jul 17-Up to 4K from Gwen Reiser on Vimeo.

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Credits:

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Holy Spirit, Come with Power  – Voices Together #57.  Text: Anne Neufeld Rupp (USA), ©1970 Anne Neufeld Rupp. Used with permission of Byron Rupp (current copyright holder).  Music: attr. B.F. White (USA), The Sacred Harp, 1844; harm. Joan Fyock Norris (USA), © 1989 Joan Fyock Norris. All rights reserved.   Permission to podcast/stream the music in this service obtained from ONE LICENSE, license #A-727859.  All rights reserved. 

Gott Ist gegenwärtig (God Is Here among Us) – Voices Together #62.  Text: Gerhard Tersteegen (present-day Germany), Geistliches Blumengärtlein, 1729; trans. The Hymnal, 1940, alt.; Music: Joachim Neander (present-day Germany), Alpha und Omega, Glaub-und Liebesübung, 1680.  Public domain.

Faith Begins By Letting Go – Voices Together #585. Text: Carl P. Daw Jr. (USA), 1995, © 1996 Hope Publishing Company. Music: David J. Gonzol (USA), © 2019 David J. Gonzol. All rights reserved.   Permission to podcast/stream the music in this service obtained from ONE LICENSE, license #A-727859.  All rights reserved. 

Together – Voices Together #389. Text & Music: Nathan Grieser (USA), 2014, rev. 2018, © 2014 Nathan Grieser, MennoMedia Inc.  All rights reserved.   Permission to podcast/stream the music in this service obtained from ONE LICENSE, license #A-727859.  All rights reserved. 

New Earth, Heavens New – Voices Together #377. Text: Harris J. Loewen (Canada), 1982, Assembly Songs, 1983, rev. 2019. Music: Harris J. Loewen, 1982, Assembly Songs, 1983; acc. Andrea Welty Peachey (USA). © 1991 Hope Publishing Co. All rights reserved.   Permission to podcast/stream the music in this service obtained from…

CMC Worship07:10:2022.mp4 from Gwen Reiser on Vimeo.

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Sermon Manuscript

Saved by a Samaritan 
Text: Luke 10:25-37
Speaker: Joel Miller

There’s a story in the book of 2 Chronicles that gets told about as often as other stories from 2 Chronicles – not much.  It happens during the days of King Ahaz.  Ahaz was one of the bad kings of Jerusalem.  Chronicles has two categories for kings.  Either they “did what was right in the eyes of the Lord,” like David and Solomon.  Like Jotham, Ahaz’s father.  And Hezekiah Ahaz’s son.  Or they “did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord.”  Like King Jehorah.  Like Ahaz.  In Chronicles, when Jerusalem has a king who did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, good things happen – like a building campaign.  Like military victories, or years of peace in the land.  When Jerusalem has a king who did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord, bad things happen.  Disease, famine, military defeats.  2 Chronicles is so committed to this pattern that it tends to leave out the bad things that happened during the reign of righteous kings – failures and missteps – things that its main source, 2 Kings, includes.

When Chronicles introduces a new king, after the father has died, we’re told how old they were when they began their reign, how long their reign lasted, and, right up front, whether they did or didn’t do what was right in the eyes of the Lord.  The statement serves as some not-so-subtle foreshadowing about whether good or bad things…

CMC service 7-3-22 from Gwen Reiser on Vimeo.

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Sermon Manuscript
Texts: Acts 4:32–37; 2 Cor 8:1-15
Guest Speaker: Alison Casella Brookins

Interdependence Sunday

So. Happy Independence day weekend. The favorite Mennonite holiday celebrating the

beginning of a war, commemorated every year by the setting of off tiny bombs all night

for a whole weekend (or, where I live in Chicago, for a month), the holiday when babies

can’t sleep and dogs go on poop strike.

When I’m explaining Mennonites, I often say: “Our denomination holds its meeting

every other year over the 4th of July weekend in a conference center in the hottest place

in the country. No one else is holding their conference in the sweltering heat of a holiday

weekend, so it’s inexpensive. This demonstrates our core values: not aligning too closely

with the political state, and being cheap.”

Independence day.

This holiday makes me uncomfortable. But I think it’s something deeper than just a

reaction against the “rockets’ red glare.” There’s something at the core of what it means

to our society to be American, to be independent, to be free, that feels very twisted.

**

I was not financially viable in my early to mid 20s.

I had quit college in my third year to intern on farms for a few years and then moved

back to my hometown to figure out what the heck I was going to do next. I worked—a

lot—but all low-paying work, a mix of barista-ing and gig work cleaning houses,

babysitting, and farm and garden work for friends and family.

When I figured out that I really did need to finish college I balked at the price tag. There

was no way THAT was going to work.

I talked…

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Sermon: Of mantles, discipleship, and NYC
Texts: 2 Kings 2:1-2,6-14; Luke 9:51-62
Speaker: Joel Miller

For spring break this year Abbie and I took Eve and Lily to New York City.  Ila had some special time with her grandparents in Bellefontaine.  Despite spring break being a break from school, I found myself unable to resist the urge to be our high school daughters’ self-appointed teacher for the week.  Especially in regards to how that city that plays such a large role in their culture.

The first time we got on the subway I pointed to the white brick-pattern tiles lining the cavernous walls.  “You know those tiles in our shower at home?” I asked.  This is why we call them subway tiles.  New York City.  I hadn’t planned this little lesson.  It just kind of happened.     

The girls had seen live Broadway shows in Columbus and Chicago and listened to soundtracks, but as we walked through a crowded and lit up Times Square on Broadway Ave. to watch the show Hadestown I couldn’t help but point out that this is why they’re called Broadways.   

On our biggest walking day, I made sure we stopped by the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village.  The little park across the street serves as a National Monument and includes a photo exhibit along the fence portraying the Stonewall uprising in June, 1969.  The bar served as a gathering place for gay men and had regularly been raided by police, but on a June evening, 53 years ago from this Tuesday, the crowd pushed back, leading to a week of protests against oppression of LGBTQ…

CMC 6/19/22 Worship Service 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.

Sermon: Bodied Biodiversity
Texts: John 20:24-29; Genesis 1:1-13
Speaker: Bethany Davey

I have the unique privilege of preaching on Juneteenth and Pride Sunday, both of
which celebrate and affirm collective liberation from colonial oppression. While
the work of liberation is ongoing, lifelong and absolutely collective, it is essential
that we take a breath, pause and celebrate those who have paved the way for these
days to become a possibility. Juneteenth and Pride Sunday are possible because
ancestors and generations of dreamers and activists dared to imagine a reality that
defied colonization, that defied empire.

Queerness, which we intentionally celebrate this month, defies empire. Queerness
is in direct opposition to the homogenous nature of colonialism that thrives within
white supremacist heteronormativity and favors Eurowhite, cisgender, heterosexual
ways of being. Were colonization to have its way, we would all be young, ablebodied,
white people adhering to the norms of heteronormative gender stereotypes;
not only would colonization have us be the same, it would have us be a very
specific kind of “same” so that it might perpetuate itself indefinitely.

We can see the dangers of same-ness beyond humanity, in the homogeny of
monocrops and monocultures. In order to sustain capitalism and factory farming,
forests are decimated to plant field upon field upon field of soy, corn and other
singular crops over and over and over again. What may have begun as a vision for
feeding the masses instead contributes to the starvation of humans, the extinction
of non-human animals and species and the starvation of the land; the Earth cannot
sustain the monocultures associated with farming at this scale. The soil becomes
imbalanced and depleted, void of the essential…