Fourth Sunday of Easter
- Pastor Matt Reeves
John 10:11-18
Psalm 23
Acts 4:5-12
April 21, 2024
After Peter and John healed a man who could not walk, they testified to the power or name behind as, “Jesus Christ of Nazareth…. There is no other name…by which we must be saved.” “Salvation” is all about God’s healing, whole-making power taking hold in the earth. In how many ways is Jesus’ saving today, even among those that might not recognize him as Savior? How is God leading us to participate in and testify to it?
Second Sunday of Easter
- Pastor Matt Reeves
Acts 4:32-35
Psalm 133
John 20:19-31
April 7, 2024
LISTEN TO SERMON
On the day of his resurrection, when Christ appeared to the disciples, they were overjoyed, except for Thomas. For whatever reason, he wasn’t here. After a week in which Thomas simply couldn’t believe with the rest, Jesus appeared again specifically for him and gave him what he needed to believe in Jesus’ resurrection. When it comes to faith in Christ, we are all different in what we “need” to believe. How is Jesus coming to each of us to share his presence and how his resurrection life is real?
Easter Sunday
- Pastor Matt Reeves
Acts 10:34-43
Mark 16:1-8
March 31, 2024
Listen To Sermon
In the Gospel of Mark, the risen Christ never shows up. The people who hear that he is risen don’t say anything to anyone because they are afraid. This is an odd proclamation of good news, but perhaps one that fits people like us who do not see the risen Jesus and can look to the future with all kinds of fear. It is precisely for people like us that Mark’s promise can take hold: the risen Christ is going ahead of us. Because he conquered death, the future is in his hands. Wherever we go, however life goes, he is there to receive us into his life.
Fifth Sunday in Lent
- Pastor Matt Reeves
“Jesus’ Glorious Sorrow”
Part of the series, Presence over Perfection
Psalm 51:1-12
John 12:20-33
March 17, 2024
Jesus came as the fullness of God’s life, for the sake of giving others fullness of life. For Jesus, his fullness of life meant moving toward suffering, both that of others and his own. “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies,” he said, “it remains just a single grain, but if it does it bears much fruit.” Jesus plants himself––his love-filled life––in the ground of our lives, so we might become more present to others in their suffering, as seeds of God’s love.
Fourth Sunday in Lent
- Pastor Matt Reeves
“So Loved”
Part of the series, Presence over Perfection
Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22;
John 3:14-21
March 10, 2024
Listen To Audio
For all its beauty, we live in a world that’s also pretty miserable. The harm we do to each other, the condemnation we receive and dole out, the alienation we can feel from life that’s deep and lasting. Jesus knew this world from the inside and said that the truth that most defines it is that “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,” and that “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world.” Do we know God’s love as the most essential truth about yourself? The most essential thing about whoever else?
Third Sunday in Lent
- Amber Balista
“Already Enough”
Part of the series, Presence over Perfection
Psalm 19
John 2:13-22
March 3, 2024
Listen To Audio
It was one of the most radical things Jesus did, entering the temple and upending the tables for changing money to buy animals for sacrifice, pouring the coins onto the ground and driving out the animals with a whip. When asked why, he said that the Temple was God’s home, not a marketplace. In the end, God’s true temple––God’s dwelling place––was in the human life of Jesus. God raised Jesus from death to count us worthy as God’s own home, recipients of the fullness of God’s presence.
Second Sunday in Lent
- Pastor Matt Reeves
“Losing is Everything”
Part of the series, Presence over Perfection
Psalm 22:23-31
Mark 8:31-38
February 25, 2024,
Mary Oliver famously asked, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” Jesus’ response was: to suffer, be rejected, be killed, and after three days rise again. Then he called his disciples to the same. At the heart of Christian faith is a struggle: that we would keep losing a self-sustaining, self-serving, self-satisfied life to gain a Jesus-sustained, Jesus-serving, Jesus-satisfied life.
First Sunday in Lent
- Pastor Matt Reeves
“In the Wilderness”
Part of the series, Presence over Perfection
Psalm 25:1-10
Mark 1:9-15
February 18, 2024
LISTEN TO AUDIO
The first thing after his baptism, Jesus walked into the wild, driven there by the spirit. This was no posh retreat. It was full of wild beasts and testing by Satan, but also where “angels waited on him.” Before he could be our savior, Jesus had to accept the fragility of human life and to experience being saved. Where life feels uncertain and fragile to us, we are in company with Jesus and do not walk in the wilderness alone.
