ReNew Ames Messages

People in the scientific community live into the theological themes of repentance and sanctification better than most religious people do. They live life and undergo authentic evolution all the time. They're able to let go of previously held beliefs about the world through the scientific method. In Paul's letter to the Galatians, he calls the Jewish church of Galatia out on their inconsistency in...

We're walking slowly through the story of Jesus appearing to the two disciples walking to Emmaus. They were talking about everything that had happened. That's a loaded four words. "Everything that had happened." They were there witnessing the previous week ending with the crucifixion of Jesus. Then they heard the reports that Jesus' body was missing, AND that he might be alive. That's a hard thing...

Here's a question given to us by Brian Zhand: did you ever notice that the gospel writers don't even attempt to describe the resurrection? They talk all about the crucifixion. But for the resurrection, there's just the announcement that it happened. Then he suggests that they couldn't describe it. Death belongs to the old age - we know all about death. But resurrection is from the New Creation. Th...

Sometimes we only see what we want to see. The people in the story saw Jesus as the one who was coming to liberate them from Roman oppression. That's why they were waving palm branches. They'd seen this play out in their history with Judas Maccabeus. Of course that's what they saw. But that's not who Jesus revealed himself to be. He was teacher - healer - nonviolent - etc. But we're not that much...

Raising of Lazarus - yeah, we're doing it again. So we've got a new spin. This is a hard story to wrap our heads around. It's a strange story that raises all sorts of questions that are difficult, if not impossible, to answer. So even though this is a confusing story - hard to understand - there is something we all can understand. Two words. Yup, a sermon on two words in a story about Jesus. Those...

The burning bush story! In the midst of being overwhelmed by the presence of God, facing a bush burning brightly and white-hot, Moses hides his face, and God speaks. 1 - We're all functionally blind, just like Moses. We have no idea what the future holds. But God sees. God sees reality for what it is - and God has a preferred future for all of us, a future with milk and honey. That doesn't mean it...

When a widow's son dies, Jesus sees the desperate situation she is now in and ministers to her needs. The miracle of the story is only one part of it. Understanding that this woman is not only grieving, but now in a place where she will have no one to support her is a heavy knowledge, one which Jesus does something about. People matter to God. Jesus had compassion and acted upon that compassion, e...

The clearing of the temple: Jesus disrupts our thinking. Causes us to ask questions. What are we doing here? He disrupts our thinking in two ways (more than two, but we only have time for two here). First, Jesus disrupts our thinking about the other. The system of exploitation that was set up blocking access to the divine in the temple made Jesus angry. The marginalized, the poor had no access to...

The story of the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness features three temptations. It's a pretty solid narrative structure, but it also can be applied to more general situations that we find ourselves in. First temptation is to go after short-term immediate gratification rather than trusting that God will provide what we need when we need it. We can have whatever we want whenever we want it withou...

Here we are again bumping up against this theme of crossing lines and boundaries. The reason we bring it up so often here is because we see Jesus doing this all over the pages of the Bible. He's constantly crossing lines and boundaries. And this story is no different - we'll notice all the lines and boundaries that mark off territory - and Jesus is inviting us to step out and learn that our line d...

There will be no better summary of this week's message than the closing paragraph: "That, friends, is why I love what we get to do here and why I don’t give up. We get to create a community that loves. We get to create a community where our doors are wide open just like Jesus’ arms. Anyone is welcome. Everyone is welcome. And we’ll do our best to provide the right type of atmosphere where all of u...

God invites us into conversation with God and one another through God's creation. The first chapter of Genesis has been interpreted in many ways, but the one that we are examining here is great and beautiful poetry. Through the building of the world in words and patterns of rhythm, we can be carried through the beauty before us and learn a whole lot about who God is and what God wants the world to...

So we've spent a couple of weeks looking at the beginning of the Jesus story. His baptism in Mark - Jesus leaving home and calling the first disciples in Matthew. Now, back to Mark just after Jesus had sent the disciples on a local mission trip. They get back from the trip and they're so excited to tell Jesus what they had accomplished that they talk all over each other. So, Jesus says, "Come away...

