Raleigh Mennonite Church

Matthew 5: 43-48 With the recent American bombing of Iran, we now move into a time filled with tension, fear, calls for war, and calls for reprisal. As Christians we must remember that we are called to a different path than the world. Melissa Florer-Bixler preaches on our Covenant Sunday that we must pay close attention to Jesus' first teachings after his temptation in the desert; we must love our enemies and pray for those that persecute us. Yet the gift of peace that God has given us must be worked out through imperfect vessels, namely pacifists like Mennonites and other Christians who hold the ideal of peace close to heart. And how do we figure out this way of peace? Church is where we gather every Sunday to conduct our experiments of peace. There we try, sometimes fail, learn, and share with each other as we try to pass on God's gift of peace to others. As an intentional community of believers we take the risk of being hurt by each other for the opportunity to heal and to be healed.

Romans 5: 1-5 On Trinity Sunday Melissa Florer-Bixler preached on the words of Paul in Romans. Paul didn't focus on what the makeup of the Trinity is, but who the persons of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are. Essentially, God is not vengeful, cruel, or indifferent. God, through the trinity, is the giver of gifts. Jesus is the gift that redeems our sins, and the Holy Spirit is our guide and the wellspring of our hope. Who God is, not what, instructs us on how we should treat each other, our neighbors, and how we build together a faithful Church body. If God is the giver of precious gifts, then we must live a life of radical gift giving and receiving that does not count the cost.

1 Corinthians 3:11 This Sunday RMC's own Jordan Morehouse preached on the foundations of our faith. We often use scripture, tradition, and faith practices to justify all manner of evils against our neighbors. Jordan reminds us that we must be ready to change our actions and views when we see that time honored parts of our theology fail to show God's love in its fullness. As we face uncomfortable inconsistencies in our politics, traditions, and theologies, it can be especially difficult to find God's purpose amidst all of the fear and confusion of our current social, political, and economic environment. Today's scripture and sermon instruct us to look to the life and words of Jesus to help us to interpret what parts of our faith need tearing down and what parts are a solid foundation to build upon, instead of clinging to what we have constructed that is not working to build God's kingdom.

Scripture: Isaiah 12:1-6 Melissa opened her sermon sharing about a man who helped rescue a friend who was attacked by a shark. He swam directly toward the injured swimmer, putting himself in direct vicinity with the shark. The backstory behind most people who show real bravery in the midst of danger is that they have long been cultivating disciplines, convictions and patterns, sometimes over a lifetime. The same can be said about the Israelites that Isaiah is speaking to in the passage above. While things are really bleak, they are from a long line of people who have trusted God, who left their homes, who gave up their gods to follow the Lord. In other words, they were trained for this. It's not just doing what God says, it's about knowing God. The first Anabaptists were willing to "swim toward sharks" in their quest to follow Jesus. Who would be willing to die to follow Jesus as a member of this Anabaptist group? The message also featured the testimony of one our community who will be baptized in a couple of weeks. Grant shared his confession of faith with us.

Scripture: John 15:1-10 "Abide" is central to John's gospel. Abide is the orientation of our lives to Jesus, but also of Jesus's life with us. Jesus tells his disciples that he will abide with them, even as he goes away. In this goodbye it's interesting that Jesus actually never tells the disciples that they ought to bear fruit. It's actually the work of God to bear fruit. Our job, our only role, is to abide. Sabbath is the way we abide. Why do we yield our time around the Lord's day? Because Sabbath is an invitation to rest. Because God rests. But God doesn't need rest. Rest is the time to delight in the pleasure of what God creates.

Scripture: Matthew 18:1-5 The disciples of Jesus have "power problems." Who's going to be greatest? Who's going to sit next to him? And as usual, Jesus has to gently put them in their place. He tells them, Unless you turn around and become like a child you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." Jesus brings attention to children because of their social rank--at the very bottom of the hierarchy. Melissa held up the Presbyterian minister and children's TV icon, Mr. Rogers, as someone who took seriously the experiences of children. He treated them with dignity. Jesus tells his disciples to convert to children but Mr. Rogers shows us what that might look like.

Scripture: Proverbs 3:5-8 "Trust in the Lord with all your heart,    and do not rely on your own insight. In all your ways acknowledge him,    and he will make straight your paths." It's easy to "weaponize" this teaching in Proverbs, to make us believe that the rational or scientific reasoning may be suspect. That can open us up to a lot of hucksters peddling whatever they have decided is God's truth. Wisdom comes from patient, attentive discernment of the questions that are always before us. Because wisdom intersects with community, wisdom asks, is it good for the body of Jesus? Is it good for all of us? We turn our lives towards the way God is shaping and forming the reign of God, not through violence and coercion. But instead through the constant enduring love of God that's made known to us in Jesus.