Transfiguration of the Lord
- Pastor Matt Reeves
“The Voice Worth Listening To”
2 Kings 2:1-12
Psalm 50:1-6
Mark 9:2-9
February 11, 2024
Day to day life is mostly marked by ordinary things. But every so often, something happens to pull back a curtain on deeper layers of existence. For Peter, James and John, Jesus’ transfiguration––when he was transformed to shine with brilliant light––was one of those moments. It showed them that day to day, Jesus above all others is worth listening to: all of God’s love, power and fullness––the depths of what is finally real––was caught up in him. If Jesus is worthy of all the attention we can give him, are we listening?
.jpg)
Fifth Sunday after Epiphany
- Pastor Matt Reeves
“A Village at Jesus' Door”
Isaiah 40:21-31
Mark 1:29-39
Psalm 147:1-11, 20c;
February 4, 2024
Listen To Audio
In Mark, Jesus begins his ministry by preaching and healing in a synagogue. By the end of the day the entire town was seeking him out, looking for his restoration. Did neighbors look at each other differently––”I had no idea you struggled with that?” The message and ministry of Jesus belong in services of worship, but their power is meant just as for the places and people we live with when we walk out the door. How is Jesus present in our neighborhood, releasing his power to restore?
Fourth Sunday after Epiphany
- Mike Mahon
“Faithfulness Under Adversity”
Genesis 50:19-21
Psalm 67
Matthew 28:18-20
January 28, 2024
Mike and Nancy Mahon, missionaries with SAMAIR Peru, have an aviation ministry that serves the needs of people in hard-to reach places. Whether providing freshwater wells, medical transportation, or other services, it is all for the sake of the gospel of Christ. Their testimony is to God’s faithfulness under adversity.
.jpg)
.jpg)
Third Sunday after Epiphany
“The Story Written in Us”
- Pastor Matt Reeves
Jonah 3:1-5, 10
Psalm 62:5-12
Mark 1:14-20
January 21, 2023
Jesus began his ministry by announcing the nearness of God’s kingdom and calling ordinary people to “repent”––to change their minds and lives by living in this kingdom following him. When four fishermen responded to his call, they were consenting to Jesus’ writing the story of God’s kingdom in and through their lives. How is Jesus calling us to trust the nearness of God’s kingdom today? How is he writing a new story in our life as a church?
Second Sunday after Epiphany
“God and our Thought Bubble”
- Pastor Matt Reeves
Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18
John 1:43-51
January 14, 2023
Listen To Audio
A sentence that begins, “Can anything good come out of…” is likely not difficult to finish. We can have opinions, tendencies to think we know, and perhaps a bias toward negative thinking. When Nathanael’s friend Philip said they’d found the Messiah in Jesus of Nazareth, he was skeptical, saying, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” But Jesus knew Nathanael better than Nathanael knew Jesus and offered him a vision of how God can be present and work for good in unlikely places, whether Nazareth or somewhere that we’d never think good would come.
.jpg)
First Sunday of Christmas
“Joy To The World”
- Pastor Aland Smith
Psalm 98
John 15:9-17
December 31, 2023
Listen To Audio
Fourth Sunday of Advent
“You Are Favored”
- Pastor Matt Reeves
2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16
Luke 1:26-38
December 24, 2023
We can place a lot of stock in “having a good Christmas.” Indeed, in all kinds of ways, we live with a desire to make a “good” life, achieve what we think we want, and prepare for the life we think we should have. When the angel came to Mary announcing that she would conceive a son by the Holy Spirit and give birth to the Son of the Most High, there was no mention of her worthiness, preparedness, or achievement. She hardly could have managed the situation. She simply said yes and graciously received, which is what Christmas opens us to: receiving God’s life housed in ours––not because of us, but because of God and great diving love.
Listen To Audio
Third Sunday of Advent
We celebrate our Christmas Light Show drama, proclaiming Jesus as light of the world!
