Santa Monica Nazarene Church

In this sermon we begin a series inspired by a book called What Makes You Come Alive: A Spiritual Walk With Howard Thurman by Lerita Coleman Brown. We use Thurman's famous quote to jumpstart our reflections on what it means to live in the spirit of the resurrection. [The quote: “Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do that, because what the world needs is more people who have come alive.”] In this sermon we look at what it means to be spiritual but not religious and how that could mean we as the church need a better understanding of Jesus. Hint: it's another sermon about love. There's also a riff on my favorite hymn.

In this sermon we begin a series inspired by a book called What Makes You Come Alive: A Spiritual Walk With Howard Thurman by Lerita Coleman Brown. We use Thurman's famous quote to jumpstart our reflections on what it means to live in the spirit of the resurrection. [The quote: “Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do that, because what the world needs is more people who have come alive.”] In this sermon we talk about what it means to experience the presence off God in the Eucharist, how that is primary means by which we nurture our communion with God even though, as I share from my own life, we might experience holy coincidences or moments of divine intervention in strange ways.

In this sermon we begin a series inspired by a book called What Makes You Come Alive: A Spiritual Walk With Howard Thurman by Lerita Coleman Brown. We use Thurman's famous quote to jumpstart our reflections on what it means to live in the spirit of the resurrection. [The quote: “Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do that, because what the world needs is more people who have come alive.”] In this sermon we talk about Thurman's experience of Halley's Comet and what his Mom taught him there, Brennan Manning's words about grace, Jesus' questions to Peter and how he never stops asking them, about what it means to know that you belong to God and how that is at the center of the journey of faith.

Good morning, Santa Monica Nazarene -   I'm here with another audio recording of my weekly Call to Worship email. And today I wanted to share a quote from J.R.R. Tolkien's second book in The Lord of the Rings series (the book's called The Two Towers, in case you were wondering). But it's a quote I've been thinking about ever since I read it that I think might help us prepare our hearts for worship today.    To set the stage a little bit… at this point in the story, Sam and Frodo are reflecting on how far they've travelled in their journey to destroy the Ring of Power. (It's okay if you don't know what that means. Just know that that's the main goal—destroying the ring of power—and that it requires a long and dangerous journey to do so.)   But there's this moment when Sam starts reflecting on what it means to go on an adventure. And I love what he says. It's kind of a long paragraph, but it's really good. And so he says,   “And we should't be here at all, if we'd known more about it before we started. But I suppose it's often that way. The brave things in the old tales and songs, Mr. Frodo: adventures as I used to call them. I used to think that they were things the wonderful folk of the stories went out and looked for, because they wanted them, because they were exciting, and life was a bit dull, a kind of sport, as you might say. But that's not the way of it with the tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in the mind. Folk seem to have been just landed in them, usually—their paths were laid that way, as you put it. But I expect they had lots of chances, like us, of turning back, only they didn't . . .”   Sam is maturing a bit, here, in his thinking about what it means to go on an adventure. His younger mind saw adventure as something you pursued because life was boring. However, now he understands that adventure sometimes finds you all on its own and you have to then decide whether you'll embrace it and go on the journey.   As I think about this quote, I like the idea that we are dropped into stories. That adventure finds us. That life finds us. And we have to decide whether to embrace it and to go on the journey. It makes me think about God and creation and what it means to be alive. That we are dropped into the story of God and that God is calling us onto a journey towards communion with him.   There's always some mystery to the life of faith. We're called to follow Jesus, but the details of that journey aren't known to us. And we can always choose to turn back. Or we can be like Sam and Frodo and venture out further and come to discover more and more that the good tales never end, as they say, and that we actually want to be a part of them.   As you prepare your heart for worship, I pray you would know that when you woke up today you landed in the greatest of all stories and that it is calling to you.    See you at 10:30am for worship!   Grace and Peace, Pastor Scott

In this sermon we begin a series inspired by a book called What Makes You Come Alive: A Spiritual Walk With Howard Thurman by Lerita Coleman Brown. We use Thurman's famous quote to jumpstart our reflections on what it means to live in the spirit of the resurrection. [The quote: “Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do that, because what the world needs is more people who have come alive.”] This sermon we consider how nature teaches us that God is a refuge by consider the idea of refugia in nature.

