Sermons
Sermon: Family
Rev. Chandler Stokes
This Sunday is the last Sunday in the “liturgical year”—the week after becomes Advent and annual the build-up and preparation for Christmas. The text is a well-known one about the separating of the sheep and the goats in the fullness of time. It’s a curious story: faith in Jesus is not as important as seeing him—seeing Christ in those who suffer.
Sermon: Turning the Corner: Fear, Protest, or Thanksgiving
Rev. David Baak
Life is a series of turning corners—as we walk along life’s pathway we easily abandon the past after we’ve turned the bend, especially if it’s been difficult. We’re certainly not able to see the future around the next turn. So, we live in the present. But, we should not forget the meaning of the past nor fail to anticipate the future with hope. Matthew 25 pairs with the Thanksgiving reading of Deuteronomy 8 and they show a way to live with thanksgiving. Rev. David Baak preaching on “Turning the Corner: Fear, Protest, or Thanksgiving”
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Sermon: Connection in the Chasm
Rev. Jeremy Bork
For the past couple of months, we've been exploring the idea of connection. This Sunday, our text from Luke shows us the devastation of disconnection. We'll wonder together about the chasms in our own lives and the ways we might try to cross them. We'll explore illusions of connection and consider how we might live more authentically connected to God, one another, and our own truest life.
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Sermon: Stones in the River
Rev. Chandler Stokes
Last week I talked about how we, as a congregation, have offered and can offer glimpses of that Promised Land. This week, I want to talk about how certain individuals do. Barbara Brown Taylor once talking about going to libraries as a child and how she was drawn to “biographies because [she] was a child and needed lives to grow into.”
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Sermon: We Don’t Get There
Rev. Chandler Stokes
The story is that none of those who escaped Egypt eventually crossed over into the Promised Land—none of them. It was the next generation who finally made it. We are those who have inherited this promise of deliverance from and destiny in the heart of God. What does the fact that that first generation did not cross over mean for us as the inheritors of the promise?
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Sermon: God’s Elusive Presence
Rev. Chandler Stokes
So, if God must remain elusive, how then with our words, our human language, our very limited ability to speak, how do we maintain God’s transcendence and not reduce God to our ideas about God? How do we avoid the very easy way that words about become idolatrous and end up trapping God in our words? Well, that is one of the reasons that we very intentionally use more than one gender for God. We really can limit God’s ability to touch us, if we get overly limited in our speech. What will we newly receive from God, if we remember that God is portrayed as Mother as well as Father? What love might be waiting for us in the heart of that elusive God?
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Sermon: While We Are Down the Mountain
Rev. Chandler Stokes
Walter Brueggemann says that the Israelites choose “an available, produced God [over] the sovereign one who is not immediately available and who is not made with human hands.” Israel “cannot tolerate the risk of faith (exemplified by the absence of Moses), so it incessantly seeks to reduce that risk by domesticating God to manageable proportion.” And we have the same temptation. Nevertheless, we carry on the legacy of those who, like the early Christians, the abolitionists, and those who supported ordination for women and LGBTQ+ folks, have chosen to reject idols and follow that living, liberating God.
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Sermon: We Walk in Freedom
Rev. Chandler Stokes
This week we will sing, Jesus Loves Me, to open the service. As our third graders receive their Bibles, we want them to know that they already know something about what it says: Jesus loves me. And this is a song they already know. And every week, we offer a summary of the law. We remember that when Jesus was asked which was the greatest commandment, he didn’t recite the Ten. He reminded us of the law of love.
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Sermon: Even When We Don’t Like It
Rev. Jen Porter
Israel quickly moves from celebration at their deliverance across the Red Sea to quickly complaining at the fate of their lives in the wilderness. As we listen to the story of Jonah, this theme echoes clearly again. God delivers him to safety, and he too quickly moves from gratitude to anger. This is our story of human relationship and connection.
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Sermon: We Walk in the Wilderness
Rev. Chandler Stokes
I know that, when we are in touch with the amazing, persistent love of God, we are made glad. We become joyful. We celebrate. An old teacher of mine used to say that Israel had two ways of being—off the land (in the wilderness or in exile) and on the land (in the Promised Land). When they were off the land, he said, they celebrated. All the feasts were wilderness feasts. When they were on the land…, he said, …they worried. And I have to confess that I can go for long periods of time when I’m far better at worry than I am at celebration. Join us as we seek the source of celebration.
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
Rev. David Baak
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.
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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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