December 17, 2023
Second Sunday of Advent
“God's Patience”
- Pastor Matt Reeves
Isaiah 40:1-11;
2 Peter 3:8-9
December 10, 2023
When the seeming delay in the coming of Christ concerned Peter’s community, he reminded them that God inhabits time differently than we do: “with the Lord, a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.” Advent waiting reminds us that our lives aren’t ruled by time but promise, from a present God who meets us, in time, in Jesus. A God who is patient and offers us each moment as fresh opportunity to turn to God.
Listen To Audio
First Sunday of Advent
“Waiting Again”
- Pastor Matt Reeves
Isaiah 2:1-5a
1 Corinthians 1:3-9
December 3, 2023
We wait for Christmas, celebrate the holiday, and find ourselves waiting for Christmas again, because Christmas is not enough. The grace given in Christ at Christmas needs to be received again and again, until the coming of the day that all creation awaits: the revealing of Jesus at his return. Advent helps us to live by grace with a sense of incompleteness, confident that God will finally bring to completion the life giving purpose of Jesus.
Listen to audio
Christ the King/Reign of Christ
“All Things. Really. All Things.”
- Pastor Matt Reeves
Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24
Psalm 95:1-7a
Ephesians 1:15-23
November 26, 2023
The ails of life and the world can feel heavy, especially as “the holidays set in.” As we acknowledge this, the reign of Christ as creation’s true king also lead us to wisdom, hope, and power not always apparent in the day to day. The gospel promise is that all things, including what weighs us down, are under the authority of Christ and that the power of his resurrection is what finally holds sway in the world and in each of our lives. It can take training to claim this hope and to see the world in this light, which is what Christ the King Sunday is about: training to live trusting that the power that raised Christ also lives in us and our world.
Listen To Audio
25th Sunday after Pentecost
“Too Precious to Bury”
- Pastor Matt Reeves
Psalm 90:1-8 [9-11] 12
Matthew 25:14-30
Zephaniah 1:7, 12-18
November 19, 2023
Jesus knew God as a generous, joyous giver to be received and enjoyed by all. This comes through in a story about a man who departs on a journey and leaves large sums of wealth to his slaves, some of which recognize the blessedness of the gift and partner with the master in multiplying it. But another is afraid, both of the master––wrongly––and of the responsibility he received, and buries the wealth, thus missing out on the nature of the gift and sharing in its joy. The church is given to know and share the riches of God’s mercy in Jesus. Do we grasp the gift we have received? Are we entering and risking God’s joy in multiplying mercy in the world?
24th Sunday after Pentecost
“The Life We’re Not Prepared For”
- Pastor Matt Reeves
Matthew 25: 1-13
Psalm 70
Amos 5:18-24
November 12, 2023
Many today feel they’re living in a world they aren’t prepared for––with their kids, in their jobs, as the church, in how the world seems. For Christians, the role of faith in such a world isn’t just to receive an invitation to believe. It’s to take responsibility for what their faith means––to actively live as Jesus’ disciples as they wait for his coming again. This was the message of Jesus’ parable about wise and foolish bridesmaids invited to a wedding party. The part of wisdom isn’t just to accept the invitation. It’s to take responsibility for its demands in the situations they find themselves in.
Listen To Audio
All Saints Day
“A God Who Wipes Tears”
- Pastor Matt Reeves
Matthew 5: 1-12
Psalm 34:1-10, 22
Revelation 7:9-17
November 5, 2023
We live in a world of tears. On All Saints Sunday, we see John’s Revelation vision of white robed “saints” that have come through life’s tribulation to behold and worship God with every tear wiped from their eyes. The center of the worship is the Lamb that has brought them through and that itself looks to have been slaughtered. As we claim Jesus’ hope for ordinary saints that have gone before us, we also trust that Jesus is in the midst of our suffering to see us through our ordeals.
Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost
“A Way of Being"
-Pastor Matt Reeves
Psalm 84: 1-7
Luke 10:38-42
October 29, 2023
We live in an age marked by anxiety and distraction. We are not the first to be afflicted by these. Jesus noted them in Martha who frantically prepared a meal for Jesus while her sister Mary sat at Jesus’ feet listening to him. When Jesus commended Mary for doing the one essential thing, he wasn’t minimizing the importance of activity but underscoring the necessity of openness to God’s presence. Jesus continues to offer this gift today: not to learn how to get more done but how to source all our life, including our activity, in God’s presence and being.