In this sermon we begin a series inspired by a book called What Makes You Come Alive: A Spiritual Walk With Howard Thurman by Lerita Coleman Brown. We use Thurman's famous quote to jumpstart our reflections on what it means to live in the spirit of the resurrection. [The quote: “Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do that, because what the world needs is more people who have come alive.”] This sermon revolves around the importance of silence in our communion with God. We'll talk about the desert fathers, a book of dopamine, another book about someone's search for the quietest place on earth, and how our bodies play music.

In this sermon on Resurrection Sunday we continue our series looking at the seven things Jesus says from the cross before he dies. We look at the seventh and last thing where in death he entrusts himself to the Father. We consider this through the lens of breath in the Scripture, particulalry in light of Jesus giving is spirit to them after the resurrection in John 20.

In this sermon we continue our series looking at the seven things Jesus says from the cross before he dies. We look at the fifth thing where he says that he is thirsty.

Good morning, SaMoNaz -   I wanted to do something a little different today. Usually I send an email with a brief reflection to help us prepare for the worship gathering. But today I thought I would also made it available in audio in hopes that maybe if you can't sit down to read something today, you can listen to it while you make breakfast or putter around the house this morning.    For now I'm calling this a one-off audio, but who knows. Maybe it'll stick.   And so for today, I wanted to share a couple of quotes as we prepare for the worship gathering and then a small reflection all of which shouldn't take more than a couple of minutes.    One quote is from Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the other is from Soren Kierkegaard.   Bonhoeffer says, “The cross is not the terrible end to an otherwise god-fearing and happy life, but it meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ.”    And Kierkegaard says, “The difference between an admirer and a follower still remains, no matter where you are. The admirer never makes any true sacrifices. He always plays it safe. Though in words, phrases, songs, he is inexhaustible about how highly he prizes Christ, he renounces nothing, gives up nothing, will not reconstruct his life, will not be what he admires, and will not let his life express what it is he supposedly admires.”   What I like about the Bonhoeffer quote this is how the cross is not an accessory to the Christian life, but the essence. To know Christ (and, thus, to know God) is to know him as crucified. There is no real communion with Christ other than with him on the cross.   What I like about the Kierkegaard quote is the recognition that there are admirers of Jesus who are not truly followers.    Both of these quotes are quite sobering in our North American culture where it is quite easy to identify as a Christian without the need to actually follow or imitate Christ. What further complicates this is that sides have formed about with means to follow Christ.    I write this partly in hopes that we might recognize if and when we slide into admiration of Christ when the going gets tough. But maybe even more importantly that we remember the cross does not mean all things to all people. It means something particular of the one who was crucified in the social, political, economic, and religious context of his day. Our witness as the church depends on being able to see this coherently and truthfully.    Palm Sunday is a time to remember this as the people wave branches and shout Hosanna at Jesus as he rides into Jerusalem, people who are perhaps not quite so aware that he—he who is the least of these, the poor one with no place to lay his head, who offended religious bureaucrats for loving their power more than people, who makes a way of inclusion for the marginalized, who makes is easier for the voiceless to be heard, who says renounce your privilege and sell all you have if the rising tide benefits you but not another, he who stares relentlessly into our eyes asking who do you say that I am?—this is the one riding to the cross and calling them and us to follow.    See you at 10:30am for worship.   Grace and Peace, Pastor Scott

In this sermon we continue our series looking at the seven things Jesus says from the cross before he dies. We look at the fourth thing Jesus says from the cross, which is a prayer about his being forsaken. We consider what forsakenness has to do with the God, why it's important Jesus says this from the cross, why it also has to do with us in our sinfulness, and how it's a reminder that God is always with us.

In this sermon we continue our series looking at the seven things Jesus says from the cross before he dies. We consider the person of Mary in John's gospel, what she has to do with Eve and Abraham, and how she is always reminding us to do whatever the crucified one tells us to do.

In this sermon we continue our series looking at the seven things Jesus says from the cross before he dies. We consider a passage from Wendell Berry's book Jayber Crow, how people used to keep memory, what's been lost of memory in the modern world, how that affects us, a poem by Mary Oliver who gives us an image of God's lively memory, and what it means to be remembered by God.

In this sermon we begin a new series looking at the seven things Jesus says from the cross before he dies. We talk about all the ways “they” do not know what they are doing, what it means to encounter Jesus on the wrong side of the cross first, and a 2008 Coen Brothers film called Burn After Reading.

In this sermon we hear the gospel again on Ash Wednesday, that though we are dust there is hope in the crucified Christ raised from the dead. We consider what the treasures of our hearts are through a painting by Carl Spitzweg, the story of Zacchaeus, and what it means to wear the ashes.

