Sermon Notes (Page 12)

This week we continue our series on Holy Week as we look at Chapter 3 of Amy-Jill Levine’s book Entering Christ’s Passion: Holy Week for Beginners, “Risking Challenge.” The Scripture passage this week is from Mark 12:28-34 (see below), and Levine’s book also references Matthew 22:15-22 and Mark 12:41-44. As we center on this third week of Lent, we land on Tuesday of Holy Week with Jesus remaining in Jerusalem. The Gospel of Mark (from which we read this week)…

This week we continue our series on Holy Week as we look at Chapter 2 of Amy-Jill Levine’s book Entering Christ’s Passion: Holy Week for Beginners, “Risking Righteous Anger”. The Scripture passage this week is from Mark 11:15-19, the story of the cleansing of the Temple. This story is having a bit of a revival right now among Christians of my generation (and others!). Those of us who grew up in or around Christian traditions where the main goal of…

This is the first week of the season of Lent, and the first week of our new Worship series guided by Amy-Jill Levine’s Entering the Passion of Jesus: A Beginner’s Guide to Holy Week. Each Sunday we will journey through Jesus’ final week in Jerusalem culminating in the cross and then resurrection Sunday! This week begins with the first day of Holy Week, which brings the familiar scripture of Palm Sunday. If you are one who loves the traditions of…

This is the final week of our sermon series “Reading the Bible Again for the First Time,” in which we have explored ways to read the Bible more deeply, with a mind to history, context, genre, and literary analysis. You can find resources on reading and studying the Bible here. This week, we shift from how to read into how to live as we dive into the theme of practical theology. In week one, on “Epiphany & Creation,” Pastor Bob…

In this sixth and penultimate week of our sermon series on how we read our Bibles, we continue our exploration of our sacred texts. The final book in the New Testament was not necessarily the final book written, but was placed there because of its focus. Revelation (please note that it’s singular, not plural) is a letter written describing a vision or dream that is author experienced. Attributed to an author named John, scholars are not unified in naming which…

In the fifth week of our sermon series on how we read our Bibles, we continue our exploration of the sacred texts with the core writings that help Christians claim their unique identity of faith: the Gospels and Acts. These five books share the “good news” of Jesus Christ with the world, telling age-old stories of miracles and teachings, criticisms, prophesies, tragedies and death. These stories tell us in compelling and imaginative ways who Jesus is, why Jesus matters, and…

In the fourth week of our sermon series on how we read our Bibles, we are jumping into the New Testament with the letters and epistles from Paul and other authors. The reason we are starting the New Testament here instead of with the Gospels is that many of these letters actually pre-date the Gospels in terms of their authorship. You can find resources on reading and studying the Bible here. I’m not very good at writing letters. If I’m…

In the third week of our sermon series on how we read our Bibles, we are taking a look at the prophets and Wisdom Literature in the Hebrew Bible (often called the Old Testament). In the past couple of weeks, we have dived into “Epiphany & Creation” and “History & Law,” and invited our community to try reading the Bible in intentional and perhaps new ways. You can find resources on reading and studying the Bible here. The prophets, from…

This week we continue our new sermon series on how we read our Bibles. If you missed it last week, we published a list of resources to plan a regular time of reading the Bible. Find it here. This week we move beyond the creation stories and into the story of Moses as the leader of the Exodus and the bringer of the Law. These narratives are told in the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, sometimes known as…

This past Sunday’s worship began our new sermon series on how we read our Bibles. Because of the holiday, this Sermon Note is more of a follow-up to the Worship experience. We also published a list of resources to plan a regular time of reading the Bible. Find it here. In beginning this series, we first discussed the primary—and opposing—ways that people generally seem to read sacred text. Those who would identify as Fundamentalist or Conservative Evangelical generally affirm a…

This week’s worship from our advent series gets into the good stuff! This week we really get into the familiar and exciting parts of the story! It’s almost Christmas and there’s just a little more online shopping to finish up!! To be honest, I really want to be that excited and have almost nothing left to do. But if you’ve worked in a church or a church office, you know that the last week or so before Christmas Eve is…

This week’s text jumps a bit from previous texts in this series. We started with Paul’s letters to the Thessalonians and Ephesians and then moved to Mark for two weeks. This week we jump to the Gospel of John with a text that seems to almost duplicate last week’s from Mark. Why would those who established the Lectionary do this? I don’t have an answer to this. In comparing the Markan description of John the Baptist with that of John,…