Essentials: Hope, Peace, Joy, Love, Immanuel, Epiphany

CMC Service 12-26-21.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.

Sermon | God with us, Us with God

Text: Luke 1:39-56

Speaker: Joel Miller

In April 1977 a group of mothers gathered in the Plaza de Mayo outside the presidential palace in Buenos Aires, Argentina.  It was a demonstration of women whose adult children had gone missing under the current military dictatorship.  They demanded the release of their loved ones but were instead expelled from the public square. 

This was the first public action of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo.  Later that year they  decided to join the annual pilgrimage to Our Lady of Lujan, a Basilica with a statue of the Virgin Mary.  They wore white headscarves with the names and birth dates of their missing children along with the words “Aparicion con Vida,” “Alive reappearance.”  This was their hope and their demand for their children who were desaparecidos, disappeared.  In the following years The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo continued telling their stories and speaking out against the repressive military government, at great risk to themselves. 

At the height of their protests the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo marched with posters containing the words of Mary’s Magnificat:

Él hace proezas con su brazo:
dispersa a los soberbios de corazón,

     God has shown strength with his arm
     He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts

derriba del trono a los poderosos
y enaltece a los humildes,

     God has brought down the powerful from their thrones
     and lifted up the lowly

a los hambrientos los colma de bienes
y…

CMC Christmas Eve 2021 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.

…

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 | Peace and release 

Texts: Malachi 3:1-4; Luke 3:1-14

Speaker: Joel Miller

It’s the second Sunday of Advent and the candle of peace has been added to the candle of hope.  For those of us who identify as Mennonite, or at least Menno-curious, this is a familiar theme. Mennonites have long believed that peace and peacemaking, rather than being an optional extra for Christian living, is essential to the gospel itself.  Jesus models for us the kind of peaceful humanity we both aspire toward and can never quite reach.  A peace-centered faith has all kinds of implications in how we relate with our militarized national government, the international community, and immigrants and refugees who enter our country; where we invest money; advocacy for ending the death penalty; our relationship with creation and our neighbors and ourselves.  Kind of everything.  We believe in peace so much we have two peace candles going right now.       

On a personal level, another dimension of peace for me is that whenever I have taken the Enneagram personality type indicator I have most often been identified as a Nine, which is called…wait for it…The Peacemaker.  This could be because I like to get right answers on tests and being “The Peacemaker” is clearly the right answer for a Mennonite pastor to be.  Or, more likely, as I am learning, this type does seem to capture my own potential pitfalls and strengths.  When The Peacemaker type is not overly healthy we can simply blend with other’s opinions and preferences, essentially losing our sense of self, all the while building up unexpressed anger toward others for taking…