SERMONS
Look Up. Look Out.
For the reign of God is here, now. Not up there. Not up in the sky, not some other time and place in the future. But right now the spirit of Christ is among us, empowering us to open our hearts in joy and our hands in service. We are not called to crank our heads up toward the sky looking for Jesus to return, but we are called to joyfully bless God in our service to others who are among us now.
Sermon 2/14/21: "Delight!" (Pr. Michelle Sevig)
The Holy One delights in you. She wraps her arms around you and scoops you into her warm embrace when you are hurting. He sees you when you make mistakes, or bad decisions, and instead of piercing you with a parental stare down, looks at you lovingly with tears in his eye. They give their very life to you in sacrificial love, because you are adored and delighted in by the same God who delights in Jesus.
Sermon 2/23/2020: Bring Your Whole Self (Seminarian Melissa Hrdlicka)
It is terrifying to be vulnerable. It is terrifying to give of yourselves to God and to your communities. But God bends down, touches you on the shoulder and calls to you, “Get up and do not be afraid.” Get up and do not be afraid to bring your whole, beloved, capable and lovable self to God and to this world.
When you bring your whole self, you are transfigured into the person God has been calling you to be since before the day of your baptism.
Step outside your dwelling place, come to the bottom of the mountain. God is calling to you and this community loves you. God and this community is waiting to rejoice with you in the good news, and cry with you in the bad news.
“Get up and do not be afraid.” You are God’s beloved.
Sermon 2/22/2020: Transfigured + Glorious (Seminarian Reed Fowler)
Jesus tells the disciples to not be afraid. To get up. He touches them, a physical moment of connection, and when they look up, Jesus is alone, in his dust-covered clothes, the transfiguration an image of memory. I have to think the disciples are changed by this moment, by witnessing Jesus being so fully himself. That this image, this glimpse, of Jesus fully himself follows them down the mountain, and on the road to Jerusalem. That the disciples hold onto the image of the transfigured Christ and see that even when the world refuses to.