Seattle Mennonite Church Sermons

Visiting guest preacher Rachael Weasley shares about what her queer church plant is up to these days, and explores today's passage in a queer way. Sermon begins at minute marker 3:43. Scripture: ​​​​ Luke 7:36-50 Resources BibleWorm podcast: Episode 529 – Loving God and Neighbor , Amy Robertson and Robert Williamson, Jr https://bcmonline.org/ https://www.journeywithjesus.net/ Image: by Praful...

Fetus John the Baptist knew exactly who Jesus was, according to Luke. Adult John the Baptist sends emissaries to ask Jesus who he is. Jesus does not answer John’s question, but rather instructs the question-askers to simply report what they see and what they hear. It seems that, according to Jesus, his identity must be shown, enacted, embodied for it to be real. Similarly, our Anabaptist faith has...

Jesus sees a woman and is moved with compassion to respond. But what about all the other women, humans, creatures, who also needed his compassionate response??? And what about the root causes of her suffering - Shouldn’t he have fixed the systems instead??? Jesus sees a woman - really looks at her - and is moved to respond. May we who seek to follow Jesus do the same. May we, out of (legitimate!)...

Sabbath was to be the fountain around which the garden of all public life and policy grew in ancient Israel. On six days the people were to work, tending that garden, ensuring its health and growth and accessibility to all people, and on the seventh day they were to participate in the proper end and fulfillment of all work: reception of the fruits of perfect sanctuary. In rabbinic tradition, it is...

Three major commemorations converged last week: the birth of the Anabaptist movement, the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. (and the broader movement of which he was part, including our Anabaptist ancestors, Rosemarie and Vincent Harding), and the anniversary of the first national collective action of Mennonite Action. Thanks to the Pastoral Team for Mennonite Action, we notice a thread through thes...

There’s lots going on in this story from Luke, and also in this sermon from Pastor Megan, and also in the story of our Anabaptist roots, and also in the congregational life of Seattle Mennonite Church. It’s all a bit of a mess, to be quite frank. But at the heart of all four stories (the gospel, the sermon, the history, and SMC today) is baptism and the co-creation embedded in a covenant community...

When the writer of Luke’s gospel litters his stories with the names of politicians and references to their political maneuverings, we are meant to pay attention. When the tale of a 12-year-old Jesus choosing to remain in the temple occurs DURING THE PASSOVER… and IN JERUSALEM… we are meant to notice. It is, after all, bookended with the story Luke will tell at what turns out to be the very end of...

Since at least the 4th century, Simeon’s prayer has been among the last words spoken by Christians each night before the candles of evening prayer are extinguished. His words are the incense the church has sought to breathe while falling asleep and while lying in sleep for centuries: almost as if to say, how could we ever find rest in this world without clinging to our obscure certainty that even...

As we wait for God’s “Big L” Liberating Love to be fully realized, we are called to BE God’s love of ourselves, for one another, and for all creation. We enter the story of Mary, and then Mary with Elizabeth, to see how this love begets more love and eventually changes the whole world. Sermon begins at minute marker 5:41. Luke 1.26-56   Resources BibleWorm podcast: Episode 617 - The Annunciation o...

Advent is a home for our longing that is at once ancient and new every day. We join our longing for the full inbreaking of God’s justice, peace, and liberating love to the longing of our forebears in the faith. Like them, we continue to wait while also being called into embodying our hope. Not because the conditions seem optimistic, but - in the face of any and all circumstances, with broken heart...

Jesus equips the disciples with power and authority, and then sends them to their ministries with no bread, no staff, no money, not even an extra shirt - nothing. Why? As we prepare to release Tyler to his ministry as our Pastor of Faith Formation, and as we too are released to our individual and collective ministries in the world, what is the wisdom we might glean from Jesus’ approach with the di...

What does it mean to sing “Holy holy holy is God” NOT to God, but to one another? Might Isaiah’s magnificent and poetic imagery of the seraphim singing their praise of God’s holiness TO one another be received as an invitation to do the same? Sermon begins at minute marker 4:11   Scripture: ​​​​ Isaiah 6.1-8  Resources BibleWorm podcast: Episode 612 – Here I Am Send Me! , Amy Robertson and Robert...