In this sermon we talk about Jesus's transfiguration, John Wesley, and the means of grace. 

In this sermon we talk about the “what would you do?” moments, the miracle of a blind man, how the Pharisees wanted to control the narrative of grace, how Jesus wants to change the way we imagine the God, and the paradox of grace.

In this sermon we talk grace, karma, a U2 song, the third step of recovery, why grace doesn't let us off the hook (with some help from The Magnificat), and what happens when I get cut off driving down Wilshire.

In this sermon we talk about grace, Bert and I (and how people from Maine give directions), the difference between telling God's story beginning at Genesis 3 versus Genesis 1-2, Saint Maximos the Confessor (and how the incarnation was always the plan regardless of Sin), and how we are made for grace.

In this sermon we begin a series looking at the word grace. We look at how easily we can become comfortable with it forgetting what made it wonderful in the first place. We focus specifically on God's prevenient grace (with a little help from Juan Valdez and Conchita) and how God is everywhere and always giving the gift of the divine presence, which is grace (with a little help again from Flannery O'Connor).

In this sermon Tim Olson (giest speaker) talks about what it means to put the moral cart before the Jesus horse and how we need to find a better way, namely that Jesus meets us where we're at first and then calls us to imitate him. It's about grace versus legalism, or about learning how to love Jesus first in order to then understand what it might mean to imitate him.

In this sermon Tim Olson (guest speaker) helps us imagine a church that focuses not on what we do not but what we should do instead as followers of Jesus.

In this sermon Tim Olson (guest speaker) talks about the more to the story of God we might be missing.

In this sermon we meditate on the great prologue of John's gospel, what it has to do with wisdom, and what it might mean to incarnate as a church the things God cares about.

In this sermon we return to the story of Jesus as a twelve year old who ditched his family for a day in order to hangout in the temple. We consider what Mary has to teach us about holding close to Christ as we grow into the fullness of him as the revelation of God. 

In this sermon we return the story of Jesus' birth presented as a fictionalized telling of events from the perspective of a group of ordinary angels.

In this sermon we return to Mary's song, the Magnificat. We talk about Mary (with a little help from Fargo) as the image of the church and the hinge upon with Christian witness happens.

In this sermon we continue to look at John the Baptist, why he calls them a brood of vipers, what fire and pruning mean in terms of reordering our lives, what it all has to do with joy (and the opposite of joy), and why this is good news.

In this sermon we look at the person of the John the Baptist, the quintessential voice of Advent calling us to prepare for the Lord's arrival. We consider, with a little help from Beetlejuice and Van Gogh, what it means that John calls us into the wilderness away from the centers of power in the Roman world and what that has to do with pruning and fruit-bearing.

In this sermon we look at the gospel reading for the first Sunday of Advent, focusing on how God in Christ moves to disrupt the broken creation. We talk about how some of the symbols of Christmas (like trees and lights and gifts) should remind us of this, that Christmas is not about sentimentality, and that we are called to follow the one who carries the light and to carry it ourselves (thanks Cormac McCarthy). 

In this sermon we focus on the confession that Jesus is Lord. We talk about when the church first started to celebrate the last Sunday of the church year as the Reign of Christ Sunday, about what Christ's lordship means in relation to everything else that competes for our devotion, how peacefulness overcomes violence (with a little help from Yoda), and how Christ holds us, refusing to let us fall apart, as he beckons us into his good future (with a little help from the Lord of the Flies).

In this sermon we conclude our series on the saints by looking at the life of Saint Paul the Apostle. We consider the devotion (yes, that's right) behind his efforts to destroy (ravage, roundup, jail, kill) the church and how Christ was able to break through and change the direction of his life. From there we consider a couple passage from his letters and with the help of something called sympathetic resonance (it's a piano thing) what it means to abandon our lives to way of Jesus. 

In this sermon we continue our series on the saints by looking the witness of Maria Goretti as we consider what it means to forgive.

For the rest of Ordinary Time we will consider how the gospel speaks to our many varied days. We are using a book of prayers by Kate Bowler and Jessica Richie called The Lives We Actually Have as our structure and a source of inspiration. In this sermon we end our series, as well as begin a new on all on the same Sunday. On this Sunday we will celebrate All Saints Day by starting a three-weeks series devoted to the lives of the saints and how we encounter the gospel in them.