Jeremiah 17: 5-8 This week RMC's Miguel Cruz preached the sermon in Spanish. The English voice you will hear is that of the live translator in the sanctuary. Due to the nature of the recording tech, there is some residual audio of Miguel's voice in the background. ** Preaching from Jeremiah, Miguel asks us to test and examine ourselves deeply when we ask the question: where does our help come from when encounter injustice, strife, and hostility in the world? If our answer is that we rely on our own power, skills, and intellect to confront these modern ills and idols, we almost certainly doom ourselves to perpetual dissatisfaction, even if our desires are righteous. We must realize that we owe every ability we have and every good thing we might do to God's goodness and mercy. The scriptures say that our hope comes from the Lord, and that means allowing God lead us instead of relying on our own strength. By giving up, we win.

Luke 24: 1-12 Happy Easter everyone! This week Melissa Florer-Bixler preached from the Gospel of Luke. The women Disciples (the men having scattered) around Jesus, despite their deep grief and despair, stayed with Jesus through his arrest, death, and burial, and then returned only to find the tomb empty save for shining beings that declared his resurrection. The women shared this with the other Disciples, only for them to disbelieve because they had not stayed to witness and to suffer the same trauma as the women during Christ's crucifixion. Melissa reminds us that the resurrection in meant for those nearest to despair. Like these steadfast women, we are drawn with grief and despair to a tomb in our own times - the suffering and evil deeds that we see all around us in this extremely unsettling year. Christ's resurrection however, in freeing us from sin and death, transforms that deep hopelessness into a freedom to participate in the radical and surprising redemptive work that God is doing in the world.

Luke 19: 28-40 What could we possibly have to learn about the Gospel message from a donkey? Luke spends as much time in his Gospel on the donkey Jesus rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday as he does on the Lord's Supper. Melissa Florer-Bixler reminds us this Palm Sunday that our Anabaptist ancestors were keenly aware of the spiritual lessons to learn from the suffering and death of their animals, which brought life to their owners. Likewise, our suffering in serving and giving to our neighbors, the poor, and the incarcerated gives life and reflects the lessons we can learn from Jesus' suffering. Melissa further explains that Jesus came for an even greater purpose than suffering as an example. Let us all remember this Palm Sunday that He came to free all creation, (including the creatures and little donkeys) from the bondage of sin and death.

John 12: 1-8 This week Melissa Florer-Bixler preaches on Mary anointing Jesus' feet with expensive funerial perfume meant for Lazarus, whom Jesus had recently raised from the dead. Mary knows that Jesus plans to go Jerusalem soon to die, and her offering is a reckless offering of love, not just grief, as she sacrifices in a moment a precious heirloom meant to anoint many generations to come. During Lent we often focus on confessing our weakness, but Mary's story reminds us of the power in confessing our love, without consideration for pride or cost. The perfume would have eventually run out, but her sacrificial recklessness was followed by Jesus' humble washing of the disciples' feet, and after many generations was passed on to us in John's Gospel as an example of the reckless love God intends for us to share with the world.

Scripture: Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32 How many times have we heard Jesus's parable of the Prodigal Son from Luke 15? While the focus is usually on the son who leaves with his share of the inheritance and squanders it away, Melissa brings us a fresh perspective on the father and the eldest son. Not only was the younger son lost, but so was the older son, who stayed at home and continued to work with his father. When this son refuses to join the festive party welcoming his kid brother back home, his father wants to know where he is. For a second time in the parable, a father goes out to find his son. In this Lenten season of reflection and penance, what have we come to believe about justice and mercy? Will we see that God has come out of the house, away from the party, for each of us?

Scripture: Isaiah 55:1-9 God's version of confession and penance is entirely different from the world's understanding of confession and penance. During Lent we have to let go of the anxiety that comes from the long-held cultural myth that confessing can only make things worse. Penance is to accept responsibility and to repair what is broken. Penance means we take out our needle and thread and we stitch up what was torn. Lent is a season of penance, not of punishment. Our God will abundantly pardon, and confession is a beginning. Confession can break forth into penance and repair in a way that is actually better than it was before. It's about getting right with one another and getting right with God. Restoring relationships is at the heart of all of it. God's relationship with God's people. What are acts of penance you can take during Lent to restore relationships with those around you? Note: There was a technical issue with the recording at the beginning of Melissa's sermon, so the first minute or two was cut off.

