https://joelssermons.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/20191006sermon.mp3

The audio recording includes a follow up reflection from Jenny Campagna, beginning around minute 18.

Genesis 1:26-31, John 1:14

One of the more daunting aspects of speaking about sex and sexuality in a congregation, is just how many differences we bring into the room.  In the few conversations I’ve had anticipating this Healthy Sexuality series, a wide range of life experience has already showed up.  For one person, growing up in the free love sexual revolution of the 60’s resulted in a need to form more disciplined habits and attitudes toward sex later in life.  For another person, growing up in the evangelical purity culture of the 90’s included a shame based view of the body and sex that still lingers.

Sexuality, by its very nature, is intensely personal.  It speaks to our deep needs and most raw vulnerabilities.  Sexuality is expressed differently at different stages of life, whether we are single or partnered.  Sexual violence is pervasive, and the resulting trauma can be a life’s work to heal.  Sexual intimacy can be profoundly meaningful, pleasurable, and restorative.  All this is true.

And, oh yeah, sex is still the main way people make babies.  Infertility, miscarriage, birthing and parenting, family- making in both traditional and non-traditional configurations are all connected to sexuality.

In the past few decades when the church has talked about sexuality it has been almost entirely about how people who identify as gay, lesbian, queer or gender-nonconforming are or aren’t welcome in the church.  That means for most of us, we’ve been talking about other people’s sexuality.  Which hasn’t really been all that fun, but it’s been a nice distraction for us straight folks from having to talk about our own issues.

This four week series is a humble attempt to widen the conversation.  To acknowledge that we are all sexual beings. …

https://joelssermons.files.wordpress.com/2019/09/20190922sermon.mp3

Texts: Genesis 3:16-21; Romans 8:19-27

She fell like a maple seed, pirouetting on an autumn breeze.  A column of light streamed from a hole in the Skyworld, marking her path where only darkness had been before.  It took her a long time to fall.  In fear, or maybe hope, she clutched a bundle tightly in her hand.

Hurtling downward, she saw only dark water below.  But in that emptiness there were many eyes gazing up at the sudden shaft of light.  They saw there a small object, a mere dust mote in the beam.  As it grew closer, they could see that it was a woman, arms outstretched, long black hair billowing behind as she spiraled toward them.

The geese nodded to one another and rose together from the water in a wave of goose music.  She felt the beat of their wings as they flew beneath to break her fall.  Far from the only home she’d ever known, she caught her breath at the warm embrace of soft feathers as they gently carried her downward.  And so it began.

The geese could not hold the woman above the water for much longer, so they called a council to decide what to do.  Resting on their wings, she saw them all gather: loons, otters, swans, beavers, fish of all kinds.  A great turtle floated in their midst and offered his back for her to rest upon.  Gratefully, she stepped from the goose wings onto the dome of his shell.  The others understood that she needed land for her home and discussed how they might serve her need.  The deep divers among them had heard of mud at the bottom of the water and agreed to go find some.

Loon dove first, but the distance was too far and after a long while he surfaced…

Texts: Scripture: Matthew 5:43-48; Romans 12:14 &17-20

Speaker: Julie Hart

I realized I was in serious trouble one summer working with Christian Peacemaker Teams in Israel and the West Bank when I began to look at every Israeli Settler I saw as an irrational, fanatic, out to get me.  Certainly, there was some basis to my fear.  Day after day patrolling the streets of Hebron I would greet each person I passed with acknowledgment and a hello in the appropriate language.  And each time I passed an Israeli settler, I got a similar response.  The most common response was a cold stare cutting right through me as if I were either a non-person or an evil one.  The bolder youth and men responded with such phrases as, “Go home Nazi” or “Christian Bitch save your own people.”  The young men, when walking in groups would often monopolize the entire street and refuse to move despite my presence.  It was a scary situation for me.  I never knew how they might respond by what appeared to be such hatred. 

But even more frightening than their behavior was my mental response.  I was building the blocks of enemy formation.   Not that this was the first time that I allowed myself to hate.  Back in the 1980’s, I worked with Kate at a College in Ohio.  We both taught health promotion and fitness courses at the college.  Kate was the most self-centered person I had ever known.  We worked as a team with seven others as part of a Community Health Education Center and over our 5 years together, Kate’s needs always came first.  Once when we were traveling together to an exercise training workshop, I felt the need to arrive early the second day in order to attend a remedial session.  Kate wasn’t struggling as…

https://joelssermons.files.wordpress.com/2019/09/20190908sermon.mp3

Texts: Exodus 20:8-11; Matthew 25:14-30; Luke 19:11-27

Our fourth commitment is a big one: “Share our time and resources, discerning our call to both work and rest.”

It’s big because our time and resources cover the full span of how we order our lives.  It’s big because in Jesus’ teachings, finances and resource sharing are inseparable from expressions of the kingdom of God.  It’s big because discerning our call to both work and rest is counter-cultural.  Sabbath rest, the enjoyment of life for its own sake, doesn’t pay well.  It gets all the more complicated for folks for whom work doesn’t pay well either.

This is big because in order to talk honestly about time, resources, work, and rest, we must keep in mind the very big impersonal economic powers persistently imposing their will on us, for good or for ill, and the very personal spiritual gifts of gratitude and generosity re-shaping our will – to keep both of these in view at all times.

So what better way to survey the landscape than through a parable of Jesus that has been applied to both of these levels, from the earliest memory of the church.

The parable of the ten pounds – as the header in my NRSV Bible calls it – in Luke 19, also shows up in Matthew’s gospel, with some minor differences and one very major difference.  Matthew records this as a parable with talents, although not the kind we’re looking forward to Saturday evening of fall retreat.  Not too late to sign up, by the way.  A talent was a massive sum of money, 15 or even 20 year’s worth of wages.  Five was a lifetime of wages, all one would ever need.  A man going away on a journey divvies out five, two, and one talent to his household…

https://joelssermons.files.wordpress.com/2019/09/20190901sermon.mp3

Texts: Ecclesiastes 3:1-8; Luke 2:21-40      

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

a time to be born, and a time to die;

a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;

a time to kill, and a time to heal;

a time to break down, and a time to build up;

a time to weep, and a time to laugh;

a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together;

a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

a time to seek, and a time to lose;

a time to keep, and a time to throw away;

a time to tear, and a time to sew;

a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

a time to love, and a time to hate;

a time for war, and a time for peace.

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.

We needed 28 readers for that.  I’m guessing that’s a record for a scripture reading at Columbus Mennonite Church, although I’m glad to be corrected.  28 different happenings, seasons of life, arranged as 14 pairs.  Seven is the biblical number of completeness, so these pairs are seven twice over, double completeness.  A representative sample of everything.  “For everything there is a season.”

Our third commitment calls on us to “honor all seasons of life, caring for one another through joys and hardships.”

Those of us who live in Ohio, and similar latitudes, know a thing or two, or four about seasons.  It’s one of my favorite features of this place I’ve called home for most of my life.  Four distinct seasons.  With cold winters, blooming springs, hot summers, and the cooling air and colorful leaves of fall that do eventually fall as…