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A Humble Walk – Today is Palm Sunday. Through Lent we have been considering what we can do to “act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly,” and our focus is now on “walk humbly.” The script is the Markan version of the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, and we celebrate that with our own palm branches waving as we sing “Hosanna!” We know the sce…
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Just Keep Walking – Through Lent we are considering what we can do to “act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly,” and our focus is now on “walk humbly.” The scripture today is the familiar story in Mark 10 where James and John ask a favor of Jesus, which is that they be seated at the right and left of Jesus when he comes into his glory. In all the t…
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Through Lent we are considering what we can do to “act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly,” and our focus is now on mercy. The scripture today is the familiar parable of Jesus talking about separating the sheep from the goats: “If you have done this for the least of these, you have done it for me.” Jesus is saying that God is near in the needs of …
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A Merciful Messiah – Through Lent we are considering what we can do to “act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly,” and our focus is now on mercy. The scripture today is the encounter of Jesus with blind Bartimaeus who knows Jesus is approaching and calls out to him. Some around the scene react to restrain the blind beggar, but Jesus asks him what he…
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What Is and What Can Be: Aligning our Hearts and Heads with God’s – Through Lent we are considering what we can do to “act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly,” and this is the second week our focus is on justice. The reading for today is a passage from Isaiah (10:1-4) that is clearly from a God angry at those who “pronounce wicked decrees” that de…
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How the Tables Have Turned – Through Lent we are considering what we can do to “act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly.” The reading for this Sunday is the Markan account of Jesus entering the temple, observing the transactions going on as doves and other sacrificial beings are sold to people arriving to make sacrifices, and Jesus accusing those s…
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Observing a Holy Lent – This is our Ash Wednesday service of the imposition of ashes, a time of introspection and confession in the forty days leading up to the Easter celebration of the resurrection of Jesus. Rev. Shannon Baxter, our Pastor of Congregational Connection, delivers the homily. In a sense, through these forty days we walk with Jesus t…
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This is our annual Shrove Tuesday Jazz Mass, a celebration before Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent. Aimee Baxter, our Pastor of Young Adults delivers the Communion Meditation, and she begins by giving a number of examples of someone being up, then down. It is much like we will experience with this Shrove Tuesday of celebration and then tomor…
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Invited to the Thin and Thick Places – This is Transfiguration Sunday, and we read the story from Mark where Jesus takes Peter, James, and John with him to a mountain, and he was transformed before them with Elijah and Moses appearing, too, certifying Jesus as the fulfillment of the law and the prophets. As she delivers this sermon, Carol gives exa…
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We have been reading through the first chapter of Mark, and in today’s reading Jesus and the first four disciples go to the house of Simon and Andrew. There they find Simon’s mother-in-law is sick with a fever. Jesus heals her. Then that evening, everyone in the town gathers in front of Simon’s house, and Jesus heals many who are ill or afflicted w…
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You’re Invited into Healing Liberation – Today’s passage is from Mark, early in Jesus’ ministry but after he has called the first four disciples. He is in Capernaum, enters the synagogue and begins teaching, and the people are astounded by his authority in that teaching. Then a deranged man cries out, and Jesus exorcises the demon in the man, heali…
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Today’s scripture from John 1 is about Jesus meeting Philip and calling him into discipleship, but it is also about Philip, in turn, inviting Nathanael into discipleship, too, with the invitation to “come and see.” The Gospel of John uses that phrase several times, and we are invited to share in the excitement and the invitation. Nathanael’s initia…
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Today, using the account in Mark, we read about the baptism of Jesus by John at the Jordan, and we remember and celebrate our own baptism. A question that often arises with the baptism of Jesus is why would Jesus need to be baptized like the sinners to whom John was preaching, “Repent and be baptized”? Maybe Jesus was baptized and the spirit descen…
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Invited to Another Road – This is Epiphany Sunday, the day we remember the trip of the Magi to see the baby Jesus. Although many legends about the magi have grown through the centuries, the account in Matthew is the only account available, and it does not reveal how many magi were in the group, where they came from (it says only “the East”), or how…
