Past Sermon Series

May 31, 2020 - Pentecost

Acts 2:1-47
Sermon - Lament, Repent, Repair - Toward Becoming an Anti-Racist Church

Worship for Sunday May 24, 2020

Sermon Series - The Insurgency of the Holy Spirit
Acts 4: 23-37
Message - The Spirit Gathers and Unites, The Disciples Sacrifice and Share

Worship for Sunday May 17, 2020

Sermon Series - the Insurgency of the Spirit
Scripture - Acts 4:1-22
Sermon Title - Disciples Question Authority

Worship & Communion
Sunday May 3, 2020

New Sermon Series - The Insurgency of the Spirit
Acts 3: 1-11 - Peter raises a man who is impoverished and disabled
Sermon Title - The Spirit Causes the Disciples to See, The Disciples are Visible
Description - The Spirit causes the disciples to see those who are invisible & and Emboldens the Disciples to make their faith in Jesus visible for the world to see.
Quote from Sermon - God chose to dwell with those who suffer as one who suffered, Jesus. And any time we see that suffering Any time we are present with that suffering and show our solidarity, not just occasional, distant charity, but abiding, dwelling with, life sharing solidarity, with those who suffer we all experience the presence of God.

Worship 04-26-2020

Scripture - John 21
Message - Jesus Nurtures Peter Back to a Passionate Faith

Worship 04-19-2020 Easter 2

Scripture - John 20:19-31
Message - The Despair of Thomas and the Breath of God

Easter Worship 04-12-2020

Scripture - John 20:1-18
Message - Jesus Calls Mary's Name

Good Friday Tenebrae 04-10-2020

Maundy Thursday Worship 04-09-2020

Palm Sunday Worship - 04-05-2020

Scripture - John 18:28-40
Sermon - Jesus Stands Before Pilate: The Courage of Our Ancestors

Sunday March 29, 2020

Scripture - Matthew 14:22-33
Sermon - Have Heart: Jesus Rescues Peter & the Disciples from a Storm
NOTE - We had some technical difficulties, so you may want to skip ahead a few minutes to the sermon.

Sunday March 22, 2020

Scripture - Exodus 16 - God Provides Manna from Heaven
Sermon - God Hears, God Provides, God Gathers

Current Sermon Series -
John 1:14 - the Word became flesh and lived among us
The Gospel of John - Divine Presence & Holy Interconnection

John's story of Jesus celebrates the interrelatedness of God and creation & reveals God's desire that we live lives of mutual dependence.
01-05-2020 - John 1 - Introduction to Jesus
John prepares us to enter into the life and ministry of Jesus by encouraging us to receive him, warning us against rejecting him, and painting a picture of Jesus as the mediator that creates an intimate connection between human beings and the Divine.
Sermon Sample - We can easily get lost, either in wonder or in confusion in the grand theological proclamations of the gospel of John
Or, we receive the gift it offers to us
A frank and honest appraisal of our condition
Far too divided, far too distanced from one another
Unwilling to receive
And God’s presence which will repair this division and distance
By reminding us of the very purpose, the hope God had and still has for us as God’s beloved
Intimate connection, inter-relation, mutual dependance
God’s response to our separation
Is fellowship, communion, relationships of vulnerability, care, and trust

01-19-2020 - John 2 - Jesus Changes Water into Wine
Sermon - Today we hear the story of Jesus intervening in the great threats of our lives. A wedding party without enough wine is a much deeper symbol of poverty, social division and estrangement, & human suffering. When Jesus creates wine, he creates abundant life where it was once bereft and seemingly impossible.

01-26-2020 - John 2 continued - Jesus Turns the Tables of the Money Lenders at the Temple
Semon - Contrary to popular and historical telling, this is not a story in which God's chosen people are rejected or replaced. This is a story about despair, about feeling alone, abandoned, forsaken. John tells this story in which Jesus establishes himself as the just and loving presence of God for those who feel they have been abandoned rejected by God. Jesus is the healing presence of God abiding with all those who feel lost and alone.

