We’re great at eavesdropping, at reading other people’s mail. That’s what we do when we read the Bible, our holy scriptures, all the writings complied in this book, letters and stories written to other people, ancient peoples in faraway lands. But in these words, in these stories, we’ve come to hear echoes of God’s voice—God… More
Sermons
Worship is more than preaching. Each worship gathering draws from the wealth of gifts of the community. We have rotations of volunteers who share the responsibilities of preaching, song leading, and service planning. We take turns reading the assigned Scripture readings for the day. The high point of our worship is our time for response and sharing. Since we believe that anyone can offer an interpretation of the Bible, we provide time in our worship for people to offer their own reflections on the Scriptures and the sermon.
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Deny yourself
“Then Jesus told his disciples, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me’” (Matthew 16:24). Self-denial. That’s what we do, as Christians. That’s who we are. We deny ourselves the things of this world—and we call it discipleship, discipline. Dietrich Bonhoeffer called it costly… More
Keys, keys, keys
“I got them keys, keys, keys / I got them keys, keys, keys / I got them keys, keys, keys.” That’s DJ Khaled. He’s a rapper, kinda. And when I hear Jesus in our passage tell us that he will give us the keys to the kingdom, I hear DJ Khaled’s beat, his keys, keys,… More
O my people
“O my people.” The words from our hymn have been circling in my head ever since Eric sent me the list of songs Friday afternoon, at 2pm, in an email I read on my phone in front of the old courthouse in Durham, near the empty pedestal where a metal figure of a confederate soldier… More
Peter walks on water
By now most all of you have heard about, read about, seen footage of the white supremacist rallies that took place in Charlottesville yesterday. You have taken in the images of the predictable violence that erupted, the confused tangle of words and outrage and lack of outrage and looking the other way that largely marks… More
I did not know it
Jacob is on the run, crossing border after border, fleeing from his brother who has threatened to kill him. The sun has set. His feet ache. He has to rest. So he finds a rock for a pillow and falls asleep. And he dreams. There’s a ladder reaching from ground beside him into heaven, and… More
But Rebekah loved Jacob
“Isaac loved Esau, because he was fond of game; but Rebekah loved Jacob…”~ Genesis 25: 28 One of the best things about preaching at CHMF is also one of the worst things about preaching at CHMF: Every time you do it, you have to follow whoever preached the week before, you have to take the… More
What love can do
I told Isaac after the service last week that a more fitting lyric for his sermon, in contrast to the Chance the Rapper line, “the praises go up/the blessings come down,” would have been a line from “Wait For It” from Hamilton: “Love doesn’t discriminate/between the sinners and the saints/it takes and it takes and… More
Please
Grace and mercy—that God gives us what we don’t deserve, what we haven’t earned, and refuses to punish us for the wrongs we’ve done. That’s our faith, in summary. We trust in God’s grace and mercy, we try to embody God’s grace and mercy. We gather for worship, we come together as a church, so… More
The PG-13 Life of Sarah & Abe
Prayer: Lord, we seek to understand the heroes of scripture, even when we are separated from them by 4000 years and enormous cultural differences. Lead us to the eternal truth contained in the story of Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, and Ishmael. This note before I start: Much will be said about Abraham and Sarah. Their names… More
Mercy
Leipzig Service for the Shenandoah Bach Festival: June 18, 2017 Jesus must have learned his prophetic ministry from his mother. She was the one who said, “The Lord has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; God has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty”… More
Oaks of Mamre
Genesis 18:1-15 June 18. 2017 Last year I was in a city called Hebron in Hebrew and Al-Khalil in Arabic, an ancient city in the West Bank that has been home to Jews and Muslims for generations. As I was walking through the old city, near downtown, I saw a sign that said, “Mamre” pointing… More
a God who could dance
Trinity Sunday “I would only believe in a god who could dance.” That’s a line from Friedrich Nietzsche. He couldn’t believe in the kind of God who looks like a bearded man, ancient, sitting in a throne above, aloof, far away from our lives, distant from our world, safe from our chaos, uncontaminated by our… More
He withdrew
Ascension Day What did Jesus want? In thinking about this scene from the end of Luke’s Gospel, the ascension of Jesus, I’m wondering if this is what he wanted. This departure, this exit. “Lifting up his hands,” it says, “he blessed them. While he blessed them, he withdrew and was carried into heaven” (Luke 24:50-51).… More
A Contaminated Christ
In our New Testament reading for today, Paul is talking about the wisdom of God. It’s one of Paul’s homerun passages: the classic paradox of God choosing the weak and despised things of the world as the vehicles of wisdom. Throughout these beginning chapters of 1st Corinthians, he contrasts the wisdom of the world and… More
I am the gate
A few years ago I worked sporadically as a farmhand down the road in Efland. Most days I helped pick vegetables, gather eggs, and pitch in with whatever chores were on hand. Fickle Creek Farm is fairly small, with a wide variety of crops and livestock and a resulting bevy of tasks that change with… More
the burning within
“Stay with us” (Luke 24:32). That’s what Cleopas and the other disciple say to the stranger on the road—the stranger who they finally recognize as Jesus when he takes their bread, blesses it, breaks it, and feeds them in what appears to be a kind of Communion meal. Stay with us. It’s what we all… More
Alive
Second Sunday of Easter Last week, on Easter Sunday, Isaac talked about Mary, the first preacher, about Jesus’ noncoercive call, and about naming. I carried this message about the mother of our faith around with me this week as I thought about the message Mary brings to the disciples, about what happens next, when Jesus… More
Mary Magdalene, mother of our Easter faith
Easter John 20, verse 1: “Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark,” it says, “Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed.” It was still dark. The dark night of Good Friday lingered into Easter morning, two days after his death. And Mary… More
Feet
Holy Thursday, 2017 This morning, in the parking lot of La Superior grocery store in Durham, I washed feet as part of a service of solidarity for members of our immigrant community. There a young girl, maybe eight years old—I can’t remember how many times I washed her feet. She kept on getting in line,… More
Who is this?
Matthew 21, verse 10: “When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, ‘Who is this?’” That’s what the people ask—the shopkeepers on the corner, the residents scurrying through the city on errands, pilgrims on their way to the Temple, children playing in the streets, servants preparing dinner, peering from a window, wondering… More
We are not blind, are we?
“Surely we are not blind, are we?” (John 9:40). That’s what the Pharisees, the city leaders, ask at the end of the story, after they’ve spent a long chapter questioning a young man whose sight has been healed—the leaders questioning everyone who has anything to do with him, blaming the man’s parents, condemning Jesus, accusing… More
What do I love when I love my enemy?
What do I love when I love my enemy? This question echoes Saint Augustine’s: “What do I love when I love my God?” To hear the gospel of Jesus Christ, neither question can be answered without the other being asked. Both must be asked together and answered together. What do I love when I love… More
We are the ones
Micah chapter six, verse 1: “Rise, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice.” That’s how it feels—today, this month, this weekend as the president told us his plan to build more walls at Mexico’s border, as he ramped up efforts to deport undocumented residents, as he ordered discrimination against… More