Sermons

Healthy sex: Drawing the line(s) | October 20

This is Part 3 of a 4 week series on Healthy Sexuality

Week 1: Our bodies – God’s image

Week 2: (Pro)Creative intimacy

Week 4: Sexuality and spirituality: When all is one

https://joelssermons.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/20191020sermon.mp3

Texts: Songs of Songs, 1 Corinthians 13:4-7

Speaker: Joel Miller

GK Chesterton once wrote: “Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere.” (1)

In the fine print of a pastor’s job description, so fine it cannot be seen by the naked eye but is surely there, is the expectation that, should the pastor ever be asked privately or need to comment publicly about sex, that the pastor steer the conversation toward lines. Lines that differentiate the good from the bad. Lines that should not be crossed.

I don’t know if that’s part of the CMC pastor’s job description. Maybe some of you will let me know after this sermon! Either way, I’m going to take the bait. As long as I can talk about lines the way GK Chesterton does: “Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere.”

In other words, what makes healthy sexuality healthy as opposed to unhealthy?

If you’re already starting to get a bit nervous, now might be a...

(Pro)Creative Intimacy | October 13

This is Part 2 of a 4 week series on Healthy Sexuality

Week 1: Our bodies - God's image

Week 3: Healthy sex: Drawing the line(s)

Week 4: Sexuality and spirituality: When all is one

Texts: Readers theater excerpts from Genesis 2, Ruth, John 11

Speaker: Mark Rupp

Welcome friends. Welcome family. Welcome neighbors and guests. Welcome sisters, brothers, cousins, aunties, tios, and omas. Welcome lovers. Welcome husbands, wives, partners, significant others. Welcome people who are straight. Welcome people who are L-G-B-T-Queer. Welcome people for whom “it’s complicated” best describes their relationships.

Welcome all, to this, our second week of a four-part worship series on healthy sexuality.

I want to thank Joel for naming in his sermon last week the reality that too often these sorts of conversations in the Church have been dominated by straight people talking about the sexualities of queer people, dissecting every detail and treating the lives of real people as if they were nothing more than an “issue” to be resolved.

But we are all sexual people. None of us can distance ourselves from the “issue” any more than we can separate our mind from our heart from our body. We...

Our bodies – God’s Image | 6 October 2019

This is Part 1 of a 4 week series on Healthy Sexuality

Week 2: (Pro)Creative Intimacy

Week 3: Healthy sex: Drawing the line(s)

Week 4: Sexuality and spirituality: When all is one

https://joelssermons.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/20191006sermon.mp3

The audio recording includes a follow up reflection from Jenny Campagna, beginning around minute 18.

Genesis 1:26-31, John 1:14

Speaker: Joel Miller

One of the more daunting aspects of speaking about sex and sexuality in a congregation, is just how many differences we bring into the room. In the few conversations I’ve had anticipating this Healthy Sexuality series, a wide range of life experience has already showed up. For one person, growing up in the free love sexual revolution of the 60’s resulted in a need to form more disciplined habits and attitudes toward sex later in life. For another person, growing up in the evangelical purity culture of the 90’s included a shame based view of the body and sex that still lingers.

Our bodies – God’s Image | October 6

https://joelssermons.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/20191006sermon.mp3

The audio recording includes a follow up reflection from Jenny Campagna, beginning around minute 18.

Genesis 1:26-31, John 1:14

Sexuality, by its very nature, is intensely personal. It speaks to our deep needs and most raw vulnerabilities. Sexuality is expressed differently at different stages of life, whether we are single or partnered. Sexual violence is pervasive, and the resulting trauma can be a life’s work to heal. Sexual intimacy can be profoundly meaningful, pleasurable, and restorative. All this is true.

And, oh yeah, sex is still the main way people make babies. Infertility, miscarriage, birthing and...

Groaning with geese and God | September 22

https://joelssermons.files.wordpress.com/2019/09/20190922sermon.mp3

Texts: Genesis 3:16-21; Romans 8:19-27

She fell like a maple seed, pirouetting on an autumn breeze. A column of light streamed from a hole in the Skyworld, marking her path where only darkness had been before. It took her a long time to fall. In fear, or maybe hope, she clutched a bundle tightly in her hand.

Hurtling downward, she saw only dark water below. But in that emptiness there were many eyes gazing up at the sudden shaft of light. They saw there a small object, a mere dust mote in the beam. As it grew closer, they could see that it was a woman, arms outstretched, long black hair billowing behind as she spiraled toward them.

The geese nodded to one another and rose together from the water in a wave of goose music. She felt the beat of their wings as they flew beneath to break her fall. Far from the only home she’d ever known, she caught her breath at the warm embrace of soft feathers as they gently carried her downward. And so it began.

The geese could not hold the woman above the water for much longer, so they called a council...

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