Sermons by Bob Rhodes (Page 11)
Risking Rejection
This is the fourth week of the season of Lent, and we continue our Worship series guided by Amy-Jill Levine’s Entering the Passion of Jesus: A Beginner’s Guide to Holy Week. The Scripture passage this week is the story of a woman anointing Jesus’ feet (or head depending on which Gospel you read). We may recall this story of a woman in its various forms. Perhaps we think of Mary as the one anointing as depicted below, or perhaps as…
Risking Challenge
This is the third week of the season of Lent, and we continue our Worship series guided by Amy-Jill Levine’s Entering the Passion of Jesus: A Beginner’s Guide to Holy Week. This week, we land on Tuesday of Holy Week with Jesus remaining in Jerusalem. Jesus spends the day teaching, and there are numerous exchanges where Jesus is challenged by the religious authorities or is challenged by them. Sometimes these challenges are subtle, and sometimes not. Each one seems to…
Risking Reputation
This is the first week of the season of Lent, and the first week of our new Worship series guided by Amy-Jill Levine’s Entering the Passion of Jesus: A Beginner’s Guide to Holy Week. This Sunday we begin with the first day of Holy Week, which brings the familiar scripture of Palm Sunday. The story of Jesus’ entry to the fanfare of the people is in all four of the Gospels, though each story varies slightly in its details. This…
Revelation & Apocalypse
This is the sixth week of our series on Reading the Bible Again, informed by Marcus Borg’s Reading the Bible Again for the First Time. As we worship online, let us continue to pray for our community as we respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. We near the end our conversation about how to read our Bibles, and this penultimate week in this series brings us to the book of Revelation. Many people of faith have a complicated relationship with these…
Gospels & Acts
This is the fifth week of our series on Reading the Bible Again, informed by Marcus Borg’s Reading the Bible Again for the First Time. As we worship online, let us continue to pray for our community as we respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. We continue our exploration with the core writings that help Christians claim their unique identity of faith: the Gospels and Acts. These five books share the “good news” of Jesus Christ with the world, telling age-old…
Letters & Epistles
This is the fourth week of our series on Reading the Bible Again, informed by Marcus Borg’s Reading the Bible Again for the First Time. As we worship online, let us continue to pray for our community as we respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. We are jumping into the New Testament with the letters and epistles from Paul and other authors. The reason we are starting the New Testament here instead of with the Gospels is that many of these…
History & Law
This is the second week of our series on Reading the Bible Again, informed by Marcus Borg’s Reading the Bible Again for the First Time. As we worship online, let us continue to pray for our community as we respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. This week we move beyond the creation stories and into the story of Moses as the leader of the Exodus and the bringer of the Law. These narratives are told in the first five books of…
Epiphany & Creation
This is the first week of our series on Reading the Bible Again, informed by Marcus Borg’s Reading the Bible Again for the First Time. As we worship online, let us continue to pray for our community as we respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. This week combines the opening of the Gospel of John with the opening of the book of Genesis, both creation stories. On a Sunday that is traditionally understood as Epiphany Sunday, we explore the possibility of…
Lessons & Carols
It’s Christmas Eve! May the light of Emmanuel shine in us all. As we worship online, let us continue to pray for our community as we respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. Our traditional Christmas Eve service, live-streamed from our Sanctuary. The Christmas story is told through Scripture and song, and concludes with candle lighting. Scripture: Luke 1:26-35, 38; Matthew 1:18-25; Luke 2:1-20; John 1:1-14
Confusion & Wonder
This is the final week of our Extended Advent series, and the fourth week of a the 20th century Advent model. As we worship online, let us continue to pray for our community as we respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. This week’s worship gets into the good stuff! This week we really get into the familiar and exciting parts of the story! It’s almost Christmas and there’s just a little more online shopping to finish up!! But not everyone is…
Desperation & Hope
This is the sixth week of our Extended Advent series, and the third week of a the 20th century Advent model. Let us continue to pray for our community as we work to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. This week’s text jumps a bit from previous texts in this series. We started with Paul’s letters to the Thessalonians and Ephesians and then moved to Mark for two weeks. This week we jump to the Gospel of John with a text that…
Watching & Waiting
This is the fourth week of our Extended Advent series, and the first week of a the 20th century Advent model. This is also the first week of our in-person outdoor worship! When the Gospel of Mark was written, there must surely have been a sense of dread as upheaval and even violence were familiar occurrences. The end of all that was known must have felt immanent. The people must have been waiting for the straw to break the camel’s…