Scripture: Ruth 1:15-18 What do we do when we are shocked, overwhelmed and devastated? When our hands feel empty and the troubles to come feel so massive? What do we do now? The petty dictators of this world, however severe their terrors, they do not change who God is and how God's word in Jesus comes to us. What do we do now is the question we wil…

Isaiah 43:1-7, Hebrews 11:32-12:3 In just two days we have a national election. It's something that has many of us anxious and concerned. The two texts for today are both addressed to people in anxious circumstances. Even with all of the anxiety of the situation in the first passage, the summation of the Isaiah's prophecy to these people is, "Do no…

Isaiah 40: 1-8 This Sunday Melissa Florer-Bixler continued to move further into the words of the prophet Isaiah, when the Persian king Cyrus allowed God's people to return to Israel, ushering in a time of comfort and hope. The prophet spoke of a highway being built from through hostile land between Babylon and Jerusalem, and Melissa reminded us of …

Isaiah 46: 1-13 Melissa Florer-Bixler invites us to consider the question, "why do we come to church every Sunday?" as she preaches on Isaiah's message about idols. Isaiah mocks the idols of Israel's former conquerors, now laid low and unable to even help themselves from falling over. In last week's sermon, Melissa stated that we become what we cho…

Isaiah 11: 1-9 Melissa Florer-Bixler preaches on Isaiah's vision of the lion laying down with the lamb and reminds us, rather appropriately on World Communion Sunday, to consider more deeply in that context how we address the multitude of intractable conflicts occurring throughout the world. Naturally, we cannot rely on willpower alone to overcome …

Isaiah 9: 1-7 Merry Christmas everyone! We know it's only September, but Raleigh Mennonite Church took a moment this Sunday to sing Christmas carols and reflect on the birth of Christ during a season far less busy and distracting than the end of December. Melissa Florer-Bixler's sermon reminds us to take time and examine the coming of Jesus, made f…

Scriptures: Isaiah 2:1-11, Matthew 5:1-12 Melissa continues her sermon series, Hope in a Time of Fear, focusing on the book of Isaiah. As we're drawing closer to the election, what does hope look like for followers of Jesus? The people who heard Jesus' sermon on the mount may have been thinking about Isaiah's words when they heard Jesus speak. They…

Scripture: Isaiah 1:1-3, 11-20 Our world is not well. Our politics are not well. Our land and our oceans and our air is not well. We may be anxious. About the future, about elections, about what comes next for you and your family. So this series based on Isaiah will spend time with people who are in the middle of political and social and personal c…

In this last of Melissa's three-part series on Jesus' teaching on bread, the scripture was from John 6:56-59. As we eat this bread, this Jesus, we see God's life growing and healing us. We become a people; a people that believe that we love our neighbors as ourselves. We become a people who refuse to look away from suffering. We become a people who…

Melissa continues her three-part series on Jesus' discourse about bread. The bread of life, as Jesus talks about it in John 6:51-58, isn't a pill you swallow or compass giving directions. It's a feast that you get into. It's messy and visceral and fleshy. Jesus wants to get into our lives and become a part of us. Jesus wants to give us life and giv…