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We have now celebrated the birth of Christ and are at the brink of a new year. The scripture for today is from Joshua, the account of the people crossing the Jordan River into the Promised Land, and God tells them to set up a pile of 12 stones, one for each tribe, as a memorial. Rev. Stacey Harwell-Dye, our Pastor of Mercy and Justice ministries is…
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Today, the fourth Sunday of Advent and also Christmas Eve, the scripture is the section of Luke where the young Mary responds to the announcement of her pregnancy with “the Magnificat,” praising God for raising her from her modest place to this place of honor as mother of this holy infant. This comes when Mary famously visits her cousin, Elizabeth,…
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– In the season when many people are joyous over the birth of the Christ child, gift giving and receiving, and family gatherings, many among us are experiencing loss, aloneness, grief. This service, held on the longest night of the year, is meant to provide comfort and hold a safe place for those who need quiet reflection. The service incorporates …
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Justice and Joy – Through this Advent season we are reading words of Isaiah, and today’s prophecy from chapter 64 comes again to a people in despair but offers a glimmer of hope, and beyond that hope it offers comfort and joy. Today, the third Sunday of Advent, we light the third candle, a pink one representing joy, and in that sense this section o…
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Through this Advent season we are reading words of Isaiah, and today’s prophecy of “Comfort Ye, Comfort Ye My People” comes from chapter 40 but is also familiar to us as the first choral movement in G. F. Handel’s Messiah. The message comes to a people whose city, Jerusalem, has been devastated, the temple destroyed, and they have been displaced an…
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This is the first Sunday in Advent, and our scripture is from Isaiah’s words to people who had great reason to feel that God had abandoned them. The prophet describes a God who had done awesome deeds in the past, but then God’s abandonment had given rise to the people’s abandonment of God. The prophet speaks of repentance, a turning around of the p…
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As we begin the season of Advent, we will be guided by the prophets and by the poetry of E.E. Cummings. Be sure and pick up your Advent guide at church on Sunday or let us know if you need one sent to you. As an added practice each week, we will provide a brief guided meditation through one of Cummings’ poems. Here is the first one to lead us into …
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– In January we began a year-long journey through the Bible with Genesis, and today we end that journey with a reading from the last chapter of Revelation. In this final vision of final days John of Patmos sees a city wherein all things are reconciled. A Tree of Life is the focal point, somehow reminiscent of that tree in the Garden of Eden that br…
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The Alpha and Omega – In January we began a year-long journey through the Bible with Genesis, and today and next Sunday we end with readings from Revelation. Today’s reading comes from the first chapter where the visionary, John, reports on his encounter with the risen Jesus. The book of Revelation is and has been controversial through the millenia…
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Continuing our journey through the Bible, this week’s reading is from the epistle of James with a particular focus on James 1.19-20 where the writer, writing to a congregation that has apparently had some conflict, cautions them to be “quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger.” It is a caution appropriate for our era of social media and politi…
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Continuing our journey through the Bible, this week’s reading is Paul’s letter to Philemon, a letter filled with familial terms, and it is clear that the focus of the letter, Onesimus, has been a slave of Philemon. Although we don’t know how or why Onesimus is currently and has been with an imprisoned Paul, it is clear that Paul is sending Onesimus…
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Continuing our journey through the Bible, this week’s reading is from Paul’s letter to the Galatians. In this letter, Paul is frustrated with the church he had helped to form in Galatia. They were largely Gentiles, but apparently some Jewish had moved in and demanded that those in that church obey the Jewish law, including such things as circumcisi…
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A God Ever Faithful – This is the Sunday we are celebrating the 150th anniversary of our church. One of the things we are doing through this 150th year is reading through the Bible and, on Sundays, taking our scripture readings from the books of the Bible in sequence. Today we are looking at a passage from Paul’s letter to the Philippians, which is…
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We continue our trip through the Bible with today’s reading from 1 Corinthians. Rev. Shannon Baxter, our Pastor of Congregational Connection, is preaching. The text is Paul’s familiar comparison of the community of the church to the members of the body, an analogy that can surely be understood by anyone. Historically, the Corinthian congregation mu…
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We continue our trip through the Bible with today’s reading from Romans, the first of the letters of Paul. Romans is a multi-layered and intricate letter. Much of the first part of the letter is about God’s grace through which all are welcomed. Then in chapter 12, Paul says, “Therefore” and begins to write about how this oneness in the body of Chri…
