Easter --- Matthew 28:1-10

Happy Easter! He is Risen! Tragedy and hurt may remain, but death has been defeated! Come and see the empty tomb. But, like the women entrusted with the very first Gospel, don't be tempted to remain in the empty tomb. Tell those around you what Christ has been victorious over. You may just find Jesus along the way in more unexpected ways.

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Soul Alignment --- John 17:20-26

School's in session this week! Pastor Allison draws from her years of study in undergrad and seminary to consider the Church's track record on being the united body that Jesus prayed for two thousand years ago. It's not great. For as long as there has been a Church, there has been fights about who we are. But that isn't to say we can't be different or distinct. After all, the beauty of human comes when a diversity of people celebrate what we have in common.

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Soul Alignment --- John 17:6-19

The prayer Jesus prays here is known as his priestly prayer. These are blessings from an authority given to those who would become his church. It's the Word made flesh imbuing his disciples with the word; a way to unify his many different people by claiming them as his own people. Jew and Gentile. Black and white. This kind of unity is certainly hard to find in the American church today. So do we have the courage to come together and make the Kingdom a better place?

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Soul Alignment --- John 17:1-5

Now we turn to another prayer Jesus made. This one was for his disciples. The Lord's Prayer align us to what we want for the world and ourselves as followers of Christ. This passage is about what Christ wants for us. We are not merely servants; at least that's not where it ends. No, we're being invited to sit at the table. To glorify and BE glorified. This is a God who often guides, protects, and ultimately wants the best for us. There are things you may lose in this walk, but see what you have to gain!

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Soul Alignment --- Matthew 6:12-13

We're finishing out our dive into the Lord's Prayer this week. These are the final challenges to the prayer, even it is they who are talking to God. We ask for forgiveness while being reminded that we should do the same. We ask for deliverance from evil and remember that we need to be led from our own temptations toward that end. And our soul alignment doesn't end here; it begins. Grow your prayer life, get involved with your community, and form the habits that began with memorizing this beautiful template.

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Soul Alignment — Matthew 6:10-11

Scholar, mother, pastor, and whole-package Allison Otwell (whose husband hasn’t shied away from testing the listeners’ patience yet) continues our Lenten series. When we pray for God’s Kingdom and will to come to the earth, what are the implications there? How can we use Scripture in a constructive way to explore that alignment? And as we pray for our daily bread, remember the lessons of the mana from heaven. Its simple provision and the trust it illustrated.

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Soul Alignment --- Matthew 6:5-14

Welcome to the season of Lent! This is a time of preparation. We look toward the cross, the culmination of generations of anticipation, yet colored by brutality of reality. A harsh wilderness that can hide the paradise on the other side. This is where we acknowledge what the world is while looking forward to what it could be. Thankfully, Jesus taught us how to pray in these times. Let these practices of soul alignment in the weeks before Easter focus you in to the hope beyond the wilderness.

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Parables of Jesus — Matthew 24:32-35

Alayna Parrish winds up our series on the parables with a look at the future. Jesus tells a parable about a fig tree and knowing when summer is near. Here, and in other places, we see the anticipation of the future. The Kingdom is coming. Somehow and somewhen, the distinction between heaven and earth will fade. We won’t know the timing of that day, but it’s important to prepare. Not only can we enter that future with glad hearts, we may just save other lives along the way.

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Parables of Jesus --- Matthew 21:28-32

Jesus tells a short story of two young men with quite diverse responses to their father's request. Even this innocuous thought experiment turns the Pharisees' world view upside down. How does a prostitute or a tax collector enter the Kingdom before the leaders who have devoted their lives to scripture? Well, what does Jesus say is the heart of the Kingdom? And what is in the heart from those seeking entry?

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Parables of Jesus --- Matthew 15:1-20

While this passage may seem like the beginnings of a debate on hygiene, Jesus’s rebuke of the Pharisees is at the crux of his continued frustration with them. They positioned that unclean hands on food, in the absence of ritual cleaning, could directly defile the soul. An otherwise healthy tradition then becomes a weapon of judgement honed by piety and loose interpretation. Jesus turns that upside down. What defiles you comes from INSIDE you. That which is in your heart. What you think, what you feel, what you do…They are the measure of who you are; what truly sanctifies and defiles you. Ritual can focus us, true. But it can’t save us. And that’s where Jesus comes in.

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