In our parable for this Sunday, Jesus poses an inherently difficult question: Is there such thing as honest money? The answer may surprise you as we examine how Jesus views money and the purposes it can achieve.

How far would you go to rescue someone who lost their way? This Sunday we will explore how far God is willing to go for us and how that becomes a model for restoring our relationships with each other.

At the heart of this parable it asks us to consider what we think makes someone worthy. I think that our society and specifically Capitalism has sold us a bill of goods, and that is that we are each only as worthy as our work. A person is only as good as the amount of income they can generate and then through spending put that money right back into the economy. But what if someone can’t work, whether because they don’t have the skill set, or they don’t have reliable transportation, or because they’ve aged out, or because they are physically or mentally unable. What then is their worth?

In the parable of the sower, Jesus tells us that it’s the rare person who will become his follower. And yet, 30% of the world population identifies as Christian. This Sunday we will examine the conflict between Jesus’ expectations and our modern lifestyle.

God created us in God’s own image. God stamped the core of who we are with God’s image. Because we carry God’s image, God loves us and wants to be in a relationship with us. God relentlessly pursues us. God chases us. God doesn’t care where we are or who we are or where we are going or where we have been. Because we belong to God, Imago Dei, stamped with God’s own image, we are pursued by God always and forever. We are not loved because we have value. God’s love gives us value. What kind of difference it could make for us as individuals, as families, as a church, as a community, as a state, as a nation, if we lived out these two fundamental truths of our faith?

Our ancestors used holy stories as fluid, continually changing and growing with each generation.  The story of Noah is a great example of this.  The story of Noah was written in the Torah around 900 BCE, but there are stories of the great flood that mirror this one that are even more ancient.  Paul seems to understand that the gospel has to be fluid like this.  Be a Jew to Jews, under the law/outside the law to those in each camp, etc.  What would it look like if we allowed the gospel to be as fluid as our ancestors did?

It is estimated that the first humans will step foot on Mars by 2040. Once there, humans will establish a colony that could grow into an entire civilization. The question we look to answer in this final sermon of the series is how will space travel impact the message and purpose of the Christian faith?

One of the biggest technological innovations of the next two decades will be creating technology to interface with our bodies and brains. One of the possibilities is being able to download all of the information stored in the neurons of your mind and coping them to a computer. This Sunday, we talk about how this technology could impact the Christian understanding of the soul and afterlife.