Reforming-Renewing: Everyone Has Something to Offer #5

Kristi Thomas

Sermon Scripture: John 21:15-19

When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?’ He said to him, ‘Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Feed my lambs.’ ¹⁶A second time he said to him, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’ He said to him, ‘Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Tend my sheep.’ ¹⁷He said to him the third time, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’ Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, ‘Do you love me?’ And he said to him, ‘Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Feed my sheep. ¹⁸Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.’ ¹⁹(He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.) After this he said to him, ‘Follow me.’

Reforming-Renewing: Everyone Has Something to
Offer #4

Roberta Menten

Sermon Scripture: Acts 9:10-20

Now there was a disciple in Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision, ‘Ananias.’ He answered, ‘Here I am, Lord.’ ¹¹The Lord said to him, ‘Get up and go to the street called Straight, and at the house of Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul. At this moment he is praying, ¹²and he has seen in a vision^* a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him so that he might regain his sight.’ ¹³But Ananias answered, ‘Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem; ¹⁴and here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who invoke your name.’ ¹⁵But the Lord said to him, ‘Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel; ¹⁶I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.’ ¹⁷So Ananias went and entered the house. He laid his hands on Saul^* and said, ‘Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.’ ¹⁸And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and his sight was restored. Then he got up and was baptized, ¹⁹and after taking some food, he regained his strength.

Reforming – Renewing: Everyone Has Something to Offer #3

Bill Withers

Sermon Scripture: Ephesians 2:5-9

Reforming-Renewing: Everyone Has Something to Offer Week #2

Peg Hoover

Sermon Scripture: Romans 10:5-13  

 Moses writes concerning the righteousness that comes from the law, that ‘the person who does these things will live by them.’ ⁶But the righteousness that comes from faith says, ‘Do not say in your heart, “Who will ascend into heaven?” ’ (that is, to bring Christ down) ⁷‘or “Who will descend into the abyss?” ’ (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). ⁸But what does it say?
‘The word is near you,
on your lips and in your heart’
(that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); ⁹because^* if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. ¹⁰For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved. ¹¹The scripture says, ‘No one who believes in him will be put to shame.’ ¹²For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him. ¹³For, ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’

Reforming-Renewing: Everyone Has Something to Offer

Brad Frye

Scripture: 1 Corinthians 15:8-10

Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them—though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.

Renewing-Reforming: Ash Wednesday

Pastor Leta Arndt Behrens

Sermon Scripture: Matthew 6:1–6, 16–21
“Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.

²“So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. ³But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, ⁴so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

⁵“And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. ⁶But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

¹⁶“And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. ¹⁷But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, ¹⁸so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

¹⁹“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; ²⁰but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. ²¹For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Read Here (remembering a sermon is the preached word and this is an approximation! ):

When my children were very young, babies really, we started a nightly ritual of prayer and blessing. I of course, wanted the perfect bedtime prayer, one that would set the tone for their night, wake them well in the morning, and well I guess I was really looking for the magic sleeping potion to get them to sleep and stay asleep and since Jesus had given me these precious children I thought maybe he could give a mama a hand and help them sleep through the night… in their beds… the whole time… so, perhaps slightly exhausted,  I turned to prayer. 

There was the well known prayer of course for children, one that I had not really grown up saying but had heard a time or two. Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep, if I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. This was horrifying to me. How could I put my babies to sleep with the thought of death? How could I hold them, rock them, tuck them in and even consider that their beautiful lives would someday not be right here safe in my arms? That defied every bone in my motherly body and was not something I could face at all really, let alone nightly. 

And so instead, I discovered a ‘new’ version of the prayer that starts the same, now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep—but changes the last lines: may angels watch me through the night and wake me with the morning light. That was much better, still is, to my mother ears that want to deny mortality for my children and want to control the world, even control God, to keep them safe. 

We live in a death denying culture. One that tells us that 60 is the new 30, that we can look younger and shiny with just a little botox and tummy tuck, hair dye and the right clothes, right work out program, right meditation or mindfulness routine. Our medical sciences have advanced us in wonderful life giving ways and in ways that lead us to be genuinely shocked by a diagnosis that is terminal. A few centuries ago, children saw death as a reality in their lives and now, death, while it is still real, has become something we think we can protect them from, deny as far away. or maybe it is something we try to protect ourselves from, or at least something that we don’t want to face or admit or live into every day. 

Which is why we need Lent, why we need this day of Ashes, why we say the words ashes to ashes, dust to dust to everyone from the oldest in the room to the newest, softest infant head. And why this is not a day of depression or sadness, but a day of refreshment and truth and hope. 

Psalm 51 is a psalm of confession, of laying open the truth of our sin, our guilt, our transgressions to God, who knows the depths of us, in a way that is honest, open, and real. There is no room for blaming another person in this psalm. There are no excuses. There is no room for pretending that sin and death and evil don’t exist. It is all right there. We spend so much of our days, our energy, our words and talk to ourselves thinking we can control ourselves—control our words in prayer so they are just right and God will be pleased and even then we are led to think we can control God. But Psalm 51 reminds us of  the truth of our humanity, our mortality, our need for God in the world and for God intimately in our lives. 

This psalm is a flat out, on our knees, prostrate on the floor even, confession that the truth is we cannot deny our own sin and we cannot defy death; no matter how much love we have or how much praying we do or how many things we give up for Lent, the truth is before us in the ashes. We are dust and to dust we will return. Right here in these ashes and dust we cannot pretend anything, we cannot hide behind words or actions when we lay our hearts to open at the feet of Jesus.

This is a day that we need every year to come forward and say that we can only come before God and know that we are known in truth and still even in that truth, we are loved and promised life. Create in me a clean heart O God and renew a right spirit within me. This is a request and it is a promise. Ash Wednesday refreshes us in this new spirit because it reminds us of truth and then we are set free once again.

The words of prayer that we say with our children in our nightly ritual are still words of truth because they promise God’s presence no matter what comes in the night or throughout our days. And the blessing we give, marking them with the sign of the cross on their forehead is a blessing that invokes not just the death in their baptism, but also the life. 

These ashes mark us not only as mortal but as claimed as beloved. These ashes mark us not only as broken but as pieced together and given new life in baptism. These ashes mark us not as holy or pious or good or strong, but as those with eyes and ears and hearts ready to return to God, to walk into Lent refreshed and renewed, and to live and die held  in God’s blessing.