CMC service 9-18-22 from Gwen Reiser on Vimeo.

The video above includes the full service, except for the time for sharing.

Permission to podcast/stream the music in this service obtained through One License with license A-727859. Copyrights for songs given after the sermon text.

Postcards from Sabbatical

Postcard #1 (St. Petersburg, FL)

To the church of God (and of Menno) that is in Columbus: Grace to you and peace from God the Creator, Jesus our Mentor and Model, and the Holy Spirit our Artist-in-Residence. 

First, I thank God for all of you and your generosity in allowing me this sabbatical time away to rest, to renew my spirit, and to reflect on the ways God is breathing new inspiration into my life and the life of our congregation. As I have written to you before, my hope was to spend this time focusing on the intersections of spirituality and creativity and their role as meaning-making endeavors in all of our lives. 

As I set out in this work, I am reminded of Paul’s words in his letter to the Church in Ephesus.  The beginning of Chapter 2, verse 10 is translated in many different ways: “for we are what God has made us…”; “for we are God’s workmanship”; “we are God’s masterpiece”, “God’s handiwork”, “God’s design”, “God’s mastercraft.”  The Greek word that is used there is poiema, which is where we also get the word poem. 

We are God’s poem. 

Now I know many of you have instant negative reactions to the idea of poetry, perhaps because you’ve been taught that the point of reading a poem is to tie it down and interrogate it until you’ve managed to beat some sort of meaning out of it.  But my favorite way to think about poetry comes…

CMC Worship 9_11_22 from Gwen Reiser on Vimeo.

The video above includes the full service, except for the time for sharing.

Permission to podcast/stream the music in this service obtained through One License with license A-727859. Copyrights for songs given after the sermon text.

Sermon | Ownership, Stewardship, Discipleship | September 11 

Texts: Genesis 2:15-17; Genesis 14:17-24; Matthew 6:19-21

Speaker: Joel Miller

I recently came across a blurb about a church that uses the parking lot of a nearby business on Sunday mornings.  That’s a pretty typical arrangement for churches in cities and older neighborhoods.  Like ours.  We benefit from the neighborliness of four such businesses between us and High Street – Clintonville Apartments, Central City Solutions, High Street Dental, and SMART Federal Credit Union.  Some of you are parked in those spots this morning.

What made this other arrangement unique is that one Sunday a year folks from the church aren’t allowed to use the parking lot.  Not because the business has a special event.  But because the business owner wants to remind the church this isn’t actually their parking lot.  So on a random Sunday every year, it’s off limits. 

As inconvenient as this might be from the church’s perspective, I think this is a brilliant theological practice.

Take, for example, the story of the Garden of Eden.  There, creation begins as ground and stream, with nothing yet alive.  The Creator then forms out of the ground an earth-creature and breathes into their nostrils the breath of life.  After which this is placed in a garden, Eden.  Their purpose is to till and keep the garden.  To take care of it on behalf of the Creator.  In this garden there are many trees from which the human can eat.  Except for one.  That tree…

CMC Worship Service 9_4_22 V2 from Gwen Reiser on Vimeo.

The video above includes the full service, except for the time for sharing.

Permission to podcast/stream the music in this service obtained through One License with license A-727859. Copyrights for songs given after the sermon text.

Summoned by the God Who Made Us – Voices Together #1. Text: Delores Dufner, OSB (USA), © 1993 Delores Dufner (published by OCP).  All rights reserved.   Podcast/Streamed with permission under ONE LICENSE, license #A-727859.  All rights reserved.  Music: American traditional (USA), in John Wyeth’s Repository of Sacred Music, Part Second, 1813.  Public domain. 

God Welcomes All / Amen – Voices Together #32. Text: John L. Bell (Scotland). Music: South African traditional; transcr. John L. Bell. © 2008 WGRG, Iona Community (admin. GIA Publications, Inc.). All rights reserved.   Podcast/Streamed with permission under ONE LICENSE, license #A-727859.  All rights reserved.  