02-02-2020 - John 3 - Nicodemus visits Jesus
Sermon - God's Love Made Visible
Sermon Sample - Nicodemus wants to see the rule and reign of GodThe abundant life that Jesus can bring
But he can’t see Because to see the reign of God
We must see the love God has for those who are invisible to us
Whose story is ignored, unheard, forgotten
Whose existence is dismissed behind rhetoric that shames and degrades
THIS is the love of God
THIS is the way that we open ourselves up to the abundant life that Jesus offers
We look to him, we see him
By looking for and seeing those who are invisible to us
Looking past lies that shame the impoverished as lazy
Listening to stories of immigrants and refugees instead of accepting the propaganda that calls them a danger or accuses them of sponging off society
Listening to the stories of our African American neighbors when they speak of the impact of systemic racism instead of ignoring or dismissing their experiences and rendering them invisible
Or women who abuse has gone unspoken for fear and shame
All No longer invisible because Jesus has joined them
Made them the site of the holy
Offered abundant life to us through them
When we love them
Not in darkness, but in the light

02-09-2020 - Jesus and the Samaritan Woman
Sermon - Going to Samaria - Jesus takes the gospel of reconciliation to a site of centuries long division, bias and bigotry.
Sermon Sample - to only see this as a story of Jesus confronting a sinful woman has made the gospel far too smallThat is understandable because this deeper richer gospel is intimidating…
A good news which begins to unravel a thread in the shroud of hate and bias, violence and bigotry and systemic oppression and dispossession…That is a thing almost too wondrous to comprehend And too grand for us to imagine
But this is our story today…
Jesus, meeting a woman Not in her confidence and her success But in her shame and despair
recognizing her potential in those experiences…I’m thirsty he says… I need a drink…You have something to offer
You have something to give…And out of that moment of shared vulnerability Of recognizing the potential strength buried in guilt and shame
Jesus allows the woman to see herself as a reconciler That is her living water Instead of being a nobody, a failure, a morally bankrupt person
She is a disciple of reconciliation, liberating those oppressed and colonized
uniting people divided for generations
Joining god’s mission to heal centuries of division And create a new future of peace

02-16-2020 John 6:35-51
Sermon Title - God's Love in Action; Gathering, Sheltering, Nurturing, Raising
Sermon Sample - When Jesus says, gnaw on me what he is saying is he not only offers food for the body as important as that isBut food for the soul that nourishes our identity, reminds us of our value, food that nourished the community, lifts it up into wanton welcome and wide hospitality. Why does Jesus put this in such a crass and shocking way? Because the authorities are more shocked that Jesus would say, ‘I am the bread from heaven..’ and ‘eat my flesh’ Than they were with real horror that was right there in front of them… Thousands upon thousands of people malnourished of body, starving in spirit, wasting away in broken and despairing communities…
God isn’t fooled by pious God-talk Nor is God impressed with the defense of religious ideas
God is watching how the most vulnerable are treated If they are gathered, sheltered, nourished and raised up,
God is pleased at the love being shared

02-23-2020 - Jesus and the Man Born Blind
John 9:1-41
Sermon Title - Jesus Sees The Erased
Sermon Sample - There is a lot going on in this story. The man born blind comes to faith in Jesus. The religious authorities deepen their own resistance to Jesus. But when Jesus says, I am the light, he is saying that he sees through and beyond the labels that this man has been limited to and diminished by. Jesus sees his true worth to God and his identity as God's beloved. He is someone with a voice, with insight to share, with a perspective worth hearing. Who Jesus is, as the Messiah, God incarnate in healing and justice creating power, is revealed because he sees who the man born blind is. Could the same be said for us as his disciples? We see ourselves as children of God more clearly when we look beyond the labels by which so many are categorized and dismissed and degraded to see the child of God that they are. Could we also be seeing Jesus more clearly more gloriously, when we look past categories and labels and see the person?

