CMC Worship Service 9_4_22 V2 from Gwen Reiser on Vimeo.

The video above includes the full service, except for the time for sharing.

Permission to podcast/stream the music in this service obtained through One License with license A-727859. Copyrights for songs given after the sermon text.

Summoned by the God Who Made Us – Voices Together #1. Text: Delores Dufner, OSB (USA), © 1993 Delores Dufner (published by OCP).  All rights reserved.   Podcast/Streamed with permission under ONE LICENSE, license #A-727859.  All rights reserved.  Music: American traditional (USA), in John Wyeth’s Repository of Sacred Music, Part Second, 1813.  Public domain. 

God Welcomes All / Amen – Voices Together #32. Text: John L. Bell (Scotland). Music: South African traditional; transcr. John L. Bell. © 2008 WGRG, Iona Community (admin. GIA Publications, Inc.). All rights reserved.   Podcast/Streamed with permission under ONE LICENSE, license #A-727859.  All rights reserved.  

One Is the Body – Voices Together #386. Text: based on Ephesians 4:4-13, John L. Bell (Scotland); Music: John L. Bell © 1997, 2002 WGRG, Iona Community (admin. GIA Publications, Inc.).  All rights reserved.   Podcast/Streamed with permission under ONE LICENSE, license #A-727859.  All rights reserved. 

God Calls You Good – Voices Together #172.  Text: Paul Vasile (USA): Music: Paul Vasile © 2017 LovedIntoBeing Music.  All rights reserved.   Podcast/Streamed with permission under ONE LICENSE, license #A-727859.  All rights reserved. 

Draw the Circle Wide – Voices Together #802.  Text: Gordon Light (Canada), © 1994 Common Cup Co.  Music: Mark A. Miller (USA), © 2008 Abingdon Press (admin. Music Services).  All rights reserved.  Podcast/Streamed with permission under ONE LICENSE, license #A-727859. All rights reserved. 

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CMC Worship Service 08:28:2022.mp4 from Gwen Reiser on Vimeo.

The video above includes the full service, except for the time for sharing.

Permission to podcast/stream the music in this service obtained through One License with license A-727859. Copyrights for songs given after the sermon text.

Sermon | The place of honor
Texts: Proverbs 25:6-7; Luke 14:1,7-14
Speaker: Joel Miller

When Jesus goes to eat at the house of a community leader, he’s being watched.  That’s how Luke chapter 14 begins: “On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the Sabbath, they were watching him closely.”  It’s a bit ambiguous who “they” are who are doing the close watching, but we can assume it was other members of that group known as the Pharisees, and anybody else within watching distance.  

“Watching closely” doesn’t necessarily imply suspicion or mal intent.  Jesus had been making quite a name for himself.  He’s been stirring things up by restoring body and status to the sick, honoring women, casting out harmful spirits, telling parables that both confound and illuminate.  Even Herod, ruling the area on behalf of Rome, had taken notice.  Four verses prior to this dinner event it was the Pharisees who had come to Jesus and given him a warning that Herod wanted to kill him.  Predictably unpredictable, Jesus had responded by calling Herod a fox and himself a hen, gathering her brood of chicks under her wing.  Which is what he plans to continue to do, or at least try.   

Maybe they’re watching Jesus closely because they’d never met anyone quite like him.  He doesn’t fit any pre-determined categories.  He’s not interested in playing the respectability game.  He’s not even all that strategic about preserving…

Texts: Isaiah 58:9b-14, Luke 13:10-17

On days I ride my bike into church the commute home includes a left turn off High St by Global Gallery followed by a nice long coast down Dunedin Road towards the river.  Not every day, but what has felt like most days this summer, a group of kids is out playing on Dunedin near the bottom of the hill.  And when I say playing on Dunedin I mean on Dunedin.  On the street.  The play frequently involves bikes and scooters turning circles and tricks, weaving back and forth from curb to curb.  Cars slow as they approach and wait for the street to clear before passing.  Even a grown up on a bike cruising at gravity-assisted speed has to ride the brakes and yield to the action.  These kids rule the road.  It’s pretty awesome.  

It’s perhaps because of this recurring experience that a particular line from the Isaiah reading stood out to me:

Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in. 

“You shall be called…the restorer of streets to live in.”  Hmmm.

If there’s one thing streets aren’t, it’s places to live in, especially not for children.  Even parents who want to encourage the most free-range of childhoods still tend to hold to the general rule of No playing in the street.  Streets are dangerous places.  They contrast sharply with the safe, inviting spaces we seek to create in our homes and yards.  So close to one another, yet worlds apart.  Usually.

The people to whom Isaiah preaches and writes know nothing of cars and trucks speeding through their neighborhoods.  But they do know of war and occupation.  They do know of exile and returning to…

CMC 8-21-22 from Gwen Reiser on Vimeo.

The video above includes the full service, except for the time for sharing.

Permission to podcast/stream the music in this service obtained through One License with license A-727859. Copyrights for songs given after the sermon text.

Sermon | What’s a street/Sabbath/body/_______ for?  
Texts: Isaiah 58:9b-14, Luke 13:10-17
Speaker: Joel Miller

On days I ride my bike into church the commute home includes a left turn off High St by Global Gallery followed by a nice long coast down Dunedin Road towards the river.  Not every day, but what has felt like most days this summer, a group of kids is out playing on Dunedin near the bottom of the hill.  And when I say playing on Dunedin I mean on Dunedin.  On the street.  The play frequently involves bikes and scooters turning circles and tricks, weaving back and forth from curb to curb.  Cars slow as they approach and wait for the street to clear before passing.  Even a grown up on a bike cruising at gravity-assisted speed has to ride the brakes and yield to the action.  These kids rule the road.  It’s pretty awesome.  

It’s perhaps because of this recurring experience that a particular line from the Isaiah reading stood out to me:

Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in. 
“You shall be called…the restorer of streets to live in.”  Hmmm.

If there’s one thing streets aren’t, it’s places to live in, especially not for children.  Even parents who want to encourage the most free-range of childhoods still tend to hold to the general rule of No playing in the street.  Streets are dangerous places. …

CMC Worship Service 8.14.22 from Gwen Reiser on Vimeo.

Credits

The video above includes the full service, except for the time for sharing.

Permission to podcast/stream the music in this service obtained through One License with license A-727859. Copyrights for songs given after the sermon text.

Isaiah 5:1-7

“What more could have been done for My vineyard?”

Columbus Mennonite Church – August 14, 2022

Benjamin Rudeen Kreider

Country music’s twang has been in my ears and on my mind this week. I love the kind of country music full of love found and lost, full of sadness and unfulfilled hopes; songs that tell stories with gritty details and end in twists heartbreaking or heartwarming alike.

I’m not speaking of “bro-country” as it’s sometimes called, which boasts of big trucks and red Solo cups. Rather I’m thinking about the prison songs of Johnny Cash, the timelessness of Dolly Parton, the nasally ballads of Willie Nelson, the fierce spirit of the Highwomen, and the storytelling chops of John Prine. I love the songs that draw you in and then end and you aren’t quite sure what to make of them, but their melodies and questions and unresolved chords still linger your ears.

If our text from Isaiah is a country song, it is first a country song in an earthy, grounded sense. It is a love-song about a vineyard. It uses agriculture imagery to get its point across – drawing out a metaphor about a farm and a farmer, a vineyard and a vineyard tender, and the hoped-for harvest of grapes and wine to follow.

This song begins so beautifully, with the tenderness of lovers. We aren’t quite sure who is speaking. We can imagine that it is the prophet Isaiah, as our text opens “Let me sing for my…