https://joelssermons.files.wordpress.com/2019/01/20190106sermon.mp3

This sermon contains musical interludes and is best heard (above) rather than read.  Many thanks to Tom Blosser (piano) and Jim Myers (clarinet), and to Rick Leonard for doing a first draft physics fact check, resulting in some editing that makes me sound like I know more than I do about such things.   

Texts: Isaiah 60:1-6; Matthew 2:1-18

Sitting down a while back to plan this worship series, one of the tasks was assigning which sense would go with which week.  Seeing and hearing could go anywhere, but when, exactly, in the Advent to Christmas to Epiphany plot is it time to taste, to touch, to smell?  Fortunately, the texts help us out.  It’s not every week frankincense and myrrh get hand delivered into the story line.  And so, we finally arrive at the wafting wonder of Epiphany.  A time to breathe in the fresh air of a new year.  Do you smell what I smell?

Do You See What I See?

Matthew’s birth narrative has a distinctly different smell than Luke’s.  Luke has the infant Jesus laid in a manger, a feed trough for animals.  Do you smell what I smell?  Mary and Joseph are soon joined by shepherds who’d been living with their sheep in the fields.  There’s no room for them in the inn, so they share space with non-human creatures, and the mostly- domesticated humans who care for them – and the smells that emit from them.

Matthew speaks of educated foreigners – magi – meeting with royalty – Herod – on their way to visit the Messiah whose star they have seen.  When they find him, he’s in a house, into which they bring their fragrant and valuable gifts.

If one were to have one’s eyes and ears swaddled around with strips of cloth, such that one could only…

Below are two reflections on Touch from CMC members within the Advent/Christmas theme “Do you sense what I sense?”

Megan Stauffer-Miller
Scriptures: 1 Samuel 2:26, Luke 2 :41-52

Clay: volcanic rock decomposed by reactions with water.  Imagine holding these seemingly unrelated materials in your cupped hands… ROCK and WATER… for millennia.  Time passes.  You’re left with clay: pliable when wet, brittle when dry, strengthened or destroyed by exposure to extreme heat, vulnerable to unseen impurities, impenetrable (kind of), vessel of nourishment, agent of artistry.

This material, when it’s potential was discovered, propelled humanity in a new direction.  It’s Biblical references are many and integral to our creation story. Humanity formed from the Heavens (Breath of God) and “dust of the ground”.

But these thoughts, these ideas are for the thinkers: theologians, artists, scientists, philosophers, those cerebral types.  Sure, I listen to NPR, I’ll dabble in some heady conversation, but to be honest I’d rather just dig my hands into something.  For some of you it may be helpful to know that I, as of this school year, am teaching high school Ceramics after teaching elementary Art for 17 years.  My district is “economically disadvantaged” and minorities are the majority.

Picture a teenager you’re familiar with, hypothetically hold their hands in yours (awkward right?) pliable, brittle, strengthened or destroyed when exposed to extremes, vulnerable to unseen impurities, impenetrable (kind of), high energy, agents of creativity.  A Ceramics classroom is the intersection of these commodities; “dust of the ground” and the “fountain of youth.”

If anyone from the Ohio Department of Education is here, the objective of my Ceramics I and II Course is: To create opportunities for students to interact with ceramics, their own and others, in an informed thoughtful manner.  What that looks like in daily practice is: managing cell phones, new sneakers, dry skin, poverty, raging…

https://joelssermons.files.wordpress.com/2018/12/20181223Sermon.mp3

Texts: Luke 1:39-56

This sermon was accompanied with a violin playing “My soul cries out,” Sing the Story 124, and vocals singing “Taste and see,” Sing the Journey 86.