For the rest of Ordinary Time we will consider how the gospel speaks to our many varied days. We are using a book of prayers by Kate Bowler and Jessica Richie called The Lives We Actually Have as our structure and a source of inspiration. In this sermon we talk about a scene from the Secret Life of Walter Mitty, a poem by Mary Oliver, some Scripture on the fleeting nature of life, and what it has to do with reverence.

For the rest of Ordinary Time we will consider how the gospel speaks to our many varied days. We are using a book of prayers by Kate Bowler and Jessica Richie called The Lives We Actually Have as our structure and a source of inspiration. In this sermon we talk about how pain can be a catalyst for better things.

For the rest of Ordinary Time we will consider how the gospel speaks to our many varied days. We are using a book of prayers by Kate Bowler and Jessica Richie called The Lives We Actually Have as our structure and a source of inspiration. Today's sermon is about our overwhelming days. In this sermon consider two passage of Scripture as capturing the experience of being overwhelmed. In one sense we are like Peter, drowning in what's beyond our control. In another sense we are like Martha, distract by everything other than what matters most.

For the rest of Ordinary Time we will consider how the gospel speaks to our many varied days. We are using a book of prayers by Kate Bowler and Jessica Richie called The Lives We Actually Have as our structure and a source of inspiration. Today's sermon is about our grief-stricken days. In this sermon we explore grief through a range of Scripture, the stages of grief, the question of meaning, and the high lonesome holler.  NOTE: Audio is a bit off this week. Apologies for the pour quality, but you should still be able to follow along.  

For the rest of Ordinary Time we will consider how the gospel speaks to our many varied days. We are using a book of prayers by Kate Bowler and Jessica Richie called The Lives We Actually Have as our structure and a source of inspiration. Today's sermon is about our lovely days. We consider a series of words—wonder, space, refresh, menuha, and savor—in order to find the gospel speaking to us in days we might call lovely. 

For the rest of Ordinary Time we will consider how the gospel speaks to our many varied days. We are using a book of prayers by Kate Bowler and Jessica Richie called The Lives We Actually Have as our structure and a source of inspiration. Today's sermon is about tired days. Addressing the great exhaustion of our culture, burnout, and quiet-quitting, we consider how a gospel understanding of leisure (thanks you Josef Pieper) might change our lives.

In this sermon we consider the question ‘what does it mean to be a Christian?' Paul's testimony of his own life comes into play, as well as a reflection on ocean waves and staying in the flow of grace while our rough edges are smoothed out.

In this sermon we continue our look at some of the great prayers of the Old Testament (preaching in concert with Walter Brueggemann's book about them). Today we look at Nehemiah's prayer and what it has to do with the gospel.

In this sermon we continue our look at some of the great prayers of the Old Testament (preaching in concert with Walter Brueggemann's book about them). Today's prayer comes from Ezra and singled minded devotion calls us to.

In this sermon we continue our look at some of the great prayers of the Old Testament (preaching in concert with Walter Brueggemann's book about them). Today we look at Hezekiah's prayer at a pivotal moment describable in one word: help.

In this sermon we continue our look at some of the great prayers of the Old Testament (preaching in concert with Walter Brueggemann's book about them). Today we look at Jeremiah's prayer after he performed an act of hope in the face of hopelessness (I love this story so much). We consider what it means for us to perform acts of hope as witnesses of Christ.

In this sermon we continue our look at some of the great prayers of the Old Testament (preaching in concert with Walter Brueggemann's book about them). Today we look at the prayer Jonah prays from the belly of a whale. We talk about how hard Jonah is working to get away from God, not because the task of preaching against Nineveh is too difficult but because God's grace is too sure. The trouble is that while Jonah doesn't like God's grace extended to his enemies, he is okay with God's grace extended to himself. We consider what it means to embrace the full range of God's mercy.

In this sermon we continue our look at some of the great prayers of the Old Testament (preaching in concert with Walter Brueggemann's book about them). Today we look at two prayers Solomon prayed that marked the trajectory of his life and explains why Jesus says that not even Solomon in all his luxury compares to the flowers and the birds. Where Solomon labors for money, sex, and power, the flowers and the birds labor in their joy and trust in God's provision. We also consider Solomon's prayer in light of Jesus' prayer in his wilderness temptation and how they might relate. 

In this sermon we continue our look at some of the great prayers of the Old Testament (preaching in concert with Walter Brueggemann's book about them). Today we look at a prayer David prayed upon his coronation as king. We look at his route to the throne. How God makes a new promise towards this royal bloodline. We look at the other promises of God prior to this moment and how they relate. And we consider what it means to pray with humility.