Text: Genesis 2:4b-7, 15-17; 3:1-9; Luke 11:4

Well, this past week I finally did it.  I’ve heard lots of people talking about it, read some articles, listened to a few podcasts about it.  I’m rarely an early adopter for these things, but figured there was no use being a very late adopter.  Have you tried it?  I did, and so far I’ve used it exactly once.  I finally signed up for a free account with ChatGPT. 

An email address, a password, and your birthday is all you need and you, too, can ask any question to this conversational Artificial Intelligence.  Just out of curiosity, how many of you have used ChatGPT or a similar kind of AI?  Not just with Google search results.

Before going any further, I feel compelled to pledge to you that I will never give a sermon written by AI no matter how good it gets at such things.  I will, however, be quoting from ChatGPT this morning, and will make it very clear that those are its words and not mine. 

The reason I signed up for an account this week was directly related to the sermon topic.  It’s the story of the Garden of Eden.  It’s the formation of the first human out of the dust, Adam. And the first woman from a rib from Adam’s side, Eve. The Creator places them in a garden, their home, with many trees for eating, except for one, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  The Lord God, Yahweh Elohim, the Creator, does not want them to eat from the tree of knowledge “for in the day you eat of it, you shall die.”  That’s the claim the Lord God makes, and that’s the claim the serpent denies when it visits Eve.  “You will not die,” the serpent says,…

Walking with Ruth

What Ruth and Naomi Teach Us About Being Sanctuary People

By Dr. Gina Perez

It is an incredible honor to offer this morning’s sermon.

I am not a religious studies scholar. But I am a religious woman who has been raised in the Roman Catholic Church and who, along with my husband, has raised our children in the Catholic church as well.

As our children were growing up, they often asked me why we are Catholic–at one point when our sons were young, they asked me why we couldn’t be Anglicans because they had been inspired by a truly inspiring and charismatic Anglican priest connected to their school.

My answer to them was pretty unoriginal and simple–I raised them Catholic because I was raised Catholic and it’s the religious tradition that I love, that formed me, and the only way I believe I could provide religious, moral and spiritual grounding for them.

This answer didn’t make them happy, but it’s an honest one that offers an invitation to share stories with them my experiences growing up Catholic. And as I prepared my sermon and reflected on what I wanted to share with all of you today, I remembered that a central story of my religious upbringing is the way the songs we sang at mass together moved me in a profound way and how they have stayed with me all my life.

My father, Felix Antonio Perez, was an incredible singer and it was easily his favorite part of mass. And while he was often asleep for part of each sermon on Sunday mornings, singing in church elicited a deep, deep joy in him.

One of the songs I remember and loved most was the Song of Ruth, the plaintive song filled with words of loyalty, longing, and commitment to be in deep communion with someone….

Texts: Exodus 3:7-10; Luke 4:16-19; John 20:17-18

The late Bible scholar Marcus Borg used to say: “Tell me your image of God, and I’ll tell you your politics.” 

Borg divided the biblical images of God into two major categories.  One is the distant patriarch who rules at the top of a hierarchy, like a king, issuing decrees, making judgments, separating the righteousness from the unrighteous, offering favor and forgiveness to those who follow certain protocols and beliefs, possessing great power to accomplish his will.

The other primary image of God is of a spirit present in all things.  God as all-pervasive spirit is more cooperative with creation than dominating over it.  This Spirit infuses all things with intelligence, making every river, mountain, bird, and fish a unique manifestation of divine Wisdom.  Spirit invites, nudges, delights, but never forces.      

I think reducing God-images to just these two categories is a bit of an over-simplification, but it does make the point.  It’s not hard to imagine how tending toward one of these images of God would impact one’s politics.

Now, this isn’t a sermon about politics as in “Hey did you see the latest poll numbers?”  But it is about politics in the more general sense – the affairs of the community – how we relate together, how power is exercised, and how resources and dignity are distributed.  Whether you feel like running far, far away from or can’t get enough of that first kind of politics, there’s no hiding from the fact that we are always negotiating and navigating through the issues of the more general kind.  

More specifically, we’ve been talking about the politics of disability, accessibility, and inclusion.  Those are the area highlighted in our Vision for Ministry.  And in case this series is the first time you knew we had a Vision for…

Reflection: Disability/Gift

Alyssa Graber

“Each person is given something to do that shows who God is: Everyone gets in on it, everyone benefits. All kinds of things are handed out by the Spirit, and to all kinds of people! The variety is wonderful!”

Before I begin, I want to make the disclaimer that I am speaking as someone who has worked with autistic and disabled folks and has spent a lot of time listening to their voices, and not as a representative of those communities. What I am sharing is not the experience of every disabled or autistic person, so I defer to them in all cases. Also language around disability is tricky. Most disabled folks prefer “identity first language” so that’s what I am using. I also use us/them language since I am not a part of the disabled or neurodiverse communities, but I recognize us/them is far too binary and is not reflective of the wide spectrum of disability and neurodiversity. We’re just stuck with the language we have! Speaking of neurodiversity- if you are unfamiliar with this term- it’s an umbrella term that encompasses autism, ADHD, and other brain differences. While it is not synonymous with autism, I am using both terms today.

I have been on a journey of how I think about disability, and I know there really isn’t a destination. I have been a music therapist for 11 years, and up until 2 weeks ago, have spent that entire time working in a school for kiddos with autism. While it’s tempting to get into the weeds of the history of autism and how it has historically been viewed and treated, and how that has changed over time, we don’t have the time for that. I will say that even in the last decade that I’ve been working in…

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

When we were planning ahead for this worship series on our Vision for Ministry, I noted that it would overlap with the end of our month of VBS activities and wondered if there was an opportunity to bring both themes together. Our vision for ministry, which you can read in full at the top of your bulletin, is a continuation from last year as we continue to focus on issues of “accessibility and inclusivity.” It was not a far leap to bring these themes together with Vacation Bible School when I realized one of the stories we would be looking at during VBS was the passage from Mark’s gospel read earlier. 

During VBS our kids got to meet Dr. Knowitall and her assistant, Rose, who were always working together on wacky experiments in their attempts to change the world. From pop-up houses made out of paper that could make sure everyone had a place to live to friendship bridges that would help people who are different come together, Dr. Knowitall and Rose had lots of good ideas even if their experiments weren’t working out quite like they expected. Even their Changemaker 5000 had to go through a number of revisions, and I’m not sure they ever got it working like they wanted. 

But along the way, they met different characters from the Bible. They talked with Nicodemus about the importance of asking questions. They met Peter and heard about how an odd vision helped him make a new friend. They talked with an Israelite woman who told them about Isaiah’s message from God to dream big about how the world could be. And they also met Candace and Theo, two friends who went to great lengths to make sure their other friend could get to see Jesus.

All of…