Second on the Mount

"Seeing Good" – Acts 3:12-21

Sermon by the Rev. Ben Brannan from Sunday, April 14, 2024.

Read the manuscript on our website: https://www.spres.org/seeing-good/ 

"It's Not About You, Thomas" – John 20:19-31

Sermon by Dr. Jacqueline E. Lapsley, President of Union Presbyterian Seminary, on the Sunday of the Kitty Susan Trent Symposium for Newly Ordained Ministers, April 7, 2024.

"Following: Loving, and so Following" – Mark 16:1-8

Sermon by Dr. George C. Anderson from Easter Sunday, March 31, 2024. "...so many cling to the resurrection hope in a desperate way, hoping for an out when death must come. Sadly, what often comes of this escapist hope is an escape from the moral demands of life. But a true resurrection hope is this: It is finding hope in God even after all other hopes fail you. . . . It is the hope that God will not let death and all it represents—injustice, toxicity, cruelty, despair—have the last word."

Read the manuscript on our website: https://www.spres.org/following-loving-and-so-following/

"Following: The Crowds" – Matthew 21:6-15, 27:15-23

Sermon by the Rev. Elizabeth N.H. Link from Palm Sunday, March 24, 2024.

Read the manuscript on our website: https://www.spres.org/following-the-crowds/

"Following: Following at One's Own Pace" – John 3:1-8, 7:50-51, 19:38-40

Sermon by Dr. George C. Anderson from Sunday, March 17, 2024.

Read the manuscript on our website: https://www.spres.org/following-following-at-ones-own-pace/ 

"Following: Paul's Conversion and Call to Follow" – Acts 9:1-20

Sermon by the Rev. Ben Brannan from Sunday, March 10, 2024. "When the voice of God calls out to us, when the voice of the Lord calls us to follow, we enter into something bigger and deeper than individual salvation and vocation. Conversion is never an end in and of itself. It is a beginning. We step into something new for ourselves and for the community to which we belong. A new reality. A new chapter in the life of the church, a new initiative or mission, and a new life in Christ for the individual. Following Jesus is both individual and communal, you can’t have one without the other. The individual receives the call; the community affirms the call. 

"And in the conversion and call and life of Paul we see a reminder that following Jesus involves a series of conversions, a series of journeys, encounters, pilgrimages, and turnings as we venture into unexplored territory."

Read the manuscript on our website: https://www.spres.org/following-pauls-conversion-and-call-to-follow/  

"Following: Jesus Is Being Followed?" – Matthew 12:9-14

Sermon by Dr. George C. Anderson from Sunday, March 3, 2024. "We all have biases. Even Jesus in our story has a bias. He clearly stated a bias in the passage. You heard it. He prefers compassion and mercy over the literal keeping of a law that would prevent a man with a need from receiving help. His bias is toward seeing the person in front of him and acting in that person’s best interests. He shows it here in healing the man. He later says we need to do this even if the person in front of us is someone we would call 'an enemy.' 

"What would that bias look like in the way we follow those who have their hooks in us: our family, our friends, our enemies, those who are described by others as being a type (Jews, Palestinians, criminals, refugees, the poor, the rich) but which we know are human beings? What would happen if we stubbornly kept to

Read the manuscript on our website: https://www.spres.org/following-jesus-is-being-followed/ 

"Following: Who Said She Could Follow?" – Mark 5:25-34

Sermon by Dr. George C. Anderson from Sunday, February 25, 2024. "Who says she can follow Jesus? Not the crowd. Not even Jesus who doesn’t know she is behind him. She follows Jesus because she gets it. She gets what makes it possible for any of us to follow Jesus, no matter how worthy we think we already are. 

"What she gets is grace. She knows that despite what anyone says . . . that she has a place in Jesus’ company. It is not because she is well or unwell, acceptable or unacceptable, guilty or innocent, clean or unclean. It is because God’s grace, which welcomes others, welcomes her. Jesus makes that clear to her when he says, 'Daughter, your faith has made you well.' The woman’s embrace of grace is the faith that has saved her—which, by the way is a better translation than 'made you well.'"

Read the manuscript on our website: https://www.spres.org/following-who-said-she-could-follow/ 

"Following: Peter, the Rock" – John 18:15-17, 25-27 and 21:15-19

Sermon by the Rev. Elizabeth N.H. Link from Sunday, February 18, 2024. "What is it that makes us chicken out—whether we’re 11 years old, 41 years old, or 81 years old? Why are we afraid to speak up? To live what we claim to believe? What is it that makes us vulnerable to this kind of behavior—the kind of behavior Peter shows on Good Friday? The kind of statements Peter makes in the courtyard that night?

". . . Jesus knows we are more than the worst things we’ve done (or left undone). He knows we are prone to choose wrong, and we are prone to shame and self-hatred. He knows how to meet us, to build the fire, and prepare the meal that will heal and restore."

Read the manuscript on our website: https://www.spres.org/following-peter-the-rock/

Sung Prayer for Illumination: O Word of God Incarnate. TEXT: William Walsham How, 1867, alt. MUSIC: Neuvermehrtes Meiningiches Gesangbuch, 1963; adapt. Felix Mendelssohn, 1847. Public domain. CCLI Song #121971. CCLI #2642604.

"Fan the Flame" Youth Sunday Sermons 2024 – 2 Timothy 1:3-7

Sermons by graduating seniors Trevor Waters (2:00), Claire Thielecke and Caroline Kepley (7:09), and Ellen Mikkelson (13:21) from Youth Sunday, February 11, 2024. Our Youth Group theme for the year is "Fan the Flame." May the flame of faith that lives inside of you burn brighter and become a guiding light in the world!