Podcast – Pasadena Mennonite Church

Lisa Danner talks about the challenges of family conflicts for those attempting to live a pacifist lifestyle. Some of our toughest conflicts involve issues where we feel forced to choose between articulating a deeply held value or “maintaining peace” by way of keeping silent. Lisa summarizes a key finding of Dr. Tania Israel’s research on dialogue across political lines and asks the congregation what feels applicable to their own family conflicts.

Rhoda Blough, our representative from Everence, a faith-based financial services group, references Exodus 16, about manna, and the Matthew 14 passage that describes Jesus feeding a crowd of 5,000. Along with these passages, she shares from a money autobiography and the realization that her parents had left a legacy of abundance to her family. From a blue-collar Mennonite family with nine children and a stay-at-home mom, she was unaware that they were poor. She asks, "What is a mindset of abundance or a mindset of scarcity?" and elaborates on a God of abundance who has given us a universe composed of all we need to thrive.

Bert introduces the Jesus of Matthew 4:23-25 as a sort of traveling pentecostal preacher: he’s preaching the gospel, healing people, casting out demons, and he gathers a large international following. Jesus was doing this in synagogues, which to us were religious spaces, but in first century Galilee these were the town governments, centers of self-governance and communal political and religious life. Synagogues were governmental bodies that attended to municipal matters — rather like a town hall. Jesus was going through the towns and villages spreading the good news of the kingdom of heaven — God’s new society. And he told his disciples that they would do the same.

Joshua Grace and friends Dimitri and Rufo painted and presented a mural to PMC, representing the land that we at PMC meet on: the unceded territory of the Hahamong'na tribe of the Tongva people who have lived in and stewarded the land of the Los Angeles basin for thousands of years. Joshua has been working on a parallel project — a lenten daily reader — in collaboration with Randy Woodley of Eloheh, a Cherokee descendent. The reader is an introduction to settler colonialist Christians new to issues of the environmental, political and relational impact of colonialism that indigenous people are still experiencing.

Sue Park-Hur reflects on God's call in 1 Corinthians 12:12-31, and the call to love as a whole in chapter 13. This is a reflection rooted in warmth as it was also an affirmation and celebration of God's call to ordination for Mariann Reardon as the service wrapped around this event for the congregation. This is God's familiar passage to us as an interconnected body. We are united in the person of Jesus, and we have been baptized by one Spirit into one body. And even more, this is a letter of love, concretely defined by acts of will on behalf of others.

On January 9th, Tim Reardon spoke on Luke 3:15-22. Here we meet people out in the desert, who are filled with expectations, hopes… So what were these people expecting? It was a particular vision of the world — the vision of Isaiah 40:3-5 — of mountains being brought down, valleys raised up, and people seeing the salvation of God. This vision was a redefinition of the way the world is; a vision of a world of justice and peace. As we come into this year, what are the things that we are expecting?

Kathleen Klompien-Wedberg talks about the toxic positivity and consumerism of the typical American Christmas, and how it leads us to feel tired and jaded. In this week’s scripture, Luke 3: 7-14, even the unlikely hero, John the Baptist calls us back to what we ought to talk about who is left out of the typical Christmas—the othered, the neurodivergent, the unhoused, those whose path has not been in a typically straight line—and how God is rejoicing and singing over all humankind. Image by Kelly Latimore, kellylatimoreicons.com.

Stories are important because they color the way we view God. In Philippians 1:3-11, Paul is writing from prison to the church in Philippi — a loving letter, full of affection and joy. Hope is important for Paul — both in the way the world is structured and in where it’s going. The creation story in Genesis 1 is believed to be written while the Jewish people were exiled in Babylon. It is written for an exiled and subjugated people — yet contains none of the violence of other creation stories. Our God’s creation is an invitation — a call that includes the participation of creation itself. God takes joy in creation. We are created in God’s image, counterparts with the capacity to love, to be compassionate, to have relationship with God — to help birth God's peace. We too are called to live into God's creation story.

Lisa Danner talks about the season of Advent as a time to create space for waiting. She highlights that people seem to have a propensity to get distracted from things that matter and invites us to analyze what pressures, mindsets, or stressors might be let go in order for us to have experiences of wonder.

Adam enters into the week’s scripture passage of John 18:33-37 in light of Jesus' words to Pilate, "My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews." Adam's own understanding has come from his transition from prison guard to anabaptist seminarian and hospital chaplain — a transition that has led him from ideas of perpetuating to breaking cycles of violence.