Paul writes from prison in a tradition repeated since his time by many activists, scholars and prophets of the Gospel. But this letter is less prophetic and more a love letter to a beloved congregation. In the style of Paul's letter to the Christians in Philippi, Pastor Amy writes her own letter of thanksgiving and encouragement to the Mennonites of Seattle. Sermon begins at minute 6:50 Scripture: Philippians 1.1-18a Photo credit Ylanite Koppens Resources Full Text of Pastor Amy's Sermon Hope Is...
May 22, 2022•18 min
What if taking a break is okay? What if being Beloved is enough? Sermon begins at minute 4:09 Acts 17:16-34 BibleWorm podcast: Episode 342 – Paul in Athens , Amy Robertson and Robert Williamson, Jr. “ Nonprofit AF taking a break this week; here’s a picture of a kitten ,” Vu Le, May 8, 2022. “The Love of God” VT 162. Public Domain. Text: F. M. Lehman (USA), c. 1917, stanza 3 based on Rabbi Meir (Germany), “Haddamut,” c. 1050, and Qur’an 31:27 (present-day Saudi Arabia), alt. Music: F. M. Lehman, ...
May 15, 2022•13 min
We zoom in on the powerful image of Paul and Silas, political prisoners, behind bars, surrounded by other prisoners listening to them, as they SING HYMNS to God. They are singing before the miracle. They are singing as strategy, as prayer, and as soul-nourishment individually and collectively. We hear stories from some Mennonite sisters in the contemporary Jesus Uprising, as we ponder our own singing before the miracle, joining the Spirit’s groaning with sighs too deep for words. Sermon begins a...
May 08, 2022•25 min
Rev. Dr. Randy Woodley looks at Luke's story of Jesus' parents losing him on a trip to the Temple in Jerusalem. He reflects on the ways that we can find hope in our younger generations. We may not understand them, but, they are evidencing all kinds of changes in our usual way of being in the world and in religion. Dr. Woodley reflects on what it would mean for The Church to work at being open to the ways that they are already "about their Father's business". They might not frame it that way. Jes...
May 01, 2022•32 min
Yes, it’s exceedingly unfair that Thomas gets such a bad rap. But that’s a sermon that’s been preached a thousand times, including several times by Pastor Megan. Instead, this week she dives deep into what she’d always previously glossed right over. Jesus says to the gathered, frightened, newly Spirit-filled disciples: “As my Abba God sent me, so I am sending you.” With a huge nod to the BibleWorm podcast Scripture geniuses, Pastor Megan wonders what it means to be sent just as Jesus was sent by...
Apr 24, 2022•11 min
Death may not be the end of the story, but death is in the story. Like many of us, Mary is deeply feeling grief, loss and trauma after the loss of a beloved friend. She goes to the tomb, sad and disoriented and from the midst of those feelings, she encounters God. The resurrection joy she experiences does not take away her trauma but it does transform it. God is calling each of our names too, coming alongside and desiring joy and wholeness for all God's children even in the midst of our pain. Jo...
Apr 17, 2022•19 min
Who is Jesus? Throughout John’s gospel, Jesus makes a series of key “I AM…” claims to various groups of people. I AM… the good shepherd, true vine, gate, living water, light of the world, way-truth-life, bread of life, the resurrection and the life. Additionally, John’s gospel begins - in gorgeous poetry - by naming Jesus as Word. Incarnate and embodied Word. Word made flesh, who tented among us. True and living Word. The Empire’s ultimate power over the people is death, and Jesus threatens that...
Apr 10, 2022•22 min
We are in our third week in a row of Jesus’ trial, and the story is getting increasingly painful to endure. If we stick with it enough to actually take it in, to allow ourselves to feel all we feel, we might notice that - while horrific - it’s not actually all that exceptional. Jesus is getting slowly and brutally churned up by the carceral system of his day, in the same way that beloved humans are slowly and brutally churned up by the carceral system of ours. Pastor Megan explores some of those...
Apr 03, 2022•22 min
The scene in Jerusalem during this time of Passover is fraught, and occupying imperial power is tenuous. Crowds travel all across the Judean landscape to convene in Jerusalem for an annual pilgrimage in which they retell a story of their ancestors finding liberation from oppressors. The contemporary oppressive overlords tremble at the prospect that the power of the people may rise up against them. It’s in this context that Jesus is tried by Pilate. The wheels of imperial self-interested violence...
Mar 27, 2022•14 min
On our Lenten journey in John's Gospel, Jesus is falsely arrested and accused for embodying truth that exposes the lies of powerful authorities, while Peter struggles with the call and cost of discipleship. That 1st century struggle between truth and lies is reflected in a 21st century reality in Iraqi Kurdistan, where activists and journalists are falsely arrested, accused, and imprisoned for exposing the lies and corruption of political authorities. The CPT Iraqi Kurdistan team accompanies, ad...
