Haverhill Commons Church

Rome valued strength because strength was power. If you have enough power, in the form of money, or physical strength, or military might—then you can make people do what you want them to do. God has infinitely more power than we do. God has unimaginable strength, unlimited resources, unbridled authority. God could order and rule the world by force.  But even all God’s power can't make hearts respo...

Maybe you feel like you’re alone making major decisions or struggling through transitions, changes, and challenges. And if so, you might wonder, “Where is God?” Is God on the sidelines, judging how well you’re doing or does God jump in and do it all for us? God cares about this world and God has chosen to change individual people, to give them life by the Holy Spirit, so that as God’s people, the...

That morning, the women who had witnessed Jesus’ death and burial came to tomb. They came needing to grieve and express their love for him. They needed a tangible way to embody the deepest loss they’d ever experienced. This is their lament; it’s the funeral they’re holding for Jesus.  They see the stone has been rolled away and an angel appears and says “Do not be afraid.” Then the angel commissio...

We’ve all been in situations where we’re somewhere in the middle of our journey, trying to find the strength to keep going, but we’re so weary that we don’t know what else to do but give up. In the poetry of Lamentations 5, Israel finds itself somewhere in the middle of their own journey, collapsed on their own mountain, exhausted, depleted, ready to give up.  Lament is a gift. In a way, lament is...

The road to restoration and healing is long, there can come a point where we feel like we don’t have the strength to continue. The Israelites have good reason to be feeling exhausted and defeated. They’ve lost everything they once knew. Ironically, the prophet Jeremiah warned the people that their greed would be their downfall. Their desire for the luxuries and delicacies that come with wealth and...

We love it when things are simple, when there’s a straight line between cause and effect. We’re conditioned to reduce the complexity of life down to things we can understand. But reality isn’t straight-forward. Of all the chapters of Lamentations, this one, chapter 3, is the messiest. It’s all over the place. A tone of remorse will shift to anger will shift to assurance. Sometimes the poet is talk...

We all want to be protected. We want to know that if disaster strikes, we’ll still be okay, that someone will have our back, defend us and protect us. Sometime it can work too well.  When we hide behind our walls, we might come to view everyone on the other side our enemy, afraid that they might get in and take, or ruin, what we have. Jesus could have established an earthly kingdom or endorsed a l...

Sometimes we open scripture expecting it to be a photograph and to read as if every single word is “true” in a really narrow sense. At times, it does communicate that way. Other times, the bible is more like an abstract painting than a photograph. It’s communicating something true and real through imagery and metaphor—something that is supposed to help us feel in response. Lamentations is poetry....

Has your world ever broken? If it has, what did you do? In 586 BCE, the Babylonian Empire, conquered all of what was left of Israel. Jerusalem, was destroyed, burned to the ground, along with the great temple that King Solomon had built.  It’s one thing to read about a death in an obituary. But the book of Lamentations is like going to the funeral and hearing the sobs and songs of an entire people...

Often when we’re turning to God with the question, “Now What?” it’s in response to some calamity or challenge. Our world falls apart, we get bad news, we’re faced with a difficult situation, a disagreement, a conflict, another troubling headline…we’re not sure what to do, so we turn to God and say, “Now What?” But there’s another way to approach the question, “Now what?” Instead of holding the bro...

This morning we’re asking, "Now What?” when we disagree. Acts 15 paints a picture of how we discern amidst disagreement and maybe even discern through disagreement—about what it looks like to learn, and live, the ways of God when we come to the table with different opinions. In our current moment, compromise is often viewed as a dirty word, a sign of weakness.  But in this passage, that’s exactly...

A rich, young, ruler asks Jesus, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” We know from the story he is exactly the kind of person you’d expect to inherit eternal life. So, why would he ask this of Jesus? Perhaps he knew he was missing something. Jesus says, “There is still one thing you haven’t done. Go and sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor—then come, follow me.” The man’s...

Gideon is a son of Joash from the tribe of Manasseh, one of Joseph’s two sons. He is beating the grain in a wine press, hiding his efforts from his enemy. It is here an angel appears to Gideon. He responds to the angel by asking why the Lord has forsaken the Midianites, his people. This is a feeling many of us can resonate with. Whether in times of personal tragedy, financial ruin, torn apart fami...

