https://joelssermons.files.wordpress.com/2019/07/20190728sermon.mp3

Texts: John 20:19-23; Ephesians 4:1-6

The final event of the Kansas City convention, Saturday mid-morning, was a worship service.  As was the case throughout the week, there was lots of singing, led by a full band.  Most of the 3000 convention participants were still present.  The final speaker was Glen Guyton.  He’s been the Executive Director of Mennonite Church USA for just over a year – the first African American to hold that position.  When Glen came out to speak, most of the band members left the stage, but some stayed at their instruments.  This smaller band then broke out with a bass-driven opening I recognized right away from having come of age in the 90’s.  It was the unmistakable sound of the grunge band Nirvana, and their song “Come as you are.”  This was surprising, but then Glen grabbed the microphone and in a voice that surely had Kurt Cobain smiling from his grave, and perhaps slightly confused given the setting, Glen proceeded to sing most of the song with the band in full grunge mode:

Come as you are, as you were
As I want you to be
As a friend, as a friend
As a known enemy

Come doused in mud, soaked in bleach
As I want you to be
As a trend, as a friend
As an old memory

And I swear that I don’t have a gun, no I don’t have gun.

The lyrics kind of make sense if you don’t think too hard.  It was a memorable way to introduce his basic message, his vision for the church: We want to be the kind of church where you can come as you are, no matter your identity or condition.  We’re a peace church, we don’t have a gun, so come as you are, friend or enemy.

Just the sight of a Mennonite leader belting…

Texts: Genesis 1:31, 2:7, 15; Romans 8:19-23

Speaker: Linda Mercadante

Audio only

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Text: John 20:19-23

Speaker: Mark Rup

I don’t think I ever truly learned how to breathe until last year during my sabbatical.  Sure, I’ve been regularly taking in air for more than thirty-three years at this point, and sure, I was a music major with a focus on voice in college where I learned the importance of “proper” breathing technique. 

But all that time, I was mostly taking breath for granted or submitting it to my will as a tool, as a means to an end. 

During my sabbatical, though, one of the things I did was begin practicing yoga, which has, over time, opened me to recognizing the beauty and power of breath.  I had explored yoga before this, but never in a regular, sustained way.  I decided that I wanted to use my sabbatical to really commit to this practice because, as someone whose personality tends to live in a constant struggle between the head and the heart, I saw it as a way of finding balance not just in the literal, physical sense but in a deeply spiritual sense as well.  And so, with all sorts of time on my hands, it became an almost daily practice for me during those two months of my sabbatical. 

Those two months have now turned into almost a year and a half, and the practice has continued to transform me in deeply spiritual ways. 

I’ve done my best not to be “that guy” because I’ve heard the jokes about how most people don’t realize that it’s possible to do yoga without telling anyone about it.  But when I was at the MCUSA Convention last week, I heard a rumor that at some point in previous convention history the idea of offering yoga as one of the early morning group activities was rejected because of some non-specific…

https://joelssermons.files.wordpress.com/2019/06/20190630sermon.mp3

Text: Galatians 5:1,13-26

This week our nation celebrates its birthday.  There’s fireworks, there’s food, there’s commentary on where we’re at as a country, now 243 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence.  Freedom is a big word for us, from a big idea.  “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

That’s worked out pretty well for white, male, property owners.  The struggle for equal freedoms and opportunities is a major part of the history of our country.

Also this week is the biennial national convention of Mennonite Church USA – in Kansas City this year – in which we exercise our collective freedom-to-be-frugal by having the event during one of the cheapest convention weeks of the year.  But it’s still not cheap.  This year we’ll send 13 people to convention, with strong financial support from the congregation.  Thank you.

Many, many years ago – almost 2000 – the Apostle Paul had freedom on his mind.  It’s a central theme in his epistle, which is a fancy name for a letter, to the Galatians.

The letter is actually addressed to the “churches of Galatia,” plural.  Nobody’s quite sure how many churches this included or even where they were located.

The most common understanding of what’s going on behind this letter goes something like this:  In his missionary travels, the Apostle Paul helped found a group of small congregations of the Galatians.  They were primarily Gentiles, meaning they weren’t Jews, meaning they had never followed Jewish practices like male circumcision and Sabbath keeping and dietary guidelines.  They’d been pagans who had joined with everybody else in honoring the Roman imperial gods.

But now they’re Christians.

Although the early Christians weren’t…