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 Manuscript: A Story of Embodiment

Speaker: Sarah Werner

Good morning. It’s nice to be with you all this morning, near and far. It’s also nice to preach to actual humans instead of to the emptiness of my computer screen.

This passage from 1 Kings is one of my favorites in the Bible because it’s one of the relatively few times that God is depicted as walking on the earth. God doesn’t make very many in-person appearances outside of Genesis and Exodus. After the Israelites are done wandering in the wilderness it seems like God isn’t as visibly present to humans. But here is Elijah, having fled to the wilderness after killing the prophets of a rival god, Baal, and Jezebel is hunting for him. He asks God to kill him because he’s as good as dead. But the Word of the Lord tells him to eat and drink, feed his body. The Word of the Lord is used in the Hebrew Bible to refer to the embodied aspect of God that interacts with humans, like an intermediary angel. After he eats and drinks, he travels forty days to Mt. Horeb, further into the wilderness of the Sinai Desert, where he takes refuge in a cave. The word of the Lord comes to him again and tells him that God is about to pass by on the mountainside. Horeb is God’s holy mountain, the place where Moses received the ten commandments, the other name for Mt. Sinai. There is a great wind, an earthquake, and a fire. But it is only after these, with the sound of sheer silence,…

CMC Worship Service 9-5-21 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.

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Sermon | The next circle outward

Speaker: Joel Miller

To hear the story of Jesus and the Syrophoenician woman is to witness a transition in the making. 

One of the pulls for me toward focusing on transitions this summer was personal.  Maybe it had to do with turning 40 a few years ago.  Or maybe it had to do with the realization that our oldest daughters are now closer in proximity to young adulthood than I am – they approaching the front door, me having exited the back door – whenever that was.  Maybe it has to do with an evolving inner sense of time, more aware than ever of how this life I call my own extends back well before my birth through ancestors and geological time, and forward past my own death. 

One of the responses from people I’ve talked with about this theme is that we’re always in transition.  It never stops.  Which is undeniably true, which, I think, makes it all the more valuable to look at the larger picture. 

Frameworks. Metaphors. 

Am I riding the hinge between the first half and second half of life?  Or is it better thought of in thirds, in which case I am now solidly middle age, which could also be split into thirds making me early middle age? 

In ancient Hindu philosophy I would be in the second of four life stages, known as the householder, focused on obligations to home, family, and community.  Next up would be forest dweller, less focused on material stability.  More focused on spiritual…

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: When the plant talks back

Text: Exodus 3:1-14

Speaker: Joel Miller

This past week I stood in this very spot several times, looking around, imagining, remembering….  Mostly to practice not crying.  Not that I mind crying in public, not a problem, it just makes it hard to talk.  Along with the three-month Sabbatical, it’s been a year and a half since I’ve been a part of this here.  So there’s that.  And then there was this hope I had, fantasy really, that this end of summer time, more than “Hey, I’m back”, was going to be a much fuller “Hey, we’re back” – celebrating being on the other side of the biggest challenges of this pandemic.  Which is not the case.  So, there’s that too. 

So here we are, and “here” is many places.  And “we,” by God’s grace, is still one body, held together in spiritual and cosmic union in Christ.

Today and next week I do want to bring forward some of what I thought about and worked on during the Sabbatical, first through this Exodus story of Moses and the burning bush, and next week with the gospel story of Jesus and the Syrophoenician woman.  I assure you the Sabbatical had plenty of time for play and doing things entirely unrelated to church, including this new thing we discovered called weekend trips out of town.  Highly recommended, in moderation. 

But I did have roughly half of the Sabbatical for study and creation of some materials for what I hope to become an annual offering at CMC – a small group of adults, young and old going deeper into…

Due to technical difficulties, we do not have the first part of the service recorded. The recording picks up during children’s time but as usual, does not include the time for sharing.

Permission to podcast/stream the music in this service obtained through One License with license A-727859.

Gathering in God’s Name

Cultivating beloved community.  This was a worship theme that was born in part out of a hope that by the time we got to the series we would be in the process of returning to in-person worship services.  I suppose that hope has become somewhat of a reality, but I also recognize that this transition has been and continues to be more difficult than we probably would have guessed way back in that long-ago oh-so-naive time period known as just a few months ago. 

Regardless of how far we are into this transition, this worship series has coincided nicely with the start of that transition back to in-person services; however, we should not see them overlapping so much as to give the impression that cultivating beloved community only happens in person.  Whatever the next few weeks, months, or even years hold for us, it seems as though some form of hybrid community is here to stay.  And while it was hardly ever easy, the pandemic has shown us just how much we need connection to sustain us and just how much beloved community can be cultivated in lots of different ways. 

So while this series has coincided with the return to in-person services, it was perhaps equally as much born out of a recognition that the pandemic has caused many of us to reassess the relationships in our lives.  Maybe we found ourselves asking which friendships are most important for us to maintain even…

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.

Order of Worship

Prelude

Land Acknowledgement

Welcome

We acknowledge we are gathering on land where Miami, Osage, Shawnee, and other Indigenous peoples have lived and labored, fought and loved. We continue to work and pray for justice and conciliation.     

Call to Worship

As we gather, virtually and in-person, we collectively take a full and nourishing in-breath.

God, for our bodies, we give thanks.

Together, we exhale, releasing what needs to be released.

God, for our bodies, we give thanks.

As we inhale, we send oxygen to the parts of our body needing it most.

God, for our bodies, we give thanks.

As we exhale, we breathe out vibrance and passion, sharing our energy where it is needed.

God, for our bodies, we give thanks.

May we be present in our precious bodies. May we notice the stories our bodies carry. May we notice the sensations throughout our bodies. May we honor the sacred and holy wisdom of our bodies.

God, for our bodies, we give thanks.

Peace Candle

VT 1 | Summoned by the God Who Made Us

Children’s Time

Offering/Dedication Prayer

VT 61 | You Are Holy, You Are Whole

Scripture 1 Kings 2:10-12,1 Kings 3:3-14, NIV; John 6:51-58, NRSV

Sermon | Why Mennonites Can’t Dance: Co-Creating Embodied Resilience for the Beloved Community

Silent Reflection

Song | I’ve Got Peace Like a River

Sharing of Joys and Concerns

Pastoral Prayer

Passing the Peace

Extinguishing the Peace Candle

VT 827 | Move in Our Midst

Benediction

Announcements

Thanks to everyone who helped lead today’s service

Sermon: Amanda K Gross    

Worship Leader: Bethany Davey

Music Coordination: Phil Yoder

Children’s Time: Bethany Davey

Peace Candle: Julie & Phil Hart

Scripture Reading: Oliver & Eva Davey

Sound: Jim Myers & Tom Blosser

Camera Operator: Joel Copeland

Zoom Host: Elisa Leahy

Greeter: Mark Rupp

Worship Table: Chaska Yoder

Usher & Sanctuarian: Bill Plessinger

…