Rainbow City First United Methodist Church

Ephesians 1:8b-23 | In a world being turned upside down by the power of the gospel, knowing the kind of God who is God is an essential prerequisite to being able to live into the world that is coming into being.

Matthew 28:1-15 | Will we have the same courage, the courage to live as risen people, to live with a faith that flouts the power of death in lives unashamedly committed to the way of Christ in the world—the way of manna and mercy, the way of love and compassion, the way of generosity and sacrifice—fully confident that the same death that was defeated in Jerusalem will be defeated again? Or will we put our faith in the cover-up?

Luke 22:14-30 |

Luke 2:21-40 | In Jesus we get the greatest surprise. God, the biggest deal who ever was, chooses not to behave like a big deal. He chooses not to threaten and harm and harass and exploit. Rather, he chooses to love and to show mercy, even to his final breath.  

Amos 7:1-9 |

1 Kings 10:14-22; 11:1-6 | After entering into God’s promises and receiving his promised land, Israel’s leaders set about recreating Egypt. This comes to a head with Solomon, whose excesses cause Israel to collapse under its own oppressive weight. Solomon, blessed by God for God’s purposes, embraces his shadow mission and fails his people and God by becoming the very kind of big deal from whom God had saved them 500 years before.

Deuteronomy 6:1-15 | The covenant is a gift that is given as mercy and received by mercy. It is the means by which God saves us from our own foolishness and invites us into the way of life that is reflective of his kingdom. The right response of people who are receiving the covenant is to say, “Lord, have mercy.”

Exodus 16:1-5, 12-21 | In the wilderness, God’s people have an opportunity for us to discover what’s next in God’s future and how we are called to be a part of that. They are like schools that teach us how to live as God’s covenant people and give us opportunities to practice faithfulness to God’s covenant way.

Exodus 1:1-14 | The promise of the Scriptures is that God has the power to topple our pyramids. And he will not finally allow the pharaohs of the world to stand in the way of his work of liberation, justice, and redemption. And if we’re wise to that, we who stand in pharaoh’s shoes will read the handwriting on the wall and ask God to help us live lives of blessing and not of exploitation.

Isaiah 58:1-12 | God has chosen a world in which there is abundance for all and there is love for all and in which all worship God and work together toward his way of life for the world. This is a world of justice, of mercy, of peace, and of abundance. But we have chosen self-indulgence and self-satisfaction free from justice and vulnerability. We have chosen isolation and separation from God and from one another. We have chosen a sort of deluded independence that allows us to ignore the mark of death on our lives all while persisting in the kinds of lives that make that mark deeper. God desires to lead us back to the life he dreams for us.