Archive for category: Sermons

Scripture:  1 Peter 2:2-10

But we are living stones, so what does that mean? How do we carry this foundational presence out into the world? How do we commit to building a church that transforms not just those inside, but those outside as well? How will our body-building strengthen our whole neighborhood and not just ourselves? This is the challenge of the living stones: discipleship for the transformation of the world.

Scripture:  1 Peter 1:17-23

The season “of Easter” is not a time for worm thinking! It is a time for claiming the gift of abundant life. It is a time or picking ourselves and one another up when we have fallen to get our feet back on the path toward the kin-dom of God (or back on the dance floor where we can express our joy in whose we have become).

Scripture: Matthew 28:1-10

The grand and glorious reversal of all we thought we knew about life and about death, Easter is God’s yes to love and to life eternal through the Son, Jesus the Christ. This is a day of color and light and joy as we celebrate resurrection with all that is within us.

Scripture: Ezekiel 37:1-14; Psalm 130

We start with the Psalm, which begins with a hard question but then ends with hope. It begins with an admission of guilt, or need, or emptiness and then moves toward grace and reconciliation. Without that grace, who could stand? Without that hope, who could stand? We would be dry bones; we would be three days rotting in a tomb.

But that is not our story; that is not our song. Instead, the bones can live, by the breath of God. Instead, death is not an end, by the word of Christ. No, we don’t go to an easy celebration, but to a deep appreciation for what Christ has done – is about to do – for us on the cross. We are humbled by this realization, and repentant that it is our rejection that has caused this pain.

Scripture: John 4: 5-42

We’re thirsty this week. That’s the point. Thirsting for the living waters that Jesus spoke about to the woman at the well. And not simply a one time or easy but unsatisfying spiritual refreshment, but a recognition of the deepest thirsts that we have and how we seem to always be thirsty, no matter how often we drink.like the woman, once we have received this water of life, Like the woman at the well, we want others to have their thirsts quenched as well. The water of life fills us and sends us out into the world to be thirst quenchers. Let’s once again drink deeply of the water of life and pray for eyes opened to see the thirsty ones around us every day. So that we, like the woman at the well, can run and tell what we have found.