"In the face of death..." - Luke 13:1-9

Jesus wants his disciples to know that death can never stay comfortably on the front page, fenced behind the explanations of what happened to other people. And this is all the more true when Death itself is a power, an agent of those anti-creational forces that are at the heart of every Empire.

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Ragan Sutterfield
The Lies We Tell Ourselves - Luke 4:1-13

I will tell you that a temptation of mine is to use this sermon to expose all the lying tempters in our world from politicians to preachers. But you don’t actually need my help with that. Each of you, like Jesus in the wilderness, is perfectly capable of spotting a snake oil salesman when you see one. No, the most dangerous lies, the ones we fall prey to again and again in this life, are the ones we tell ourselves.

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Hannah Hooker
Grace Over Grievance - Ps. 37, Luke 6:27-38

“Do not fret yourself because of evildoers.” The Psalmist seems to speak right through the centuries to our moment where, I for one, see a lot of fretting going on. Whether your news source is the daily paper or podcasts, cable tv or social media, we seem to be in a frenzy of fretting.

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Ragan Sutterfield
In the Year that King Uzziah Died - Isaiah 6:1-13

The first 39 chapters of Isaiah come from the last few years of the Kingdom of Judah before the Babylonian Exile. The people’s beloved king, Uzziah, had just died, and they worried that their nation’s stability and security may have died with him. It was a tumultuous time of social and political transition for the Judeans, to which we can most certainly relate.

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Hannah Hooker
The Tao of Torah - Psalm 19

The Torah, the Way is not simply a cold, impersonal, feature of the world. It is the Law of the Lord, and that Lord is a humble and personal God who will come to instruct and guide, heal and save, God has come to give us life. In this way, the Psalm ends in praise of the God who is “my strength and my redeemer.” If we are to have the energy, the power to join in the pattern of life that the Law provides, we will do so not through our own efforts but by joining in the endless, dynamic energy of God. This is what eternal life is about, not so much an endless succession of days, but a grounding in the very reality that is Life itself.

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Ragan Sutterfield
In Defense of Pigeons - Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

In his book, When God was a Bird, Mark Wallace explains that birds in scripture have something vital to teach us about our incarnate God. And yes, Ragan did loan me this book. Wallace explains that while the birth of Christ in human form may be the ultimate manifestation of the incarnation, or embodiment, of our God, we can see and understand this aspect of God in other places in the natural world, and birds are a fabulous example.

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Hannah Hooker
The Ultimate Comfort - Luke 1:39-55

Elizabeth welcomed Mary with open arms and was all too ready to comfort her and let her know that everything would be okay. But then Mary spoke, and the baby in Elizabeth’s womb leapt, and Elizabeth's whole world was rocked - again. I imagine it was unsettling at first. But this brave young woman who is carrying the Christ child was able to comfort Elizabeth, too.

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Hannah Hooker
Advent Hope in the Night Sky - Jeremiah 33:14-16

Thanksgiving night was clear and cold in the Ozarks, and we sat around a campfire looking to the heavens in absolute awe. I think everyone who sees a night sky like that becomes a theologian. That kind of zooming out when looking at the stars is a way of understanding the season of Advent. This is a big picture season. We are waiting with hope for the arrival of a big picture future, in which God will have restored all things in a new creation.

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Kate Alexander
Who's on first? - Christ the King Sunday; John 18:33-37

Pilate and Jesus are engaged in the age old disagreement about the value of kingship. Just as God tried to explain to the Israelites that a king is not the kind of leader who can bring salvation, Jesus is telling Pilate, I’ll have no part of the kingship you’re describing. For thousands of years, God has been trying to tell us that we cannot put our own savior in power, but even now, in 2024, we in the U.S. are still arguing over what kind of supreme political authority will save us. When will we learn?

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Hannah Hooker
Object Permanence - All Saints' Day

When a person dies, they are seemingly gone from our lives forever, and there is no humor in that sad circumstance. But of course, the empty tomb changes that. The very crux of our faith is that the empty tomb changes everything. And our task as people of faith is to overcome our struggle with spiritual object permanence. To that end, the Holy Spirit has guided the Church to the celebration of the feast of All Saints.

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Hannah Hooker
Faithfulness in the Kingdom - Mark 10:2-16

What our scriptures, our tradition, and our Savior Christ have to teach us today is that the concept of marriage evolves throughout history, and our job is not to be faithful to a system that we’ve put into place, but to be faithful to God, and that means being faithful to the people we are in relationships with. For some, that faithfulness looks like legal union, and for some, it doesn’t. For some, the best way to remain faithful to God is to end a legal union. And when that happens, it is worthy of our grief, and it is the responsibility of the community of faith to show God’s love to those involved.

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Hannah Hooker
A God Who Won't Let Go - Mark 9:38-50

As the Halloween spiders start going up, maybe you will think of Jonathan Edwards, and his unforgettable words that we are like spiders hanging by a thread over the flames, held by the hand of God who could let go at any moment. Or maybe you’ll think of Jesus who sometimes used a similar hellfire and brimstone approach, warning about fire and trash heaps. As preachers they shared powerful images to wake us up to the reality of sin in our lives. But that was never the end of their sermons, or the end of our story. They also woke us up to the grace of God who never actually lets go.

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Kate Alexander