Matthew 14:22-33-“The Weight of Fear”

Synopsis:

After feeding the multitude, Jesus sends the disciples off to set sail while he finally gets away to pray. During the night, a great storm rises and the disciples are battered to and fro. Early in the morning, Jesus defies gravity and transverses the waters to meet the disciples exactly where they are. They think he is a ghost, but Peter asks to be invited onto the water. He begins to walk on the water. Not until he looks around he sees the storms and rising tide and begins to sink with fear. Jesus catches him, but still asks him, why didn’t he trust God with what was first firm beneath his feet. FDR said to our nation in a time when we were facing a Great Depression and an impending World War, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” and in this Gospel story we see how Peter’s fears cause to sink, rather than being still and trusting God is the God of the wind and the waves.

Matthew 14:13-21-"A Table in the Wild"

Synopsis:

Psalm 78 asks, “Can God set a table in the wilderness?” Jesus does just that when he feeds a multitude with a few fish and loaves. The wilderness desert is a dangerous, inhospitable place, but God continues to show up in our wilderness and help us find our way back to the Table. Like in the children’s book “Where the Wild Things Are” one child psychologist notes how the book is a story about a rambunctious little boy who is put in timeout, feels his feelings in a far away land of his imagination, and is draw back into the real world by the smell of supper and the warmth of his mother’s love. On this Sunday, we share Communion and are reminded how God sustains us and calls us home no matter how far into the wilderness we might be.

Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52-"Eighth Sunday after Pentecost"

Synopsis:

Jesus offers two of his shortest parables about how God grows greatness from small beginnings. Much like St. Patrick of Ireland and Father Greg Boyle of Los Angeles who let God planted them in small places, great growth came to change the world around them. Although, we have a hard time seeing what God is growing in us and around us. Part of our call as people of faith is to bear witness by holding up a mirror and telling others, “Look was God has grown!”

Genesis 28- "“Dingy Basements, Silly String, and Other Holy Spots & Things"

Synopsis:

In the beloved story of Jacob’s Ladder, God appears to Jacob in a desert wasteland, and Jacob discovers he is actually on holy ground. God continues to open our eyes to the holiness of unexpected places (like youth camp basements) if we are willing to open our eyes and see our world and others through God’s eyes.

Matthew 13:1-9- " Sixth Sunday after Pentecost"

Synopsis:

Jesus shares a beloved parable (an earthly story with a heavenly meaning, as the old preachers would say). This is one of the few parables where Jesus tells his disciples exactly what he means because specificity matters. Like saying “Black lives matter,” rather than “All lives matter,” it is important to speak with specificity, so Jesus warns his disciples about the different “soils” of the soul–hard, shallow, and thorny–but that there is good, soft soil in which God is growing good fruit. Within each human heart are all of these soils–no one is 100% evil or 100% good. We all have hard places to till up, but we also have good, soft soil where God is at work in our lives. In David Wilcox’s Carpenter Story, we hear a story about the power of creativity and compassion to help till two hard hearts and reconcile two neighbors, turned enemies, turned friends again by a traveling carpenter.

Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

Synopsis:

Rev. Timothy Peoples of Emerywood Baptist Church in High Point, NC, preaching on Song of Songs 2:8-13.

Matthew 10:40-42- "Fourth Sunday after Pentecost"

Synopsis:

On the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost, we continue with Jesus teaching to his disciples as he prepares them to be sent into a dangerous world. Finally, he tells them to look for those who will offer cups of cold water to them, those agents of hospitality and grace in unexpected places. We live in a world hungering and thirsting for justice, and each of us have a cup of cold water to share with God’s beloved, but the needs are so great feels like watering the desert. And yet, if we all share our cups of cold water, God will continue to quench every thirst.

Matthew 10:24-39-"Third Sunday after Pentecost"

Synopsis:

On the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost, Jesus calls his disciples to fearless discipleship in a dangerous world. What does fearless love look like in our world today? It doesn’t take long to see such grace. In Louisville, we saw images of protestors protecting a police officer who was separated from his partners in downtown underneath the Bearno’s Pizza sign. Love compels us to listen, to learn, and to do as the great, Black theologian Howard Thurman says we must follow Jesus and, “Jesus stands with those whose backs are against the wall.”

