The Art of Resurrection: From Certainty to Openness
Mark Schloneger
On Friday, Good Friday, many of us gathered in this very space. Together, we said: Look and see the shadow of sin. Look and see the weight of the world. Look and see the suffering of our savior. Look and see the sorrow of Jesus Christ. We sang hymns. We prayed to our forgiving, reconciling, […]
The Christ to Remember
Mark Schloneger
There is a forty-one-year-old woman in California who remembers every day of her life since she was eleven years old. She remembers that on Sunday, August 3, 1986, a friend called her on the telephone. She remembers what happened on a television show that she was watching on Monday, December 12, 1988. She remembers everything […]
In the Flesh
Dan Schrock
During these Advent worship services, we’ve been dancing around with the idea of the Incarnation. “Incarnation” is a big word in theology that describes the coming together of God’s life and human life in the person of Jesus. We Christians believe that Jesus was a unique person—there wasn’t anyone like him before in history, and […]
Boundaries, Buckets and Blessings
Marilyn Rudy-Froese
The Jews and Samaritans had been estranged for a long time. It all started when those who had been in exile and those who had not been in exile, couldn’t agree on where the temple should be. Initially, it was a mild estrangement, but around 200 BCE, it grew in intensity. It ended with the […]
Temples of the Spirit
Dan Schrock
Many of us in the modern world regard marriage as something of a capstone in human experience. The ideal, we think, is to marry, have children, buy a home, and live the good life. The fact that so many gay and lesbian couples want to marry shows how much marriage is idealized in our culture. […]
Focusing Desire in Covenant
Dan Schrock
This morning I want to talk with you about desire—not as an evil force inside of us which we must repress, but as a gift from God to use for the sake of God’s mission in the world. You heard that right: desire is not an evil to avoid, but a good gift to use […]
Bethlehem, not Jerusalem
Dan Schrock
Jesus was born in Bethlehem, not Jerusalem. Have you ever thought about the significance of that fact? Bethlehem was a small village of just a few hundred souls. The folks who lived out in Bethlehem were mostly farmers and small‐time trades people. Life in Bethlehem was pretty simple and uncomplicated, where everyone knew everyone else […]
A Larger God
Dan Schrock
One Sunday morning last summer while on vacation, I visited another church not far from here. This isn’t a Mennonite church, but a church that belongs to another denomination. I had never been to this church before, so my first decision was how to dress—in particular, whether or not to wear a tie. I decided […]