Luke 13: 31-35 Many of us are uncomfortable, especially pacifists, with anger and how we treat each other when tempers flare. The Bible is clear, however, that Jesus often became frustrated or upset with those around him, and even God gets angry too. Jesus, though angry with his own disciples and the evils of Herod and the Roman state, turned his energy and agitation to doing more healing and teaching and did not abandon his followers to save own life. RMC's Jordan Morehouse, in their debut sermon, invites us to explore how our anger over injustices can motivate us to protest, to advocate for the downtrodden, and serve our neighbors. The love of Christ, which did not die with him on the cross, lives on in our hearts and converts our anger and frustrations into motivation for righteous action that builds the kingdom of God. As we struggle with the evils of our own time, let us all consider what makes us angry and follow Jesus's example, by leaning in to more healing, love, and righteous action.

Scripture: Luke 4:1-13 When Jesus is tempted in the desert, Satan offers Jesus power over all of the world, which Satan has been given, if Jesus will just worship Satan. (Luke 4:6) God has handed over the powers of this world to a cosmic being called Satan. We may wonder why God allows this arrangement. The answer seems to be that people wanted it. We want human rulers: kings and presidents, caesars and judges to set up systems of government that assert that power over us. This is actually one of the many catastrophes we learn about in ancient Israel's history. God's people want a king like all the other nations around them. And immediately God tells them what terrible things will come of this, as we read about in 1 Samuel 8:4-22. During Lent we are turning to repentance. Here before God and one another we remember that one way we stray from God is that we look for shortcuts to the kingdom of God. The reign of God can't be forced upon us. It is a covenant built on consent; it can't be mandated. It has to be chosen and nurtured. There are no shortcuts to the kingdom of God, but what we need is already here.

Scripture: Luke 9:28-36 As told in this passage from Luke, through Jesus's transfiguration we learned that prayer is getting caught up in God's glory. To pray is to know at any minute you could be surrounded by the glory of God. Prayer invites us into a wholly different relationship with God than that of extraction or exchange. And for this reason, when the disciples asked Jesus how we should pray Jesus invites us to--remarkably--address God as our parents. Prayer, like human speech, is a creative act. The prayers that we utter shape our inner lives. When we pray, we are describing the world as it actually is, formed out of this gratuitous love of God that is pouring out over everything. It turns out that prayer isn't an escape from reality. Prayer describes it.

Acts 2: 43-47 Much of the focus of Pentecost is on the gifts of the Holy Spirit, including the signs, wonders, and languages being heard and spoken. Melissa Florer-Bixler reminds us this Sunday that the Apostles selling their possessions and giving the money to those in need was also a significant part of the signs and wonders seen that day. The example set was the idea of mutual care within the community. The state and those in power will never provide sufficient aid to the poor because they do not share our value of all of God's children, especially the poor and downtrodden. They will always favor the privileged few. Contrary to the capitalistic value of personal wealth accumulation, this passage in Acts informs us that we are called to be stewards of wealth, not owners, and to distribute it to others to meet their needs. Melissa's sermon examines how Anabaptist and Native practices and beliefs were, although faithful to the Apostle's actions on Pentecost, considered threatening or treasonous by agents of the church and state in history and what that means for our present context.

Matthew 26: 47-56 As a pacifist, if you could end cancer or stop the next Hitler and save millions just by killing an innocent person, would you do it? These ridiculous scenarios are often posed to Anabaptists, seeking the knife's edge that would cut through our nonviolent convictions. Melissa Florer-Bixler points out this week that all four gospels share a story with a similar scenario. To save Jesus from Judas and the mob coming to arrest and crucify him, all that needed to happen was a disciple to cause the death or mutilation of a young slave of the high priest. Jesus, who apart from the sword-wielding disciple could have called down the hosts of heaven upon his enemies, chose instead to heal and protect this lowest of the low in Roman society, end the violence, and surrender himself to a painful death. Join Melissa as they discuss how pacifism is the embodiment of Christ's example of tipping the scales away from the important and powerful to the least among us, even if it costs us everything. We must live as sheep among wolves to build the kingdom of God.