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We continue our trip through the Bible with today’s reading from Acts, a book that chronicles the early days of Christianity. Our focus is on Barnabas, who plays a minor role in Acts. His character is all about support and encouragement. We may recall that Saul (later Paul) was initially intent on crushing the belief in Jesus until his conversion o…
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We continue our trip through the Bible with today’s reading from the Gospel of John. Early in this gospel, Jesus tells the disciples he will be leaving them, but in this passage Jesus describes himself as the vine and those around him as the branches, telling them that if they “abide in him,” they will have joy, peace, and love (even if he is not p…
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We continue our trip through the Bible with today’s reading from Luke in which Jesus heals two people from very different segments of the community. The writer of Luke seems to have an interest in “the great reversal,” in which, for example, the downtrodden are elevated and those of privilege are taken down. These two healing stories in Luke 7 refl…
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We continue our trip through the Bible with today’s reading of the familiar story of the healing of the demoniac. In this story, Jesus retreats to Gentile territory, which is unusual for him and makes us wonder whether he knew about this man and intended to go there. The man is clearly out of control and is relegated to “the tombs” away from people…
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We continue our trip through the Bible with today’s reading of the familiar parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard, a parable that appears only in Matthew. In many ways it is shocking because it seems so unfair. The worker who worked all day gets the same pay as the workers who came on the job later, even the same pay as the worker who arrived at …
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We continue our trip through the Bible with today’s reading from Matthew as we begin the New Testament. Our guest preacher is Bishop Ken Carter, currently the bishop of the Western North Carolina Conference, and the text is the familiar encounter when a lawyer tests Jesus by asking him the greatest commandment. Matthew is not the earliest of the Go…
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We continue our trip through the Bible with today’s reading from Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament in our Protestant Bible. We’re using Malachi as a lens to examine what we’ve learned about the character of God to this point. Malachi is speaking to the people after they have returned to Jerusalem from exile, and, yet, they are not followi…
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We continue our trip through the Bible with today’s reading from Zephaniah. In the lectionary, because of its words of hope in hard times, readings from Zephaniah come up on the third Sunday in Advent and also on the night of Easter Vigil, which is the Saturday of the tomb before the resurrection on Easter Sunday. As the Israelites found themselves…
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We continue our trip through the Bible with today’s reading from Jonah. The story of Jonah is one that appeals to all ages, but in some ways it is also a difficult story. Initially, God calls Jonah to go to Nineveh and give God’s word to that city. But he goes in the opposite direction, heads out to sea, and, in a storm, is swallowed by that big fi…
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We continue our trip through the Bible with today’s readings from the prophets Amos and Micah. Reading Amos is, in some ways, hard because it is largely gloom and doom. Amos lived in the period when the Assyrians were threatening from the north, and he was warning that the reasons had to do with Israel’s infidelity to God in their mistreatment and …
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We continue our trip through the Bible with today’s reading from the prophet Ezekiel describing one of a number of visions Ezekiel has throughout this massive book. The historical situation is that Ezekiel is with the other Judaic exiles in Babylon, Jerusalem having not only been conquered, but destroyed. Every aspect of their lives has been upende…
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We continue our trip through the Bible with today’s readings from the prophet Jeremiah. In this passage we find God calling Jeremiah to prophesy when he is merely a boy. Jeremiah cannot understand why he would be called as a mere child, and, throughout his prophetic career, his prophetic tasks are often sharp rebukes of his own people. Jeremiah see…
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We continue our trip through the Bible with today’s readings from the prophet Isaiah. The prophets were noted for putting forth visions of the world as God intended it to be. These were God’s visions, but the people were to participate in making them become reality. On this Independence Day weekend, we remember the Declaration of Independence’s sta…
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Learning to Lean – We continue our trip through the Bible with today’s focus on Wisdom literature and passages from Song of Songs, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes. Our church has had an intergenerational Sunday school through the month of June, and sitting at a table with people of various generations who can share their views of God and God’s people is…
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