https://joelssermons.files.wordpress.com/2020/01/20200119sermon.mp3

The first half of the audio is a historical reading of Mennonite Central Committee, and three members briefly telling of the MCC service experiences.  The sermon begins around the 17 minute mark.

Text: 2 Corinthians 5:18-20

Speaker: Joel Miller

Back in 2004, I had the opportunity to attend the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions in Barcelona, Spain.  Along with being happy to just be there, I was especially interested in how these different philosophies and religions would find common ground.  I attended seminars with titles like: “Middle East stories: The significance of the Holy Land in our Sacred Texts,” “A Buddhist-Christian dialogue on responses to environmental violence,” “Interreligious dialogue and non-negotiable dogmas.”  In between seminars there was plenty of time for random conversations with whoever I found sitting or walking next to me, most of them not Christian or American.

One of the things I remember most, now 16 years later, had nothing to do with theological dialogue.  It related to something we all had in common: We all had to eat.  There were plenty of options.  One of them was in a large tent by the conference center.  Every day of the Parliament members of the Sikh religion prepared, cooked, served and cleaned up a free lunch for everyone who wanted to eat with them.  Being a poor seminary student, I went every day.  So did many others.

As we learned, this meal had a name: Langar.  A langar is, by definition, a vegetarian meal Sikhs serve out of a community kitchen that is open to everyone, regardless of religion, race, economic status, etc.

At a large conference about religious cooperation and understanding, the langar enacted what those seminars with fascinating names, and pretty fascinating content, spoke of.

I must say, it’s eye opening to be on the receiving end of hospitality,…

Texts: Isaiah 42:1-9; Matthew 3:13-17

Speaker: Mark Rupp

I want to start this morning with an excerpt from a poem called “Traditional Values Worldview” by the spoken word artist named Levi the Poet.  In the first half of the poem, we enter the story of a young woman traveling with her father, a sea captain.  She meets a young man on one of their island stops, and here we pick up as the young woman and this new friend head off looking for adventure:

~~~

[You can read and listen to the full poem HERE.  The excerpt during the sermon began about halfway through the poem at the line: “The boy and I met a mystic…”.]

~~~

The story of Jesus’ baptism is a bit confounding for those of us who may have grown up with a theology of baptism sunk so deeply into the notion of washing away sin that we have forgotten where the surface really is or what it means to fill our lungs to the brink of overflowing.  Those of us who broke forth from the waters gasping toward a forgiveness that could finally make us good,

enough,

we echo that voice from the wilderness stuttering over the thought of the one we’ve been waiting for wading within those waters;

our sloughed-off sin still floating dangerously near the surface, we smile sheepishly at those stubborn stains we’re afraid might still yet need to be beaten out on the rocks. 

When baptism becomes an exercise in “hate the sin but love the sinner” turned inward, conveniently creating sacramental losers and winners, Jesus’ approach toward those waters should give us pause:

…

…

…

Maybe it wasn’t ever about hating anything.

Maybe those mountain mystics who declare their feet evil for ever touching the ground have forgotten that the Divine dances to the music of flutes that must not be refused; she…

https://joelssermons.files.wordpress.com/2020/01/010520sermon.mp3

Text: John 1:1-5; 10-18

Over the years I’ve taught a number of youth catechism Sunday school courses.  We talk about the big ideas of Christian faith.  Words and concepts that get used all the time in church, which can benefit from more focused attention.  Little things like “God,” “Jesus,” “Creation,” “Bible,” “Church,” “Prayer.”  You get the idea.

One of my favorite exercises is when we focus on Jesus.  I ask them to imagine themselves in the place of the gospel writers.  What those writers had to work with was a collection of stories and sayings and memories, some written down, some passed on through word of mouth.  They’re trying to draw a picture of who Jesus was, and who he is for the people reading and hearing their gospel account, now several generations removed from Jesus’ life.

Now, here’s the question:  Where do you start?  Where does this story begin?  What do you say in chapter 1 that introduces the story you need to tell, sets it on the trajectory it needs to go?  How do you introduce Jesus?

The youth split up into four groups, each one reading through the first chapter of one of the gospels in the Bible.  One of the things I ask them to notice is how far back their gospel writer traces the lineage of Jesus.  Where does he come from and who does he belong to?  We then come back together and talk about what each group noticed about how their writer introduces Jesus.  We go in the order scholars generally believe the gospels to have been written.

So we start with Mark.  Mark traces the coming of Jesus back to the words of the prophet Isaiah.  Jesus emerges out of and belongs to the prophetic tradition.  In Mark, we first meet Jesus as a full grown…

Text: Luke 2:8-20

Speaker: Joel Miller

This is the season of darkness.

As a sometimes biker to church during the work week I’ve been aware of the increasing difficulty of getting back home in the evening before the darkness arrives.  A strong headlight, blinking taillight, and reflective jacket gets added to the list of equipment necessary for safe travel.  Not to mention a coat, cap, and multiple layers of gloves.  The early onset darkness does make for a less crowded Olentangy Trail at 5:30pm.

The night from which we all just awoke held the longest darkness of the year.  The winter solstice.

Less daylight can have real effects on our bodies.  Cases of depression increase in the winter months.  In general, energy levels run lower.  It makes one consider that our animal cousins might be on to something with the whole hibernation thing.  They get to both eat a lot of food at the end of the growing season and sleep through the cold and dark season.  Trees pull their energy stores down into the ground where their roots hold the reserves, keeping vigil in the dark.

I recently saw a drawing with a vertical cross section of a winter scene.  Above the ground is snow and a barren tree.  Below the ground are the tree roots, a cavity with a bear hibernating, another with a groundhog.  And a third underground cavity with a child curled up and reading a book.  If not hibernation, then perhaps more of that inner child in these months.  Permission to curl up and enter fresh worlds of thought.

Spiritual and theological language has overall not taken kindly to darkness, treating it mostly as a negative contrast to light.  Like the verse in the opening statement of John’s gospel.  “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” …

Texts: Isaiah 11:1-10; Matthew 3:1-11

Speaker: Mark Rupp

The end of the year and the beginning of the new year–whether you measure liturgically or by the 12-month calendar–is a time of looking back and looking forward.  This past week, I was reminded that it was almost one year ago I decided that one of my new year’s resolutions was going to be getting more houseplants.  Of course, “more” wasn’t hard when you start from zero, but on January 1, 2019, I walked out of Giant Eagle with a beautiful, fuschia-colored orchid. 

Thus began a journey that has blossomed–pun intended–into, at last count, 27 different containers of plants.  We only have one room in our house that gets adequate light and doesn’t allow access to meddling felines, so nearly all of those 27 plant-babies live in that one, southern-facing sun-filled room. 

Lately I’ve taken to calling this room our sanctuary.

This sanctuary is also home to my desk, so the plants became my companions this week as I sat with the lectionary texts.  Isaiah’s vision of a tender shoot springing forth from the stump was made even more vibrant as I looked around and could see new shoots and leaves springing forth around me.  A spider plant that I brought home from the CMC plant sale recently put out a spiderette on a long, slender shoot that positioned itself in such a way so that it could peer over my shoulder while I work, offering silent commentary to my readings of the scriptures.

I am certainly still a novice when it comes to plants, but to my credit, none of them have been reduced to mere stumps so far; however, when I think about Isaiah’s vision, I can’t help but think of one of my plants in particular.  When I mentioned to Sarah Werner about my resolution,…