Haverhill Commons Church

When asked to sum up all the commandments into one, Jesus says, “You will or you shall love the Lord your God, with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.”  And the second is like it, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”   The word Mark uses here is the Greek word agape.  Agape is different than say romantic love, affection, or friendship.  Agape is less of a feeling and more a state of the will. ...

What’s the one thing that made Jesus mad? Like, really mad. As Jesus enters Jerusalem, he sees their magnificent temple and passed through its fortified walls. The place is bustling, but Jesus sees through it all, claiming the temple had become a den, a home, an assumed place of comfort, for those who were not living their lives in a way that reflected God’s glory.  Tragically, the church, instead...

In Mark 10, James and John, approach Jesus with a bold request, “Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory.”  In the ancient world, the person on the right of the king was the second in command. The person at the left was a dear, intimate friend. Just make us the two most important and most powerful people in your kingdom.  The disciples knew what it felt like to be...

Our community believes God cares deeply for kids who need homes. We partner with Fostering Hope to care for children in vulnerable circumstances. Their founder and director, Jonathan Reid, shared with us this Sunday. We also heard from one of our own members serving on a Care Team. The God who is high above all things bends His power toward the powerless: the fatherless, the widow, the sojourner,...

What does it mean when we say we believe in something? The Cambridge Dictionary defines believing as “thinking that something is true, correct, or real”. We believe in things all the time, but what happens when things don’t go the way we believe they will? Whether it’s simple like sleeping through an alarm we believed would wake us up or looking at the chaos and injustice in the world around us an...

A group of children are brought to Jesus so that he would bless them.  Unfortunately, the disciples rebuked the adults who had brought them.  When Jesus saw this, he was indignant and he said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.  Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never...

Runner’s often experience something known as a runner’s high. At the exact moment you’re not sure you can keep going, you get a second wind. Even though you’re still running, your heart rate drops and your breathing stabilizes. It’s like you’ve tapped into a hidden source of unlimited energy and you can keep going.  The Transfiguration was like that for the disciples. They saw Jesus transformed. H...

Psalm 91 is not a psalm about domination, conquest, control, or certainty. It is about shelter, refuge, dwelling, and connection. It assumes that danger is real and that what we as human beings need most in this world is not rugged independence but presence and connection. Or, to use a more modern phrase, humans need secure attachment. When we call, God answers. When trouble comes, God responds. W...

This year, 54% of Americans report feeling lonely. Being around people doesn’t always help. We can be in a crowded plane, classroom, or church, and still feel alone. We can be at a work party with colleagues and friends and still feel unseen. We can be gathered around a dinner table with our own families and still feel misunderstood. But the miracle we’ve gathered to remember this Christmas Eve is...

Have you ever noticed that when it's very dark, noises sound louder? Or that it’s harder to tell what’s real and what isn’t? That’s our brain trying to keep us safe by increasing our fear. And when we say things are “dark” we don’t always mean a dark room or the darkness of night. Sometimes the whole world feels shrouded in a kind of gloomy darkness. When we find ourselves in the darkness, even if...

Human beings are highly resistant to change. Change often involves embracing an unknown future and often, we fear what we don’t know and therefore, we fear change. When we fear change it becomes hard to move on from a miserable job or end an unhealthy relationship. We refuse to loosen our control over our children as they grow. God appears to Moses in the burning bush as change itself. A fire—the...

One of the things that gets lost in the coming of Jesus is the fact that the people of God had been waiting a long time for a Messiah. We’re not talking about waiting for Christmas morning to come again… we’re talking about waiting hundreds of years. How much longer could the people of God cling to the dim light of promises written hundreds, probably a thousand years prior?  How long until they be...

Variations of “do not fear”, “do not be afraid”, and “fear not” appear more than 100 times in the pages of scripture—it’s clearly something that God wants to address, and it’s clearly one of the things we’ll struggle with most in life.   We live in a world that pours fuel on our anxieties so that we stay in a state of perpetual fear. What should be healthy, helpful fears can grow into a gigantic s...

