CMC Scripture and Sermon 01.15.2023.mp4 from Gwen Reiser on Vimeo.

Sermon | Boiling it down
Text: Micah 6:1-8
Speaker: Joel Miller

Every fall I teach an Inquirers class for folks new and new-ish to the congregation.  Part of the class is getting to know one another.  I invite participants to share briefly about their faith journey – where they’ve been, what kinds of experiences and questions they bring.  Each session begins with a couple of these before getting into the topic of the day.  One Sunday this fall, just last month, a participant said something to the effect of “Well, my faith has gotten real simple.  Basically two things.  1. Pay attention.  2. Love.  He had more to say, but after decades of being immersed in church and religious life, that pretty much summarized where he was at in his faith.  Pay attention.  Love.

It reminded me of that short but deliciously sweet poem by Mary Oliver which goes like this:   

Instructions for living a life.
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.

Mary Oliver had a lot of profound things to say in her poetry, but when considering what all might be involved in living a life in which one is actually alive, it was a short list.  Pay attention.  Be astonished.  Tell about it.

When it comes to boiling it down to what really matters, the prophet Micah is all about it.  Micah lived in a time when things around him were already getting narrowed down in a different sort of way.  He’s one of the old school prophets, back when the Jerusalem temple was still standing, back when Judah was still an independent nation.  The editors of the book that bears Micah’s name introduce his words in chapter 1 verse 1 by writing, “The word…

CMC Worship 01_08_23 from Gwen Reiser on Vimeo.

Sermon: Living water, living people, living world
Texts: Isaiah 42:1-9; Matthew 3:13-17
Speaker: Joel Miller

Chances are, if you had nativity sets in your home during Advent, they’re put away for the year.  Each figure carefully wrapped in newspaper, or not-so-carefully tossed in a box, placed back in the basement, or attic, or wherever might be your storage area of choice or necessity.  Our ceramic set managed to make it through another season without any further casualties to add to the broken right donkey ear and broken right angel wing from past years.  Fortunately, our wood set looks as good as the day we got it.

If you still have a nativity or ten sitting out, don’t let me rush you.  I would, actually, like to keep the nativity in mind for this one more Sunday. 

A lot of time passes between the birth of Jesus and the baptism of Jesus, about 30 years, but not a lot of text in our Bibles.  In Matthew the baptism occurs right after the story of the visit of the magi.  We simply know very little, if anything certain, of what happened in between.  Liturgically, Jesus’ baptism is observed every year on this early Sunday in January and is very much connected to the nativity we just celebrated.  At his baptism, the adult Jesus is birthed through the waters of the Jordan River and proclaimed to be a Beloved child of God.  Rather than star and cattle, sheep and perchance a hard-of-hearing donkey, other elements of creation serve as witness: wilderness, water, an opened sky, and dove.  This too is a scene of birth, now by choice.  This too is a scene of the divine and human and…

Scripture | John 1:1-5; Matthew 2:16-18
Sermon | “Does not wisdom (Sophia) cry out?”
Sermon by Carolyn May

Good morning and happy new year. Last week, after the anticipation of advent, we celebrated together the birth of Jesus. The holy one enfleshed. Though Advent is over, this is the final week of our Advent series. Rather than having one woman to speak about, I had the option of choosing to reflect with you on three different women: Anna, a fiercely faithful prophet who encounters Jesus in the temple when he was taken to be dedicated, the weeping mothers of the innocent children killed by Herod, and Sophia, wisdom personified and often understood as the feminine counterpart of Jesus. I’m not too good at decisions though so I didn’t choose one and instead will be touching a bit on all of these.

For ages there has been a pervasive belief that women are naturally more emotional than men. Obviously a universal claim without factual basis and a claim that has been harmful to all. Not only have women been deemed more emotional, but women have also often been told they are “too emotional.”  This has been looked upon as a negative thing. Women have historically been denied positions of power and simply have not been taken as seriously as their male counterparts because of this belief that their emotions get in the way. Over the past several weeks, throughout the advent season, we have encountered women in biblical stories who have demonstrated wit, bravery, and loyalty. These women have challenged the narrative that a woman is too emotional to be useful or effective. Each of the women we’ve looked at over the course of this series played a significant, even vital role, in the…

12-25-22 CMC Service.mp4 from Gwen Reiser on Vimeo.

Scripture: Luke 2:1-20 Sermon: Loveday   By Sarah Zwickle  Following the sermon text are other letters that Sarah wrote to Mary during October, November, and December.

Yes! Welcome! It’s wonderful to see you this morning! Everyone, come on in to the Zwickle house in Michigan! One of the unexpected intimacies of a virtual meeting is that we can share Christmas morning together from our living rooms! Here is a brief glimpse of ours…. I’m really grateful to be here with all of you, to share a slice of this day.

So, what or who were you expecting today? If you haven’t been reading Gwen’s emails, you probably were not expecting me! And everything about the scripture today was unexpected. The breaking news given to shepherds, in a field, by a massive angel choir? The Messiah a baby? And in a manger? As shepherds bust into the inn to see and to shout in wonder and amazement while Mary attempts to breast feed for the first time, what is firing in the connections between her mind and your heart? What constellations of understanding are just now blossoming in her consciousness, as she treasured up words and pondered them and counted the breaths of Love just born?

I’m getting ahead of myself a little. As we worked out who would inhabit the different women, it happened that I got Mary on Christmas Day, of all days! Today is the day, the birth-day, the origin story, the inspiration for thousands of pictures and statutes of Mary pondering all over lawns and churches and homes, but not one of them includes a speech bubble of her inner thoughts. My first thought about reflecting on Mary was that I…

CMC Christmas Eve Service 2022 from Gwen Reiser on Vimeo.

Scripture:Luke 1:26-38

Meditation by Katie Graber

Throughout Advent, we’ve been hearing about women from Jesus’ family history who don’t have big famous stories in the bible. We’ve heard imaginative interpretations and questions about Tamar and Ruth and Rahab and Bathsheba – about who they were and what might have happened.

But now we get to Mary, mother of Jesus, who we know well. Or we think we do, we’ve certainly heard a lot about her. It’s Christmas eve – we know she made it to Bethlehem, and she’s about to have a baby. But even in stories like Jesus’ birth, we engage in interpretation whether we realize it or not. Our nativity scenes are amalgamations of time and place, with the Wise Men and animals and angels and shepherds all together at the same time. And there are additions that have become tradition, such as the number 3 for the wise men, the cattle who are lowing and the baby who never cries.

I have no problem with this! I firmly believe that things don’t need to be true in order to be meaningful. I’m sure many of us have experienced viewpoint-changing epiphanies from fictional stories. We learn about how the world works through the true and fictional stories we hear, and also through the things that lie between fact and fiction, like the songs and poetry that makes us feel.

The flip side of adding to Bible stories is that we sometimes accept their brevity without really thinking about how strange it is. With the story of Mary, we have the angel Gabriel coming to visit and telling her she will conceive and give birth to a son. The Bible says Mary…