Advent is a home for our longing that is at once ancient and new every day. We join our longing for the full inbreaking of God’s justice, peace, and liberating love to the longing of our forebears in the faith. Like them, we continue to wait while also being called into embodying our hope. Not because the conditions seem optimistic, but - in the face of any and all circumstances, with broken hearts - we “nevertheless / even now” enact our collective hope in the world around us.

Sermon begins at minute marker 3:58

Scripture: ​​​​Joel 2.12-13, 28-29

Resources

• BibleWorm podcast: Episode 615 – Rend Your Hearts, Amy Robertson and Robert Williamson, Jr
• Image: Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash 
• Hymn 216 - Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming. Text: stanzas 1–2 anon., “Es ist ein Ros’ entsprungen,” (present-day Germany), 15th c.; Alte Catholische Geistliche Kirchengasäng, 1599; trans. Theodore Baker (USA), 1894; stanza 3 Friedrich Layritz (Germany), Liederschatz, 1832; trans. Harriet K. Spaeth (USA), The Hymnal, 1940, alt. Music: German traditional, 15th c.; Alte Catholische Geistliche Kirchengasäng, 1599; harm. Michael Praetorius (Germany), Musae Sionae VI, 1609. Permission to podcast the music in this service obtained from ONE LICENSE, license #A-726929. All rights reserved.

Jesus equips the disciples with power and authority, and then sends them to their ministries with no bread, no staff, no money, not even an extra shirt - nothing. Why? As we prepare to release Tyler to his ministry as our Pastor of Faith Formation, and as we too are released to our individual and collective ministries in the world, what is the wisdom we might glean from Jesus’ approach with the disciples?

Sermon begins at minute marker 4:40

Luke 9.1-6

Image: Milada Vigerova on Unsplash
Hymn: VT 386 One Is the Body. Text & Music: based on Ephesians 4:4-13, John L. Bell (Scotland). Permission to podcast the music in this service obtained from ONE LICENSE, license #A-726929. All rights reserved.

What does it mean to sing “Holy holy holy is God” NOT to God, but to one another? Might Isaiah’s magnificent and poetic imagery of the seraphim singing their praise of God’s holiness TO one another be received as an invitation to do the same?

Sermon begins at minute marker 4:11
 
Scripture: ​​​​Isaiah 6.1-8 

Resources

• BibleWorm podcast: Episode 612 – Here I Am Send Me!, Amy Robertson and Robert Williamson, Jr.
• “Before I Was a Gazan,” Naomi Shihab Nye, from Everything Comes Next: Collected & New Poems (2020), 100.
• “A Few Rules For Predicting the Future,” Octavia E. Butler (2000), 7-15.
• “Schrödinger’s Seraphim,” Vija Merrill.
• Releasing friend of SMC met through the One Parish One Prisoner program of Underground Ministries.
• Image: Seraphim in Hagia Sofia, in Istanbul Türkiye, photo by Pastor Megan Ramer.
• Hymn: Voices Together 156 - There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy. Text: Frederick W. Faber (England), Hymns, 1861. Music: Lizzie S. Tourjee (USA), Hymnal of the Methodist Church with Tunes, 1878. Permission to podcast the music in this service obtained from ONE LICENSE, license #A-726929. All rights reserved.

Jonah sought to protect his own people when God’s compassion and mercy were to extend to the repentant beyond Israel’s borders. Fairness, justice and truth are to be balanced with compassion and mercy by God’s definition and ways rather than our limited vision of who is repentant, when and how. Universal Saving expands when our small actions, reflections and words join together in a chorus of abundant love for all, which is no guarantee of outcome.

Sermon starts at minute marker 5:34

Scripture: ​​​​Jonah 3.1-10

Resources

• BibleWorm podcast: Episode 611 Jonah and the Compassion of God, Amy Robertson and Robert Williamson, Jr
• Image by Adam Krypel on pexels
• Hymn: Voices Together 283 - Lord, You Have Come to the Lakeshore. Text:  Spanish; Cesáreo Gabarain (Spain); trans. composite Gertrude C. Suppe (USA), George Lockwood IV (USA), Raquel Gutiérrez-Achon (USA), Willard F. Jabusch (USA), alt.  Music: Cesáreo Gabarain, 1979, Dios con nosotros. Permission to podcast the music in this service obtained from ONE LICENSE, license #A-726929. All rights reserved.

What happens when a raven and a prophet form a little community of care? How about a Hebrew man and Phoenician widow - across religious and political divides? According to our storyteller, the needs of all are met, and the storyteller calls this God’s provision. Might this tale of unlikely dependencies be just the sort of good news we need in these tense and teetering days?

Sermon begins at minute marker 3:20

​​​​1 Kings 17.1-16

Resources

• BibleWorm podcast: Episode 610 – Elijah and the Widow of Zarephath, Amy Robertson and Robert Williamson, Jr
• Consider the Birds: A Provocative Guide to Birds of the Bible, Debbie Blue (Abingdon Press), 2013.
• “If you think you can hold a grudge, consider the crow,” Thomas Fuller, NYT, October 28, 2024.
• Beef, by Lee Sung Jin
• The Birds, by Alfred Hitchcock
• Heckling, by an opinionated SMC birder

Solomon sets out to build a house for God, as people across time and place have done over and over again. But even in the dedication prayer, Solomon acknowledges that God cannot be contained by a building, regardless of size or grandness or even how delicious it smells. Just as Pastor Megan’s delicious-smelling cedar chest could never contain her bounty of beautiful quilts, so too Solomon’s cedar temple could never contain the enormity of God. Houses for God have never been about or for God, so much as they are for a people, seeking to create sacred spaces for living in relationship with one another and God; a people seeking to recharge their spiritual batteries.

