Dan Halterman

Joel in 2017 opened a sermon describing himself as “a pastor in the Mennonite creek of the Christian stream of the human river of spiritual wisdom traditions.” 

Even though Google is unaware of any “Mennonite River,” “Mennonite Creek,” or “Mennonite Ditch,” I’ll get back to this.

Matthew 5:45 says God causes his rain to fall on the just and on the unjust.  That’s you and me.  I’m taking liberties to commingle that about rain and the fates of seeds in the Parable of the Sower:

The Lord causes his rain to fall on the just and the unjust…that’s us.  Some falls on leaves or other surfaces and promptly evaporates back into the atmosphere.  Some falls on hard surfaces, roofs, parking lots, roads, and quickly runs off, cleansing the surfaces of accumulated oil and gas from vehicles, dirt, dust, animal feces and animal carcasses, litter – icky stuff – and transfers it directly to streams as the so-called “first flush.”  Some falls on vegetated land, dissolving nutrients in the soil waiting to be shared with plant roots and rises to the light again through the wonder of photosynthesis that lifts soil water through capillary action – an inch above the soil into a radish leaf or hundreds of feet to the top of a giant redwood.  Other water mingles with its kin in the moist soil and percolates further by gravity, being cleansed, and becomes ground water that may be pumped through a well supplying a home or multiple huge wells feeding a public water system serving Dayton and Montgomery County.  Other water may encounter an impermeable layer and emerge to light again later as a spring or seep pulled by gravity to join a stream – with the other water that the Lord has equally shared with the just and the unjust. …

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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