Romans 6: 3-4 What does it mean to baptized into Jesus' death or walking in the newness of life? Melissa Florer-Bixler unpacks this passage in Romans by explaining some of the symbolism of baptism, the three fold nature of baptisms, and what this means for us as Christians and Anabaptists. The water used in baptism is ubiquitous in our lives and essential for life, yet we can drown in only a few inches of it. Water is death and life within one substance. Our submersion represents a death of self that somehow still connects us to creation and to other believers that share our experience, and our reemergence connects us to our redemption and rebirth in following Jesus. However, this process of baptism is actually contains three distinct types of baptism for the believer. One, God's invitation of grace - Spirit Baptism. Two, our pledge to God to take this love and live within it - Water Baptism. Three, our transformation in Christ that threatens the powers of this world - Baptism of Blood. Melissa explains that this Baptism of Blood is a consequence of being remade by Christ into a new creation. By dying to sin and following Jesus, the water of life, we place ourselves into situations that oppose those powers that oppress, abuse, and rob the poor and powerless. Melissa reminds us of examples from our Anabaptist history where the mere act of baptism could lead to your death as an enemy of the church and state and modern instances where following Christ also lead to death and danger. However, we can place our hope in the fact that even if (as in the Roman's passage) we follow Christ unto death (even just death to self) it does not end there because Jesus defeated death. It leads to resurrection and the building of God's kingdom. Death and scarcity may surround us, but in Christ we are dead to sin and alive and new to God. The question we must ask ourselves as we start this week is - where will we follow the water of life?

Scripture: Luke 2:22-40 Simeon and Anna were waiting for something big their whole lives. They were waiting for God to keep their promises. When Mary and Joseph brought Jesus to the temple to be consecrated, Simeon knew what he had been waiting for had come to pass. Looking at that little baby's face Simeon was looking at the face of God's long promised, long hoped for, seemingly too long deferred salvation. However, unimaginably or improbably or confoundingly, he knew this baby was Israel's consolation. God kept God's promises to Simeon and Anna, to Israel, and to us. God was saying again and anew, "Let there be light." Salvation is here. Definitively, uniquely, finally. But Simeon said more... And what he said certainly adds complexity to the grand message of salvation. Our daily work is not to save the world. It's too late for that. We are free to put that burden down. Our work from day to day is to be faithful witnesses to the good news of Jesus and to try to stay in step with the Spirit who is still moving.

Scripture: 1 John4:7-21 On this Anabaptist World Fellowship Sunday, Melissa began her sermon with a 2017 video illustrating what young kids thought God looks like. You can watch the video on YouTube. How God looks is a mystery to us. But there is something that might get us pretty close. Maybe it's even better. If we love each other, God's love gets into us and it becomes whole, complete. We get to know what God is like because of love. There is a cost of love. Our spiritual ancestors knew this. Each time God's love shows up in people, that love brings danger and instability for the powerful, especially for the power of the state. Those powers have attempted to crush God's love in people. And yet, we live out our days without fear, because the perfect love of God casts out fear.

Scripture: John 2:1-11 We held a joint service with Church of the Good Shepherd Episcopal this Sunday, the congregation we rent space from. The service was held in their sanctuary and Pastor Melissa brought the message. In recognition of its 500th anniversary this week, Melissa shared some of the history of Anabaptism, and even included the story of Dirk Willemsz from the Martyrs' Mirror. Early Anabaptists had an expectation that God would act in the world just as Mary, the mother of Jesus, had an expectation at the wedding at Cana that he would act when she told the servants to "do whatever he tells you." As the good wine was poured out of the large vessels that had just earlier been filled with water, so too is the fullness of God poured out to all people. As we reflected on the story of Jesus' first miracle, Melissa asked, "What do you expect of Jesus? "

Scripture: Luke 3:15-17, 21-22 Jesus's baptism is what shows that he was not just the Son of God, but also human. His baptism is what shows his solidarity with humans. On this Sunday, Melissa encouraged us to take time to remember our own baptisms, or to consider becoming baptized if we weren't already. Baptism in the church is a large part of what binds us together as a community of believers. It reminds us of our own humanity and that we are a part of something bigger than ourselves.

Luke 6: 17-36 Our intern Emily Alexander preaches from the Gospel of Luke on the final week of Advent, as we ready ourselves to celebrate the good news of Christ's kingdom arriving. In this passage, Jesus is trying to get his followers accustomed to a radically new kind of kingdom philosophy. He inverts the natural order by exalting the poor, hungry, and grieving people over the privileged few, and goes even further by exhorting his followers to love their biggest enemies. With peace as a fundamental principal of Anabaptist theology, it is easy to become complacent in the rightness of our beliefs. In this holiday season earmarked by material consumption and in a world full of fighting and heated politics, we too can easily slip into comfort seeking, judgmental words, and repaying others with the righteous anger we feel they deserve. Emily invites us to take a moment from our busyness to examine how are feet are being guided. We must remember that Jesus's kingdom is guided by principles that bewilder, confound, and upend the world's order and may make us feel uncomfortable. Let Jesus guide your feet to a kingdom filled with the infinite goodness and mercy of God.

