West End UMC Podcast Audio Podcast

This is Easter Sunday. The scripture is the Matthean account of the women arriving at the tomb to be met by an angel and then by the risen Jesus. Having been in “a Good Friday place” for several weeks now from our community’s sorrow, and having preached on “my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” in a Good Friday service, Carol confessed to having felt lost as late as yesterday. From this text...

This is Good Friday, and it comes at a time when in Nashville we have had a school shooting and a legislative session in which two legislators were expelled. Rev. Erin Racine delivers the message, and in the midst of all of this heaviness, she heard the familiar line from the Christmas carol, “The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.” That carol celebrates the birth of the red...

This is Maundy Thursday, the service a reflection and remembrance of the Last Supper as we, too, take communion. The scripture from John is of Jesus washing the feet of the disciples at that final dinner. Delivering the Meditation at the service is the Rev. Maggie Jarrell, Pastor of Children and Families. She gives her own experience with dirty feet from camp, and she points out that in the Gospel...

This is Palm Sunday. For Lent we are pausing reading the Bible beginning to end and are exploring a theme of Encounters with Jesus in the Gospel of John. In today’s scripture, Jesus and Pilate are face to face. Pilate leaves the encounter several times to consult with the high priest, both Pilate and the high priest representing earthly power to which they see Jesus as a threat. Jesus says his pow...

For Lent we are pausing reading the Bible beginning to end and are exploring a theme of Encounters with Jesus in the Gospel of John. In today’s scripture, the encounter is with his friends, Mary and Martha, and their brother, Lazarus. Although we don’t often think of people who might be friends of him, rather than disciples or followers, Jesus is clearly friends with these three siblings. When he...

During Lent 2023, we invite you to pause in the middle of your week to contemplate the scriptures. In each week’s podcast, we will listen as Jesus has a one-on-one conversation with someone. This guided meditation will help you place yourself in the conversation and ponder what Jesus might be saying to you or asking of you in the text. Take a few moments, find a comfortable, quiet place, and open...

For Lent we are pausing reading the Bible beginning to end and are exploring a theme of Encounters with Jesus in the Gospel of John. In today’s scripture, the encounter is with a beggar who has been blind from birth. Jesus heals him. But in this chapter of John, there seem to be six scenes in which Jesus only appears in the first and last scenes. Other scenes show the Pharisees trying to figure ou...

During Lent 2023, we invite you to pause in the middle of your week to contemplate the scriptures. In each week’s podcast, we will listen as Jesus has a one-on-one conversation with someone. This guided meditation will help you place yourself in the conversation and ponder what Jesus might be saying to you or asking of you in the text. Take a few moments, find a comfortable, quiet place, and open...

We are pausing reading the Bible beginning to end for Lent and a theme of Encounters with Jesus. In today’s scripture, Jesus, traveling through Samaria, finds himself sitting at a well, tired and famished in the middle of the day, when a Samaritan woman approaches the well. It is a familiar story, but there are aspects of it that merit exploration. Traditionally, this woman who had been married fi...

During Lent 2023, we invite you to pause in the middle of your week to contemplate the scriptures. In each week’s podcast, we will listen as Jesus has a one-on-one conversation with someone. This guided meditation will help you place yourself in the conversation and ponder what Jesus might be saying to you or asking of you in the text. Take a few moments, find a comfortable, quiet place, and open...

We are pausing reading the Bible beginning to end for Lent and a theme of Encounters with Jesus. In today’s scripture, Jesus is approached by Nicodemus, described as a Pharisee and member of the Sanhedrin, a learned and respected member of the religious establishment. Other Pharisees have seen Jesus as a troublemaker and someone to be dealt with, but Nicodemus wants to find out about Jesus and app...

During Lent 2023, we invite you to pause in the middle of your week to contemplate the scriptures. In each week’s podcast, we will listen as Jesus has a one-on-one conversation with someone. This guided meditation will help you place yourself in the conversation and ponder what Jesus might be saying to you or asking of you in the text. Take a few moments, find a comfortable, quiet place, and open...

We are pausing reading the Bible beginning to end for Lent and a theme of Encounters with Jesus. Today’s scripture is the story of the temptations of Jesus at the end of his forty days of fasting in the wilderness. The tempter appears and first tempts Jesus with food – turn these stones into bread. The Rev. Erin Racine says it then becomes a battle of scriptures, with the tempter quoting scripture...

