Texts: Genesis 1:31, 2:7, 15; Romans 8:19-23

Speaker: Linda Mercadante

Audio only

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Text: John 20:19-23

Speaker: Mark Rup

I don’t think I ever truly learned how to breathe until last year during my sabbatical.  Sure, I’ve been regularly taking in air for more than thirty-three years at this point, and sure, I was a music major with a focus on voice in college where I learned the importance of “proper” breathing technique. 

But all that time, I was mostly taking breath for granted or submitting it to my will as a tool, as a means to an end. 

During my sabbatical, though, one of the things I did was begin practicing yoga, which has, over time, opened me to recognizing the beauty and power of breath.  I had explored yoga before this, but never in a regular, sustained way.  I decided that I wanted to use my sabbatical to really commit to this practice because, as someone whose personality tends to live in a constant struggle between the head and the heart, I saw it as a way of finding balance not just in the literal, physical sense but in a deeply spiritual sense as well.  And so, with all sorts of time on my hands, it became an almost daily practice for me during those two months of my sabbatical. 

Those two months have now turned into almost a year and a half, and the practice has continued to transform me in deeply spiritual ways. 

I’ve done my best not to be “that guy” because I’ve heard the jokes about how most people don’t realize that it’s possible to do yoga without telling anyone about it.  But when I was at the MCUSA Convention last week, I heard a rumor that at some point in previous convention history the idea of offering yoga as one of the early morning group activities was rejected because of some non-specific…

https://joelssermons.files.wordpress.com/2019/06/20190630sermon.mp3

Text: Galatians 5:1,13-26

This week our nation celebrates its birthday.  There’s fireworks, there’s food, there’s commentary on where we’re at as a country, now 243 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence.  Freedom is a big word for us, from a big idea.  “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

That’s worked out pretty well for white, male, property owners.  The struggle for equal freedoms and opportunities is a major part of the history of our country.

Also this week is the biennial national convention of Mennonite Church USA – in Kansas City this year – in which we exercise our collective freedom-to-be-frugal by having the event during one of the cheapest convention weeks of the year.  But it’s still not cheap.  This year we’ll send 13 people to convention, with strong financial support from the congregation.  Thank you.

Many, many years ago – almost 2000 – the Apostle Paul had freedom on his mind.  It’s a central theme in his epistle, which is a fancy name for a letter, to the Galatians.

The letter is actually addressed to the “churches of Galatia,” plural.  Nobody’s quite sure how many churches this included or even where they were located.

The most common understanding of what’s going on behind this letter goes something like this:  In his missionary travels, the Apostle Paul helped found a group of small congregations of the Galatians.  They were primarily Gentiles, meaning they weren’t Jews, meaning they had never followed Jewish practices like male circumcision and Sabbath keeping and dietary guidelines.  They’d been pagans who had joined with everybody else in honoring the Roman imperial gods.

But now they’re Christians.

Although the early Christians weren’t…

https://joelssermons.files.wordpress.com/2019/06/20190616sermon.mp3

Texts: Psalm 118:19-24; 1 Peter 2:1-10

It was a little over thirteen years ago that this congregation began a discernment process regarding membership.  Some of you remember this well.  Many of you weren’t here 13 years ago. The question at hand was whether the congregation could openly affirm persons for membership regardless of sexual orientation.  It was a thorough process, lasting about 10 months.  It involved study of scripture and church documents and the science of sexuality, listening to faith stories, especially those of gay folks, meeting in small groups.  It was not a new discussion here, but it did result in a first time official vote to be a publicly welcoming congregation.  That was February 2007 – a coming out moment of sorts for the congregation.

Five years ago, without need for much further processing, the congregation voted to clarify that sexual orientation was a non-factor in the hiring of church staff, and that pastors were affirmed to officiate at weddings of opposite and same sex couples.

Yesterday a number of us rode a hay wagon through downtown Columbus anywhere between zero and five miles per hour, with a whole lot of zero at the beginning.  We passed out 4000 packets of seeds to people lining the streets for annual Pride march. The packets included the words: “sowing seeds of love.”

In the spirit of Pride weekend, I want to invite us to reflect on this journey we are still on as God continues to sow seeds of love among us that grow in surprising ways.  If we have an annual Pride Sunday it would be good to do enough advanced planning to hear more from the voices of queer folks.

For today, you’re stuck with this straight guy.  And so I come to this the only genuine way I can.  As a…