Seattle Mennonite Church Sermons SMC preachers

The crippled man and the disciples both experience surprise and interruption in the norms of what they think might happen for them this day.  The man expected the same - people offering him coins or ignoring him.  It has been the same day in and day out for years.  Peter and John expected to continue in their grieving and confusion at the loss of their mentor and friend Jesus, and planned to go to the temple for a routine prayer service.  Neither expectation happens, and they - and we! - are all better for it.  What might it take for us to open our senses differently to the wonder of welcoming interruption and - perhaps - finding a miracle of healing within ourselves or those around us?!

Sermon begins at minute marker 3:06
Acts 3.1-10

Resources
BibleWorm podcast Image: Photo by Yanko Argirov on Unsplash  Hymn: Voices Together 834 Thuma Mina. Text:  Zulu; anon. (South Africa); trans. anon Music: South African traditional; arr. © 1984 Peace of Music Publishing AB (admin. Walton Music Corp., a division of GIA Publications, Inc.) Permission to podcast the music in this service obtained from One License with license #A-726929. All rights reserved.

In the aftermath of Jesus’ death and resurrection, Jesus offers comfort and presence to his disciples. He continues to remind them he has not come to establish a nation state, rather that the disciples would be the ones to carry forward Jesus’ mission. Requirements for this include more waiting, receiving the power of the Holy Spirit. Devotion to prayer may be what will prepare them for what’s next. But that isn’t here yet. They must prepare themselves to be led by the Holy Spirit. 
Sermon begins at minute marker 4:58
Acts 1.1-14

Resources
BibleWorm podcast Episode 535 Waiting for the Spirit She Reads Truth podcast Episode 96 Acts Week 1 with Christine Caine Working Preacher Narrative Lectionary podcast 579: You Shall Be My Witnesses Believers Church Bible Commentary: Acts, by Chalmer E. Faw The Women’s Bible Commentary, Carol A Newsom and Sharon H. Ringe editors Image: by Eran Menashri on UnsplashHymn: Voices Together 366 Although Our Lord Has Left Us. Text: Fred Kaan (England), © 1972, 1997 Hope Publishing Co. Music: Melchior Vulpius (present-day Germany), Ein schön geistlich Gesangbuch, 1609. Permission to podcast the music in this service obtained from One License with license #A-726929. All rights reserved.

Jesus lives an increasingly life of truth-telling to civic and religious authorities. All the while he enfolds the marginalized and oppressed into a just and merciful embrace of care and love, calling disciples to do the same. Up to his impending death disciples cannot grasp what this will cost him. A woman enacting honor and love provides Jesus’ followers, then and now, with an example of unbridled recognition of who Jesus is. What is imprinted on our being? How can we break alabaster jars to display open and prepared hearts?
Sermon begins at minute marker 5:09
Mark 12.13-17, 14.3-9

Resources
BibleWorm podcasts: 528 The Parable of the Tenants, and 531 The Triumphal Entry and the Anointing at Bethany  Image by vicky_photographies from PixabayBelievers Church Bible Commentary: Mark, by Timothy J Gaddert, editors Elmer A Martens and Willard M Swartley; Herald Press, Scottdale PA 2001 Women's Bible Commentary, Third Edition: Revised and Updated, editors by Carol A. Newsom, Sharon H. Ringe, Jacqueline E. Lapsley; Westminster John Knox, 2012  Hymn: Voices Together 320, My Song is Love Unknown. Music: John N. Ireland (England), Songs of Praise, 1925 Text: Samuel Crossman (England), The Young Man’s Meditations, or some few Sacred Poems..., 1664; rev. Hymns for Today’s Church.  Permission to podcast the music in this service obtained from One License with license #A-726929. All rights reserved.

News of wars, natural disaster, and human suffering greets us every evening, without
fail. Where is God in this? Does God not see? Jesus warns his disciples of the temple’s
destruction, and worse, yet to come. Indeed, God in Christ does see what human
beings are doing to one another. It is we who cannot stand to look, listen, or respond to
the fires, the famines, the faces of suffering around us. And yet, and yet. Jesus comes
among us to announce God is near at hand, God’s gracious will is carrying forth, God’s
reign unfolds in our very midst. God is with us in the midst of earthquake, flood,
homelessness and hopelessness. As the fig tree comes into blossom, so the ministry of
fellow believers serves as sign of new life to us. The coming of God’s reign isn’t going to
look like yesterday. We wait with prayer and expectation. Christ is coming soon.

Preacher: Pam Russell
Sermon begins at minute marker 5:38
 Mark 13.1-8, 24-37


Image: Photo by Federica Gioia on pexels.Voices Together 319, Stay With Me the Night Has Come. Music: Welsh traditional. Text: David Bjorlin (USA), © 2016 GIA Publications, Inc. Permission to podcast the music in this service obtained from One License with license #A-726929. All rights reserved.

Struck by Mark’s mention that Jesus sits across from the treasury box in the Temple, observing HOW each person gives their money, Pastor Megan ponders what Jesus might observe in how SHE lives with her own money (and for this Way walked together, how WE live with ours). Would Jesus be glad that the widow gives her last mite and has nothing to live on, or might Jesus be praising the widow for revealing - by her courageous and some might even say confrontational act - the baked-in injustice of the system that leaves a widow with only a mite in the first place? And what does love of God, self, and neighbor have to do with it all?

Sermon begins at minute marker 6:38
Mark 12.28-44

Resources
BibleWorm podcast: Episode 529 – Loving God and Neighbor, Amy Robertson and Robert Williamson, Jr.Image: Melissa KellyVT 552 "As a deer…"  #10783 Words: Psalm 42  Music: Louis Bourgeois, Genevan Psalter. Permission to podcast the music in this service obtained from One License with license #A-726929. All rights reserved.

Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem is a deliberate act of political confrontation with the Roman Empire’s powers-that-be. After casing the mostly deserted late evening Temple, he makes plans to return the next day to make a royal mess of things; to disrupt business as usual. The Way Jesus walks, the Way that Jesus calls us to walk (together!), is a Way lined with palms that leads to confrontation with Empire.

Sermon begins at minute marker 5:03
Mark 11.1-19
Resources
BibleWorm podcast: Episode 531 – The Triumphal Entry, Amy Robertson and Robert Williamson, Jr.Ched Myers, “Palm Sunday As Subversive Street Theatre,” posted on Radical Discipleship, 2021.Marcus J. Borg & John Dominic Crossan, The Last Week: A Day-to-Day Account of Jesus’ Final Week (Harper, 2007).Image: Melissa KellyVT 146 Lord Jesus, Come and Overturn #99565 words: David Gambrell music: Klug’s Geistliche Lieder ©2015 GIA Publications, Inc. Permission to podcast the music in this service obtained from One License with license #A-726929. All rights reserved.