Grace Siloam Sermon Podcast episodes:

• August 21, 2019August 18, 2019

  If our world were nothing but a place of created goodness and profound

  beauty, a space of flourishing for all, just and life-giving for all in

  God’s creation, then Jesus’ challenge would be deeply troubling. If, on the

  other hand, our world is deeply marred and scarred, death-dealing for many,

  with systems of meaning that are exploitative and non-sustainable, then

  redemption can come only when those systems are shattered and consumed by

  fire. Life cannot (re-)emerge without confrontation. This is the basis of

  the conflict Jesus envisions. He comes not to disturb a nice world but to

  shatter the disturbing and death-dealing systems of meaning that stifle

  life.

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• August 14, 2019August 11, 2019

  And if you’re in one of those difficult places in your life right now – go

  outside on a clear night – and look to the heavens – and begin to count the

  stars – and remember – God always keeps God’s promises – and in Jesus, we

  see how far God will go to prove God’s great love for us and everyone!

  ...more

  

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• August 05, 2019August 4, 2019

  The purpose of Ecclesiastes seems to be that there is nothing under the sun

  that is capable of giving our lives meaning – no matter how many

  possessions we acquire, they always leave us feeling empty, so we acquire

  more in the hopes of filling the lack we feel in our hearts.

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• August 05, 2019July 28, 2019

  We have two sets of choices: 1. When we see injustice, or want the world

  different, will we succumb to the temptation to use the methods of the evil

  one in the name of God, or will we resolve to hold to the non-violent

  patterns of Jesus even knowing what he faced? 2. Will we attempt to

  manipulate God into coming and fixing everything for us, the way too often

  sacrifices, prayers, and rituals have been understood, or will we allow

  ourselves to be manipulated into the tools of God’s deliverance? These are

  the tough questions that this prayer asks us to wrestle with, but not

  unaided; if we keep this prayer on our lips, we are promised that our

  hearts will change, the spirit will come, and God will be with us. AMEN.

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• August 05, 2019July 21, 2019

  Are you worried and distracted by many things? I know I often am. It takes

  real effort to stop my frantic activity and sit quietly and simply listen

  in the silence. For about ten years I have been practicing a form of prayer

  called Centering Prayer. It is very different from how I learned to pray as

  a child or teen-ager, through a variety of formulae that I would use to

  tell God what I needed, as if God didn’t know already and then how I

  expected God to answer my prayers, as if I knew better than God what to do

  in each situation.

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• August 05, 2019July 14, 2019

  If you’ve asked that question and are still wondering what we might say, I

  hope you hear Jesus’ response to the lawyer today, because that is our

  response as well – love God with all that you are and love your neighbor

  the way you love yourself. Jesus says to the lawyer, “do this and you will

  live.” But now comes the more difficult question – how do we love God and

  our neighbor? Living those ideals is much more difficult than proclaiming

  them as our core values.

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• April 11, 2019April 7, 2019

  Mary steals away and no one knows what she’s up to until she returns and

  without saying a word she anoints Jesus’ feet with enough costly perfume

  she could have embalmed a king for burial. How much is that you wonder? A

  year’s wages.

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• April 11, 2019March 31, 2019

  God’s love is not transactional, God is love. God desires relationship with

  you and with those we might think are less deserving than us - or more

  deserving than us. God simply loves, you and the one we see as outside the

  bounds of God’s love. And if that’s who God is, then that makes them our

  family too.

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• April 11, 2019March 24, 2019

  Maybe this Lenten season is about our lives as a fig tree, being lovingly

  groomed by God the master gardener so that we might produce fruit worthy of

  repentance, a change of perspective about God’s love for us.

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• April 11, 2019March 10, 2019

  It is a humble journey, the one we began on Ash Wednesday and continue

  today, the first Sunday in Lent. It begins with an undignified smudge of

  ash on our foreheads in the shape of a cross, with the words, "remember

  that you are dust, and to dust you shall return."

  ...more

  

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