Text: 1 Thessalonians 2:1-12Speaker: Mark Rupp

This is the final Sunday of the Ours is a Story… worship series where we have been exploring and reflecting on our Membership Commitment, so I thought it would be good to focus on the final line of the statement. “By God’s grace, may we be a sanctuary, where we welcome, protect, and challenge one another.” Now there is a lot in that one line that could be unpacked, and I’m grateful for the ways Bethany helped us last week to think about how we may be a sanctuary by committing to the importance of our Keeping CMC Safe from Abuse policies. 

But what really stands out to me in this final line are those three verbs, those three actions we commit to in order to fully become a sanctuary for one another. In particular, I’m struck by the final one: challenge. How do we challenge one another? Or perhaps more importantly, how do we challenge one another without relying on structures of dominance and power-over that can so easily become controlling and toxic, especially when these challenges are tied to spiritual matters which are often about the core of who we are. 

This final Sunday of this series also overlaps with the first Sunday of Pride month, so as I think about this question of how we challenge one another, I can’t help but think about how my own faith and life journeys have been marked by challenges to my identity as a gay man. So before we circle back to these hard questions about what it means to challenge, I want to detour for a moment, but a detour that I think will help us see these questions in a new way. 

I think it has actually been a long time since I told my coming…

Today is Keeping CMC Safe Sunday. We won’t be discussing specific experiences of abuse, but abuse prevention itself can be activating. Many, perhaps even most of us, have been impacted by abuse in some way. Many, perhaps even most of us, have been impacted by church-related abuse in some way. And so, one of the ways we can offer care to our community today is by offering care to ourselves throughout this service and sermon; each of us is part of the community, and each of us matters.

If our bodies become dysregulated during the sermon, we can aid ourselves in self-comfort and self-regulation. I invite you to practice any of these things, should they be fitting:

-wiggle toes, roll shoulders, twist in seat, awareness of the ground beneath feet, pew beneath seat

-five things (see, hear, smell, taste, touch)

-“this is my hand”

-breathe in through our noses for a count of five, hold our breath for a moment, and release through my mouth for a count of five or longer.

May we extend ourselves the kindness we would a beloved child or a dear friend. May we be gentle and compassionate with ourselves and with one another.

——

I have loved to write since I was a child. In elementary school, I often carried a notebook with me, adding to my “chapter book” in-progress throughout the day. I fell asleep constructing first sentences of new stories in my head. Writing came easily. Words flowed, and I delighted in bringing my imagination to the page.

Yet, as much as I loved writing, I never cared for outlines.

…I wanted to pause in case this roused the same response that my feelings about The Princess Bride did, but apparently outlines don’t evoke the same degree of emotional outpouring. …

I have never much cared for outlines. In elementary and middle school,…

…

Text: Luke 24:36-49Speaker: Joel Miller

When this congregation formed in the early 60s they wanted to have a common statement they could all affirm.  It was a way of committing, and re-committing each year to their faith and one another.  The words have changed, but the practice remains.  As Jacqui mentioned, we’ll be lingering with these words throughout the next month.

This first Sunday of that series happens to be the last time I’ll be preaching before a Sabbatical.  I’ll be here through next Sunday, worship leading as new members join.  But then I’m off to a cabin in a favorite spot in southern Ohio, the Arc of Appalachia, for a three day retreat to start the Sabbatical.

This morning I want to talk about story.  Story is one of the framing ideas in the Commitment Statement.  We have story around the practice of Sabbatical.  One of my favorite thinkers makes a distinction between what he calls right story and wrong story.  Our scriptures come to us primarily as story. 

This will be a bit longer than the average 16 ½ minute sermon, and then you won’t have to hear from me again until August.

Aside from a few verses about Jesus’ ascension into the heavens, today’s reading is the end of Luke’s gospel.  It’s a continuation of last week’s Emmaus Road story.  Those two travelers have hurried the seven miles back to Jerusalem to tell the other disciples about encountering the risen Jesus.  And now Jesus, pierced hands and all, appears to all of them, with the words we still pass to each other each week, “Peace be with you.”

And like the Emmaus story, Luke tells us Jesus went through the whole arc of the scriptures with them, from Moses through the prophets.  We don’t get many details of how Jesus interprets this…

Text: Luke 24:13-35   Speaker: Joel Miller

The hardest part of preaching on the Emmaus Road story isn’t finding something to say, but choosing what not to say.  The passage takes place on a single road between Jerusalem and the village of Emmaus, but it feels more like a hundred different story lines, all converging on this one dense path.  Which ones to follow and which to leave unexplored for another time? 

This is exactly as the gospel writer intends it.  This story occurs in the final chapter of Luke and serves as a summary of Luke’s message.  It’s his way of bringing his story to a climax, weaving together themes he’s been developing from the beginning.  It’s the gospel in miniature.  We are on a journey, together, confused and disoriented.  Jesus comes and walks alongside us, only we don’t recognize him for who he is.  The scriptures are opened and illuminated.  Hospitality is extended around a meal.  Bread is blessed, broken, and given, such that everyone has enough.  We, the travelers, have our eyes opened to Christ, are transformed, and go and share it with others. 

There it is, the gospel in one narrative sweep. 

Emmaus Road is a resurrection story.  It takes place on the same day the women visit the tomb and find it empty.  Easter Sunday.  “Now on that same day,” the story begins.  These two travelers who had been followers of Jesus are walking from Jerusalem to a town called Emmaus.  We’re told it’s about a seven mile trip.  Some of you commuted about that far to church this morning.  So if you want to have a biblical experience today, you can try walking home.  Pretty nice day for it.

Walking away from Jerusalem means they are walking away from the center of the universe, at least in Luke’s world.  Away…