Romans 5:1-8- " A World without Pain"

Synopsis:

Joanne Cameron, “A World without Pain,” Cameron tells the story of living a life with Marsili syndrome: a genetic mutation which dulls pain and some sensory experiences. About a third of the population has some form of this mutation. Paul tells us that it is in fact our experiences of suffering produce, endurance, character, then hope. God love is proved, though, in that while we were at our weakness, Christ died for us. Christ took on the shame of a criminals death, because the powers of hate, violence, and Empire in our world could no longer tolerate the Gospel he preached and the power he shared with common folks and outcasts. Those who suffer, if they find healing, will be lead to deeper empathy and compassion for others. God does not cause suffering, but seeks help humans salvage good in our response to pain.

Matthew 28:16-20- " Trinity Sunday: Holy Dance Divine"

Synopsis:

In what is know by many as the Great Commission, Jesus sends his disciples into the world on mission but not alone. He sends them in the fellowship of the Trinity, in one of the rare moments in scripture where the trinitarian formula is shared. This concept will create the first major theological debates in the Early Church, but the core of the trinitarian controversy is a question of relationship. Is God, how the Greek Philosophers imagined God, a Prime Mover, pure, distance, and untouched by humans suffering? Or, is God as the Hebrews confessed and as Jesus revealed, a God marked by cruciform love, eternally committed to relationship with the children of God and creation itself? Jesus sends his disciples not on a mission to promote a new religion, but to announce the Good News that God invites the whole of creation, neighbors and enemies, strangers and family, into the trinitarian dance of love.

Acts 1:6-11- "Ascension Sunday"

Synopsis:

On Ascension Sunday, Jesus tells his disciples to wait in Jerusalem until the Holy Spirit arrives. Waiting is a place where we find ourselves so often, but especially during this time of quarantine. When we find ourselves in seasons of waiting, what dreams will God stir in your heart? What unimagined futures is God germinating in your for whatever comes when the fog clears and the road opens up?

John 14:15-21- "The Orphans of God"

Synopsis:

On the Sixth Sunday of Eastertide, Jesus promises to send the Holy Spirit, the Paraklete or the Advocate, who will come beside them and walk with them after Jesus has left. Yet, Jesus leaves them in the body but his promise of the Holy Spirit is to not leave them orphaned. In the story of the Exonerated Five (formerly called the Central Park Five), we see the resilience of love and what it means to be not left orphaned but advocates for those our society forgets who God will not ever forget.

John 14:1-10- "All the Way Home"

Synopsis:

On the Fifth Sunday of Eastertide, Jesus shares his final meal and swansong words with his disciples before his crucifixion. The promise he makes to them is that they will not be abandoned, even though Thomas says they don’t know the way to follow him. Jesus replies, “I AM the Way, the Truth, and the Life,” and they already know him so they will know how to make it all the way home to God’s loving arms.

Psalm 116:1-4, 12-19- “Feeling Heard”

Synopsis:

The Psalmist tells us, “I love the LORD, because God has heard my voice and my supplications.” In times of uncertainty, we want to “feel heard.” As the old Celtic proverb says, “Bidden or not bidden, God is Here.” God is always listening, and the Jesus-Story of God’s compassionate love invites us to see how, despite appearances, it is an Easter World. So, while God hears us, God is also still speaking into our present circumstances…so, are we listening?

Acts 2:14a, 22-32; Psalm 16- “If You Can’t Preach Like Peter”

Synopsis:

Peter preaches his first Sunday on Pentecost, bearing witness to what he and the other women and men who followed Jesus saw with their very eyes. There is an edge to his message, because he is in fact preaching to many of the same folks who would have cried in the crowd, “Crucify!” Yet, God’s redemptive work is inclusive of all people, and the invitation to believe the Good News and repent from violent, vengeful ways is offered to all. In the song, There is a Balm in Gilead, we hear the lyrics, “If you can’t preach like Peter, if you can’t pray like Paul, you can tell the love of Jesus and say, "He died for all.”

