March 19 | Lent 4 | Pilgrimage: Sheep, Mud, and Non-Toxic Masculinity
Sermon
Pilgrimage: Sheep, Mud, and Non-Toxic Masculinity
Texts: 1 Samuel 16:1-13; John 9:1-7
Speaker: Joel Miller
When the prophet Samuel goes to Bethlehem, he has one purpose – to anoint a new king of Israel. It was a risk. Israel already had a king – Saul – the first king of this tribal confederation – anointed by none other than Samuel himself. But Saul had fallen out of favor with the Lord and with Samuel. So it was time to anoint a new king.
The institution of kingship was already something of a divine compromise, according to the book of 1 Samuel. Up to that point the people had been led by regional chieftains or judges. People like Gideon and Deborah and Samson – and Samuel. Toward the end of Samuel’s life the people started asking for a king, a centralized leader to govern them and fight their battles. Samuel reports this to the Lord, and the Lord, through Samuel, issues a warning. If they do indeed get a king, the king will enlist their sons in his military, he will take their daughters into his court, he will claim the best fields and vineyards and orchards for himself. He will tax their grain and flocks, and, “you shall be his slaves.” 1 Samuel chapter 8.
Despite all this, the people still demand a king. And the Lord concedes. And so Samuel and the Lord find the most kingly of the Israelites – Saul, son of Kish. 1 Sam. 9:2: “There was not a man among the people or Israel more handsome than he; he stood head and shoulders above everyone else.”
Now, Samuel is on a quest to find Saul’s replacement. In Bethlehem there is a man named Jesse. Samuel will anoint one of his sons as the new king. Kingship, take 2.
Samuel invites Jesse and…
March 12 | Lent 3 | Pilgrimage: Living Water Pulses Through Us
CMC Worship 03-12-23 from Gwen Reiser on Vimeo.
Living Water Pulses Through Us
Sermon—12 March 2023 | Sarah Werner
John 4:1-42
I want to share some stories this morning about water, holy places, and how living water helps us find a home in the world. Water makes up over half of the substance of your body, and three-quarters of your brain is water. Water literally is life, as the saying goes. When Jesus arrives at the well in the middle of the day, he is likely just as thirsty as the next human, parched from the brilliance of the desert sun. But what he eventually offers the Samaritan woman is something quite different, the living water of the kin-dom of God.
This passage from John is a powerful one, getting to the heart of what it means to follow Jesus and to be nourished by living water. It is the longest theological conversation Jesus has with anyone in the gospels, and it is with an unwed Samaritan woman, the ultimate outsider. But I have to start by saying, this story makes me feel uneasy. Part of it is the way Jesus comes off, at least in English. “Give me a drink” does not sound very polite. And he shouldn’t even be talking to a woman in this time and place. Then there’s the bit about the husbands. Five of them, yikes, and living with a man who is not her husband. It makes her sound like an unscrupulous woman. The reality, though, is likely more complicated. There are a lot of reasons why she could have had five husbands. She could have been a widower, since men were more likely to die than women, in battle or from old age if she…
March 5 | Lent 2 | Pilgrimage: Womb and Wind
CMC Scripture and Sermon 03-05-2023.mp4 from Gwen Reiser on Vimeo.
Pilgrimage: Womb and wind
Text: John 3:1-10
Speaker: Joel Miller
John chapter 3 contains one of the most common phrases in American Christianity: “Born again.” “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kin-dom of God unless they are born again.” Other English translations say “born anew,” or “born from above,” but “born again” seems to be the one that stuck in the culture. As in, “I’m a born again Christian. Are you?”
I know a significant portion of this congregation considers themselves recovering evangelicals, and another portion actively resists being identified with that version of Christianity. So I’m curious, if you’re comfortable outing yourself a bit – I’m pretty sure you won’t be alone – I’m wondering if we could get a show of hands for anyone who has some baggage with this verse about being born again.
I may be in the minority of folks here even interested in giving this a go, but I’d like to attempt to reimagine this phrase. Maybe even – GASP – reclaim it as an integral part of our faith.
We’ve actually got some decent material to work with here. Because the call to be born again, born anew, or born from above is a clear feminine image of God. It’s short. If you blink you can miss it. But it’s definitely without a doubt referring to a womb. You can’t be born, or born again, without a womb. In this case, it’s the womb of God. Jesus says, in effect, no one can even see this thing I’m referring to as the kin-dom of God unless they are formed and re-formed within the womb of God, and born anew, like a baby, seeing…
February 26 | Lent 1 | Pilgrimage: Beginning, and Beginning Again
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…