One Is the Body – Voices Together #386. Text: based on Ephesians 4:4-13, John L. Bell (Scotland); Music: John L. Bell © 1997, 2002 WGRG, Iona Community (admin. GIA Publications, Inc.).  All rights reserved.   Podcast/Streamed with permission under ONE LICENSE, license #A-727859.  All rights reserved. 

God Calls You Good – Voices Together #172.  Text: Paul Vasile (USA): Music: Paul Vasile © 2017 LovedIntoBeing Music.  All rights reserved.   Podcast/Streamed with permission under ONE LICENSE, license #A-727859.  All rights reserved. 

Draw the Circle Wide – Voices Together #802.  Text: Gordon Light (Canada), © 1994 Common Cup Co.  Music: Mark A. Miller (USA), © 2008 Abingdon Press (admin. Music Services).  All rights reserved.  Podcast/Streamed with permission under ONE LICENSE, license #A-727859. All rights reserved. 

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CMC Worship Service 08:28:2022.mp4 from Gwen Reiser on Vimeo.

The video above includes the full service, except for the time for sharing.

Permission to podcast/stream the music in this service obtained through One License with license A-727859. Copyrights for songs given after the sermon text.

Sermon | The place of honor
Texts: Proverbs 25:6-7; Luke 14:1,7-14
Speaker: Joel Miller

When Jesus goes to eat at the house of a community leader, he’s being watched.  That’s how Luke chapter 14 begins: “On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the Sabbath, they were watching him closely.”  It’s a bit ambiguous who “they” are who are doing the close watching, but we can assume it was other members of that group known as the Pharisees, and anybody else within watching distance.  

“Watching closely” doesn’t necessarily imply suspicion or mal intent.  Jesus had been making quite a name for himself.  He’s been stirring things up by restoring body and status to the sick, honoring women, casting out harmful spirits, telling parables that both confound and illuminate.  Even Herod, ruling the area on behalf of Rome, had taken notice.  Four verses prior to this dinner event it was the Pharisees who had come to Jesus and given him a warning that Herod wanted to kill him.  Predictably unpredictable, Jesus had responded by calling Herod a fox and himself a hen, gathering her brood of chicks under her wing.  Which is what he plans to continue to do, or at least try.   

Maybe they’re watching Jesus closely because they’d never met anyone quite like him.  He doesn’t fit any pre-determined categories.  He’s not interested in playing the respectability game.  He’s not even all that strategic about preserving…

Texts: Isaiah 58:9b-14, Luke 13:10-17

On days I ride my bike into church the commute home includes a left turn off High St by Global Gallery followed by a nice long coast down Dunedin Road towards the river.  Not every day, but what has felt like most days this summer, a group of kids is out playing on Dunedin near the bottom of the hill.  And when I say playing on Dunedin I mean on Dunedin.  On the street.  The play frequently involves bikes and scooters turning circles and tricks, weaving back and forth from curb to curb.  Cars slow as they approach and wait for the street to clear before passing.  Even a grown up on a bike cruising at gravity-assisted speed has to ride the brakes and yield to the action.  These kids rule the road.  It’s pretty awesome.  

It’s perhaps because of this recurring experience that a particular line from the Isaiah reading stood out to me:

Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in. 

“You shall be called…the restorer of streets to live in.”  Hmmm.

If there’s one thing streets aren’t, it’s places to live in, especially not for children.  Even parents who want to encourage the most free-range of childhoods still tend to hold to the general rule of No playing in the street.  Streets are dangerous places.  They contrast sharply with the safe, inviting spaces we seek to create in our homes and yards.  So close to one another, yet worlds apart.  Usually.

The people to whom Isaiah preaches and writes know nothing of cars and trucks speeding through their neighborhoods.  But they do know of war and occupation.  They do know of exile and returning to…