Audio of full worship service for the licensing of Pastor Mark Rupp at Columbus Mennonite Church.  To read and listen to just the sermon, click HERE

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It takes a lot to make me angry.  Sometimes to a fault, I don’t allow myself to get emotional.  I’d rather work things out rationally, try to see it from all sides and understand all perspectives rather than just allowing emotions to take over and get angry. 

But a couple months ago, I did get angry.

I think that maybe this incident sticks out to me because it came on so unexpectedly, or maybe because I found myself with lots of emotions but no helpful outlet to turn them into something constructive. 

There I was, sitting at my computer, scrolling through my newsfeed when a news article instantly caught my attention.  The headline read: “Pennsylvania High School Students Organize ‘Anti-Gay’ Day.” 

My first reaction was, “Oh, surely not.”  Surely, I thought, this must be a satirical article.  Surely no high school would stand for something like this.  But I clicked on the link and found that it wasn’t some twisted joke that had failed to land.  According to the reports, in response to the “Day of Silence” organized by the Gay Straight Alliance at McGuffey High School in Pennyslvania, a different group of students took it upon themselves to organize a counter-protest. 

Just for some context, let me read how the national organization that helped organize the “Day of Silence” described their event: “The Day of Silence is a national day of action in which students across the country vow to take a form of silence to call attention to the silencing effect of anti-LGBT bullying and harassment in schools.” 

In response to this event that was meant to call attention to the ways LGBTQ students experience oppressive environments and to affirm their right to exist in the world in ways that allow them to flourish, in response to this, another group of students at McGuffey…

Text: Mark 5:21-43

There’s a quote, sometimes attributed to Plato and other times attributed to Philo of Alexandria, which goes like this: “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.” Sometimes I wonder, when sayings like this are assigned to multiple big names of history, if it’s more likely it was first spoken between two farmers out in some remote field, who repeated it to their neighbors and on down the road it went – people thinking it so profound that it must have been said by the greatest philosopher of the Western world.

A bit of web research indicated that the oldest known appearance of these words in print was in the 1897 Christmas edition of The British Weekly. 

No matter its origin, it’s a line I came across a number of years back and have taken to heart as a pastor and as a human being.  Mostly because the second part has proven itself to be true over and over again.  As far as I can tell, even people who most appear to have their stuff together are, in some aspect life, fighting a great battle.  Whether the first part, Be kind, is something I and we actually do well is another challenge in itself.

We are a congregation that mostly has our stuff together.  We are made up of persons serving the community in all kinds of vital ways, we own and worship in a pleasant building in a desirable neighborhood, we are fiscally sound, and mission oriented.  Yet, I don’t think it’s presumptuous to say that we all, in our own way, are fighting a great battle.

And one of these great battles is the struggle for mental wellness, whether it be personally or someone we live with.  Some of you have been more public…

Text: Mark 6:6b-13

Whenever someone visits our church website, the first picture they see is one of hands knotting a colorful comforter.  We got the new website up and running about a year ago, and we did so with the understanding the websites are pretty much the new front door for congregations.  Before most people walk through the actual front door of a building, they walk through a website.  So, the question was, how do we want to introduce ourselves when people come to visit?  Is there an image that expresses who we have been called to be as a community that lives in the Spirit of Christ?  It wasn’t all that hard of a decision.

There are so many dimensions to how these comforters represent our mission and life together that it would take many sermons to unpack it all.  Which is a good thing, because we do this comforter blessing every year.

One of the beautiful aspects of these comforters is how the core group of Piecemakers invites the rest of us to participate in their creation – especially through the spring knotting party.  I consider that one of the high holy weekends of the year.  We get stuff done, like knotting 52comforters in an evening and a morning a few months ago, but there’s a lot more going on than just an assemblage of cheap laborers lured by amazing food.  I love how this event involves giving and receiving by all that participate. The Piecemakers create a space to offer something that the rest of us need and desire: good food, meaningful work, joyful fellowship.  The rest of us have something that the Piecemakers need: time, willing hands, funds to support the cause.

This image of mission as giving and receiving is also reflected in Mark chapter 6 when Jesus gives…

Text: Mark 4:26-34

Speaker: Eliza Wertenberger

Audio only.

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