Three months ago we were at Camp Luz for fall retreat.  After a heavy rain on Friday, it was a lovely weekend to be outside.  As usual, we played, ate, sang, talked, and ate some more.  Three of us rode our bikes the 100 miles from Westerville to Camp Luz, on the Ohio to Erie trail, rather proud of ourselves and a little surprised for having made it with no major problems.  On Sunday Jim Leonard reflected on congregational life.  Joe Mas and Linda Mercadante shared thoughts on hiking the Camino in Spain, a lifelong goal fulfilled, a pilgrimage.  After the service, we cleaned up and headed home.  Pulling out from Ravine Lodge, with my own and another bike strapped to the back of our minivan, I backed directly into a tree.  It bent the front wheel of one bike, and the frame of my new road bike.  After the somber 100 mile drive home, I took them both to the bike shop. Two days later we celebrated Ila’s sixth birthday.

That was three months ago.

A lot happens in three months.  The weather has changed.  An election has come and gone.  We turn the calendar, people have birthdays and anniversaries.  Kids get a little older and taller.  Bikes get ridden, bent, fixed, and ridden again.  Then suspended in the garage, waiting for warmer days.

Three months was also the length of our summer Sabbatical.  I suppose a lot happened then, too, but the best part of a Sabbatical is what doesn’t happen.  An extended time away from the normal routine.  Time to rest, to restore, time to be intentionally unproductive.  On Sabbatical, time is…

https://joelssermons.files.wordpress.com/2018/12/20181223Sermon.mp3

Texts: Luke 1:39-56

This sermon was accompanied with a violin playing “My soul cries out,” Sing the Story 124, and vocals singing “Taste and see,” Sing the Journey 86.

Three months ago we were at Camp Luz for fall retreat.  After a heavy rain on Friday, it was a lovely weekend to be outside.  As usual, we played, ate, sang, talked, and ate some more.  Three of us rode our bikes the 100 miles from Westerville to Camp Luz, on the Ohio to Erie trail, rather proud of ourselves and a little surprised for having made it with no major problems.  On Sunday Jim Leonard reflected on congregational life.  Joe Mas and Linda Mercadante shared thoughts on hiking the Camino in Spain, a lifelong goal fulfilled, a pilgrimage.  After the service, we cleaned up and headed home.  Pulling out from Ravine Lodge, with my own and another bike strapped to the back of our minivan, I backed directly into a tree.  It bent the front wheel of one bike, and the frame of my new road bike.  After the somber 100 mile drive home, I took them both to the bike shop. Two days later we celebrated Ila’s sixth birthday.

That was three months ago.

A lot happens in three months.  The weather has changed.  An election has come and gone.  We turn the calendar, people have birthdays and anniversaries.  Kids get a little older and taller.  Bikes get ridden, bent, fixed, and ridden again.  Then suspended in the garage, waiting for warmer days.

Three months was also the length of our summer Sabbatical.  I suppose a lot happened then, too, but the best part of a Sabbatical is what doesn’t happen.  An extended time away from the normal routine.  Time to rest, to restore, time to be intentionally unproductive.  On Sabbatical, time is…

Texts: Luke 1:68-79; 3:1-6

Speaker: Mark Rupp

The prompt was “Where do I see God in the world around me?”  Where do I see God?  See God?  But what does that even mean?!  The more I think about it, the more unsure I become about this whole project of seeing God.  Isn’t seeing God reserved for those religious fanatics who insist that their visions are revelations of the Divine that must be heeded at all costs?  Aren’t people who see God people that we assume are in need of clinical help of some kind, or at least the kind of people that we can politely ignore?  Wouldn’t we expect talk about seeing God to be coming more from street preachers shouting their messages of armageddon doom?  Or maybe even from charlatans just looking to make a quick buck from those who are truly desperate for a glimpse of God? 

“Where do I see God in the world around me?”

This is the second week on our Advent theme exploring the five senses but our first week focusing in on one of those senses.  And “sight” feels like a lot of pressure.  It’s probably the one sense that all of us lean on the most heavily.  If we can see it, it must be real.  There’s a reason the saying is “seeing is believing” and not “smelling is believing.”  So it feels like there’s a lot of pressure to get this “sight” week just right because if we can’t talk about “seeing God” coherently, then how are we going to convince anyone that smelling God or tasting God is a worthwhile topic for discussion?

Even the scriptures have a bit of a mixed bag message when it comes to “seeing God.”  All the way back in Genesis, we find out that a guy named Jacob decided…