John 20:1-18- “Always Easter Sunday”

Synopsis:

John’s account of the Resurrection concludes with Mary preaching the first sermon of Good News announcing Christ is risen. While we are unable to be together on “Easter Sunday,” every day is Easter, a new day to celebrate and proclaim the Good News that life triumphs over death, and God’s love will always win the day.

Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29- "Clearing the Way for Christ: Palm Sunday"

Synopsis:

Throughout Lent, we have been asking God to give us fresh eyes to see all aspects of our life together as a community of faith. On Palm Sunday, the Psalmist reminds us that the most unlikely one becomes the foundation for the whole building. Jesus rides into Jerusalem not on a white steed like a conquering Caesar but on a goofy donkey (a colt even, so his feet were probably dragging on the ground) to show that God’s power and the world’s power are radically and fundamentally different. Jesus conquers not not by shedding the blood of his enemies but by allowing himself to be executed like a common criminal on a Roman cross–a gruesome but regularly used instrument of torture and death. Christ comes to teach us what power truly looks like, as he says in John 15:12-13, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” Palm Sunday is a reminder to us that God’s Kingdom is always coming and already arriving, and the policies of God’s Kingdom look radically different than the policies of this world. In God’s Kingdom, lions lay down with lambs instead of eating them and mortal enemies break bread as brothers and sisters.

John 11:1-6- "Clearing the Way for Christ: Seeing Life with Fresh Eyes"

Synopsis:

Jesus’ dear friend Lazarus dies, and he delays his arrive in Bethany. To return to Judea means the threat of execution for Jesus, so the disciples (all except Thomas, who gets the unfair reputation as Doubting Thomas) urge Jesus to not go, while Thomas is ready to die with his Rabbi. Mary and Martha are deep in grief and blame Jesus for Lazarus’ death because he did not come sooner. Jesus shows them that he is “the resurrection and the life,” and calls Lazarus forth from the cold tomb smelling of rotting flesh. Death is an inevitability we must all face, but the the Gospel bears witness to our hope that God of Love and Life leaves no child behind and collects us all into the loving arms of our Savior. Believing in the life beyond this life changes our posture and orientation as we recognize that success does not have to mean the accumulation of belongings or the assurance of longevity, but in the continual sacrifice and decluttering of all that charms us most–titles and treasure are all trash and trinkets before the Immortal, Invisible God only Wise. In a consumerist culture, we are taught our possessions are what give us purpose and value, but in an instant death can arrive at our doorstep. What matters truly to us? Who will call us forth from the depths of our own white-washed tombs filled with the stuff we hoard? Jesus invites us to see our life with fresh eyes in the light of resurrection.

John 4:5-14-" Clearing the Way for Christ: Seeing Our Circumstances with Fresh Eyes (COVID #2)"

Synopsis

So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink’. (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?’ (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, “Give me a drink”, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?’ Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.’

John 9:1-41-"Clearing the Way for Christ: Seeing First with Fresh Eyes (COVID #1)"

Synopsis:

Jesus heals a man born blind. His disciples assume he is born blind because of his parent’s sin, but Jesus tells them this is not so, spits in the mud, rubs it on his eyes, and sends him to wash in a pond. Immediately, everyone in town who knows this man start asking questions, and the religious authorities get involved. Because Jesus heals on the sabbath (using religious rules as a technicality rather than celebrating this man has been healed), the Pharisees are outraged and interrogate the man who is now seeing for the first time in his life with fresh, healed eyes. They want him to agree that Jesus is a sinner for healing him on the sabbath and that Jesus is a charlatan. With great humility and simplicity the man responds, “Look, all I know is I was blind, and now I see.” No matter our level of sight impairment, the trans-formative power of the Gospel illuminates our mind’s eye to imagine new possibilities beyond the situations into which we are born. We are invited to re-imagine our lives (through dreaming), our relationships (through reconciliation), our homes (through clearing), and our communities (through peacemaking and justice) with fresh eyes as if we were seeing the world for the first time.