1 Samuel 16 opens with the Lord instructing Samuel to go out and search for a king to replace Saul. Samuel arranged to meet the sons of a man named Jesse. The eldest son Eliab stepped up, and Samuel was impressed: ”Surely, this is the guy.” Strong, tall, overall good looking. But Eliab was not the guy. The Lord said to Samuel, “Don’t judge by appearance or height, for I have rejected him. And then...

How well are we hearing from God?  Every day is full of choices. Does God guide our every step or does God leave it up to us? And if God is nudging us down one path instead of another, how are we to know? How do we hear the voice of God? In 1 Samuel, when God reaches out to him, he hears it. He’s open and available, but he doesn’t recognize God’s voice until the more experienced Eli tells him it’s...

Most of us probably know the feeling that accompanies the expression, “When it rains, it pours…” This feeling was not lost on the apostle Paul as he penned his second letter to the Corinthians. Paul had been through it. He’d been in prison, severely flogged, and exposed to death again and again. He spent a night and a day in the open sea. He was in danger in the city, in the country, and at sea. H...

For the past month we’ve been looking at the hope we have because of Christmas. Stronger than a wish. Deeper than good vibes. Tougher than “thoughts and prayers”. The hope we have as followers of Christ is like that, strong and tough. It’s strong because it’s anchored in the one whose life and death holds the weight of our salvation, the world’s restoration. Our hope is tough because of the way Go...

The writer of the Gospel of Matthew doesn’t tell us much about exactly who the wise men are or where exactly they’re from. These Magi were not Jewish. So, they had not been waiting around for over 400 years to hear from God, like the Israelites had been. But it seems they had done enough research to know that the star they saw rising in the sky wasn’t just any old star. It awakened hope in their h...

Some religious traditions teach that we suffer because we have desires. If we want to avoid suffering, we should eliminate our desires. Stop longing, stop wanting, stop hoping. A lot of people think that not caring is the smarter way. If caring hurts, and hurting is bad, then maybe it’s better not to care. If we don’t care, we don’t hurt. What have you stopped caring about? Where in your life have...

Many of us are familiar with Charles Dickens’ short story, a Christmas Carol. The story centers on Ebenezer Scrooge, a wealthy, grumpy old man. Every time someone says “Merry Christmas,” Scrooge replies “humbug.” In other words, “Liar, that’s fake!” To Scrooge, things aren’t merry. Scrooge thought Christmas was a lie and maybe we’ve got a little Scrooge in us. In Luke 2, the shepherds are invited...

What does it look like to have hope in a world that doesn’t always feel hopeful? Advent reminds us that we’re invited to hope in what God has done and what God is going to do. But hope is often hard to find, misplaced, or misunderstood. Hope is one of those gritty, active, deep words that culturally we’ve gutted. Too often, we’re sold a shallow version of something rich and beautiful. There’s a wh...

The implication of the words “deliver us from the evil one” is that Christ’s followers were facing a severe and pressing danger. To combat such evil, it might be tempting to pick up a sword, or a gun, but here’s the problem: swords only work against human beings. Paul says that our fight is not against flesh and blood, not against human beings, but against the powers and principalities. And swords...

According to the World Health Organization, more than 90% of human beings live in places where we breathe contaminated air. That dirty air gets into our bodies and the consequences are terrible. Respiratory problems are the second most common cause of death worldwide. We can’t see it, but air pollution is out there—and then it gets in here—and it’s killing us.  Which reminds me a lot of the insidi...

What does it mean to pray “forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us?” And what does it mean to pray “forgive us our debts, as we have forgiven those who owe us something?” The story of Zacchaeus, a despised, traitorous tax collector, shows us that this clause of the Lord’s Prayer is about what forgiveness does to us and for those around us. While we don’t know exactly what...

Today, the verbs change. The first half of the Lord’s Prayer reminds us that God is a good father who loves us, that God’s kingdom is good, and that God’s is trustworthy. Our requests of God come after, and in the context of, a trusting relationship with God. But now, we get three direct, second person appeals: “please give us,” “please forgive us,” and “please rescue us.” So, when we pray, “Give...