Jonah sought to protect his own people when God’s compassion and mercy were to extend to the repentant beyond Israel’s borders. Fairness, justice and truth are to be balanced with compassion and mercy by God’s definition and ways rather than our limited vision of who is repentant, when and how. Universal Saving expands when our small actions, reflections and words join together in a chorus of abun...

What happens when a raven and a prophet form a little community of care? How about a Hebrew man and Phoenician widow - across religious and political divides? According to our storyteller, the needs of all are met, and the storyteller calls this God’s provision. Might this tale of unlikely dependencies be just the sort of good news we need in these tense and teetering days? Sermon begins at minute...

Solomon sets out to build a house for God, as people across time and place have done over and over again. But even in the dedication prayer, Solomon acknowledges that God cannot be contained by a building, regardless of size or grandness or even how delicious it smells. Just as Pastor Megan’s delicious-smelling cedar chest could never contain her bounty of beautiful quilts, so too Solomon’s cedar...

Whether in tents or temples, God is present and abiding with the Israelites and their descendants. God's living promise is a loving extensive, generational commitment/covenant among, between and with us just as we are: the only tabernacle God needs.  Sermon begins at minute marker 4:47. 2 Samuel 7:1-17 Resources BibleWorm podcast: Episode 608: I’ll Build You a House , Amy Robertson and Robert...

Hannah’s Song, often referred to as The Magnificat of the First Testament, is a collection of Hannah’s utopian dreams. She sings of a world where the bows of the warriors are broken and where God lifts the poor from the ash heap and sits them with princes. This sermon explores Hannah’s life and story, from which her dreams grew, and it follows the flow of Hannah’s dreamsong as it cascaded down thr...

The Hebrew people grow weary of their supposed leader leaving them behind, and - in Moses’ absence - they ask for a symbol to represent God? Replace God? Hold them together as a community in a very destabilized time? Unclear, but even as we seek to empathize with a people who long for SOMEthing to keep them together, God and Moses are nonetheless displeased. And set about bickering over whose peop...

A sermon about a 25 chapter novella, in three parts: 1) Joseph actually had an amazing technicolor princess dress , and isn’t that both telling and fabulous?! 2) Love unevenly distributed produces division, resentment, and - in this story - the hate-filled action of a band of brothers who traffic their beloved brother into slavery, and it’s that terrible?! 3) If (or when) you go through hell, don’...

Abram longs for a child that he believes God has denied him. God meets Abram in that specific need, but then leads him to a more expansive - even cosmic - view. This is a story that might be easier for aunties like me to understand: I absolutely don’t have one or two or three children. I either have zero children, or I have children that number the stars. I choose the latter, and in this story God...

We start a new Narrative Lectionary year at a very good place to start: In the beginning… We begin with the genesis of all things, and it doesn’t take long for everything to devolve into deception, messing up, shame, hiding from God, and scapegoating. If our ancient Hebrew forebears in the faith told this story because they - like us - knew their overwhelming capacity to screw up royally, then I t...

Join Keyan, Eden and Rita as they share stories of discernment in the last of our series. This summer we asked congregation members if they would be willing to share stories from their lives about moments of discernment. Sermon begins at minute marker 3:46 Job 12:7-10 Resources BibleWorm podcast  Rita's written text Image: Photo by Bakr Magrabi on pexels: https://www.pexels.com/photo/compass-...

Join us to hear personal stories of discernment from Ken and Beth Miller Kraybill. They share about times of transition and decision in their lives. Sermon begins at minute marker 5:00 Matthew 4:18-22 Resources BibleWorm podcast  Image: Photo by Neslihan A. on pexels.com https://www.pexels.com/photo/stairs-in-tunnel-16817922/ Hymn: Voices Together, 283 Lord, You Have Come to the Lakeshore Text: Sp...

Join us as Charlene Epp and Lauren Good share stories about times of discernment in their lives. This is the first part of a series. Each Sunday for a few weeks at least two people will share stories from their lives highlighting the ways they have discerned paths and truth. Talks begin at 5:54 1 Corinthians 12:12-27 Image  by Khanh Nguyen on pexels Hymn: Voices Together 568, Christ Has No Body He...

When we think we need to be in control of everything, we become anxious about our capacity to control.  Letting our sense of control go and trusting in God and the provision that God has offered seems so terribly hard. What happens when we lose track of the fact that we’re part of the magnificently interconnected system, and we begin to imagine that we can, or even that we must function on our own...