A manuscript for this sermon is not available, however, you may listen to the audio of the sermon or watch the video of the entire liturgy, both linked in this post.
Sermon 3/8/2020: Comfort When Lost (Seminarian Troy Spencer)
Sermon 3/15/2020: Love Not Canceled (Pr. Michelle Sevig)
Church gatherings may be canceled for a bit, but we can still be part of the restorative work of connecting with and loving one another so that no one need be isolated during this time of confusion, frustration and uncertainty.
God’s love for humanity is not canceled. God is not distant, but as close to you as your own breath; wiping away your tears, calming your fears, embracing you with a love that is stronger than death.
Let’s all together, virtually through Facebookland, take a deep breath…
Breathe in…Breathe out.
The Holy One is here, offering you the water of life.
God’s love is like a deep well, that never ever runs dry.
Sermon 3/7/2020: Conversations by Night (Seminarian Sarah Krolak)
Doubt, fear, shame, questions, pulling back or taking space away – all of these are a normal part of our waxing and waning lives of faith. Sometimes, we, like Nicodemus, come to Jesus in the night. Whether literally or figuratively, we have all experienced a nighttime like this. But the night is a great time for conversations. The night led my friend Kate and I to deeper friendship. The night led Nicodemus to Jesus to ask questions that he might not have asked otherwise. And the night isn’t only a place of questions or doubt or fear. It is also a place of storytelling. The night holds creative power.
Sermon 3/1/2020: The Nature of Lent (Pr. Craig Mueller)
Welcome to your vision quest in the Lenten wilderness. Find some time alone. Find some time outside. Then find some time to be here in community. Here we will lament the worst of human nature, while celebrating that we are created in the image of God. Here we will face our mortality, name our losses, and grieve the ways human beings treat the earth and one another. Here we seek to worship God alone. Here God nourishes us with the word and the bread of life. When we reach Easter, we may emerge with a different version or ourselves, our true nature.
Sermon 2/29/2020: The Wilderness Inside (Pr. Ben Adams)
The internal wildernesses we dwell in must be named, must be shared, whether it is with a friend or family member, an anti-racism caucus, a licensed counselor or psychotherapist, or even here in this community of faith. People are suffering in their internal wildernesses, and because we don’t have safe and trustworthy spaces to share that suffering with others healthily, we transmit it to others in unhealthy ways. The wilderness can be a terrifying and tempting place, but together with God we can accompany through the wildernesses of our lives. And God knows the depths of our wildernesses. God in the person of Jesus Christ was led into the wilderness and was tempted. And because Jesus suffered in the wilderness, the wilderness can be redeemed.
Sermon 2/26/2020: Blessed Ash Wednesday (Pr. Ben Adams)
When we say to one another to “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” We are offering an invitation into a honest, blessed life that does not embrace death, rejoice in it, or welcome it, but holds death with a holy reverence and deep ritual. Death in this way does not have to be disregarded, but honestly acknowledged as we hold up the truth that through reality death will we experience the promise of the resurrection. It is with this faithful conviction, that we do not have to fear death.
Sermon 2/26/2020: #InvisibleCrosses (Pr. Michelle Sevig)
Today we remember that dust and ashes are Good News. They point us toward the power and love of God - both at the beginning and the end. They remind us that God is with us as we live between dust and dust, and that today and always, we are called to repent and return. Turn toward the one who created and keeps us in love's embrace.
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.
Sermon 2/16/2020: Getting a Reaction Out of You (Pr. Craig Mueller)
Choose life! God desires shalom, a beloved community, a way of life that honors the dignity of all people. Rather than treating people like they are disposable, Jesus calls us to a righteousness that reflects the very heart of God. We call it the baptismal life.
I don’t know about you, but that’s why I need a community of faith. I can’t do it on my own. We practice our faith together. We take deep breaths together. We make a difference together. We confess our sins and faults together. We stand against injustice, not with contempt for those with different viewpoints, but with empathy for the brokenness under the surface.
Sermon 2/9/2020: Fire Starters (Pr. Ben Adams)
Let the light of your fire shine bright for all to see, loose the bonds of injustice, undo the thongs of the yoke, let the oppressed go free, break every yoke, share your bread with the hungry, bring the homeless poor into your house, when you see the naked, cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin. Then your light shall break forth like the dawn!