In contrast to our Shrove Tuesday Jazz Mass, which is a celebratory service, on Ash Wednesday we turn our hearts and minds to the introspection and meditation of the Lenten season, using the sign of the cross in ashes on our foreheads as a symbol of that shift. The Rev. Carol Cavin-Dillon gives the homily, “To Show or Not To Show,” initially asking whether when we leave the service we will wipe th...

This is our annual Shrove Tuesday Jazz Mass, a celebration through worship on the eve of Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent. As a story in the contrasts of the joy of Shrove Tuesday and the introspection of Ash Wednesday and Lent, in her meditation, Rev. Stacey Harwell-Dye uses a passage from Habakkuk to illustrate the severe trauma and ills the ancients faced contrasted with the sheer joy of...

We continue reading the Bible with a passage from Numbers right after the Hebrews have received word from the spies who went to check out the land of Canaan. They have already been to Sinai to receive the law and instructions, have been fed manna in the desert, and have been led by the pillars of cloud and fire. But when most of the spies report that the people in the land are big and cannot be co...

We continue reading the Bible with a passage from Leviticus that lays out the ritual for the Day of Atonement. Carol gives some background for Leviticus with the freed Hebrews wandering in the wilderness for a generation, while God, through Moses, leads them and gives them the laws and rules for living. On the Day of Atonement, the people come together to lay out all their sins for this ritual of...

We continue reading the Bible with a passage from Exodus 33 wherein Moses and God are conversing, and Moses asks God for reassurances about the mission God has directed him to do. Moses asks to see God’s “glory,” and God hides him in a crevice and passes before him, not allowing Moses to see God’s face. The Rev. Dr. Derek Weber, Director of Preaching Ministries in United Methodism’s Discipleship M...

We continue reading the Bible with a passage from Exodus, the familiar story of Moses and the burning bush. Although, according to Genesis, the Israelites originally went to Egypt to seek relief from famine, they have since become enslaved. In this story, God calls Moses to be God’s representative to Pharaoh and free God’s people. Moses, however, is hesitant and offers several reasons he is not th...

We continue reading the Bible with our second Genesis reading today, the story of Joseph and his brothers, and their jealousy erupting in their throwing him into a pit. For us it prompts a study of “Shalom,” most often translated, “peace,” but meaning much more a complete state of well-being wherein everything is right with the family or with the world. It begins with the creation as “very good,”...

This year is the 150th anniversary of West End, and one of the things we’re doing is reading the entire Bible, selecting passages from beginning to end, for our Sunday scriptures. Today we begin with Genesis and the six days of creation as told in Genesis 1. That there are two creation stories (Genesis 1, then Genesis 2-3) points out that these stories are stories of faith and God’s relationship t...

This is that rare year when New Year’s Day occurs on a Sunday. Maggie Jarrell is preaching, and the familiar text is from Ecclesiastes 3 wherein the poet is musing about the opposites in life: a time to laugh, a time to cry. We know those feelings as expressed in our bulletin cover, “Life is so beautiful: Life is so hard.” To consider these opposites is appropriate for New Year’s Day when we are l...

This is that rare year when Christmas Day occurs on a Sunday. As we have cited the birth narratives in Luke and Matthew in the two Christmas Eve services, now is the time to celebrate the joy of the arrival of the baby. The scripture is from the first chapter of John, those familiar and mysterious verses about “the Word” and its identification with God. “The Word” is described as life, the light s...

This is our traditional Christmas Eve Service, late on Christmas Eve, the end of the Advent period of waiting. The four Advent candles have been lit through the season, and at the end of this service the Christ candle is lit. The gospel reading, Luke 2.1-20, is read from the midst of the congregation rather than from the lectern, and Senior Minister Carol Cavin-Dillon’s Communion Meditation focuse...

This service is designed for the longest night of the year, the Winter Solstice, and it speaks to any who are feeling lost, stressed, grieved. In this context, Rev. Erin Racine delivers the “Words of Hope,” stemming from Psalm 91, which addresses the kinds of lost-ness many are experiencing by assuring, with numerous expressions, God’s protection. Erin talks about loss, but also about the ever-pre...