Mark structured the first half of his gospel so that we would arrive at this moment of truth. The disciples have seen and heard enough. They should be able to answer the question that Jesus posed to them. “Who do people say that I am?” Peter had been taught that the Messiah would be a royal figure, the offspring of King David, whom God would empower to deliver Israel from her enemies. The Messiah...

When you think about your life and the ways you move through the world, would you say that you see yourself as the main character? If so, what does that mean for how you view those around you? Are you so focused on your own chances to stand in the spotlight that you forget to shine a light on the needs of others? Or do you relegate yourself to the role of background character in everyone else’s li...

It’s easier to claim to be virtuous, than be virtuous. It’s easier to talk the talk than walk the walk. And that's what Jesus was talking about in this passage—the discrepancy between what we project on the outside and what’s actually going on in our hearts. Jesus was highlighting one of the big problems with rules that govern external behavior. It gives you, and everyone around you, the feeling t...

Wealthy people, poor people, kids, adults, progressives, conservatives… we all get hungry. Using their stomachs as a common denominator, Jesus was teaching them that their needs united them in solidarity with every other person. And if we can see that what another person needs is the same thing that we need, it has the power to awaken our compassion for that person. Recognizing our common humanity...

We like to suppose we control of our lives, but if you’ve ever found yourself outdoors in a storm, you realize just how small and helpless we really are—completely at the mercy of a storm so much bigger and more powerful than anything we can handle. This story is also about a storm, but it’s a storm raging inside of a person. This man in Mark 5 lived among the tombs, possessed by demons. We don’t...

Sometimes the stories we tell ourselves can get in the way of what is actually possible. We sometimes assume our problems are not big enough compared to what else is happening in the world.  Or, we may believe we're not worthy or deserving of God's love and care.  Maybe you think if you're honest about what you've been struggling with others will judge you or think you're weak. These kinds of stor...

What is a parable? Parables are stories thrown alongside real life to illustrate or explain something. It’s a story with a lesson, a creative way to make a point, a mirror to help us see ourselves more clearly.  At the end of chapter 4 Jesus says the Kingdom of God is like a farmer who scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, while he’s asleep or awake, the seed sprouts and grows, but he does n...

According to Jesus’ family, he was, “out of his mind”, beside himself, not seeing things clearly. The religious leaders also thought he was “out of his mind” and were threatened by ruling breaking and challenges to their authority. The two groups of people who should have been the most on board with Jesus, the religious leaders and his own family, wanted to stop him. Whether out of fear or pride,...

In his gospel, Mark is purposefully stringing seemingly random and unrelated stories together and in doing so, invites us into the interpretive process.  He wants us to not examine these stories in isolation but in relationship to one another to see for ourselves the bigger picture he is painting.  This bigger picture of course is a picture of Jesus, who he was, what he did, how he did it, and why...

In Mark chapter 1, Jesus is a disruptor. He’s not merely tweaking the system, he’s re-writing it, stirring the pot, unsettling the status quo. It’s clear here that Jesus has authority to restore not just one aspect of our brokenness but every aspect. We see him healing bodies. Restoring spirits. Bringing people back into community. Upending systems of exclusion. Terrifying those who benefit from t...

In the first chapter of Mark’s gospel, Mark declares, that Jesus is the gospel, or in every day English, the good news. The word “gospel” is that the Romans, the ones who ruled Judea in the time of Jesus, had already been using that same word for years.  In the Roman world, when they pronounced a gospel, messengers were sent throughout the empire to share the “good news” that a new Roman Emperor h...

Though the Israelites had been delivered from Egypt, Pharaoh’s economy of never-ending work, greed, and oppression had formed and patterned their relationship to work. We live in economy like that of Pharaoh’s—an economy governed by the almighty dollar and not by generosity, justice, and mercy. In Isaiah 65, we see God’s hopes for our work. Work is meant for our good and for the common good.  As w...