On this second Sunday in Lent, Melissa preached from Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16 and Romans 4:13-25, focusing on the story of Abram. Way before Moses gives those laws on the tablets, Abram is righteous before there’s a temple to sacrifice things in. Even before circumcision. And that’s really important, especially for us, because most of us […]
Romans
No One Needs to Know You’re a Chicken – March 26, 2023
On this fifth Sunday of Lent Melissa preached from Romans 8:6-11. Our bodies are not neutral. We are formed by environments, constrained or freed, or subjected to housing laws and legal decisions, physical borders, corporations. Our bodies, our racialized bodies, our aging bodies, our gendered bodies, these are formed by forces much larger than our […]
Seeing & Not Believing – March 19, 2023
On this fourth Sunday of Lent Melissa preached from John 9:1-41 and Romans 5:1-11. The story of Jesus healing the man who was born blind, and the subsequent questioning by the Pharisees illustrates the difference between being cured and being healed. After he gains his sight, he is repeatedly questioned by the people in power […]
Confession and Sin – March 12, 2023
On this third Sunday of Lent, Melissa spoke from Romans 5:1-11. Most of our sins aren’t interesting or dangerous. They’re mostly petty and boring and cruel. We short change both the chasm of our failings and the grace of God when we limit the scope of our sins to doing bad things. Our sins are […]
Questions of Identity – March 5, 2023
On this second Sunday of Lent Melissa preached from Romans 4:1-5, 13-17, weaving in basketball with the ongoing theme of confession, along with talking about community and identity. What if our identity isn’t a story about heroics or world-changing? What if the only way to tell each other apart is that we forgive each other?
Making God into Something Else – Feb. 26, 2023
On this first Sunday of Lent, Melissa preached from Genesis 2:15-17 & 3:1-7 and Romans 5:12-19. During this season we are focusing our time and attention toward “confession.” We have varied experiences with confessions. Confession is when we come clean, when we tell the truth about who we are. We are not God!
In Hope We are Saved – June 30, 2019
Romans 8:18-30 Hope seen through Arethra Franklin, the Holy Spirit, and our own congregation.
The Promise of Pentecost – June 9, 2019
Acts 2:1-4, Romans 8:14-39 Rachel draws from Trevor Noah’s memoir Born a Crime to recount the power of understanding many languages. Pentecost calls us to welcome others, to be changed, to be vulnerable, to learn new languages. “The promise of Pentecost is that we are being made into a people, speaking many languages, to praise […]