Mar 20, 2022•23 min
Jesus was completely unruly at the margins of one of his community's most sacred celerations. Disruptions to Solemn Ceremony are very unexpected and annoying. But, Pastor Megan invites us to look for the life amongst the disruptions, to find the path of love that allows us to hear what the Disruptors, like Jesus, have to say. Sermon begins at minute 2:20 John 7:37-52 Photo by Thirdman from Pexels...
Feb 20, 2022•25 min
To be frank: John is a bit extra. John’s gospel will take anything that Jesus says or does in Matthew, Mark, or Luke, and turn the dial all the way up to “whaaaat?!” Following the feeding of way-more-than-5000 with 5 barley loaves and 2 dried fish, Jesus begins his discourse with “I AM the bread of life.” Which sounds positively quaint by the time he gets to the rather graphic proclamation that only those who munch on his flesh have life in them; that those who munch on his flesh will have etern...
Feb 13, 2022•27 min
We're all on the lookout for a sign - the thing that tells us we're on the right track, headed in the right direction - even if we're not superstitious. In the Gospel of John, Jesus is performing miracles, but John calls them signs, and they serve that strategic function of pointing the way to the big picture of God's love and God's kin-dom. In today's text, Jesus offers healing to a man's son, not out of compassion but because he sees that through this healing, he can point to the power of God'...
Feb 06, 2022•22 min
Okay, they don’t precisely “walk into a bar”, but they do meet at their local “watering hole”... the well… literally a hole with water in it. Ha! Do I have your attention yet?! Two people like them are NOT supposed to interact at all, but these two beloved humans conspire to cross religio-socio-cultural boundaries to encounter one another: human to human. Neither do they shy away from the most pressing theological dispute that fuels the sometimes violent antagonism between their respective peopl...
Jan 30, 2022•24 min
Pastor Rachael Weasley of Community of Hope in Bellingham reflects on our church and hers, and gives us a teaching from John. She reflects on how this passage qualifies as a parable and on what it teaches us about where the wind, or Spirit, takes us. She brings us double meanings, gratitude for playful spirits and thoughts about how and what we know without seeing. Reflections on our churches begin at 25:34 Sermon begins at 35:47 Rachael Weasley - Pastor of Community of Hope, Bellingham Visit th...
Jan 23, 2022•45 min
We are now a few weeks into the mystical, strange, poetic, beautiful, mysterious, harrowing, polemical, and prophetic Gospel of John. Since we’ll be slowly walking through John’s gospel for the next several months, it seems important to address John’s mixed legacy in Christian history, as well as the fraught context within which John’s gospel was written. Trust me: it’s more interesting than it sounds! May we join John’s central project of pointing toward the Only Begotten, the Word made Body wh...
Jan 09, 2022•23 min
This passage of John continues the story of the "Word Made Flesh" in John 1 with the story of Jesus' first disciples. There are three things Pastor Amy can talk about in this passage from: How the gospel of John is next level (everything in John has multiple meanings), how quality time is Jesus' love language (the disciples who find Jesus abide with him), and how discipleship is like the Spiderverse (just like anyone could be Spiderman, anyone can be a disciple - even you). Scripture: John 1.35-...
Jan 02, 2022•19 min
Our final text in the Hebrew Bible, before arriving at the Gospel of John next week, is the beautiful poetry of Isaiah. We hear of God’s shalom vision: a great feast where thirst is sated and hunger no more; where none has need and we are shown that we’ve always had enough - plenty - abundance for all. As we seek God’s ways and reject all that blocks God’s feast, we become conduits of God’s Life to grow in and through and among us. And then, like the emotional finish line of a long race, creatio...
Dec 12, 2021•15 min
Elijah is having a “No Bones Day” (check out the links re: Noodle the 13-year-old pug to understand this reference!), and his people are having a whole “No Bones” season. Surrounded by the bleak and very dead pile of dried out bones, Elijah has no reason to feel optimism when God asks, “Mortal, can these bones live?” and they so obviously cannot. But Elijah doesn’t need to feel optimism; that’s not what God asks of him, or of us. Instead, God invites Elijah - and each one of us, in our own place...
Dec 06, 2021•16 min
Advent is all about the messy middle. Smack dab in the middle of exile, destruction, and the crumbling of a people’s sense of identity, Jeremiah pens a letter encouraging his kindred to live now , thrive now. Build homes, grow food, and create families, he writes. Don’t wait until you’ve emerged out the other side of this unmooring experience, he seems to say, but claim life now . In your longing and waiting, in your sorrowing and struggle, seek the welfare of the strange new land and unfamiliar...
