Sermons
Do We Really Want A King?
Speaker: Cynthia Lapp
We are living through a particularly poignant season where we do well to ponder our Christian faith with new urgency. And though the biblical text may seem archaic and outdated, it does not get old. We are predictable as humans; we keep replaying and reliving the story, over and over again; the text is history […]
Nevertheless She Persisted
Speaker: Cynthia Lapp
It has been a week. On Monday, I joined a beautiful cross section of folks from the Poor People’s Campaign in a morning of preparation and then a rally on the Capitol grounds. Around 3pm about 60 of us processed in silence to the Capitol visitor’s center. We entered the rotunda to demand that Congress […]
That All May Be One
Speaker: Nathan Detweiler
Introduction: During the past week, as I’ve read the John text for this Sunday, I’ve frequently been reminded of one of my favorite lines from the film National Treasure. After frequent dead ends and ongoing brushes with violence and potential death Riley, the funny philosophical comedian type in the film, asks a very good question […]
Love, Life, and Laying It Down
Speaker: Cynthia Lapp
Last week we heard some verses from I John about love. Today the lectionary gives us more love in I John and John. While Love is foundational to faith, it can be hard to talk about love without sounding trite. Heart icons, over the top reviews of restaurants and movies. Many of us love our […]
Trusting Doubt
Speaker: Cynthia Lapp
Today is the Sunday after Easter but this great Thomas story begins last Sunday evening. And the story the disciples tell the absent Thomas is pretty incredible. They are hiding, and mourning, and Jesus appears, right there in the middle of their huddled, frightened group – without even opening a door. Give me a break. […]
Two Disciples and a Mary Walk Into a Graveyard . . .
Speaker: Michelle Burkholder
Christ is risen! [Christ is risen, indeed] Alleluia! What a day, eh?! I mean Easter is always a cause for joy and celebration but, as a celebration that moves around on the calendar, it isn’t every year that it coincides with April Fools Day. And what a glorious pairing the two make: both are full […]
The Jesus Koans
Speaker: Cynthia Lapp
During Lent, our theme of covenant has taken us in various directions. Michelle shared the Jeremiah text with the children in Children’s Church. Michelle showed them how you can write something on play-doh and somehow it is still contained in the play-doh, even when you smoosh it up and it seems to disappear. God’s covenant […]
Cross Covenant
Speaker: Cynthia Lapp
“It’s just my cross to bear.” You’ve probably heard people say it. Maybe you’ve said it. I know Jesus says, “Take up your cross.” I know we need Good Friday so we can move from death into life. But I so wish we could skip over suffering and the cross. I have heard too many […]
Create Covenant
Speaker: Cynthia Lapp
Good morning friends. It seems hard to start right in on covenant when a broken covenant is the elephant in the room. This country is reeling from yet one more time we have failed our children. Safety within the borders of the country ought to be a primary function of government and yet once again […]
A Word of Hope for Grasshoppers and Exiles
Speaker: Rachel Cornwell
Isaiah 40:21-31 21Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? 22It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads […]