For the 5th Sunday of Easter, Rev. Cari tried an experiment. She preached on two texts (for the price of one!). Acts 8:26-40, which is a story, and John 15:1-8, which is a discourse. She took the one (the story of the Ethiopian eunuch) and nested it inside the vocabulary of the other (John’s meditation…
21Apr
April 21, 2024
The fourth Sunday after Easter is typically “Shepherding Sunday” – a focus on the metaphor of Jesus as “Good” or “Noble” or “True” Shepherd. Rev. Cari preached on John 10:11-18 (but she did cheat a bit, and include verse 10 in her pondering). On the threshold of Earth Week, this sermon wonders what “abundant life”…
14Apr
Bystander to Witness
For the third Sunday after Easter, Rev. Cari opens up Luke 24:36b-48, another resurrection appearance of the Risen Christ. In this sermon, she is playing with the transformation of the disciples: from frightened bystanders who have witnessed a traumatic event, to active witnesses to the abundant grace of the living God.
07Apr
Visions of Peace
Rev. Jim Short grapples with John 20:19-31 for this first Sunday after Easter. Imagine Thomas, looking for the Resurrected Jesus, bursts into the room where the disciples are hiding in fear from the temple authorities. They say to him, “We saw him and the marks of his crucifixion. We were filled with joy, and he…
31Mar
Easter’s Invitation
For Easter Sunday, Rev. Cari preached on the resurrection narrative as found in Mark 16:1-8. In this version of the story, the women go to the tomb just after sunrise to anoint Jesus’ body. The discover – to their great alarm – that the heavy stone has been rolled away from the entrance to the…
24Mar
Save Us Now
On Palm Sunday Rev. Cari preached on the dramatic entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, contrasting it with the presumed military procession of Pilate. This contrast rises out of the work of New Testament scholars, the late Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan, in their influential 2006 book, The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach…
17Mar
Invitation to Trust
The Rev. Wendy Bily was our guest preacher this morning, for the 5th Sunday in Lent. She preached on John 12:20-33 in which Jesus speaks of his impending death, and compares himself to a “grain of wheat.”
10Mar
So… Affirming!
For the 4th Sunday of Lent, and Affirming PIE Sunday, Rev. Cari preached on John 3:13-21 (a text that has two others hovering in the background: Numbers 21:4-9, and Genesis 22). Though it was tempting to dive into the troubling aspects of the background texts, Rev. Cari kept her focus on the love of God….
25Feb
The Paradox of the Gospel
For the second Sunday in the season of Lent, Rev. Cari tackled the paradoxical Gospel text of the day, Mark 8:31-38, in which Jesus says several difficult – even inconceivable – things. So it’s little wonder that she opened with a reference to the trio of Fezzik, Inigo and Vizzini in Rob Reiner’s film The…
18Feb
Ground Orientation
For the first Sunday in the season of Lent, Rev. Cari preached on Mark 1:9-15, the text suggested for the day by the Revised Common Lectionary. Because the gospel of Mark doesn’t waste words, we’ve heard much of this text before! But the two verses pertaining to today’s theme are the ones concerning the Spirit…