Luke 1:46b-55 Melissa preaches in the third week of Advent on Mary's leap of faith to obey God, immaculately conceive and eventually give birth to our savior. As an unmarried, pregnant, Jewish woman, Mary had to put her reputation, future, and life at risk given the societal and medical conditions of Israel in antiquity. Likewise, we too will eventually reach a point in our lives where we must choose to trust God beyond reason or logic and take a leap of faith, or not. However, we do not jump alone. We are tethered to a long line of believers that went before us. Moreover, with each person and each choice, God is also taking a leap of faith towards us with open arms. This act of blind faith in God is a fundamental part of his plan to build a community of true believers instead of automatons without free will. This Christmas season, as we make time to remember Mary's great leap of faith, let us remember her example and ready our hearts for when God calls us and prepare to support our brothers and sisters in their calling.

Luke 3: 7-18 The second week of advent Melissa preaches on John the Baptist from the Gospel of Luke, who is paving the way for the coming of Christ. His message is fiery, convicting, and demands dramatic change of those who would desire to answer God's call. However, Melissa reminds us that John's call is an invitation to a new life. An opportunity to start over with a clean slate that is purged of the chaff that weighs down our spirits and a chance for repentance that aligns with the spirit of the Christmas season - Christ the Redeemer has come.

Luke 21: 25-36 What do you do when the stress, cares, and bad headlines of this world weigh you down and threaten to choke out the life-giving good news of the Gospel? As Advent begins, Melissa Florer-Bixler looks to this week's passage in the Gospel of Luke for inspiration. Jesus had just finished informing his followers that imprisonment and persecution would come to them. He instructed, however, that the way out of this looming fear was not through mental and physical distractions, but (rather paradoxically) from paying more attention...to the right things. Look beyond all the catastrophes and drama and focus on the fact that the Kingdom of God is at hand. Relentless, renewing, and fruit-bearing, you will know that this verdant Kingdom is God is coming the same as the leaves appearing on the fig tree foretell to us that summer is coming. Join Melissa as she shares her thoughts on this topic.

Scripture: John 18:33-37 and Ruth 3 Ruth forged a future where there wasn't one. Her mother-in-law Naomi only sees a life of constriction, defined and closed. She sees no options, no future. Ruth, on the other hand, is a future-oriented person. She consistently speaks in the future tense. While she might have told Naomi, "I accept everything that you say," she still sees a possibility. To use the future tense is to create possibility, to counter the facts. And that is where God is at work. The reign of God is a woman directing her future when no future seems possible.

Scripture: Ruth 2 In the book of Ruth two of the thousands of nameless poor people of those times take center stage. The story is not about powerful men carrying out great works. Ruth and Naomi live in the time of political chaos. Sound a little familiar? This short story--just four chapters--traces God's intricate work in small movements towards hope through ordinary people. It's not just through the powerful or through "mountain top" experiences that God works. Rather, God works with ordinary faithfulness. In the process of doing the work put before us, we realize that much of what we need is here, in front of us. In showing up, together in community, moving with tenacious love towards discomfort and danger, God works through us to bring about healing and hope.

Scripture: Ruth 1:15-18 What do we do when we are shocked, overwhelmed and devastated? When our hands feel empty and the troubles to come feel so massive? What do we do now? The petty dictators of this world, however severe their terrors, they do not change who God is and how God's word in Jesus comes to us. What do we do now is the question we will ask for many years to come. But what we do will be grounded in another question, a deeper question. Who are we? We are the church of Jesus Christ. In other words, we're followers of Jesus in the same way we were last week and the week before, who we were on Tuesday, who we will be next week in January in the years to come.

Isaiah 43:1-7, Hebrews 11:32-12:3 In just two days we have a national election. It's something that has many of us anxious and concerned. The two texts for today are both addressed to people in anxious circumstances. Even with all of the anxiety of the situation in the first passage, the summation of the Isaiah's prophecy to these people is, "Do not be afraid, for I, God, am with you." Some variation on that simple sentence appears more than 300 times in the Bible. So it seems like God realizes this is a problem for us. Do not be afraid, for God is with you. Knowing that doesn't make passing through the floodwaters or walking through the fire or going through chemotherapy or surviving a divorce or being forced from your country or living under a crazy person's rule actually easy. It's really hard to hang on to in difficult circumstances. God will still be God on Wednesday. God will ultimately get the final word. Lord, help us to become people who work toward justice and proclaim your beauty until the day every sorrowful story ends in joy. Until the day when you get the final word.

