Jonah 1:1-17

This Sunday Pastor Trey launches into a new series on the story of Jonah. God's desire for global salvation is a nearly unbelievable truth. We are invited to reflect on the first chapter of Jonah through this lens of expansive salvation.

When we look at Jonah, we see that God can work salvation through wayward people and stormy conditions. This salvation is not a get out of hell free card. Rather, it's deliverance from the consequences of a life lived with no compass nor compassion. It's about liberation from a matrix of systemic oppression and destruction; of remission from a sin-sick society and the cancellation of the harm we inflict on ourselves and others.

Jonah doesn't provide an easy moral lesson about how we ought to respond to the spirit of God prompting us to do things that we don't want to do. Jonah merely holds up a mirror to many of us.

1 John 4: 7-16

It is very hard to live in the love Christ called us to when we dislike people or they treat us poorly. Trey Ferguson reminds us in this week's sermon that as Paul said, amongst the enduring virtues of faith, hope, and love - love is the greatest. Love is patient, kind, not rude or arrogant, not seeking its own advantage, never holding grudges, and enduring all things. God's love never fails. Love is the only way to discover who and how God is. Of course, many examples of love we see around us are distorted or warped. The sermon this week is on what love is, this thing that the scriptures tell us that God is like. Trey's abridged definition of love is the commitment to wholeness. We invite you to listen in as Pastor Trey unpacks this definition and shares his vision of the greatest virtue, love.

Isaiah 40: 28-31

Our world is full of great cause for alarm. AI potentially running amok, climate change, politics, war - take your pick. Hope in the face of these concerns is a precious commodity. However, the context of this week's scripture reminds us that the prophets also lived during troubling times as well. When faced with oppressive powers or oppressive times, we are faced with a choice. Do we assimilate, accommodate, or do we take the most dangerous option - resistance? Without resistance, many may suffer through our lack of action. One of the most powerful tools of resistance is hope. Trey Ferguson's sermon explores how hope is the exercise of the positive expectation in God's goodness, best practiced in community. The prophets teach us that hope comes from having a God mighty enough to save us and that you can count on that salvation. However, we must carry the burden of this expectation together. That as we wait upon the Lord with an audacious hope, God will effect changes that create an almost unrecognizable improvement in circumstances. Come and listen as Trey offers his interpretation of how we will live to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.

Scripture: Genesis 221:1-14

The story from Genesis is about Abraham taking his son Isaac up to the mountain to be sacrificed. But Abraham being willing to sacrifice his son is craziness!

Who has been rendered expendable in our zeal for God? When we're driven by a desire to be faithful to God and go too far, real people pay the price. Typically, the most vulnerable among us: widows, orphans, immigrants, women, and children in general, captives, disabled people, queer people, all sorts of people who are pushed to the edges of our society. And when God sees these people bound to altars that we've constructed, God moves on their behalf. When faith takes us too far God provides the means for us to be faithfully generative.

We have to face the fact that zeal to be faithful to God will not override God's care and compassion for even the least among us.

We were excited to have so many guests join us for Pastor Trey's installation service!

This morning Trey preached from Romans 6:3-11.

Death is the great equalizer. Making sense of death is the impetus behind a great deal of faith systems and cultural narratives around the world and throughout history. Even in the incarnation of Jesus, Jesus receives a death sentence. In entering the story of humanity, Jesus embarks on a journey toward the grave. It's not the sort of journey we get to watch from the sideline. It's a journey we're invited to take with and in Jesus. When we are baptized into Jesus, we're not baptized into a substitutionary equation, but a life of radical following and discipleship. And it's a life that marches straight to death.

But when we follow Jesus, we're baptized into a different type of death. We're baptized into Jesus' death. The sort of death that we face when we know how the world will respond to what is right. We're baptized into Jesus' death so that we can experience the miracle of resurrection. When we come alive again we move as those who are not timid about what comes next. We move with a sense of eagerness and even urgency about what we find on the other side of our next steps.