Leaving Nazareth. The story of Jesus leaving home to do his thing. What would cause a young guy, 30 years old, to leave his home, his family, his business? Maybe he remembered his baptism? Maybe he remembered the voice? Maybe he sensed that God was up to something new? He was beginning to sense that God's reign wasn't passive, but active, powerful, revolutionary. So, he began to talk about it. Pre...

The baptism of Jesus. Why is this story in the Bible? He didn't have followers yet - none of his disciples were there. So how did they know this story? Well, probably because this story was important to Jesus. He had a profound experience told the story to his followers over and over again. The story is in there because Jesus was fully gripped by the power of God's love. And because he was gripped...

Starting off the New Year with a doozie of a story! Ahab and Jezebel have a dude named Naboth murdered and then steal his land. Woo hoo. So, why are stories like these even in the Bible? Well, turns out we can learn from them. In this story we see that one thing leads to another. Greed leads to lying which leads to a whole bunch of other things that lead to murder. We learn that sin gives birth to...

The Word became flesh. So why does John tell the Christmas story this way? He's trying to reach as a large an audience as possible. He gives us cosmic Christmas. John used the word "word," or "logos" in Greek. This would have been a familiar concept for John's readers. The word, or logos, is the rational principle behind the entire universe - it gives the universe its reasonableness. You could say...

This is the story of John the Baptist wondering if Jesus was the Messiah or if they should wait for another. It's a curious story because you would think that J the B would know and be clear about this. He leaped in his mother's womb when Mary came to see his mom. He was there at Jesus' baptism. But he wasn't clear, because Jesus turned out to be a messiah no one was expecting. Jesus tells the del...

"He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion." Paul isn't just talking about what's going on in this little church. If you read the rest of the letter, he's placing what's going on in the Philippian church within the context of God renewing, recreating, and transforming all of creation. And we get to be in on it. So, how do we get in on it? Where do we start? That's where John t...

The beginning of Advent: Mary travels to stay with Elizabeth for the remaining duration of her pregnancy. So often the materialism and stressful factors of Christmas dominate our focus during this season. It is easier to see what stresses us out, what we could gain, what we could consume. But let us not lose sight of the journey towards the birth of Jesus. Enjoyable as some of these other aspects...

Jesus goes and preaches in his hometown. They're skeptical - they think they know everything about him - so they reject him. Sometimes the ordinary, the familiar, what we think we know can blind us to the extraordinary - can blind us to what God is doing in the world. God reveals things to us through the ordinary. That's a positive thing to think about, but it probably should also make us a bit un...

1) There's something about religiosity that can make us prone to being judgmental. But maybe it's more than that. Maybe it's part of the human condition - it's just in us. 2) The religious experts set a trap for Jesus and how he gets out of it. He essentially turns the whole trap back on them. In doing so, Jesus gives us the best antidote to religious judgmentalism: we're all in the same boat - we...

This is the second of Isaiah's Servant Songs. These songs reveal some things about the nature of God's servants - people like us. First, servants are called and formed for a purpose. We aren't an accident - we were formed by God and called for a purpose. Second, if we're called and formed for a purpose as servants, then we've got work to do. What kind of work? We see themes in this passage of rest...

This is a story that definitely fits in the horror genre. Demon possession, gore, violence, possessed pigs running off a cliff...it has it all. Because it has such heavy and disturbing themes, it's sometimes difficult to approach this story. We'll start with the question Jesus asks. "What is your name? Who are you, really?" It's a loving question - Jesus is approaching the man with compassion. Wha...

We were created in the image of God, in other words, we are icons representing God. When Jesus preached in the temple, he read from the passage that declares good news for the poor, proclaiming freedom for the prisoners, and recovery of sight for the blind. This reading of a proclamation of freedom and healing is one made by a king, and it was significant to the people listening, who would have un...