Sermons

April 14 | Mutual Aid and the Struggle for Life

CMC Scripture and Sermon 04-14-2024 from Gwen Reiser on Vimeo.

Mutual Aid and the Struggle for Life
Text: Acts 6
Speaker: Joel Miller

Locusts, beetles, land crabs, termites, ants, and bees. This could be the beginning of a list of things you hope not to find in your house during a round of spring-cleaning. These are also some of the creatures that show up in the first chapter of an old book by the Russian Peter Kropotkin called Mutual Aid: An Illuminated Factor of Evolution. I came across the book a couple summers ago in the City Lights bookstore in San Francisco. When you’re in a cool bookstore in a cool city it’s pretty self-evident that buying a book there will make you at least a somewhat cooler person. This one caught my attention because of the artwork bordering the text of each page, a 21st century enhancement of a 19th century book. The author was new to me, but the topic was one I think a lot about, mutual aid.

Peter Kropotkin was writing...

April 7 | In Defense of Wonder

In Defense of Wonder

Text: Acts 1:1-14

Speaker: Mark Rupp

This is quite a week to have the assigned lectionary reading include admonition from on high to not stand around staring at the sky. Maybe your street was like mine on Tuesday evening when the sun finally fell below the line of clouds that had been threatening central Ohio all day to create one of the most vivid rainbows I have ever seen. From where we were it was solidly a double rainbow, and if I squinted there were moments I swear I could see a third arc.

And I wasn’t alone. Nearly every porch on my street had people emerging to take in the moment. Some of them were neighbors I knew, many were people I’d only seen in passing. But in those few minutes we were all part of something together. Some of the crowd were trying to find the best angle to snap the perfect photo on their phones, others just quietly taking it in. I was also relieved to see that most other people...

March 24 | Sixth Encounter: Acompañarse on the Journey

CMC Scripture and Sermon 03-24-2024 from Gwen Reiser on Vimeo.

Sixth Encounter: Acompañarse on the Journey
Text: Mark 11:1-11; 14:3-9
Speaker: Bethany Davey

One year ago, I traveled with a group of fellow seminarians to Chiapas, Mexico. Throughout our weeks in Mexico’s southernmost state, we met with leaders of local, grassroots organizations and coalitions who understand their role and the role of their group as one of accompaniment. We heard this Spanish word over and over again: acompañarse. Though I fear English translations do not fully encapsulate the concept’s significance, I understand acompañarse to mean accompany, join with, travel alongside, be in bodied solidarity. Throughout Chiapas, we encountered coalitions and individuals committed to accompanying migrant travelers through the provision of the most basic human needs: food, clean water, a safe place to rest on the journey. Chiapas’ proximity to the Guatemalan border means that local communities accompany thousands of migrating people as they attempt safe passage from South and Central America into Mexico and, perhaps eventually, the United States.

Acompañarse.

This week’s lectionary text invites us into a...

March 17 | Fifth Encounter: Good News Amidst Apocalypse

CMC Service 03/17/2024 from Gwen Reiser on Vimeo.

Fifth Encounter: Good News Amidst Apocalypse
Text: Mark 13:1-8, 14-23, 28-37
Speaker: Joel Miller

Well, welcome to Apocalypse Sunday.

This passage in Mark is sometimes called the Little Apocalypse. That’s in relation to the big one, Revelation, the final book of our New Testament. This apocalyptic sermon of Jesus in Mark 13, and its parallels in Matthew and Luke, is merely one chapter.

So, I guess welcome to Little Apocalypse Sunday, which sounds a little less ominous?

This is a passage that speaks of the destruction of the Jerusalem temple, the warring of nations, refugees fleeing violence, false prophets, a blooming fig tree, and the importance of being watchful and awake.

It’s a passage easily misused by authors appealing to an anxious audience about the details of the end of the world, sometimes including dates, even though Jesus says “about that day or hour no one knows” – not even the angels. Not even Jesus himself.

Although frequently identified with the future, it’s the chapter that very likely most...

March 10 | Fourth Encounter: A Good Question

CMC Service 03 10 2024 from Gwen Reiser on Vimeo.

Fourth Encounter: A Good Question
Text: Mark 12:28-34
Speaker: Joel Miller

It’s hard to believe it’s been almost ten years since we did the Twelve Scriptures Project. For the slightly more than half of you who weren’t around then - or for those who were, but forget the details - the Twelve Scriptures Project was something our denomination, Mennonite Church USA, encouraged congregations to do. The idea was fairly simple. Put in the form of question, it was something like: Which twelve scriptures are core to your congregation? Out of all the teachings in the Bible, which are foundational?

The way we arrived at our twelve was to invite everyone to answer this question for themselves, kids included, leaving it slightly undefined whether the list was your personal twelve scriptures, or what you perceived as the twelve scriptures defining the congregation. Several Sunday school sessions were used to share these lists, discuss, and compile the results, with the most common mentions becoming our collective Twelve Scriptures.

We then had a...

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