The Rev. Alissa Newton
text: Luke 2:1-20

"Christmas isn’t big. It’s small. God with us is not about big presents or perfect family gatherings. God with us is about messy babies and smelly shepherds. It’s about you and me in all our smallness being trusted with God’s love, and slowly over time becoming trustworthy to share that love with the world around us."

The Rev. Alissa Newton
 text: Matthew 1:18-25 

 "The story of Joseph tells us that these broken dreams are opportunities to imagine, and to trust, that God is with us. The story of Joseph, like the story of his son, can also be our story, a story about trusting God with the brokenness, and choosing love and risk in the face of the common tragedies of our lives. "

The Rev. Meghan Mullarkey

Text: Matthew 11:2-11

"I wonder if it would help you, like it diid for me, to imagine these people in your life, these people who you tried to love and could not accept it or could not love you back how you needed, I wonder if you can imagine these people transformed.   Think of all the harm and hurt between you both or between them and those you love and imagine understanding, compassion, and love from those broken people, not for those people who have hurt you, but from those people towards you, imagine them offering you compassion.  Imagine they are healed. 

For some of us this won’t happen in this lifetime, but think of all the hurting broken people in your life and take a moment to imagine them healed.  How might they respond differently to you, if they were healed? How might they accept your love differently? This is ultimately, the world that we hope for, a world where all are transformed.  This is ultimately, the work we try to do here together, we try to heal and accept God’s grace and forgiveness so that we can grow in our compassion so we can go and be Christ hands and feet in this world.  "

The Rev. Alissa Newton
texts: Isaiah 11:1-10 & Matthew 3:1-12

"The kingdom of heaven is near, John the Baptist says. And if we believe him we might become dissatisfied with anything less.
Imagine this holy mountain, Isaiah says to us. And if we can join in that imagining, then maybe we can turn our heads around and look for a world where no living thing is harmed."

The Rev. Alissa Newton
Text: Isaiah 2:1-5, Matthew 24:36-44

"Anticipation is the best. And, it is also the worst. It depends what you are anticipating, what outcome you are imagining in your mind as you move toward the anticipated event."

The Rev. Alissa Newton
text: Luke 23:33-43

"Could Jesus have won? Could Jesus have made something else happen by using the power of the God who made every single thing, the God who holds all the universe in God’s hand? Could Jesus have squashed and destroyed these Empires who worship the sort of power that leaves powerlessness and destruction in its wake?

The lesson here, friends, is not that Jesus could have and didn’t. 

The lesson here is that this is exactly what Jesus DID. "

If you have been wondering why St. Columba's is exploring putting together a robotics team at church, listen to why our vicar, Meghan, is excited about this opportunity and how it could enrich our community.  

The Rev. Meghan Mullarkey
Texts: Isaiah 65:17-25 & Luke 21:5-19

"All of God’s promises are available to us today and yet we live in a world that rejects this Kingdom, that murders this King. We know the end of this story for Jesus, or at least we know what happens when Jesus gets to Jerusalem, that ultimately, Christ is rejected by this world’s order.  A loud and resounding no, to God’s Kingdom present here and now.  And yet, the truth of God’s promises live in and around us regardless of whether or not we or the world accepts it or sees it.  We cannot kill God for when we try - God will overcome death and rise again.  God will go into the depths of hell to be present with us and show us again and again that God’s is more powerful than death, more powerful than any destruction we could see or experience on earth. "

Clarification: eschatological refers to the end times - the references to eschatological in this sermon was implying the eschatological promises of God to make all things right and will be used as clarification in the future!

Download, listen, pray with us this week.

The Rev. Alissa Newton
Text: Luke 6:20-31

"Today we are holding close all those who belong to us, and re-membering them. Putting them back into place in our hearts, our minds, in the community of faith that in truth they have never left. "