On June 2, Pastor Katy preaches on Luke 15:17-24.

This Sunday we will wrap up our series on forgiveness. On the first Sunday of the series you were invited to pick up a rock as you came forward for communion and live with it for a few weeks. We’ve wrestled with the burdens we carry as we’ve looked at the need to forgive ourselves, the challenge of forgiving others, and the humbling need to ask for forgiveness. All three are essential, but none is possible without the loving forgiveness of our creator. Just as we learn many behaviors (both bad and good) by watching and copying our earthly parents, we learn forgiveness because we experience it firsthand from our heavenly parent. As we celebrate Holy Communion and once again experience the holy forgiveness of Jesus Christ, you are invited to leave your rock at the altar, and with it leave your burdens in the arms of a loving savior.

On May 26, Pastor Jim preaches on Matthew 5:21-26.

“Well, me and Jesus got our own thing goin’

Me and Jesus got it all worked out.

Me and Jesus got our own thing goin’

Me and Jesus got it all worked out.

We can’t afford any fancy preachin’

We can’t afford any fancy church.

We can’t afford any fancy singin’

But you know Jesus got a lot of poor people out doin’ his work.”

(Tom T. Hall, 1972)

Even though I’m in the preachin’ biz, I can’t help but like this song. I think of my faith as personal, even private. I’ve been loving Jesus a long time. It’s an intimate relationship. You might say that we’ve got our own thing goin’.

However, Jesus made it plain that there is a direct connection between our relationship with God and our relationship with other people. Each Sunday we pray the prayer He taught us, and in that prayer we ask God to forgive us as we forgive others. Yikes! Do we really want God to be as unforgiving toward us as we sometimes have been toward others?

In verses 23-24 He gives instructions to a worshiper in the process of making an offering to God. “When you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.”

There’s no way around it. When we tangle with other people, it impacts our relationship with God. Consider the words of the old preacher who wrote the first epistle of John: “Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.” (Chapter 4:20)

Again...yikes!

On May 26, Pastor Katy preaches on Matthew 5:21-26.

As we continue in our series on forgiveness, we come to the third leg of a tripod. We’ve talked about the need to accept forgiveness and to forgive ourselves, and we’ve talked about forgiving others, but the third crucial side of forgiveness is to admit when we’ve wronged someone and to say “I am sorry.” True forgiveness cannot happen without all three of these legs in place; we have to learn how to take ownership of our own actions and seek the forgiveness of others with truly repentant hearts. This third piece was so crucial to Jesus that he actually says not to even bother asking for God’s forgiveness when we haven’t fixed things with our brother or sister first. I guess Jesus means business!

On May 19, Pastor Jim preaches on Genesis 50:15-21.

If anyone deserved to be resentful, it was Joseph. His big brothers hated him all his life and treated him accordingly. At one point they grabbed him and threw him in an underground cistern.

Just as they were about to leave him crying out in the darkness in that terrible chamber of death, along came a caravan of Bedouin traders on their camels. Realizing the opportunity, they pulled Joseph out from that pit and sold him into slavery. He was taken to Egypt, put to work, and eventually landed in prison.

Fast-forwarding ahead, Joseph rises to power and all but rules Egypt. God was with him through it all.

One day a group of Hebrew brothers, starving from famine, came down to Egypt to buy grain. Imagine how Joseph’s heart must have leaped in his royal robes when he saw them bowing before him, not knowing who he was. It was payback time.

He could have had them jailed or killed. At the very least he could have let them quake in fear and uncertainty. Instead, Joseph wept and forgave them. He said, “Do not be afraid! Am I in the place of God? Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good...”

Is there someone you haven’t forgiven?

On May 12, Pastor Katy preaches on Luke 18:9-14.

Perhaps the hardest person of all to forgive is the one who stares back at you in the mirror. If we decide to, we can forgive most people for most anything, but to give ourselves a pass for something we’ve done just has a different level of challenge to it. Sometimes seeing ourselves as loved and forgiven is the hardest part.

On May 5, the Rev. John Wright, a former pastor at Oak Hill UMC, preaches on Isaiah 51:1b.

1(b) Look to the rock from which you were hewn,

and to the quarry from which you were dug.

The message was given during special services celebrating Oak Hill UMC’s 40th anniversary.

On May 5, the Rev. Stella Burkhalter, a former pastor at Oak Hill UMC, preaches on Luke 10:1-11.

1 After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. 2 He said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. 3 Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. 4 Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road. 5 Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house!’ 6 And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you. 7 Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the laborer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house. 8 Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; 9 cure the sick who are there, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ 10 But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, 11 ‘Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near.’

The message was given during special services celebrating Oak Hill UMC’s 40th anniversary.

On April 28, Pastor Jim preaches on Acts 9:1-6.

Blinded by the light

Revved up like a deuce

Another runner in the night

— Manford Mann and the Earth Band

This song hit No. 1 when I was in high school. I wasn’t much of a fan mainly because I couldn’t figure out what the heck the song was about. Actually, I couldn’t understand many of the words. This was before Google so none of us could look it up. There was much confusion.

This Sunday we will think together about the time Saul was literally blinded by the light. “Seeing the light" has become a catchphrase to describe the moment when someone—for example, Jake or Elwood Blues—finally gets it. It’s a moment of clarity.

As I read Acts Chapter 9, I realize that I’ve been misreading the story all along. Saul wasn’t changed when he saw the light, but rather, he was blinded. He was not converted or transformed; he was in darkness. His companions led him by the hand into Damascus, where he lived without food or water or sight for three days.

What finally changed Saul from brutal tormenter of the church into the Apostle Paul? Read on in the text. Jesus used a Christian named Ananias, who very nervously answered the call and went to see him. He laid hands on Saul, called him brother, and said that Jesus had sent him. Suddenly, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes; he was filled with the Holy Spirit. He took some food, and after spending several days with the disciples in Damascus, he began preaching Jesus in the synagogues. Wow!

Oh, the power of relationships!

On April 21, Pastor Jim preaches on Matthew 28:1-10.

Fear and joy, though usually mutually exclusive, share similar symptoms: rapid pulse, high energy, tears, and deep emotion. Imagine the sensation of being fearful and joyful simultaneously. One of the things I’ve noticed after reading the Gospel accounts is all the running. The women run and the disciples run. I grew up listening to Sunday school stories told to me through a flannel board. On the flannel board the characters always moved serenely and slowly. Nobody ran.

What would it take to get you running? What is the most wonderful thing you can imagine that would also scare the life out of you? Easter was full of earthquakes, angels, and running women. It’s not for the faint of heart. 

One of the certainties of life is that the dead stay dead. On Easter the tomb is empty. Our Lord, once bruised and battered and hanging on a cross, is no longer in his grave. Remember how they put him in a “borrowed tomb?” Sure enough, he was only borrowing it. He just needed it over the weekend. After that he was elsewhere. Jesus had places to go, things to do, and people to see!

On April 21, Pastor Katy preaches on John 20:1, 11-18.

In today’s world of grief and pain, we need resurrection. In our increasingly polarized and isolating society, we need hope. When we look back to the Garden of Eden in the Book of Genesis, we find a story about our own brokenness, but that story is not the final word. The same God who walks in the garden with Adam and Eve, shows up in the person of Jesus to walk in garden with Mary Magdalene. A lot happens in between those two garden stories, but like Mary Magdalene, we have a tendency to keep our focus on the tomb. Jesus shows up among us, but are we ready to enter into a new story and shift from the grave to a new creation? Are we ready to truly see and to believe?