Isaiah 40: 1-8 This Sunday Melissa Florer-Bixler continued to move further into the words of the prophet Isaiah, when the Persian king Cyrus allowed God's people to return to Israel, ushering in a time of comfort and hope. The prophet spoke of a highway being built from through hostile land between Babylon and Jerusalem, and Melissa reminded us of the tradition of the aesthetics, the desert mothers and fathers, who also lived in hostile places and prayed for all people and ministered to those who came to grief on remote highways. Much like the aesthetics, there have been faithful people in our own lives who have gone before us, sacrificing much, and helping us to see a living model of the path to redemption that Jesus paved for all with his suffering. In this time of political tension and extreme anxiety approaching the election, we may wonder who is speaking the truth, and who might be leading falsely in the name of Christ. Ultimately, we must look at the shape of the way they are trying to pave, and decide if that way has a hope big enough everyone to find the path home to safety and redemption.

Isaiah 46: 1-13 Melissa Florer-Bixler invites us to consider the question, "why do we come to church every Sunday?" as she preaches on Isaiah's message about idols. Isaiah mocks the idols of Israel's former conquerors, now laid low and unable to even help themselves from falling over. In last week's sermon, Melissa stated that we become what we choose to love, and now she adds that when we put our hope into idols that cannot help, we in turn become helpless. Tech giants, political figures, possessions, and all the other trappings of the world offer no more hope than the worthless idols that Isaiah decried. We come to church to kindle the hope we so greatly need by remembering together the stories of how God has loved and nurtured us from the beginning of creation.

Isaiah 11: 1-9 Melissa Florer-Bixler preaches on Isaiah's vision of the lion laying down with the lamb and reminds us, rather appropriately on World Communion Sunday, to consider more deeply in that context how we address the multitude of intractable conflicts occurring throughout the world. Naturally, we cannot rely on willpower alone to overcome the worst "carnivorous" parts of our nature that inflame these conflicts. Rather, it is through the transformative gift of Jesus that we are remade in the image of God and can then work to build real peace. We invite you to listen and join our congregation as we discover how a children's book, Wild Robot, can demonstrate the heart of this transformative process and point us towards practical ideas to implement peace-building.

Isaiah 9: 1-7 Merry Christmas everyone! We know it's only September, but Raleigh Mennonite Church took a moment this Sunday to sing Christmas carols and reflect on the birth of Christ during a season far less busy and distracting than the end of December. Melissa Florer-Bixler's sermon reminds us to take time and examine the coming of Jesus, made flesh, without the holiday sentimentality that can undermine the innately powerful political message embodied in the humble beginnings of Jesus. Not political as we see it today, with everyone looking to a figurehead in one party or another to correct the world's ills. Rather, we must look down into the manger to see Jesus' message of hope to the world that binds all of God's creation together in lovingkindness. It is truly dangerous to the powers and principalities that seek to divide us for a hope to exist that transcends fear and hatred. This politics of hope inexorably calls us to acts, confounding to others, that bring about God's Kingdom. We invite you to remember the Christmas message of hope embodied in Christ anytime the world seeks to make you feel afraid and alone.

Scriptures: Isaiah 2:1-11, Matthew 5:1-12 Melissa continues her sermon series, Hope in a Time of Fear, focusing on the book of Isaiah. As we're drawing closer to the election, what does hope look like for followers of Jesus? The people who heard Jesus' sermon on the mount may have been thinking about Isaiah's words when they heard Jesus speak. They had been crushed beneath the heels of a Roman occupation. And here, at this moment, when all hope is lost, the word of God is born into the world. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. This is not the way it is in our world. The merciful are crushed by political pressures that announce being soft on crime. The pure in heart are taken advantage of and accused of being naïve. The poor face a crisis of debt and eviction. The meek are cast aside for faith and weapons. And yet, we hear in Isaiah: They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up nation, sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. A seemingly impossible scenario to ever occur. But the impossible is where we as followers of Jesus make our home. Take heart. Have no fear. Jesus is Lord!

Scripture: Isaiah 1:1-3, 11-20 Our world is not well. Our politics are not well. Our land and our oceans and our air is not well. We may be anxious. About the future, about elections, about what comes next for you and your family. So this series based on Isaiah will spend time with people who are in the middle of political and social and personal crisis. These are the people of Judah in Jerusalem. The Bible is for people who are down on their luck. The Bible is for people facing odds and terrible outcomes. That's when hope shows up. That's when hope matters. The shape hope takes in our lives has everything to do with how we believe the universe is structured. Hope, writes Walter Brueggemann, is what this community must do. Because it's God's community.

