This year more than any other in recent memory reminds us that life can sometimes go sideways, and the unimaginable thing happens. Yet sometimes that unimaginable thing can be not just negative, but also beyond our most hopeful, joyful dreams. We use the story of so called “Doubting Thomas” after Jesus’ resurrection to think about how God unravels us in the face of these positive things that we could never have imagined.

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PART 1 (audio file of reading and sermon)

PART 2 of VIDEO WITH COMMUNION

This second to last week of our summer sermon series looks closely at one of our most universal human problems: the problem of suffering. What does it mean? Why does it happen? Why me? Why them? Where is God in all this? These questions are centered in the book of Job, when a righteous man and his friends seek understanding in the midst of Job’s whole world falling apart around him. Join us in the conversation.

LINK TO VIDEO ON YOUTUBE HERE

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This week explores when our very minds unravel. We are living in a time of pandemic when over a third of Americans are experiencing depression and anxiety; a time when isolation and decision fatigue and wrestling with painful unjust history has upended our sense of anything being normal. What can we learn from Jesus’ approach to people whose minds have been unraveled? How does Jesus’ care for us compare to the judgment of a world full of stigma and shame?

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This week we take a look at the earliest stories of Moses (liberator for his whole people) and consider how he came into this world; how unlikely people looked out for him despite the danger he was in. His childhood was nothing his parents could ever have planned for him or dreamed for him. In these ever-changing times, how do we deal with the fact that all our plans for our young people are being unraveled before our eyes? Could something better be in store? When we lose control, does God still have a plan for them and for our collective future?

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This sermon explores how each of us wrestles with shame in our lives, and what faith has to do with that struggle. Shame is different from guilt, and connects more to our core identity. How can stories like Jesus with the Samaritan woman help us to recover our own true sense of self? All that we were meant to be?

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