Sermons
Wrestling the Angel Thirteen Ways
21 So Jacob sent the gifts [to his brother Esau] ahead of him, but he spent that night in the camp. 22 Jacob got up during the night, took his two wives, his two women servants, and his eleven sons, and crossed the Jabbok River’s shallow water. 23 He took them and Read more…
Sermons
On Reconciling
Michelle Webster-Hein It is February, and everything is frozen, and all of our forays into homesteading have screeched to a halt. The sheep fencing sags at the last attempted corner. The little barn stands, still roofless, filling up with snow. The rabbit trench has toughened to a rigid scar. The Read more…
Sermons
God’s Demand for Reconciliation
These are intense and anxious times and we long for a sense of family and communal healing and cohesion. We struggle to know where, and how, to bring some sanity into our many broken relationships. A story is told about two warring congregations that were once were one. An intense Read more…
Repair
A Reparative Act
(Note: The audio version of this sermon includes sharing from the Dear White Christians book group: Ruth Shantz, Shelly Weaverdyck, Max Eckard, Laura Brubacher and Terri Friedline). There are many beginnings to this sermon, but no endings. Perhaps much of the Christian life is like this. We come into our Read more…
Sermons
Reconciliation and the Unreconcilable
God reconciles all things. That is our vision of the how the world goes, in a nutshell. But there are some things that are irreconcilable. Each of us could make our own list: murder, rape, abuse of children, dipping French fries in mayonnaise. There is a definitive category of actions Read more…
Sermons
Camels at Epiphany
I’ve mentioned before that one of the things that gives me hope for the new year is the election of Eli Savit as Washtenaw County Prosecutor. I enjoyed spending some time yesterday afternoon watching Eli and his Chief Assistant Prosecutor, Victoria Burton-Harris, being sworn in and attending a reception celebrating Read more…
Sermons
Sheep and Goats
There is an old story about a long one lane road. An Amish farmer and his friend were driving their horse and buggy along the road when they met a car driven by a cantankerous English man. The English man got out of his car and yelled at the Amish Read more…
Sermons
Tent Pegs and Political Change
Judges 4:1-9, 12-24 I want to take a moment, first, to revel in the beauty of a good revenge story. Here we have the King Jabin and his General Sisera. (This Jabin with a b, totally etimologically unrelated to our own Javan.) Together, Jabin and Sisera anchor an oppressive regime. Read more…
Sermons
For Justice In the U.S. Criminal Legal System
Elizabeth Reimer and Zack Begly, two Goshen College students who are advocating within the Mennonite Church for a greater engagement with mass incarceration and its impact in the U.S. wrote a proposed resolution for the 2021 Mennonite Convention–read it here–and discussed it with Shalom in this weeks message.