In this last of Melissa's three-part series on Jesus' teaching on bread, the scripture was from John 6:56-59. As we eat this bread, this Jesus, we see God's life growing and healing us. We become a people; a people that believe that we love our neighbors as ourselves. We become a people who refuse to look away from suffering. We become a people who know that no one is the worst thing that they have done. We become a people who will move toward disaster and danger, because we know that is where God is waiting in the wreckage and where there is suffering. We also heard from Wick and Jude who shared about why they have chosen to become baptized.

Melissa continues her three-part series on Jesus' discourse about bread. The bread of life, as Jesus talks about it in John 6:51-58, isn't a pill you swallow or compass giving directions. It's a feast that you get into. It's messy and visceral and fleshy. Jesus wants to get into our lives and become a part of us. Jesus wants to give us life and give it abundantly. Jesus doesn't intend for us to take a crumb of his life. He doesn't intend for us to use him as a ruler for measurements or a whip for self-destruction through guilt and shame. He is a meal, the life that fills us up, a life of abundance, a life that sustains us forever.

Exodus 16:4-8, 13-21 John 6:35, 41-51 What do squirrel communions, earthworms, confessions to potted plants, forest churches in Ethiopia, manna, and Jesus calling himself the bread of life have in common? Join Melissa Florer-Bixler as she gathers these seemingly disparate threads together to show us that the process of our deification as we attempt to become more Christ-like does not lead to the abandonment of the world and our bodies. Rather it leads to embracing the fullness of our created being, trusting in the goodness of our creator, and rejecting the urge to dominate and instead live in interdependence with the rest of the people, plants, and animals that surround us. The more we lean into this principle, the more God can nourish us with spiritual manna and Jesus can become our bread of life.

Scripture: Exodus 16:4-8, 13-21 and John 6:35, 41-51 We, along with all the creatures of the world, are invited to be the fullness of our created being. The passages from Exodus and John tell a story of trust, a dependence on God. Jesus also reminds people about all of the non-human creatures who depend on the Creator for life. The story of manna and of Jesus's body is the story of God's persistent care for all creatures.

2 Samuel 11: 1-5 Melissa Florer-Bixler's invites us to consider King David's abuse of power over Bathsheba, which mirrors abuses of positions of authority we now see in churches, businesses, and other institutions, especially since the beginning of the #MeToo era. The triumphant king in last week's sermon that danced with joy before God and her chosen people has now violated Bathsheba and arranged the death of her husband, Uriah. Melissa cannot help but say the questions out loud that sit silent in our thoughts - where is God in this story? where is God in our stories? Listen to this week's sermon to see how Melissa uses the end of Bathsheba's story (which sees her son Solomon replace David on the throne of Israel) and God's intentional construction of the lineage and life of Jesus to demonstrate how God works to bring down the powerful who choose to exploit the weak and how God's abiding love inhabits all of our stories.

Psalm 23, Jeremiah 23: 1-6 What does it mean to wrestle with our faith when the word calls us not be afraid or reassures us of God's imminent just resolution to injustice? In their first sermon at RMC, intern Katie Magnum explores the connections between Psalm 23 and Jeremiah 23, which are vastly different in tone, but convey a message of God's intimacy and hope to both the individual believer and our corporate church body. Katie invites us to consider how we must turn to God and each other for comfort, guidance, and help in carrying out God's good will for all even when our global, local, and personal circumstances lead us into the valley of shadows.

2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12b-19 What does David dancing with abandon, Jesus' life and suffering, a famous New York City gay nightclub, the subversion of toxic masculinity in modern Christianity, and the role that joy plays in the spiritual life of the church and the knowledge of God's character all have in common? Melissa Florer-Bixler ties all these disparate events and concepts together and shows how unabashed joy and playfulness in life and for God reveal truths about God's character and how surrendering to our sillier side can bring spiritual growth and build a healthier church community. The joy of the Lord is indeed our strength!

Susan and Hans provided a sermon dialogue based on the passage from Mark 5:21-43 of the woman with the hemorrhage and Jairus, a chief rabbi in the synagogue, whose daughter was deathly ill. They portrayed these two characters who met Jesus, allowing us to picture ourselves in the story. Through this imaginative retelling, we can be touched by the story and hear what the Holy Spirit is speaking to us through the passage.

Susan Scott brought the message this morning from the book of Job. The story of Job is a literary construct. It's about faithfulness in adversity and raises a lot of questions, with no easy answers. Suffering often prompts a crisis of faith. It's okay to be angry at God; God can take it. Ultimately, God's love is bigger than our questions.