Sermon begins at minute marker 5:42

1 Kings 5.1-5, and 8.27-30, 41-43

Resources

• BibleWorm podcast: Episode 609 – Dedicating the Temple, Amy Robertson and Robert Williamson, Jr
• Rainer Maria Rilke, “Ich bin, du Ängtlicher. Hörst do mich nicht,” from Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God, trans. Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy, 66.
• Image: rendering of quilts stacked at SMC during our Jubilee celebration, 2018.
• Voices Together Hymn 647 There is a Balm in Gilead. Text & Music: African American Spiritual (USA) Permission to podcast the music in this service obtained from ONE LICENSE, license #A-726929. All rights reserved.

Whether in tents or temples, God is present and abiding with the Israelites and their descendants. God's living promise is a loving extensive, generational commitment/covenant among, between and with us just as we are: the only tabernacle God needs. 

Sermon begins at minute marker 4:47.

2 Samuel 7:1-17

Resources

• BibleWorm podcast: Episode 608: I’ll Build You a House, Amy Robertson and Robert Williamson, Jr
• Image: Comet traversing twilight sky 
• Hymn 748 Take, O Take Me As I Am Text: John L. Bell (Scotland)  Music: John L. Bell Permission to podcast the music in this service obtained from ONE LICENSE, license #A-726929. All rights reserved.

Hannah’s Song, often referred to as The Magnificat of the First Testament, is a collection of Hannah’s utopian dreams. She sings of a world where the bows of the warriors are broken and where God lifts the poor from the ash heap and sits them with princes. This sermon explores Hannah’s life and story, from which her dreams grew, and it follows the flow of Hannah’s dreamsong as it cascaded down through the centuries, inspiring Mary of Nazareth and inspiring us. 

“Hannah’s Dreamsong” was delivered by Tyler Merrill, who is currently in candidacy for Seattle Mennonite Church’s Pastor of Faith Formation position. It also serves in part as Tyler’s self-introduction to the congregation.

Sermon begins at minute marker 5:37

1 Samuel 1.9-11, 19-20, and 2.1-10

Resources

• BibleWorm podcast: Episode 529 – Loving God and Neighbor, Amy Robertson and Robert Williamson, Jr
• The Poet, The Warrior, The Prophet. Collection of essays in theopoetics delivered by Rubem A Alves at the University of Birmingham in 1990.
• Image: Mary: Love Forever Being Born Icon by Kelly Latimore, used with permission. kellylatimoreicons.com

The Hebrew people grow weary of their supposed leader leaving them behind, and - in Moses’ absence - they ask for a symbol to represent God? Replace God? Hold them together as a community in a very destabilized time? Unclear, but even as we seek to empathize with a people who long for SOMEthing to keep them together, God and Moses are nonetheless displeased. And set about bickering over whose people they are. In the midst of this squabble, Moses appeals to God’s reputation: “What will the Egyptians say about you if you choose destruction?!” Preparing ourselves to participate in another sacred symbol on this World Communion Sunday - bread and cup with all who seek to walk in the Way of Jesus - we wonder how our public actions and presence (or lack thereof) contribute to God’s reputation in the world.

Sermon begins at minute marker 7:09

Exodus 32.1-14

Resources

• BibleWorm podcast: Episode 605 – The Golden Calf, Amy Robertson and Robert Williamson, Jr
• “End Game,” lyrics by Taylor Swift.
• Mennonite Action - A movement of Mennonites taking action, explicitly AS MENNONITE-CHRISTIANS, to stop war and end the occupation of Palestine.
• Song: A Recitation of Psalm 40, in IsiNdebele (a language of Zimbabwe), sung by Bongiwe Ncube.
• Image: Small statue of the Golden Calf, Louvre museum (Paris, France), Wikimedia Commons.
• Hymn 717 - Renew Your Church. Text: K. L. Cober (USA), 1960, alt., © 1960 K. L. Cober, renewed 1985 Judson Press Music: American traditional (USA), 1842; adapt. Sacred Harp, 1844. Permission to podcast the music in this service obtained from ONE LICENSE, license #A-726929. All rights reserved.

A sermon about a 25 chapter novella, in three parts: 1) Joseph actually had an amazing technicolor princess dress, and isn’t that both telling and fabulous?! 2) Love unevenly distributed produces division, resentment, and - in this story - the hate-filled action of a band of brothers who traffic their beloved brother into slavery, and it’s that terrible?! 3) If (or when) you go through hell, don’t come out empty-handed, and isn’t it tricky to say anything at all about suffering and the good we sometimes wrest from it?!

Sermon begins at minute marker 8:03

Genesis 37.3-8, 17b-22, 26-34; 50.15-21

Resources

• BibleWorm podcast: Episode 603 – Evil Made Good, Amy Robertson and Robert Williamson, Jr
• “Don’t Come Out Empty Handed,” Kate Bowler’s podcast, Everything Happens, interview with Rabbi Steve Leder.
• “Good Grief,” Kate Bowler’s podcast, Everything Happens, interview with Thomas Lynch.
• Image: “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,” Tulane Public Relations, CC BY 2.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
• Hymn 205 - Light Dawns on a Weary World. Text: Mary Louise Bringle (USA), 2001, © GIA Publications, Inc. Music: William P. Rowan (USA), © 2000 William P. Rowan (admin. GIA Publications, Inc.) Permission to podcast the music in this service obtained from ONE LICENSE, license #A-726929. All rights reserved.