03-01-2020 - First Sunday of Lent
Scripture - John 11:1-44 - Jesus and Lazarus
Sermont Title - Jesus Speaks to Lazarus Creating Life
Sermon Sample - Too often historically, universally, the body of Christ has chosen safety over the risk of joining those whose lives are considered invaluable and expendable. Too often we have distanced ourselves from speaking out about much less joining with, going to the afflicted who suffer unjustly for fear of what we might lose ourselves. But today’s story challenges us to live a visible faith that risks loss in order to be the gift to others we are called to be.
Today’s story ends in with hope and a call. Jesus calls Lazarus from death and the grave, from darkness to light, And he comes forth, still bound by graveclothes, constrained, not totally free to live. But Jesus does not remedy that situation. He calls the gathered community of observers to complete Lazarus’ liberation from darkness and death. And Jesus call continues to echo to his church these centuries later
Take off their grave clothes and let them go.
This is our call, the thing that we are called to die for and discover that we live for,
To join Jesus in releasing those restrained by poverty, hunger, systemic bias and bigotry, social shame and stigma,
For the promise is that when we risk our lives for them We find the life that God will preserve for eternity.

03-08-2020 - John 15:1-17
Sermon Sample - Jesus' lesson for us this week holds great promise. Those who make their home with Jesus experience the life-nurturing activity of God. We are 'pruned' Jesus says, which actually isn't a horrific image. It's greek root means 'cleaned.' So to be pruned is to be cared for and shaped by God. God is abiding with us, cleaning and shaping us, & loving us that we might live out God's love in the world.

Past Sermons

Advent Sermon Series - Songs of Hope and Courage

Advent 1 - Matthew 2:1-6 - The visit of the Magi - Hope in Unexpected Places
Matthew covers the song of the prophet Micah to begin his story of the birth of Jesus
Sermon Summary - Matthew sings the song Micah, which is a song of lament but of hope. God has heard the cries of the suffering and struggling and ignored, they sing and come to rescue them. His song challenges us to resist the powers that divide us and make us afraid and distant from immigrants and the impoverished. But this song also encourages us to stay on the journey with God, even when it is risky, leads us on unfamiliar pathways, calls us to leave what is comfortable, or reveals how we have been wrong. In God and with God, we find reconciliation, a safe sanctuary for all the nations. May it be so this Christmas

Advent 2 - Matthew 2:13-23/Jeremiah 31:10-20 - The Weeping of Rachel - Lament that Energizes Justice
We continue Matthew's story of Jesus' birth and he sings the Song of Lament of the Prophet Jeremiah
Sermon Summary - ...when Christmas is a sugary sweet distraction from the fears, our hope is empty and there is no true peaceWhen Christmas becomes the courageous but humble witness to fear, when the admittedly troubling chorus of Rachel and Jeremiah and the mother's of Bethlehem shock us into admitting and confessing the injustice in the world and the pain it causes real people, we are on, as counter-intuitive as it seems, a journey toward joy, not just for ourselves, but for all people
When Christmas becomes the proclamation that Christ is found among the feared and the fearful and our service and solidarity with them is the worship Christ desires our hope is authentic and our peace is world-changing.
May it be so this Christmas
God bless you all

Christmas Eve Sermon - And the Soul Felt It's Worth
The lyrics and story of O Holy Night are interwoven with the story of Jesus' birth.
Sermon Sample - The worth of Jesus is his solidarity with the unworthy and unfit.
It is his pride in making his home with the shamed
His power to liberate the wealthy and privileged from their complacency
His courage to remain faithful to the despised and rejected
His insistence in the worth of the soul of each leper and prostitute and tax colleter and fishermen and Samaritan
Revealed the worth of his soul & the will of God

Christmas 1 - Luke 2:25-35 - Jesus is dedicated at the Temple -
Sermon - The Times They Are A-Changin' - In this story we see the how the hope for the future that God promises sustains Simeon through despair & how his blessing will comfort and encourage Mary and Joseph when Jesus' ministry is risky.
Sermon Sample
The promise of God we are reminded of in this Christmas season is that God is moved to action by compassion
The promise of God is relief for the impoverished, rescue from our reliance on violence, shelter for the wandering
and finally, the promise of God, born among us in Jesus, is the courage to pursue these new things, to actively anticipate them and allow them to shape and change us because the Spirit is here to guide us

Praise Sermon Series 3 - July 7, 2019 - The Gift of Praise - Luke 1:39-56
In today's story Mary goes to visit her cousin Elizabeth after having received the news that she is chosen by God to carry the Christ-child. What we notice is that Mary accepts God's call with all its sacrifices and challenges. But only after praises her for accepting God's call does Mary herself celebrate it. Which leads us to ponder and practice praising one another. It is the gift of encouragement that allows each of us to discern and follow God's call.

