God’s holiness TO one another be received as an invitation to do the same? Sermon begins at minute marker 4:11 Scripture: Isaiah 6.1-8 Resources BibleWorm podcast: Episode 612 – Here I Am Send Me! , Amy Robertson and Robert Williamson, Jr. “Before I Was a Gazan,” Naomi Shihab Nye, from Everything Comes Next: Collected & N...
Nov 17, 2024•24 min
Jonah sought to protect his own people when God’s compassion and mercy were to extend to the repentant beyond Israel’s borders. Fairness, justice and truth are to be balanced with compassion and mercy by God’s definition and ways rather than our limited vision of who is repentant, when and how. Universal Saving expands when our small actions, reflections and words join together in a chorus of abundant love for all, which is no guarantee of outcome. Sermon starts at minute marker 5:34 Scripture: ...
Nov 10, 2024•30 min
What happens when a raven and a prophet form a little community of care? How about a Hebrew man and Phoenician widow - across religious and political divides? According to our storyteller, the needs of all are met, and the storyteller calls this God’s provision. Might this tale of unlikely dependencies be just the sort of good news we need in these tense and teetering days? Sermon begins at minute marker 3:20 1 Kings 17.1-16 Resources BibleWorm podcast: Episode 610 – Elijah and the Widow of...
Nov 03, 2024•15 min
