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.

Sermon | Peace and release 

Texts: Malachi 3:1-4; Luke 3:1-14

Speaker: Joel Miller

It’s the second Sunday of Advent and the candle of peace has been added to the candle of hope.  For those of us who identify as Mennonite, or at least Menno-curious, this is a familiar theme. Mennonites have long believed that peace and peacemaking, rather than being an optional extra for Christian living, is essential to the gospel itself.  Jesus models for us the kind of peaceful humanity we both aspire toward and can never quite reach.  A peace-centered faith has all kinds of implications in how we relate with our militarized national government, the international community, and immigrants and refugees who enter our country; where we invest money; advocacy for ending the death penalty; our relationship with creation and our neighbors and ourselves.  Kind of everything.  We believe in peace so much we have two peace candles going right now.       

On a personal level, another dimension of peace for me is that whenever I have taken the Enneagram personality type indicator I have most often been identified as a Nine, which is called…wait for it…The Peacemaker.  This could be because I like to get right answers on tests and being “The Peacemaker” is clearly the right answer for a Mennonite pastor to be.  Or, more likely, as I am learning, this type does seem to capture my own potential pitfalls and strengths.  When The Peacemaker type is not overly healthy we can simply blend with other’s opinions and preferences, essentially losing our sense of self, all the while building up unexpressed anger toward others for taking…

CMC Worship 112821 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.

ADVENT 1 | Essentials: Hope, Peace, Joy, Love, Immanuel, Epiphany

Speaker: Mark Rupp

Texts: Jeremiah 33:14-16; Luke 21:25-36

Sermon text:

Sing a Song of Hope Once More

Some birds sing when the sun shines bright
Our praise is not for them
But the ones who sing in the dead of night,
We raise our cups to them…
Some flowers bloom where the green grass grows,
Our praise is not for them.
But the ones who bloom in the bitter snow,
We raise our cups to them.

These are lyrics from the final number of the musical Hadestown, which my husband and I had the opportunity to see a few weeks ago.  The show is a modernized retelling of the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice.  Instead of togas and harps and Gods of the underworld, Hadestown presents the story through the lens of overworked and downtrodden railway workers, a struggling musician, climate change, and the struggle against a domineering industry magnate, who might as well be considered a God by the other characters.

The myth has been around for thousands of years, so I hope it’s not too much of a spoiler for me to say that the plot revolves around Orpheus’ attempt to rescue his beloved Eurydice from the underworld (or in the case of Hadestown, from the grips of a kind of proto-fascist form of capitalistic life where work and toil slowly strip away at who you are).  Orpheus is the son of a muse and his music has the power to bring the world around him back to…

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.

Gathering with Gratitude

Prelude

Welcome 

Land Acknowledgement 

Call to Worship

Peace Candle 

VT 806 | Called by Earth and Sky

Giving From Our Abundance

Scripture | Litany of Thanksgiving

Children’s Time 

Offering for Clintonville Resource Center

Offering/Dedication Prayer

Sharing Our Stories

VT 419 | Great Is Thy Faithfulness | v.1

Gratitude Reflection | Mary Yoder 

VT 419 | v.2

Gratitude Reflection | Kyle Kerley

VT 419 | v.3

Gratitude Reflection | Ruth Leonard

Silent Reflection

VT 114 | Nun danket alle Gott (Now Thank We All Our God)

Sharing of Joys and Concerns

Pastoral Prayer 

Leaving with a Thankful Heart

Passing the Peace

Extinguishing the Peace Candle 

Announcements  

VT 436 | O Lord My God/How Great Thou Art

Benediction

Christian Education | 11:00 am

Thanks to everyone who helped lead today’s service

Reflections | Mary Yoder, Kyle Kerley, Ruth Leonard

Worship Leader | Lavonne van der Zwaag

Music coordination | Katie Graber

Musicians | Amy Glick, Katie Graber, Nina Graber-Nofziger

Children’s Time | Debra Martin

Peace Candle | TBD

Scripture Reading | TBD

Zoom Host | Mike Ryan-Simkins

Camera operator | Joel Copeland

Sound operator | Dan Halterman

Worship Table | Lavonne van der Zwaag

Greeter | Megan Stauffer-Miller

Usher/Sanctuarian | Kris Coble

…

CMC Worship Service 11.14.21 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.

Sermon: Under the Protective Veil 

Texts: Ecclesiastes 3:1-8; Romans 8:38-39

Speaker: Joel Miller

“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.”  Ecclesiastes 3:1
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, writing in the middle of the 20th century, made the bold statement that “the Bible is more concerned with time than with space.” He pointed out that while the religions of the ancient world tended to locate the deity in particular places – “mountains, forests, trees or stones,” a shrine, a sacred image –  that the Jews experienced God as primarily present within history, within time:  deliverance from Egypt, the giving of the Torah at Sinai, Sabbath which he called “a cathedral in time.”  Heschel wrote: “The higher goal of spiritual living is not to amass a wealth of information (or things), but to face sacred moments.” (All quotes from page 6 of Heschel’s book The Sabbath). 

The higher goal of spiritual living is to face sacred moments.

The writer of Ecclesiastes expands even further on the human experience within time, even as they remain somewhat skeptical about the sacredness of it all.  Ecclesiastes is one of the Wisdom writings of the Old Testament.  It’s a group that includes Job and Proverbs, and extra-biblical books like the Wisdom of Solomon and Sirach.  One of the characteristics of Wisdom literature is that it makes no reference to any of these signature happenings of Jewish identity.  The promises to the patriarchs and matriarchs, the Exodus, and Sinai, are not mentioned.  Instead, Wisdom concerns itself with the raw material…