Praise Sermon Series 4 - July 14, 2019 - 1 Samuel 2:1-10 - Praise; Spiritual Health & the Reordering of the World
In this Sunday's story we hear the prayer/song of praise of Hannah who celebrates the birth of her son Samuel. Hannah's life previously had been one of disappointment and despair. She felt unworthy because she could not have a child. So we explore the role of praising God in maintaining our spiritual health and in nurturing our hope that God will intervene in our sadness and the injustice of the world to set things right.

Praise Sermon Series 5 - July 21, 2019 - Psalm 65 - Creation Psalms of Praise
In today's sermon we look at the five Psalms of Praise for Creation, specifically how time in nature, enjoying it and contemplating it, creates a safe space to ponder the purpose of our lives, our spiritual vulnerability and God's desire that all creations including humanity lives in an interconnected web of care. Features poems by Denise Levertov and Mary Oliver

Easter 2019 - Living Into the Easter World

Acts 16:16-34 - In this weeks story Paul liberates a girl enslaved by humans and controlled by an unclean spirit. But the story says that Paul is not moved by compassion. He is just annoyed by her presence. We will ponder Paul's reaction to her spiritual and social suffering & ask important questions about subjugation and liberation in our world today.
Sermon Quote - 'The Spirit calls us forward into the Easter world the resurrection of Jesus created not so that we can ignore the cries of the abused or remain safely silent when the crowds of bigotry and cruelty cry their loudest but so that we can sing and pray, tend the wounds and share our table until all, including us, are freed of unclean spirits and all know the joy of resurrected life, together.'

Pentecost Sunday - God's Gift in the Midst of Decay

In this sermon Pastor Darin briefly reviews three lessons that pertain to Pentecost, the holiday that celebrates the gift of the Holy Spirit. In the gospel of John's version, Jesus breathes on the disciples giving them the Holy Spirit to help them overcome doubt and fear. In Acts, the Holy Spirit gives the disciples the gift of speaking in many languages so that they can go out into a fractured society and divided world and create unity, justice and peace. In Romans 8, Paul reminds us that the Spirit makes us sons (children) of God and that the whole creation, in the midst of decay, waits for us. The Holy Spirit makes us a gift for the healing of decay, of all that inhibits, diminishes or destroys life. The Holy Spirit empowers us to bring life where their is hopeless, despair and injustice.

Trinity Sunday/Pride Sunday

In our gospel reading for today found in John 14, we hear Jesus speaking to his disciples about his relationship to God and God’s relationship to him. ‘Don’t you believe that I am in the Father and that the Father is in me?’ A bit later in our reading Jesus says, ‘On that day you will realize that I am in my Father and you are in me and I am in you. In this sermon we ponder the Trinity as we also celebrate Pride month. We also recall a bit of the history of the Stonewall Riots, name and lament the cruel murders of transgender women of color in our nation this year, and explore how our belief in the Trinity shapes our community and life of hospitality.
Sermon Quote - God and all of God's creatures dwell together in a common household referred to in the New Testament as the reign of God, the place where God's life rules, writes Catherine Lacugna again reflecting on the Trinity. God doesn’t just create this communion, this common household… God IS in God’s existence, communion of Father Son and Spirit, of Creator, Redeemer Sustainer…And we are invited to participate in God’s life, God’s life of communion... God’s existence in Trinity reminds us of the existence we are created to live into and to offer to others… a community of unique expressions of God’s image, united by the essence of the Trinity, which Jesus simply says in our reading today is love… love one another..

Jeremiah Sermon Series

Sunday Sept 9 - The Demanding Step
Jeremiah 1 - The word of the Lord comes to Jeremiah & Matthew 14 - Peter Steps out of the boat.

Sunday Sept 16 - Divine Encounters & Discovered Identities
Jeremiah 1:5 - Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you & Luke 19 The Story of Zacchaeus