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 worship series covering each scripture, and a colorful artistic display that filled the front of the worship space.  That installation was then translated into a poster, which displayed the Twelve Scriptures and themes they represented.  A large version was in the foyer for many years, now refreshed and moved to the fellowship hall.  Smaller versions are still in Sunday school rooms.  A page on our website is dedicated to the Twelve Scriptures.

If you haven’t seen any of these displays, or just stopped noticing, it’s worth viewing, or viewing again.

It was a meaningful, helpful project, inspired by a meaningful, helpful question: What is the core of our faith?  If we had to boil it all down, what would it…

Third Encounter: Debts and Enemy Lines
Text: Mark 12:1-17
Speaker: Mark Rupp

There is a strange stillness in the air. A moment full of anticipation, weariness, hope, and a good bit of fear. The stars shine down across the expanse known as No-Man’s Land, the frozen ground between two trenches that bears the marks of violence momentarily paused. The smells of blood and ash linger in the air, or perhaps only in the memory. Two men in uniform approach slowly, tentatively, from either side. Hearts racing, they gain a bit of confidence as their first steps are met not with violence but with curiosity.

One of the men reaches inside his pocket. In that brief instant, the other silently braces himself to react. But the hand emerges not with a weapon but with a cigar as the first man speaks the words, “Fröhliche Weihnachten.” Merry Christmas.

This is the scene that Melissa Florer-Bixler uses to open her book, How to Have An Enemy: Righteous Anger and the Work of Peace. It is one more fictionalized retelling of the Christmas Truce that happened in 1914 during WWI when a brief armistice took place between soldiers of opposing sides. If nothing else this pause in combat allowed each side to care for the wounded and tend to the dead. Many accounts of that day talk of soldiers singing carols across enemy lines. Some diaries and journals recount tales of swapping gifts, giving haircuts, and perhaps even playing soccer together in the fabled space between the trenches. 

There is enough evidence that this brief truce certainly happened, though there is no one version of the event, and–as Florer-Bixler is quick to point out–this event has been deeply mythologized in our culture, held up as the epitome of what it means to encounter one’s…

CMC Scipture and Sermon 02-25-24 from Gwen Reiser on Vimeo.

Second Encounter: Servanthood and Sight
Text: Mark 10:32-52
Speaker: Joel Miller

Jesus is on the road to Jerusalem.  At this point, he’s walking ahead of the others.  Mark writes: “they were amazed, and those who followed were afraid.”  Amazed, perhaps, because Jesus had just told a wealthy man that in order to follow him he had to sell everything, and redistribute his wealth to the poor.  Afraid, perhaps, because Jesus keeps telling them – now for the third time – that once they arrive in Jerusalem, the Human One will be handed over to the authorities and killed…and after three days rise again. 

Jesus was walking ahead of them, but James and John break away from the group and come forward to Jesus with a request about being Jesus’ right and left hand men – places of honor, power, and succession, perhaps. 

With the other 10/12ths of the disciples now listening, quite upset at James and John, Jesus says this: “You know that the ones who are considered the rulers by the Gentiles (Romans) show off their authority over them and their high-ranking officials order them around. 43 But that’s not the way it will be with you. Whoever wants to be great among you will be your servant. 44 Whoever wants to be first among you will be the slave of all, 45 for the Human One[e] didn’t come to be served but rather to serve and to give his life to liberate many people.”   

You may have heard that last line in other translations as “give his life as a ransom for many,” which has led to some lousy theology about God requiring Jesus to suffer death or be punished so we…

CMC Service 02 18 2024 from Gwen Reiser on Vimeo.

First Encounter: Wealth and Letting Go | 18 February 2024 | Lent 1
Mark 10:17-31
Speaker: Joel Miller

On February 24, in the year 1208, a young man sat in a chapel listening to a sermon.  It was based on Jesus’ instructions to his disciples as he sent them out to spread his message:  “Take no gold, nor silver, nor money in your belts, no bag for your journey, nor two tunics, nor sandals, nor a staff…whatever town you enter, find someone in it who is worthy, and stay with them till you depart.” 

The young man was the son of a wealthy cloth dealer.  He had already begun to question the smooth, comfortable path he had inherited.  As his earliest biographer, Thomas of Celano tells it, that day, in that chapel, was the decisive moment.  Hearing Jesus’ words as a direct personal calling, he discarded his shoes and walking staff.  He began wandering the countryside and villages, preaching Jesus’ message to anyone who would listen.  We know him now as St. Francis, or Francis of Assisi – the peace-loving proto-Anabaptist, lover of birds and brother sun/sister moon, to whom is attributed the much-used prayer that begins, “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace…”      

It’s almost as if the story of Francis is the story of the biblical rich young man – with an alternative ending.  In Mark’s gospel, it’s the only story where Jesus invites someone to follow him, and they choose not to – a discipleship rejection story.  Rather than “your faith has made you well,” Jesus tells him something like “your wealth has made you ill.”  For the wealthy young Francis, it was a resounding Yes to the discipleship…

CMC Scripture and Sermon 02-11-2024 from Gwen Reiser on Vimeo.

A Way of Seeing | Chris Walker

Scripture: Mark 8:27-9:8

This is a day of favorites. This morning at breakfast, Debbie and I heard one of our favorite birds, a redwing blackbird—the first of the season. Arriving at church this morning, I saw my favorite dog—a basset hound.

And I’m up here this morning because full year ago, Pastor Joel preached on the Transfiguration, I commented to him after worship that that was my favorite passage from the Gospels. Joel was curious why, and we talked a bit.

Fast forward eight months, to last October. I check my email, and there’s a message from Joel. He says, “Hey, I’m wondering if you would be interested in preaching on February 11. It’s Transfiguration Sunday. I think I remember you saying at one point that the Transfiguration is your favorite gospel story, so, I mean, you can’t really turn this down.”

And of course, I couldn’t. Anyway, thanks to Joel’s remarkable memory, I’m happy to be up here to share with you, today, what I told him a year ago. Which is basically three things.

First, in today’s Gospel, Peter and James and John go up on the mountain with Jesus and they witness a stunning revelation, a magnificent vision of the glory and nature and reality of God. I think that scene has some special appeal to those of us whose spiritual frequency is tuned to the Contemplative Channel. We who long to just bask in the radiance of God’s presence, manifested in whatever. Everything.

But what really strikes me about the story is Peter’s reaction: “Rabbi, it’s good for us to be here; let’s make three dwellings, one for you,…