Due to copyright laws, only the final song was recorded. Enjoy!

12_10_23 Hallelujah Chorus from Gwen Reiser on Vimeo.

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There is no video recording this Sunday due to technical difficulties. 

The Comfort and The Cry 
Text: Isaiah 40:1-11
Speaker: Joel Miller
 

The second coming of the Messiah took place one dull Monday morning as he arrived anonymously at the gates of a great city.  There was much for him to do.  While many years had passed since his last visit, the same suffering was present all around.  Still there were the poor, the sick, and the oppressed.  Still there were the outcasts, and still there were the righteous who pitied them, and the authorities who exploited them.

For a long time no one took any notice of this desert wanderer with his weather-beaten face and ragged, dusty clothes – this quiet man who spent his time living among the sick and unwanted.  The great city labored on, ignorant of the one who dwelled within its streets. 

The Messiah eventually decided to reveal his identity to a chosen few who had remained faithful to his teachings.  These people met together in a small, unknown church on the outskirts of the city to pray and to serve the poor.

As the Messiah entered the modest sanctuary one Sunday morning, his eyes fell upon the tiny group huddled in the corner, each one praying and weeping for the day of the Lord.  As they prayed, those who had gathered in the church slowly began to feel the gaze of Christ penetrate their souls.  Silence began to descend within the circle as they realized who had entered their sacred home.  For a time no one dared to speak. 

Then the leader of the group gathered her courage, approached Christ, fell at his feet, and cried, “We have waited so long for your return.  For so many years we have waited patiently for you to come.  Today, as with every other day,…

CMC Service 11_26_23 from Gwen Reiser on Vimeo.

Re-Reform 
Text: 2 Kings 22:1–23:4
Speaker: Joel Miller

A number of years ago, church scholar Phyllis Tickle wrote a book called The Great Emergence, Subtitle: How Christianity is Changing, and Why.  Her big theory, as she describes it, is this: “Every five hundred years, the Church cleans out its attic and has a giant rummage sale.”  What she means is that in its 2000 years of existence, the church has undergone four massive historical transitions, roughly 500 years apart. 

The first, straddling the year 500, saw the fall of the Roman Empire, the ecumenical councils, and the rise of monasteries.  The second, just a bit into the thousands, was the great schism between East and West.  The Eastern Orthodox Patriarch and the Roman Catholic Pope excommunicated one another for theological differences that mirrored the politics and economics of the day.  The third was the Protestant Reformation which began in the early 1500s.  Mennonites and other Anabaptists were considered the radical wing of that reformation and, sure enough, we’re just a little over a year away from celebrating our 500 year anniversary.   

Tracing this pattern, Phyllis Tickle proposes that the church is now in the midst of another massive transition.  Or, to go back to her original metaphor, the attic is once again cluttered, and it’s time to have a rummage sale.  She apparently doesn’t know that around here we accumulate things fast enough to have a rummage sale every year. For new folks we actually do have a church rummage sale every year. 

I thought of Phyllis Tickle and The Great Emergence while reading this story from 2 Kings. 

There are a number of details here that might stir our curiosity.  Like the fact that Josiah was…

CMC Service 11/19/23 from Gwen Reiser on Vimeo.

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CMC Scripture and Sermon 11-12-2023 from Gwen Reiser on Vimeo.

The Prophet Considers a God Who Reconsiders
Text: Hosea 11:1-11
Speaker: Joel Miller

In the Hebrew Bible, it is the privilege and the burden of the prophet to speak for God.  That’s quite the job description, to speak for God.  It’s not a form of speech we hear much these days.  When we do, we have every reason to be skeptical. 

But in the biblical world, that’s what the prophet did, and that’s where the narrative lectionary has us hanging out for a bit.  We’re sampling the prophets, hearing them make claims about God and people, interpreting the present and pointing to possible futures.  Or at least their present, in the past, and their possible futures, some of which came to pass, others of which are still out there on our far horizon – like that day when the lion shall lay down with the lamb, and we will all beat our swords into ploughshares, or whatever updated form of military weaponry into whatever form of productive life-giving technology.  At their best, the prophets stir within us a longing for that which can be, and, by claiming that longing as our own, a bit of that hoped for future makes its way into the present.   

When you meet a prophet, it’s good to at least give them a chance.  They’re speaking for God, and that can get dicey.  It’s OK to be skeptical.  Nobody gets a free pass with their God claims because if there’s one thing we can be certain of its that they, and we, aren’t God.  Even the prophets who made it into the Bible.  So let’s do a brief overview of biblical prophets, before focusing in on the Hosea…