Nov 28, 2021•16 min
The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. But light is complicated. It can burn and glare. The familiar and beloved song from the prophet is about military conquest and might, a leader whose rule is absolute. Yet it still reflects God desire for a reign of justice and righteousness. Sermon begins at minute 2:30 Isaiah 9.1-7 Woman Walking on Pathway Under The Sun by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels Hymn: Longing for Light , VT 715 or Christ, Be Our Light - Bernadette Farrell. Words an...
Nov 21, 2021•23 min
The prophets bring us beautiful poetry and powerful challenge. Amos is clear that justice must be established at the city gate, at the entry point, at the first. Everything else flows from that. Without justice at the start, God **can’t even** with our worship…! Without justice, our songs and praises are empty at best, nails on a chalkboard at worst. Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream. Sermon begins at minute 1:40 Amos 1.1-2; 5.14-15, 21-24 Photo by Ivan Al...
Nov 14, 2021•15 min
We continue our journey through the Hebrew Bible and hear a story from 1 Kings of God speaking to the prophet Elijah. Listen to our preacher’s reflections on the nature of God, God’s voice, God’s silence, our experience of the pandemic, and how to navigate when God shows up in unexpected and new ways. Sermon begins at minute 4:04 1 Kings 19.1-16 [NRSV] Rain Down , Text and music © 1991, Jaime Cortez. Published by OCP. All rights reserved. [Permission to podcast the music in this service obtained...
Nov 07, 2021•22 min
We remember our beloved saints who have passed on by reflecting on Jesus’ blessing, spoken to those who grieve: You shall laugh. And Jesus’ woe, delivered to those who laugh: You shall grieve. We are each one of us both, of course - those who laugh and those who grieve. Often all at the same time. And even when we experience a (brief) reprieve from one or the other, we are given to one another in community to bear the joys and sorrows of one another. Sermon begins at minute 3:27 Scripture: 1 Kin...
Oct 31, 2021•29 min
You are beloved and God’s Spirit is with you. Y’all are beloved and God’s Spirit is with y’all. We are beloved and God’s Spirit is with us. Sometimes the sermon is a mantra. With a couple of plump, plucked cherries atop. Sermon begins at minute 4:20. Scripture: 1 Samuel 16.1-13; Psalm 51.10-14 Image: Photo by Mae Mu on Unsplash . “Beloved is Where We Begin,” Jan Richardson, from Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons (2015), 96. Bibleworm podcast: Episode 308 - The Anointing of Dav...
Oct 24, 2021•19 min
The story of Samuel and Eli is a study in how to listen and relate not just to God but between generations. It's easy for elders in the church to dismiss those who are young(er) as too inexperienced or idealistic to lead, and for the young to dismiss those who are old(er) as irrelevant or out of touch. What this story teaches us is that listening to each other allows us to hear God and be open to God's invitation. Pastor Amy brings a word of encouragement to each generation to listen with grace ...
Oct 17, 2021•23 min
Though we think of manna as the bread that God rained down on the wandering Israelite community in the wilderness, “manna” was first a question. “What is it?!” The Israelites draw near enough to the strange flaky substance on the ground to ask “Manna?” and in so doing encounter the answer “Manna!” How might this story, along with the crowd asking Jesus for a daily dose of “bread of life”, inform our curiosity about seeking spiritual sustenance for our own lives? Sermon begins at minute 04:06 Scr...
Oct 10, 2021•23 min
Names can shape identity or character in powerful ways. When Moses asks God’s name, God responds with a verb: “I am becoming who I am becoming.” What does it mean, then and now, to be in relationship with a God who claims a name that is an action, a movement, a verb, a becoming… ? Even as we weary of the constant adaptation required of us, especially now , may we experience some comfort knowing that our God is on the move with us. Sermon begins at minute 3:25 Exodus 2:23-25; 3:1-15; 4:10-17 Imag...
Oct 03, 2021•23 min
All of my first-born, rule-following instincts are troubled by this story of a younger son employing devious and conniving tactics to “steal” the blessing of his elder brother. But how was this story liberative to the people who remembered, told, recorded, and passed it down? Looking at the story again, with that question at the fore, reveals the subversion of power structures, within a trickster motif, and the ultimate blessing of ALL. Sermon begins at minute 4:10 Scripture: Genesis 27:1-4, 15-...
Sep 26, 2021•17 min
The history of testing is troubling and it's been revealed how biased and even harmful tests can be. In the familiar passage of the binding of Isaac, God is giving the test. This story of God asking Abraham to sacrifice his child and Abraham proceeding to carry out this test without challenge or question is a troubling one for those of us who believe in a loving and merciful God. We ask, "How could God have done this?" But maybe that's the wrong question. How can we find more liberation in askin...
Sep 19, 2021•22 min
