Pilgrimage: Beginning, and beginning again 
Texts: Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7; Matthew 4:1-11
Speaker: Joel Miller

In the last two decades geneticists have confirmed the sublime dream of poets and prophets: That the human family really is one family – we all come from the same lineage, descendants of Africa.

And when it comes to our differences, the anthropologist Wade Davis is fond of saying something like this: “The other peoples of the world are not failed attempts at being you.  They’re not failed attempts at being modern.  Every culture is a unique answer to a fundamental question: What does it mean to be human and alive?” (Quote from The Tim Ferris Show #652, podcast interview)

It’s a big question: What does it mean to be human? 

It’s hard to know what’s going on inside the heads of animals, but it’s very possible we’re the only species bothered by the question of what it means to be ourselves.  It’s not the kind of question easily answered in a few sentences, or a few books or documentaries.  It is the kind of question we inevitably answer simply by living, by being human.  However many years old you are is how many years you’ve been logging time giving your own answer to this question.

It’s also how many times you’ve lived through a season of Lent – observed or not.  One of the things I’ve come to appreciate about Lent is that it’s something like an annual check in on that very fundamental question:  How are we doing at being human? 

How are we doing? 

Rather than searching for answers by doom scrolling the headlines of the day, not an especially enriching liturgical experience, our lectionary points us back to the beginning.  Or, rather, beginnings.  If life is a pilgrimage, expectant wandering through the unknown, it…

CMM Service 2-19-23 from Gwen Reiser on Vimeo.

Sermon: Fire and Ash

Text: Matthew 17:1-9

Speaker: Mark Rupp

Last weekend, Columbus Mennonite hosted one of the mid-year gatherings of the Central District Conference, the conference within Mennonite Church USA to which we belong.  These gatherings are like mini-conventions, a chance to gather for fellowship, for worship, for resource sharing, and for dreaming together about where God is leading the Church.

As part of the gathering, Matt Pritchard, the recently hired Associate Conference Minister of Emerging Communities of Faith, led a workshop to introduce us to the kind of work he will be doing in his new role.  Not only will he be focusing on helping to grow new and emerging communities of faith, he plans to work on what he calls “revitalizing” congregations, that is, helping communities of faith re-connect to the transforming Spirit of God and discern how the Spirit is calling them toward new horizons. 

As part of his workshop, he did an exercise that I want us all to do here this morning in an abridged way.  He first invited us to consider this prompt: “What are three feelings you hope people feel after visiting your church?”  To help us out and grease the wheels a bit, Matt put up a slide that contained a word cloud with all kinds of different emotions, not just the obvious answers to his question. We had a bit of fun considering how a church might cause someone to feel emotions like “schadenfreude,” which for those who don’t know is a German word that means pleasure derived from someone else’s misfortune. 

I don’t have a word cloud to show you, but before I tell you what three words I came up with, I want you to…

CMC Service 02-12-23 from Gwen Reiser on Vimeo.

Serrmon: “All belong to you, and you belong to Christ”

Text: 1 Corinthians 3

Speaker: Joel Miller

Last weekend our family went to the Mennonite Arts Weekend in Cincinnati.  Columbus was well represented with quite a few you also there.  During the Friday evening keynote, artist Jerry Holsopple described one of his many creative loves – painting icons – or more technically, writing icons – something he studied on a Fulbright scholarship in Lithuania under the mentorship of Father Vladimir. 

One of his icons he showed us was Maximillian, a 3rd century North African born to an official in the Roman army.  At age 21 Maximillian was obligated to enlist, but refused, declaring that as a Christian he could not swear allegiance to the emperor or serve in the army.  Because of this, he was beheaded.  There were likely others before him, but Maximillian is the earliest recorded Christian conscientious objector. 

Another icon was St. Maria of Paris, a more recent martyr.  Maria was an intellectual and a poet who took monastic vows.  Rather than being confined to a monastery, she was allowed to live in a rented house in Paris that served as a sanctuary for refugees and the poor.  During World War II the house became a haven for Jews.  The story goes that when the Gestapo entered and asked whether there were any Jews in the house, Maria answered “Yes,” after which she went and got her statue of Mary the mother of Jesus and handed it to them.  Maria and her helpers were arrested, and in 1945 she was taken to the Ravensbruck prison camp gas chamber.

Jerry showed us another icon.  It was a painting of himself, as an icon,…

2-5-23 CMC Service.mp4 from Gwen Reiser on Vimeo.

Sermon Title: Speak, we’re listening 
Text: 1 Samuel 3:1-21
Speaker: Joel Miller

There’s a running joke in our house that if the girls really want to get my attention they call me Joel rather than Dad.  I’ll be in the living room or kitchen or wherever, doing my thing, generally aware of the rumble and buzz around me, when all of a sudden I’m called to attention at the sound of my name.  Sometimes it turns out part of that buzz included several calls for Dad that I didn’t catch.

It’s possible I’m lost in deep thought pondering the true, the good, the beautiful, and the meaning of life.  It’s also possible I can fit the description in Simon and Garfunkel’s song The Boxer: “Still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.”

What’s most likely, I think, is that even after 17 years of being a dad, that one syllable word still hasn’t registered in my body, in my nervous system, the same way that other one syllable word has registered, the one my parents decided to name me from birth.  From the time I could hear, from the time I could first distinguish one sound from another, that particular sound has meant something no other sound has, to me.  It means someone is addressing me.  Someone is expecting me to listen to whatever they say next, and likely give some kind of response.  Someone is calling me to attention.  And I can hardly help but to be summoned to alertness at that sound.  

So, occasionally, my daughters call me Joel to get my attention.  Which is kind of weird, but seems to work. 

Every year we choose a scripture for this…

CMC service 1-29-23.mp4 from Gwen Reiser on Vimeo.

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