Raleigh Mennonite Church

Raleigh Mennonite Church
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Raleigh Mennonite Church

Audio from Raleigh Mennonite Church: primarily the sermons from Sunday morning worship, but some other surprises show up occasionally as well.

  1. 3D AGO

    Rewriting the story of justice – March 30, 2025

    Scripture: Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32 How many times have we heard Jesus's parable of the Prodigal Son from Luke 15? While the focus is usually on the son who leaves with his share of the inheritance and squanders it away, Melissa brings us a fresh perspective on the father and the eldest son. Not only was the younger son lost, but so was the older son, who stayed at home and continued to work with his father. When this son refuses to join the festive party welcoming his kid brother back home, his father wants to know where he is. For a second time in the parable, a father goes out to find his son. In this Lenten season of reflection and penance, what have we come to believe about justice and mercy? Will we see that God has come out of the house, away from the party, for each of us?

    12 min

  2. MAR 23

    From Confession to Penance – March 23, 2025

    Scripture: Isaiah 55:1-9 God's version of confession and penance is entirely different from the world's understanding of confession and penance. During Lent we have to let go of the anxiety that comes from the long-held cultural myth that confessing can only make things worse. Penance is to accept responsibility and to repair what is broken. Penance means we take out our needle and thread and we stitch up what was torn. Lent is a season of penance, not of punishment. Our God will abundantly pardon, and confession is a beginning. Confession can break forth into penance and repair in a way that is actually better than it was before. It's about getting right with one another and getting right with God. Restoring relationships is at the heart of all of it. God's relationship with God's people. What are acts of penance you can take during Lent to restore relationships with those around you? Note: There was a technical issue with the recording at the beginning of Melissa's sermon, so the first minute or two was cut off.

    14 min

  3. MAR 17

    Anger Without Sin – March 16, 2025

    Luke 13: 31-35 Many of us are uncomfortable, especially pacifists, with anger and how we treat each other when tempers flare. The Bible is clear, however, that Jesus often became frustrated or upset with those around him, and even God gets angry too. Jesus, though angry with his own disciples and the evils of Herod and the Roman state, turned his energy and agitation to doing more healing and teaching and did not abandon his followers to save own life. RMC's Jordan Morehouse, in their debut sermon, invites us to explore how our anger over injustices can motivate us to protest, to advocate for the downtrodden, and serve our neighbors. The love of Christ, which did not die with him on the cross, lives on in our hearts and converts our anger and frustrations into motivation for righteous action that builds the kingdom of God. As we struggle with the evils of our own time, let us all consider what makes us angry and follow Jesus's example, by leaning in to more healing, love, and righteous action.

    10 min

  4. MAR 9

    Jesus’s Son of God SAT Test – March 9, 2025

    Scripture: Luke 4:1-13 When Jesus is tempted in the desert, Satan offers Jesus power over all of the world, which Satan has been given, if Jesus will just worship Satan. (Luke 4:6) God has handed over the powers of this world to a cosmic being called Satan. We may wonder why God allows this arrangement. The answer seems to be that people wanted it. We want human rulers: kings and presidents, caesars and judges to set up systems of government that assert that power over us. This is actually one of the many catastrophes we learn about in ancient Israel's history. God's people want a king like all the other nations around them. And immediately God tells them what terrible things will come of this, as we read about in 1 Samuel 8:4-22. During Lent we are turning to repentance. Here before God and one another we remember that one way we stray from God is that we look for shortcuts to the kingdom of God. The reign of God can't be forced upon us. It is a covenant built on consent; it can't be mandated. It has to be chosen and nurtured. There are no shortcuts to the kingdom of God, but what we need is already here.

    12 min

  5. MAR 8

    Prayer: Describing Our Reality – March 2, 2025

    Scripture: Luke 9:28-36 As told in this passage from Luke, through Jesus's transfiguration we learned that prayer is getting caught up in God's glory. To pray is to know at any minute you could be surrounded by the glory of God. Prayer invites us into a wholly different relationship with God than that of extraction or exchange. And for this reason, when the disciples asked Jesus how we should pray Jesus invites us to--remarkably--address God as our parents. Prayer, like human speech, is a creative act. The prayers that we utter shape our inner lives. When we pray, we are describing the world as it actually is, formed out of this gratuitous love of God that is pouring out over everything. It turns out that prayer isn't an escape from reality. Prayer describes it.

    16 min

  6. FEB 23

    Stewardship, not Ownership – Feb. 23, 2025

    Acts 2: 43-47 Much of the focus of Pentecost is on the gifts of the Holy Spirit, including the signs, wonders, and languages being heard and spoken. Melissa Florer-Bixler reminds us this Sunday that the Apostles selling their possessions and giving the money to those in need was also a significant part of the signs and wonders seen that day. The example set was the idea of mutual care within the community. The state and those in power will never provide sufficient aid to the poor because they do not share our value of all of God's children, especially the poor and downtrodden. They will always favor the privileged few. Contrary to the capitalistic value of personal wealth accumulation, this passage in Acts informs us that we are called to be stewards of wealth, not owners, and to distribute it to others to meet their needs. Melissa's sermon examines how Anabaptist and Native practices and beliefs were, although faithful to the Apostle's actions on Pentecost, considered threatening or treasonous by agents of the church and state in history and what that means for our present context.

