Manhattan Church of Christ Podcast

In a world that measures our value by what we’ve earned compared to our neighbor, Jesus tells a story about a landowner who pays the workers hired last the same as those hired first. The all-day workers aren’t cheated; they’re offended that others were made equal to them. In this first sermon of our series Ancient Faith, Modern Questions, we ask what is fair, what we have earned, and what we are owed, and then a harder question: what do we owe our neighbor?

Is “staying above the fray” really the faithful choice?

In this reflection on Mark 3:1–6, Carl Garrison looks at the scene in the synagogue. A man with a withered hand is suffering, and the religious leaders stay silent to protect the order of things. Drawing on Joy DeGruy’s Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome, Carl explores how survival habits passed down through generations can become a kind of faithfulness we never question. Keeping our heads down, avoiding conflict, and calling silence “peace” are some of those habits.

This is a challenge for conservatives, progressives, and everyone in between. The alternative to political tribalism isn’t neutrality. It’s courageous, compassionate witness.

“What suffering are we willing to tolerate in order to preserve our image of being good?”

In a sermon on Romans 16:1-13, Dr. Tom Robinson speaks about the incredible variety of gifts the Spirit gives, and how those gifts are bestowed on people of all kinds, regardless of human categorizations.

In a sermon on a collection of New Testament scriptures, guided by Romans 12:4-8, Dr. Tom Robinson speaks on the creation of new leaders in the early Christian Church, and how echoes of that are still seen in Christianity today.

In a sermon on Ephesians 4:1-16, Dr. Tom Robinson speaks about leadership and how leaders are chosen. But as he also points out, Christianity is a community, part of one body, in which the brain alone is not the only part of the body. Other parts are also useful and require different skills than a brain. As such, there is more than one kind of leader, all contributing to the body, and to the community.

Faith was never meant to be a deal. In this sermon, Carl Garrison challenges the belief that if we pray hard enough or behave faithfully enough, God will give us the outcomes we want. Paul's unanswered prayer and the witnesses who "did not receive what was promised" show that God's grace can't be reduced to a transaction. We do not have to win to be faithful, control God to trust God, or earn grace before extending it.

📖 2 Corinthians 12:7-10, Hebrews 11:32-40, Hebrews 12:1-2

Continuing the sermon series Soaring with the Promise of God, Angel Reyes preaches on Galatians 3:15-29, speaking on how the promises Jesus makes in the New Testament supersede the laws made in the Old Testament. Because if Jesus's words are followed: love the lord your god with all your heart (etc.), and love thy neighbor as thyself, then people will not want to kill, cheat on their partner, lie, steal; but instead if they believe, they can be secure in God's promise and will inherit the kingdom of God.

Peter had already been eating at the same table as Gentile believers until certain people showed up, and fear did what theology couldn't, pulling him back into old lines Paul thought had already been erased. Paul answers that fear by retelling an old family story: Ishmael, born of Sarah's own anxious effort to secure the promise herself, versus Isaac, a belonging neither she nor Abraham could manufacture. This is not just freedom from the old markers, but freedom from the need to secure an identity that was never ours to earn in the first place.

Continuing the sermon series Soaring with the Promise of God, Dr. Tom Robinson speaks from selections of Galatians (Galatians 4: 1-20, 5: 5-6, 22-26, 6:14-16), about Christianity being rooted not in law but in faith. The lack of surety can be frightening on one level, but the feeling of a relationship with God is reassuring in its own way.

Dr. Tom Robinson begins a new sermon series in preparation for the upcoming church retreat (There's still time to register. Hint - hint). The first week is on Galatians 3:6-9, 16-29 and the promises of God. Tom speaks on the distinction between a law and a promise, and what a promise from God truly means.