Sermon | Speaking and Listening
Text: Ruth 1
Speaker: Sarah Martin

Originally this sermon was supposed to be about Ruth. But then I read what Naomi says at the end of chapter 1, the thing we just heard about her bitter life, and I was intrigued, and all the ideas I had for this sermon were about that, because my brain is kind of ornery like that. Then I thought about it, and realized, whenever this story comes up Ruth gets all the attention anyway. And Joel said it was all good, if I wanted to talk about Naomi, so that’s what’s gonna happen, folks. Although Ruth will make an appearance at the end.

The reason Naomi’s speech intrigued me is that it’s really a weird addition to the story. When Naomi and Ruth arrive back in Naomi’s homeland, instead of jumping straight into the main narrative, the author gifts us this strange little interlude that’s just Naomi throwing shade at God for letting all these bad things happen to her. And then she pretty much fades into the background of the story. What?

I don’t really know why this speech is in there. Like most of the Bible—or anything—it could be interpreted in lots of ways. But, when I was thinking about why this speech might be included I did notice that Naomi sounds a lot like the character of Job.

In case you aren’t familiar with the story of Job, I took a class on his book of the Bible in college, so I can tell you all about it. Joel said I could talk about Job too, so feel free to come with me on this brief detour. Basically, Job suffers a series of catastrophes orchestrated by God and Satan in order to test…

CMC Worship Scripture and Sermon 12/4/22 from Gwen Reiser on Vimeo.

Rahab’s Story
Lavonne van der Zwaag
December 4, 2022

This is the second Sunday we are looking into the lives of the named women in Jesus’ lineage as listed in Matthew 1. Today we are hearing the story of Rahab. Once again, we’re reminded that our ancestry can include stories that are hard to hear or understand. Unlike Tamar’s story last week, Rahab doesn’t just pretend to be a prostitute; she WAS a prostitute. People like to look to Rahab’s story as being about redemption from a sinful existence to a Godly life. People believe her story shows that God had a plan for Rahab’s life and she was rescued because she chose to do God’s will. I propose that her story isn’t that straight-forward.

In articles that I found about Rahab, there was some conjecture about whether Rahab lived in poverty as an outcast in the margins of Canaanite society; or whether she was a successful business woman, a madam of sorts, whose services were sought out by men in high and powerful places. Some proposed that she was an innkeeper and provided additional services to wealthy merchants seeking companionship while they were “on the road”. Some proposed that she might have even owned a second business which might explain why she had all that flax on her rooftop which effectively hid the spies.

After reading about Rahab and looking more closely into her life, I find her to be a complex and interesting character. Whether she was a poor prostitute that was living life on the edge of poverty or a successful business woman, we can assume that Rahab’s profession and status as a single head-of-household definitely meant she lived…

CMC Scripture and Sermon 11.27.2022.mp4 from Gwen Reiser on Vimeo.

Sermon | Tamar and Tricksters
Text: Genesis 38:1-27
Speaker: Barbara Lehman

Well. That is some tale! Convoluted, more than a bit creepy, and, for me, confusing. What in the world is going on? Who is married to whom? Who is living and who is dead? What is the purpose of this story? I was frankly repulsed by this Me Too-like account until I revisited the part about how Tamar tricks Judah. After Tamar has lost two husbands (neither of which may have been her choice, I might add) and Judah has sent her back to live in her father’s house (also not necessarily her wish) as a widow, when she hears that Judah would be traveling nearby, she decides to take action. She disguises herself as a prostitute to attract Judah, who propositions her (which tells me something unsavory about his character and that she probably knew). She asks him what he will give her and then cleverly secures collateral until he can deliver the kid he promises: his signet, cord, and staff, which would identify Judah as the owner, far more than a sheep would. Then she gets pregnant, and Judah, who didn’t recognize her, is informed and condemns her to be burned since he assumes that she had been a whore. But Tamar doesn’t panic when they come to get her. She produces the signet, cord, and staff and declares that their owner made her pregnant, which Judah has to acknowledge.

Aha, I think! Here is a woman—a status that can convey subjugation to more powerful men and a lack of agency over one’s fate—who uses her intelligence and cunning to overcome the tragedy (being taken for two good-for-nothing husbands…

Video of this service is not available. 

Three CMC members gave gratitude reflections

Heidi Minard

As I was preparing for this and thinking about what I wanted to say about gratitude, an idea kept nagging at me. At first, I thought about all the things I should say about gratitude – that being thankful keeps us thinking of the positive instead of the negative, that it boosts our mood and therefore improves our overall quality of life, that it’s important to think about things we are grateful for on a daily basis, etc. And while I believe that all these things are true, I kept coming back to this idea of gratitude being dished out in the form of guilt. Many times, when I am going through something difficult or struggling in some way, a voice in my head almost always comes to chastise me and say, “Your situation could be so much worse. Think of all the people around the world suffering with xyz. You should be grateful that your life is so good compared to others. Your struggle is so small. Get over yourself. Think of all you have to be grateful for.” And with these thoughts swimming in my head, instead of gratitude helping me to feel positive or boost my mood, it just makes me feel guilty that I’m struggling, when I have so much to be grateful for. I end up feeling sheepish or silly for even mentioning the difficulties in my life because they are so small in comparison to others.

I am a person who loves examples as a way to understand things, so I will offer you a personal example. This school year has been a struggle for me because teaching is hard. And it’s not just because of the pandemic. It’s because teaching is HARD….

CMC Scripture and Sermon 11/13/22 from Gwen Reiser on Vimeo.

Sermon | Looking back, looking forward 

Text: Matthew 1:1-1-16
Speakers: Joel Miller and Mark Rupp

Joel

It was Carl Sagan, the American astronomer, who first popularized the idea that the elements that make up our bodies were made by the stars.  Stars are an in-gathering of the most simple element, hydrogen, which fuses to form helium, carbon, oxygen, all the way up to iron, with higher elements forming from other star events like supernovae and neutron star collisions.  The lesson, both scientifically sound and poetically beautiful, is that all things – everyone and everything we see – share a deep kinship and common ancestry, traceable back to the stars.  “We are their children,” Sagan would say.   

This universal kinship is something worth highlighting often in a worship setting, almost unavoidable when we get to biblical stories like God taking Abraham out to look up at the stars.  Childless Abraham is fearful there will be nothing of himself that gets passed to future generations.  God offers a promise that Abraham will indeed be an ancestor to many by having him gaze up at his own ancestors – the uncountable, unimaginably distant yet pervasively present stars.

In the last decade or so I’ve become interested in my more recent ancestry.  I’ve told some of these stories in sermons and blogs.  There’s my mother’s father’s side, the Lehmans, Mennonites pushed off their land in Switzerland, facing near starvation during a series of harsh winters, migrating to northeast Ohio for religious freedom and economic opportunity.  There’s my mother’s mother’s side, the Planks, who migrated here accidentally, boarding a ship in the Netherlands to say goodbye to friends and having the ship set sail before they could get…