Sermon 02/01/2020: Pure Lies (Pr. Ben Adams)
Destructive purity binaries have separated us from one another and from our own bodies, and it’s time for us to experience true holiness through the pure, connecting, unifying love of God that holds us all in its divine embrace. We are beautifully complex people and it is wrong and dishonest to label ourselves according to a binary that disregards our complex humanity. We are not pure or impure, we simply are, and God has called us good
Sermon 02/02/2020: You Can Go Now (Pr. Craig Mueller)
God comes among you with comfort and hope. In word and sacrament, Christ is presented to you this day. With your eyes you see the promised One and at this table you receive his body in your hands as well. Even when all seems hopeless, we come together to hear again of God’s faithfulness, evermore and evermore. Oh, that we might live with such trust, as did Simeon and Anna. At the end of the liturgy each week is the dismissal. Go in peace. In other words, you can go now. Go to serve. Go with gratitude. Go with faith and hope and trust! Evermore and evermore.
Sermon 1/26/20: Simply BE (Pr. Michelle Sevig)
And when we affirm our baptism we’re asked, “Will you live among God’s faithful people, hear the word of God and share in the supper, proclaim and serve, and strive for justice and peace? So instead of job interview questions, let’s think of these questions and the promises of our call. Let’s tell baptism stories and remember our call to be, simply be, children of God.
Sermon 1/18/20: God's Secret Weapons of Non-Violence (Pr. Ben Adams)
Christian love operating through the Gandhian method of non-violence was one of the most potent weapons available to oppressed people. As God’s secret weapon, Martin Luther King, Jr. shows us how powerful non-violence can actually be when it becomes our secret weapon in bloodthirsty world. But the violence of this world eventually did take the life of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Despite his total commitment to non-violence, he was assassinated by a violent man with a single shot fired from his Remington rifle. King was yet another victim sacrificed on the altar of American violence. As followers of Christ, the Lamb of God, we must be like non-violent secret weapons of God destroying the altars and the idols we are sacrificing our own to. Because Jesus was the final sacrifice. Jesus’s death on the cross was meant to end all other sacrifices.
Sermon 1/19/20: What are you looking for? (Pr. Craig Mueller)
What are you looking for? Not just size twelve. Not just an iPhone in green. Not just the restaurant with the best Yelp review. What are you really looking for? What is most essential for you to grow and thrive and serve? What a gift that we can take a few moments on a Sunday morning to turn off the distractions and turn off the commercials and listen for God. And hear again the invitation: Come and see! Come, hear the good news. Come, remember your baptism. Come, eat, and drink. Come, be refreshed, and then depart to share in God’s liberation project for our world!
Sermon 1/12/20: Finding Your Voice (Pr. Craig Mueller)
When the voices in your head are overwhelming . . . when you don’t know what to make of the myriad voices in the news and in your feeds, come to this sacred space to listen. When your voice cracks and croaks under the strain of life, listen to the still, small voice within. Listen to the divine voice announcing forgiveness and grace. Listen to the radical message of impartiality that proclaims all are created in God’s image. Listen to the voice of hope that envisions a different future even when everyone else is shouting that the world is falling apart. The voice of the Lord is upon the waters. Jesus rises from the river with a voice—an identity, a calling. And we, too, find our voice. In baptism. Here. Together.
Sermon 1/4/20: The Gravitational Center of Grace (Pr. Ben Adams)
With our compasses oriented to the gravity of grace encountered in Christ, new roads emerge for us personally and collectively. And even when we lack the hope and strength to continue our journey, we can trust that the gravitational center of grace in Christ continues to hold us in orbit. And even in this new year with all it’s early tumult, God will continue to carry us in Grace through 2020. Sometimes moving within this graceful orbit will look like disobedience when unjust rulers issue deathly orders, but by these new roads we will experience life and love abundant. Whatever the circumstance, may the light and warmth of Jesus Christ, our gravitational center of grace, shine on us and reflect off of us for all in our orbit to experience.
Sermon 12/25/19: Lullaby Love Songs (Pr. Michelle Sevig)
On this most Holy Day, we sing God’s love song of word becoming flesh and living among us, full of grace and truth. Darkness has not overcome him. Other voices have not drowned him out. God’s love song is not silent. And neither are we. We join with each other and with those throughout the generations in singing our own lullaby, our own lullaby love songs: “Let no tongue on earth be silent, every voice in concert ring. Evermore and evermore.”