Isaiah 46: 1-13

Melissa Florer-Bixler invites us to consider the question, "why do we come to church every Sunday?" as she preaches on Isaiah's message about idols. Isaiah mocks the idols of Israel's former conquerors, now laid low and unable to even help themselves from falling over. In last week's sermon, Melissa stated that we become what we choose to love, and now she adds that when we put our hope into idols that cannot help, we in turn become helpless. Tech giants, political figures, possessions, and all the other trappings of the world offer no more hope than the worthless idols that Isaiah decried. We come to church to kindle the hope we so greatly need by remembering together the stories of how God has loved and nurtured us from the beginning of creation.

Isaiah 11: 1-9

Melissa Florer-Bixler preaches on Isaiah's vision of the lion laying down with the lamb and reminds us, rather appropriately on World Communion Sunday, to consider more deeply in that context how we address the multitude of intractable conflicts occurring throughout the world. Naturally, we cannot rely on willpower alone to overcome the worst "carnivorous" parts of our nature that inflame these conflicts. Rather, it is through the transformative gift of Jesus that we are remade in the image of God and can then work to build real peace. We invite you to listen and join our congregation as we discover how a children's book, Wild Robot, can demonstrate the heart of this transformative process and point us towards practical ideas to implement peace-building.

Isaiah 9: 1-7

Merry Christmas everyone! We know it's only September, but Raleigh Mennonite Church took a moment this Sunday to sing Christmas carols and reflect on the birth of Christ during a season far less busy and distracting than the end of December. Melissa Florer-Bixler's sermon reminds us to take time and examine the coming of Jesus, made flesh, without the holiday sentimentality that can undermine the innately powerful political message embodied in the humble beginnings of Jesus. Not political as we see it today, with everyone looking to a figurehead in one party or another to correct the world's ills. Rather, we must look down into the manger to see Jesus' message of hope to the world that binds all of God's creation together in lovingkindness. It is truly dangerous to the powers and principalities that seek to divide us for a hope to exist that transcends fear and hatred. This politics of hope inexorably calls us to acts, confounding to others, that bring about God's Kingdom. We invite you to remember the Christmas message of hope embodied in Christ anytime the world seeks to make you feel afraid and alone.

Scriptures: Isaiah 2:1-11, Matthew 5:1-12

Melissa continues her sermon series, Hope in a Time of Fear, focusing on the book of Isaiah. As we're drawing closer to the election, what does hope look like for followers of Jesus?

The people who heard Jesus' sermon on the mount may have been thinking about Isaiah's words when they heard Jesus speak. They had been crushed beneath the heels of a Roman occupation. And here, at this moment, when all hope is lost, the word of God is born into the world.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

This is not the way it is in our world. The merciful are crushed by political pressures that announce being soft on crime. The pure in heart are taken advantage of and accused of being naïve. The poor face a crisis of debt and eviction. The meek are cast aside for faith and weapons. And yet, we hear in Isaiah:

They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up nation, sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.

A seemingly impossible scenario to ever occur. But the impossible is where we as followers of Jesus make our home. Take heart. Have no fear. Jesus is Lord!

Scripture: Isaiah 1:1-3, 11-20

Our world is not well. Our politics are not well. Our land and our oceans and our air is not well. We may be anxious. About the future, about elections, about what comes next for you and your family. So this series based on Isaiah will spend time with people who are in the middle of political and social and personal crisis. These are the people of Judah in Jerusalem.

The Bible is for people who are down on their luck. The Bible is for people facing odds and terrible outcomes. That's when hope shows up. That's when hope matters.

The shape hope takes in our lives has everything to do with how we believe the universe is structured. Hope, writes Walter Brueggemann, is what this community must do. Because it's God's community.

In this last of Melissa's three-part series on Jesus' teaching on bread, the scripture was from John 6:56-59.

As we eat this bread, this Jesus, we see God's life growing and healing us. We become a people; a people that believe that we love our neighbors as ourselves. We become a people who refuse to look away from suffering. We become a people who know that no one is the worst thing that they have done. We become a people who will move toward disaster and danger, because we know that is where God is waiting in the wreckage and where there is suffering.

We also heard from Wick and Jude who shared about why they have chosen to become baptized.

Melissa continues her three-part series on Jesus' discourse about bread.

The bread of life, as Jesus talks about it in John 6:51-58, isn't a pill you swallow or compass giving directions. It's a feast that you get into. It's messy and visceral and fleshy. Jesus wants to get into our lives and become a part of us. Jesus wants to give us life and give it abundantly.

Jesus doesn't intend for us to take a crumb of his life. He doesn't intend for us to use him as a ruler for measurements or a whip for self-destruction through guilt and shame. He is a meal, the life that fills us up, a life of abundance, a life that sustains us forever.

John 15:14-15 & Acts 8:26-38

Ann Roberston shared two of the favorite songs of her father as our summer series continued. She spoke of learning from him how he loved the songs “In the Garden,” which many of us know better as “He Walks with Me and He Talks with Me,” and “What a Friends We have in Jesus.” In the process of reflecting on the songs, Ann weaves in the passages from John about Jesus calling us friends and from Acts about Phillip befriending the Ethiopian Eunuch and baptizing him.

The ways in which we walk with and befriend Jesus may be different for each of us. Our decision to be a Christian is personal and individually meaningful to each of us in our own way.