Sermons
Sermon: Into the Water and Out
Rev. Chandler Stokes
Maybe the grace that gets us through our crossing of our Red Seas should be held the way Maya Angelou lays out her sense of grace: We, unaccustomed to courage, exiles from delight live coiled in shells of loneliness until love leaves its high holy temple and comes into our sight to liberate us to life.
Sermon: The Call
Rev. Chandler Stokes
We will be talking about “connection” this fall—our connection to God, to our neighbors, and to our truest selves. This Sunday a poem by Mark Halliday will help us experience that collateral blessings in taking hold of God’s hand. Why the HG Is Holy The Holy Ghost was browsing in his or her library one day in the future, unaccountably bored, oddly querulous, vaguely wanting something that would be quietly unfamiliar. “It doesn't have to be great,” said the Holy Ghost with the faintest note of exasperation in his or her voice, “just so long as it has its own special character.” Gliding along the billion shelves, incredibly graceful despite his or her mood. Then the deft and lovely hand of the Holy Ghost lit on a slim volume of poetry - it was your book. It was your book. The first poem caused the Holy Ghost to frown; ah, but not with disdain, rather with curiosity! The second poem brought a brightening of divine eyes. And the page was turned as if by a pensive breeze. Maybe it happened after your death, but so what? It happened. “I'm taking this back to my perfect desk,” said the HG. “This is really something.”
Sermon: The Full Charge
Romans 12 takes our “unity in Christ for the common good” and encourages us to use a whole range of practices to demonstrate how and where and with whom: twenty four declarations to help us "practice our way into believing.” It is a stunning list that will be familiar to many. Let’s call it “The Full Charge.” Join us for this service of communion on this holiday weekend at 10:00a in the sanctuary, Rev. David Baak, preaching. Music: Alan Exoo and Janlee Richter
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Sermon: One Spirit-One Sky
Rev. Chandler Stokes
In this passage, Paul also says: no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit. It's a very important line in Scripture--and a very intriguing line. It also lies at the center of how Presbyterians have long understood membership in the Body of Christ. Come and join us as we explore this unexpected and radical word!
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Sermon: Good Morning
Maya Angelou's poem, "On the Pulse of the Morning” concludes with images of humans greeting each hopefully with the words, 'good morning.' In this day of fiery rhetoric internationally and racial conflicts at home, wouldn't it be awesome if people could somehow recognize our common humanity and authentically wish each other well? This is the essential question of the sermon. Our Guest Preacher is the Rev. Paul Timothy Roberts, Sr., President of Johnson C. Smith Theological Seminary, Atlanta, Georgia.
Sermon: Their Eyes Were Watching God
Kyle Nolan
“It’s uh known fact, Pheoby, you got tuh go there tuh know there. Yo’ papa and yo’ mama and nobody else can’t tell yuh and show yuh. Two things everybody’s got tuh do fuh theyselves. They got tuh go tuh God, and they got tuh find out about livin’ fuh theyselves.” The spirituality of Zora Neale Hurston’s master work, Their Eyes Were Watching God is a spirituality of encounter: encounter with a wild life and a wild God. Join us as we gather to explore what it means to call ourselves disciples of such a God. Kyle Nolan preaching.
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Sermon: Enough Right Here
There are two passages from the lectionary that lead us to think about God’s abundance: Isaiah 55 that invites us to come buy wine and milk without money and without price, and Matthew 14 that describes Jesus’ feeding the 5,000. In the latter text, when Jesus asks the disciples to feed the multitudes they say, “We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.” Isn’t that the way it seems: all we see is a few fish; how is that supposed to address the need? Wendell Berry says, “Sight blinds us.” That’s a word worth unpacking. Join us Sunday, as we seek to look with our other eyes.
Sermon: It is like…
Rev. Jen Porter
Last year, I read the Chronicles of Narnia to my three boys. A favorite character emerged, Repicheep, the mouse. Many are drawn to this soul who is small in stature but mighty in faith, courage and devotion. Jesus tells us again and agin, "the kingdom of God is like". Repicheep too invites us to seek this kingdom and to faithfully step toward the promises of God.
Sermon: Patience in Ambiguity
Rev. David Baak
This week’s scripture, Matthew 13.24-30, 36-43, gives one of the “kingdom parables” that teaches how to live in this beautiful, conflicted, joyful and confusing world. Wheat that is nutritious and life-giving and darnel or “tares” (weeds that are deceptive and noxious), growing together and indistinguishable from each other. We are called to let God be the judge and we are called to be patient with what is ultimate while faithfully working to find the right and the good. Rev. David Baak preaching on “Patience in Ambiguity."
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Sermon: Good Dirt
Kyle Nolan
There are subtle but marked tensions in the Parable of the Sower: between the mystery of God’s will and the possibility of its faithful anticipation, between the word of the prophets and the experience of the church, and between the title of the parable and it’s real focus, the soil. Join us as we explore the promise, possibility, and challenge it offers
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Sermon: The Capacity to Choose
Rev. Jen Porter
In this passage, Jesus addresses 'this generation.' This of course is not our generation, but sometimes as William Goettler reminds us, too much rings true. There is within us however, a capacity to understand, a capacity to follow, even a capacity to surrender. What will we choose to cultivate?
Sermon: The Wisdom in Uncertainty
Rev. Chandler Stokes
My colleague, Erin Keys, writes, “There is an aspect of human nature that is forever trying to create a dichotomy, forever trying to make things black and white, forever trying to create a worldview based on two opposing forces, when the truth is always far more complex…. Anytime we are given two opposite views, the reality is that neither one is totally true. The life-giving gift of the Spirit is to be found in the wisdom of uncertainty; of wading in to a reality that is vague and often confusing, but one that offers an alternative to seeing things as either one way or the other.” That is the wisdom in uncertainty.
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Sermon: How Can I Keep From Singing?
Rev. Chandler Stokes
Here is the point of Luke's story in Acts 8: The Spirit is not a commodity to buy and sell. Luke is clear: commercial interests do not mix easily with the Spirit's movement in the world. The Spirit is not a power one can possess without first being possessed by it. (David Lewicki) That is an unsettling notion...
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Sermon: Without Jesus
Rev. Chandler Stokes
Two thoughts from Rowan Williams drive the meditation this week: One: For most of our time, we belong to groups and societies and to individuals we love. In all these contexts we use the common coinage of words and ideas and concepts and accept the compromise and imprecision of human communication. Nor is this wrong: it is, indeed utterly necessary to us… But it is not everything, and … if we think it is everything, the results will be the grossest hollowness and unreality in our selfhood. Two: In our failure at the level of word and understanding not everything is lost. Through the unhealed pain of [not communicating, while] looking despairingly at each other there can still be trust that there are other levels of which to communicate. There is deep hope and deep honesty in these words, which I hope to unpack for us on Sunday. Join us.
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Sermon: And it was so…
Brene Brown challenges us with this questions: how can we find rest and play if we tie ourselves to what we produce? We were not created to produce and making space for rest and being helps us discover who God is and who we are. We are invited to play and to create.