    12 min

  7. FEB 18

    Sheep in the Midst of Wolves – Feb. 16, 2025

    Matthew 26: 47-56 As a pacifist, if you could end cancer or stop the next Hitler and save millions just by killing an innocent person, would you do it? These ridiculous scenarios are often posed to Anabaptists, seeking the knife's edge that would cut through our nonviolent convictions. Melissa Florer-Bixler points out this week that all four gospels share a story with a similar scenario. To save Jesus from Judas and the mob coming to arrest and crucify him, all that needed to happen was a disciple to cause the death or mutilation of a young slave of the high priest. Jesus, who apart from the sword-wielding disciple could have called down the hosts of heaven upon his enemies, chose instead to heal and protect this lowest of the low in Roman society, end the violence, and surrender himself to a painful death. Join Melissa as they discuss how pacifism is the embodiment of Christ's example of tipping the scales away from the important and powerful to the least among us, even if it costs us everything. We must live as sheep among wolves to build the kingdom of God.

    12 min

  8. FEB 10

    Follow the Water of Life – Feb 9, 2025

    Romans 6: 3-4 What does it mean to baptized into Jesus' death or walking in the newness of life? Melissa Florer-Bixler unpacks this passage in Romans by explaining some of the symbolism of baptism, the three fold nature of baptisms, and what this means for us as Christians and Anabaptists. The water used in baptism is ubiquitous in our lives and essential for life, yet we can drown in only a few inches of it. Water is death and life within one substance. Our submersion represents a death of self that somehow still connects us to creation and to other believers that share our experience, and our reemergence connects us to our redemption and rebirth in following Jesus. However, this process of baptism is actually contains three distinct types of baptism for the believer. One, God's invitation of grace - Spirit Baptism. Two, our pledge to God to take this love and live within it - Water Baptism. Three, our transformation in Christ that threatens the powers of this world - Baptism of Blood. Melissa explains that this Baptism of Blood is a consequence of being remade by Christ into a new creation. By dying to sin and following Jesus, the water of life, we place ourselves into situations that oppose those powers that oppress, abuse, and rob the poor and powerless. Melissa reminds us of examples from our Anabaptist history where the mere act of baptism could lead to your death as an enemy of the church and state and modern instances where following Christ also lead to death and danger. However, we can place our hope in the fact that even if (as in the Roman's passage) we follow Christ unto death (even just death to self) it does not end there because Jesus defeated death. It leads to resurrection and the building of God's kingdom. Death and scarcity may surround us, but in Christ we are dead to sin and alive and new to God. The question we must ask ourselves as we start this week is - where will we follow the water of life?

    12 min

  9. FEB 2

    What are you waiting for? – Feb. 2, 2025

    Scripture: Luke 2:22-40 Simeon and Anna were waiting for something big their whole lives. They were waiting for God to keep their promises. When Mary and Joseph brought Jesus to the temple to be consecrated, Simeon knew what he had been waiting for had come to pass. Looking at that little baby's face Simeon was looking at the face of God's long promised, long hoped for, seemingly too long deferred salvation. However, unimaginably or improbably or confoundingly, he knew this baby was Israel's consolation. God kept God's promises to Simeon and Anna, to Israel, and to us. God was saying again and anew, "Let there be light." Salvation is here. Definitively, uniquely, finally. But Simeon said more... And what he said certainly adds complexity to the grand message of salvation. Our daily work is not to save the world. It's too late for that. We are free to put that burden down. Our work from day to day is to be faithful witnesses to the good news of Jesus and to try to stay in step with the Spirit who is still moving.

    9 min

  10. JAN 27

    What does God look like? – Jan. 26, 2025

    Scripture: 1 John4:7-21 On this Anabaptist World Fellowship Sunday, Melissa began her sermon with a 2017 video illustrating what young kids thought God looks like. You can watch the video on YouTube. How God looks is a mystery to us. But there is something that might get us pretty close. Maybe it's even better. If we love each other, God's love gets into us and it becomes whole, complete. We get to know what God is like because of love. There is a cost of love. Our spiritual ancestors knew this. Each time God's love shows up in people, that love brings danger and instability for the powerful, especially for the power of the state. Those powers have attempted to crush God's love in people. And yet, we live out our days without fear, because the perfect love of God casts out fear.

    11 min
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    About

    Audio from Raleigh Mennonite Church: primarily the sermons from Sunday morning worship, but some other surprises show up occasionally as well.

    Information

    • Creator
      Raleigh Mennonite Church
    • Years Active
      2018 - 2025
    • Episodes
      11
    • Rating
      Clean
    • Copyright
      © 2023 Raleigh Mennonite Church
    • Show Website
      Raleigh Mennonite Church

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