Matthew 9:35-10:1

On Trey's first official Sunday as RMC's new pastor, he spoke about the radically inclusive, ever-expanding Kingdom of God. Jesus proclaims the good news not to draw people into religion, but to construct new ways of belonging.

Today's passage says that when Jesus saw the crowds he had compassion for them. Compassion is not only the awareness of distress or suffering of another but the sharing of that distress. We are compassionate when we feel the distress of others in our own being and move to alleviate it on their behalf.

In a world that has become increasingly reliant on artificial intelligence, it is easier than ever to dehumanize our neighbors. And it is impossible to dehumanize anyone without gradually losing touch with your own humanity. The salvation that Jesus offers is a rehumanization project in which the many ways of the world that chip away at our ability to love one another well are overcome by the herald of a new humanity.

Acts 2:1-13

RMC's soon to be pastor, Trey Ferguson, preached on Pentecost Sunday, reflecting on the arrival of the power of the Holy Spirit that empowered his followers to preach the Gospel to multitudes of people in their own heart languages, no Duolingo required. In the upper room their must have been a deep sense of anticipation, waiting on the arrival of God's invitation to a partnership with God in their work. This mirrors our own anticipation as we await to see the wonders God will show us in partnering RMC with Trey and his wonderful family. How will the Holy Spirit empower this community of believers and its new pastor? Raleigh today is as cosmopolitan as Jerusalem in the time of Christ, full of new people arriving from all over the world with heart cultures of their own. Trey reminds us of the truth that as a descendant of Africans, it bears witness to an act of colonization that he is fluent in English rather than Igbo. Pushing people away from their heart language separates them from their common story and culture, and cements outsider control. Pentecost is the Holy Spirit's act of affirmation of all of people yearning to commune with God, that reaches out to people in a way that makes the most sense to them, bringing them into communion with God and other believers without colonization or coercion. As RMC strives to become a multilingual and intercultural church, we sit in anticipation of what the Holy Spirit might do with our efforts to imagine a community that embodies this spirit of communion.

Scripture: Luke 10:25-42

Guest speaker Chris Rice brought the message this Sunday.

Every age has its signature affliction, according to Byung-Chul Han. Ours is the age of the burnout society. We're in captivity to our activity.

The story of the good Samaritan is about allowing our lives to be interrupted by the stranger by the side of the road. The story of Bethany is about our lives being interrupted by extravagant devotion. Extravagant action cannot be separated from extravagant stillness in this time of anxiety and burnout.

We need to get God's love into our bones! The Psalmist did not write, "Be busy and know that I am God."

Scripture: Acts 16:14-40

Susan shared the story of Paul and Silas being jailed in Philippi. They were charged, beaten and imprisoned after the owners of a fortune telling demon-possessed slave girl lost their revenue from her when Paul cast out her demon in name of Jesus Christ. When you mess with people's source of money, you're asking for trouble!

Even when in prison, however, Paul and his companions continued to pray and sing praises. They knew that God was still at work, even in difficult circumstances. It's a spiritual practice that we can learn from. But it takes practice and regular exercise to build that muscle.

Acts 2: 42-47

Susan Scott preached on the Acts 2: 42-47 as a natural extension of the Gospel of Luke. Jesus performed many miracles in Luke, and now his followers through the power of Holy Spirit are doing the same, if a little less perfectly. The testimony of their ministry begs questions of our own walk as Christians. How much forgiveness and love should I offer to difficult people? How much money should I give away? How much risk should I take to help the disenfranchised? Am I doing all of this well enough? Instead of framing this situation as an imposition that we should try to navigate in terms of minimum acceptable performance, we should be looking at service in God's Kingdom as an invitation. Susan Scott explores these questions by looking at them not in terms of the fear that we often pose them, but rather in the context of love. How is the love of God inviting you to be a vessel for his presence in the world?