Let’s Review: Community, Cross, (New) Creation**Texts: Mark 1:14-20;  Matthew 16:24-26; 2 Corinthians 5:16-18Speaker: Joel Miller

There’s a story in John’s gospel where religious leaders bring a woman caught in adultery to Jesus and ask what he thinks should be done.  It was a test.  According to a strict reading of the laws of Moses, she should be stoned to death.  But Jesus had been preaching a message of mercy.  So if he says the law should be followed, death penalty, he contradicts himself.  And if he says she should be shown mercy, he contradicts the law.  Faced with this dilemma, Jesus does what any of us would do.  He stalls.  This is how John tells it: “Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground.  When they kept questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, ‘Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.’”  And they all just leave, “one by one,” it says, until it’s just Jesus and the woman. 

There are all kinds of reasons to love this story, but for a sermon that is supposed to be a review of the New Testament, it has two especially key features.  One is that this story was a floater in the early church.  Many of the oldest manuscripts of John don’t include it.  Others put it in a different location in John.  A few even have it in Luke.  So, within that oral culture, this was likely the last story about Jesus to find its place in the writings of the New Testament.  It’s the final statement of the whole.

And speaking of writing, this story has the only mention in the gospels of Jesus doing just that – writing.  We have these 27 different written documents that make up…

Let’s Review: Creation, Exodus, Exile Texts: Psalm 19:1-6; Deuteronomy 24:17-22; Jeremiah 29:4-7Speaker: Joel Miller

It’s been a while since I’ve been in school, but I do remember that the end of the year is a time of review.  To learn what you learned, as some teachers say.  Or, as a much-loved seminary professor would ask at the end of each semester: “What do you want to remember well?” 

As Chris mentioned in the opening, this transition from school year to summer corresponds with a transition in the church calendar – from Easter season to Ordinary Time.  And, in our case, from the Narrative Lectionary over which we traced the full arc of scripture, to a less structured summer. 

So, let’s review.  This week is focused on the Old Testament or First Testament.  Next week we’ll review the New Testament, or Second Testament. 

Rather than sprint back through the story, I want to make a few bridges into our present by highlighting some themes.  For today, how about three?  Three big storylines that weave through the Hebrew Scriptures which continue to weave through our story:  Creation, Exodus, and Exile. How might remembering these well relate with living well?     

Read/Sing: Psalm 19:1-6

Creation is, in many ways, about beginnings.  “In the beginning Elohim created the heavens and the earth.  A wind from Elohim hovered over the face of the waters.” That’s the opening of Genesis, the beginning of the Bible.  It goes on to speak of seven days of creation, including a day of Sabbath rest without which creation is incomplete.  Elohim speaks the world into being, and then speaks blessing over Sabbath.  It is a poetic rather than scientific telling of our origins, but there is a delightful overlap with our current understanding of evolution and the way Genesis 1 portrays an increasingly complex and diverse world, each…

James Laspisa

GOOD MORNING!

Like many of you, I’m not native to Columbus, but migrated here.. 

Since my arrival from Toledo, I have been searching for a Church that is NOT ONLY “Open and Affirming”, but MORE IMPORTANTLY truly “Christ centered”. 

I first found one that is EXTREMELY accepting, but when you look beyond their welcome to the Gay and Lesbian community, you find them lacking in what it means to truly “follow Jesus”. 

I found another that is quite involved with local missions, but even though they proclaimed to be a welcoming congregation, as an openly Gay man, I never felt REALLY accepted there – more like TOLERATED. 

I KNOW I”M SHOWING MY AGE, but can anyone else remember the story of “Goldilocks and the three bears”?

In it, Goldilocks tries three bowls of porridge – the first bowl is too hot, the second is too cold, but finally the third bowl is neither too hot or too cold, but “JUST RIGHT”

IN MY CASE I was beginning to wonder if I would ever find a church that is neither “too hot” or “too cold”, but JUST RIGHT

I was resigning myself to living with compromise when one lazy. rainy, Saturday afternoon late last fall, my Inner Voice told me to  Google “Open and Affirming” churches ONE MORE TIME.

I found a website called gaychurch.org where you can check for welcoming churches in your area. I saw the “SAME OLD, SAME OLD” from other websites I had visited, but then I saw COLUMBUS MENNONITE CHURCH 

COLUMBUS MENNONITE???

Not knowing that much about Mennonites, I figured that Mennonites were basically “AMISH WITH WIFI” and “ASSUMED” that they would be socially conservative and thus not accepting of people like me.

I’M SURE YOU’VE ALL HEARD THE OLD SAYING ABOUT “ASSUME”

I eagerly checked out the CMC website, ESPECIALLY the statement of LGBTQ inclusiveness

I…

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Madres Creadoras, Creator Mothers Texts: Psalm 91:1-4; 1 Cor 13Speaker: Joel Miller

The final line of our Membership Commitment Statement says: By God’s grace, may we be a sanctuary, where we welcome, protect, and challenge one another.

We’ll recite the full statement together in two weeks as we welcome new members and renew our own commitments.

Today we get to highlight one of the ways we live out that final line through our Keeping CMC Safe policy. 

A policy-based sermon is not exactly a prime candidate for inspiration and insight.  But here’s a thought: If we were to commission someone to do a visual representation of Keeping CMC Safe – a single painting, let’s say, of the theology and practice of being a sanctuary where we welcome, protect, and challenge one another, it could look something like this. 

To be clear, this artist was very likely not pondering congregational policy while painting.  This piece is by Angelika Bauer, a German woman who, in the early 80s, made her home in the town of Santiago, on Lake Atitlan in Guatemala.  If you know a bit of Guatemalan history, you know this was a time of civil war and tremendous military violence, US-backed, directed especially at the indigenous Mayan population.  This piece was inspired by the resistance and resilience the artist witnessed during that time. 

You wouldn’t know just by looking that this came from a war zone where thousands of people were disappeared, never to be seen again.  Bauer’s paintings aren’t overtly political.  But protecting the vulnerable, and believing that we are all – all – surrounded by the loving arms of God has implications for every part of life, including the political.  And, we might add, congregational policy.  She calls this work Madres Creadoras, meaning Creator Mothers.  I’ve been drawn to it ever since I…