Scripture: Mark 4:26-34 In this Sunday's message, Melissa wove together the parables of the sower scattering seed and of the mustard seed growing with the tremendously destructive dispensationalist theology made popular by Hal Lindsey. Dispensationalism is a reading of scripture that is the basis of Christian Zionism, a violent anti-Semitic, literalist misuse of scripture. It is also the underpinning, for many US policies and attitudes towards the modern state of Israel. Unlike the coercive theology that runs through Christian Zionism, we see in today's passage that the kingdom of God is a mystery, one of the Gospel of Mark's favorite words. It's not a mystery in the sense that we don't understand it or can't comprehend it. It's a mystery in our lack of ability to bring it to pass. The lies of Christian Zionism are manifold, but the most central is this, that we can control history. That we can manipulate God's action that we can spur on a desired future through geopolitical maneuvering. And once you're there. Once you start down this path, you have lost the Jesus plot altogether. This is an occasion for us to look at the ways we may also think God needs our help to make history turn out right. What are the ways that we insist that particular political ends, no matter how destructive or violent, may be necessary? What are the ways that we say compromise and capitulation is simply part of the calculus of the greater good? Because there's just no room for that here. And in the seed parables we discover that we live out of control. That is part of the mystery.

Matthew 19:1-12 and John 1:14-16 Melissa wraps up the series about questions the congregation has asked this Sunday, focusing on the question of sex, and intertwines it with the need for grace. Just before his conversion to Christianity the saint and theologian of the church, Augustine of Hippo, is in a garden and he prays a prayer. "God, give me chastity and countenance. But not yet." What does God have to say to us who are living, breathing bodies? One place we can begin is to acknowledge that our sexual lives are accommodations of grace; even those of us who are married. For most of our religious history in the church, the church has placed a huge emphasis on getting sex right. Rowan Williams rightly says that this is always a doomed task. But the fact that it's a doomed task is also the key to understanding why sex matters to Christians at all, and it surely does. We exist within a wide range of relationships that affirm to us that the bodies that we are, are desired and delighted in. Ethics is never a matter of just abstract rules. For Christians, it is a matter of living the mind of Christ. Sex is one area in which we order our lives in a way that tells the world the story that animates our being. We are created to be incorporated into God's love because we are loved.

Jeremiah 29: 1-9 Isaac Villegas guest preaches in our ongoing sermon series "I'm not so sure about that" on the topic of pacifism. Isaac explores the concept of peace through the lens of prisons. Using the above passage in Jeremiah, Isaac compares the exile of jews in Babylon to the exile that takes place within modern prisons as well as the awkward position that pacifists are confronted with regarding the part of current society that we do not have the power to change: We depend on prisons to protect society from violence even as prisons themselves commit violence on their occupants and even preserves the institution of slavery. Isaac Villegas tells us stories of his and others' experiences working in prisons to help us understand the intractable complexity of living out pacifism in such an environment, searching for the acceptance of things we cannot control while seeking out opportunities to change whatever we can to bring the kingdom of God here on earth.

Acts 2: 1-21 This Pentecost Sunday Melissa Florer-Bixler preached on the connection between the enormous changes that have recently taken place in our church life and membership, and the changes that took place with the fledgling Church on the day of Pentecost. The crowd didn't just hear a translation of God's message, they heard it in the language of their home (and heart), and thus the Holy Spirit knitted together of new community of believers that shared a new common identity while still retaining their own unique selves. In much the same spirit, Melissa reflected on how we have added new people, languages, generations, activities that advocate justice and build community, and much more besides as well as the conflicts, losses, illnesses, and deaths that we have had to processes and work through together in the "stickiness" that inevitably occurs in a family of faith struggling to walk through this difficult life together. We invite you to listen to our reflection on how the Holy Spirit has transformed and knitted together Raleigh Mennonite Church and share in our joy and awe at God's marvelous works.

2 Timothy 3: 14-17 In the RMC sermon series "I'm Not So Sure About That," which addresses questions offered from the congregation, Melissa Florer-Bixler helps us to understand why there are so many disturbing stories, deeply flawed servants of God, and appalling deeds that appear in the Bible. Melissa shares with us that as Christians, we are a people of the Book and as Anabaptists, we share with each other on a regular basis where we hear from the Holy Spirit. The Bible is critical to our faith but does not achieve its function in isolation from shared context and interpretation. The stories from the Bible are our stories and spiritual history, yet we cannot learn from our mistakes or about God's deep love and commitment to us (despite our failures to reciprocate) if we exclude or downplay these difficult passages. If we listen and speak the Word together, embracing this complexity as the breath of God standing ready to enter our lives, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we can find the person of Jesus waiting there to love, guide, and redeem us.