Listen To Audio
Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost
“Listening Prayer"
-Pastor Matt Reeves
Psalm 95:1-51-8
John 10: 1-5
October 22, 2023
Jesus calls himself the good shepherd whose sheep hear his voice. But hearing Jesus’ voice isn’t straightforward, especially in a life filled with noise, busyness, and distractions. In a life of prayer, our talking with God is joined with pausing and listening for God, in scripture, the events of our lives, and the quiet of our hearts.
One of the first things Genesis tells us about human beings is that we are made in the image of God. What is the gift of this? What is the calling?
Listen To Audio
Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost
“God Loves Us and so Loves Us to Ask”
- Pastor Matt Reeves
Luke 11:5-13
Psalm 20
October 15, 2023
When Jesus taught about prayer, he encouraged coming to God with boldness, like one friend going to another with what they need. He reveals a God who wants us to ask, to seek, to live open handedly to God with our needs and those of others. For Jesus, prayer is a way of living with God as a companion in life, and a way to companion God in seeking the good of the world.
Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost
“Prayer to Grow Into”
- Pastor Matt Reeves
Luke 11:1-4
Psalm 63:1-5
October 8, 2023
Jesus prayed. All through the Gospels, in his active life of teaching and healing, Jesus sets time apart to pray. When his disciples asked him to teach them to pray, he gave them a prayer that is a simple, accessible, sure basis for our own prayer to God. The Lord’s Prayer helps us talk to God, and more than that, it helps us receive our place in a world that is full of God’s presence, goodness, and beauty.
Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost
“Authority”
- Pastor Matt Reeves
Ezekiel 18:1-4
Psalm 25:1-9
Matthew 21:23-32
October 1, 2023
We live in a world with many claims to authority, thus the many who feel pulled by “demands” of work, family, activities, and just the desires of their own hearts. When religious leaders confronted Jesus about the authority in which he sourced his life, he responded with a question about the authority of John the Baptist in whose baptism he was anointed as God’s Son and given the Holy Spirit. In our baptism, Jesus is given to us as the true authority in our lives––the only one who can finally tell us who we are and whose Spirit we must finally obey in how we would live.
.jpg)
.jpg)
Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost
“God's Crazy Ledger”
- Pastor Matt Reeves
Jonah 3:10-4:11
Psalm 138
Matthew 20:1-16
September 24, 2023
We live in a world that trains us to compare: resumés, skill sets, efforts, accomplishments. We can say that we want equal opportunity and fairness of reward for all. But Jesus tells a story about the kingdom of heaven in which workers are all paid the same even though some worked an entire day while others only a few hours. It reveals that the heart of the kingdom of heaven is a God who doesn’t compare or reward according to merit but who chooses to be generous to all. What does it mean for us to live under the rule of God’s generosity?
Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost
“All or Nothing”
- Pastor Aland Smith
Genesis 12:1-7
Psalm 138
Luke 10:25-28
September 17, 2023
When tested about what it means to have eternal life, Jesus gave a traditional Jewish response: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” For Jesus, life comes as we give all of ourselves to the God who gives all of himself to us.
Listen To Audio
.jpg)
Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost
“Made in God's Image”
- Rev. Carmen Cox Harwell
Genesis 1:26-28
September 10, 2023
One of the first things Genesis tells us about human beings is that we are made in the image of God. What is the gift of this? What is the calling?
Listen To Audio
Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost
“The Question”
- Pastor Matt Reeves
Matthew 16:21-28
Psalm 26:1-6
Exodus 3:1-15
September 3, 2023
Life is precious, so we can spend much of our lives trying to shore it up. So does Jesus startle us in saying, those who would save their life must lose it and that those who would lose their life for him will find it? Maybe it depends on what we think is our “life.” Jesus brings us into a life of which we are not the center. The heart of our life is the God whose Son has passed through death into life and who brings us with him on that journey. What would it be like for us to take Jesus' words about finding our lives by losing them for him absolutely seriously?
Listen To Audio
