Bethany UCC

This week in worship, we were proud to partake in the commissioning and ordination of Bethany member Jen Pope! Reflecting on Genesis 12:1-4 and Jen’s leap into the unknown through pursuing her call to ministry, Pastor Rebecca’s sermon puts focus on a God who reveals themselves more and more fully as we follow after them.

Some may think Jesus was being avoidant when he started writing in the sand, rather than confronting the agitators there to bait him in John 8:2-11. But as Pastor Vince suggests in his sermon, maybe Jesus wasn't writing at all; maybe he was drawing. Demonstrating, perhaps, that we were created to create things ourselves, rather than destroy....or, ya know, maybe Vince just got the translation wrong. Listen to his sermon to decide for yourself

One of the worst thing Jesus did, as far as some people are concerned, was to let people off the hook. Where did he get off? Pastor Rebecca's sermon this week covers Matthew 11: 28 - 30, email debt forgiveness, and the audacity of Jesus' love.

This week, Pastor Vince preached on the story of Balaam and the Donkey from Numbers 22, and the power that lies in refusal.

Pastor Vince starts his sermon this week with an apology: he might’ve mis sold our theme for Lent by portraying retreat as something that’s only gentle and relaxing. Preaching on Matthew 4, Vince’s sermon reminds us that retreat can be hard work, but it brings with it the power of resistance in a world that wants to keep us preoccupied.

This week, Pastor Vince preached on Psalm 8 and physicist Rebecca Newberger Goldstein’s idea that “we are creatures of matter who long to matter”. Confronting free will, nihilism and teenage trollery, his sermon encourages us to sit in the discomfort of contradicting truths and to emerge choosing whatever story feels most beautiful to us.

This week, Pastor Vince continued our “Unspeakable” theme for Lent by recounting his recent visit to the Musuem of Memory and Human rights in Chile. Centering Mark 15-: 33-39, he identifies despair as a mark of our faith.

We were glad to welcome longtime Bethany member Alaina Hoffman to the pulpit this weekend. In her sermon, she shares a heartfelt testimony of her recent time spent in Minnesota, where she provided support against the ongoing chaos spawned by ICE raids. Preaching on Mark 3:1 - 6, her sermon centers the sacred power of anger, and how that anger can be used to confront harm.

Pastor Rebecca is a rank beginner. Among other things, at guitar. But not for the first time. In the final week of our Beginner’s Mind series, she preached on John 3:1-7 and practice after the novelty has worn off, when natural aptitude and gifts run out, and church as a place to practice what we’re not good at. And then she played guitar. Badly.

To look with a beginner’s mind includes the risk and possibility of awe. Pastor Rebecca’s sermon this week is all about that experience: a moment that can be uplifting or devastating but either way, transformational.