Sermon Text: Psalm 77; Matthew 8:1-4

In Week Two of Turntable, we turned to the grief of others. "Born in the USA" is the dark story of a Vietnam veteran. The beauty of the song is the in the tension of the struggle in the verses and the triumph in the chorus. When we encounter people with grief, what can we offer? Jesus shows us the gift of dignity, that our grief and suffering does not have to define us.

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Sermon Text: Psalm 137; Luke 9:18-25

Turntable Gospel will center on grief, so we started with the genre that does that best: country. Country music thrives in its specificity, to bring you into the story. In faith, grief is what starts our journey towards God, but we must be specific about our grief and name it. In doing so, we discover that our Savior joins us in that grief. Whatever you are carrying, it is a good place to seek the Savior.

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Sermon Text: 2 Samuel 6

We wrapped up a week of VBS by asking the question we asked the kids all week: What is at the core of YOUR faith? For so many of us, it's really fear. But the Bible says, "Fear not." In Christ, we can know a joy deeper than our circumstances. Joy is not a requirement of discipleship, but is rather the by-product of it. We experience that joy as we walk in the way of Christ.

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Sermon Text: Exodus 19

In our final installment of this series, we talk about the United Church of Christ. At the heart of the UCC is a commitment to covenant - an exchange not of goods or services, but of people. In the UCC, we are not connected by laws or authority, but by deep relationships to one another. That empowers our work to proclaim the gospel, work for reconciliation, and to seek justice and liberation for all.

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Sermon Text: John 21:3-19

We are built for community, which means that as soon as we start following Christ we find ourselves in a community of believers, and Christ calls us to care for them, "Feed my sheep." We don't do that as "volunteers," but as "disciples" who are carrying out God's purposes for our lives. To help us do this, we have structures at St. Mary's that lead us, structure our work, and call us to our best selves.

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We're covering the basics of membership in our Sunday worship. Today, we talked the heart of membership - discipleship of Jesus Christ. When we join a church, we don't join an organization, but an organism. At the heart of the church is the story of Jesus - his birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension. And his most basic call to us is, "Follow me." And we're given some important tools - prayer, scripture, and sacrament - to guide us on good and faithful paths.

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Sermon Text: Genesis 12:1-9; Matthew 7:13-20

A testimony is a record of the choices we make to live by faith out of the soil of our disciplines, and the impact our lives make on others. There is no testimony that doesn't require making choices. Abram's choice was to go in the complete opposite direction of the entire world, and Jesus tells us to enter by the narrow gate. Make those hard choices towards the way of God - the love of God, and the love of neighbor.

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Sermon Text: John 14:1-9; 1 Timothy 4:1-12

We are all spiritual beings because we are beings who love. If we love anything at all, we are being spiritually formed. The question then is, “Who or what is forming you?” and “is that where you wanna go? Jesus doesn’t say, “I’ll show you the way.” He’s saying, “I am the way…no one comes to the Father except through me.” Jesus makes a bold statement: there’s no path to God you’ve glimpsed in your own soul, without Jesus.

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