Sermons by Matt Smith
One Heart and Mind
Our four-week worship series in April holds readings from the Book of Acts alongside our hopes for creating community which is rooted in the ways of the Risen One for today. This morning’s worship is rooted in Acts 4. Amid threats from those in positions to judge, the early followers of Creator Sets Free (Jesus) turned to prayer and found a boldness born through intimacy with one another and the Spirit of God in their midst. They disciples came to…
Death Defeated & Life Returned
Our four-week worship series in April holds readings from the Book of Acts alongside our hopes for creating community which is rooted in the ways of the Risen One for today. This morning’s worship is rooted in Acts 4 and the experience of resurrection’s defeat of death and restoring of life. Worship online with thetable.live. CCLI #805699 / CCLI Streaming #094804
Easter
Our Easter worship celebrations are rooted in the account of resurrection from Mark’s Gospel. The women found the stone rolled away from the burial cave on that first Easter morning. Terror and amazement covered their bodies like a blanket; leaving them in silence. The faithful silence of the women creates space for the mystery and power of God’s presence to resound. Resurrection doesn’t just pull back the lid from an ancient tomb in Israel or uncover a single grave stone…
Action Verbs
CLIMATE + FAITH: A Lenten worship series at The Table on how we can help meet the greatest challenge in human history. We turn this week to Mark 11:1-11 and Palm Sunday. How does thinking about palm branches as a link to the exodus story, and “Hosanna” as meaning “Save us, we pray!”, change your experience of Palm Sunday? How does it enrich your experience of the movement for a healthy climate? Worship online with thetable.live. CCLI #805699 / CCLI…
Talking the Walk
CLIMATE + FAITH: A Lenten worship series at The Table on how we can help meet the greatest challenge in human history. We turn this week to John 3.14-21 and wonder about how the tendency by imperial Christianity to lift the single verse — John 3.16 — out of context might be reconsidered in light of it’s very context. How might the biblical stories alluded to by John 3, help us to listen more deeply to the stories of our…
Messiah Paradox
CLIMATE + FAITH: A Lenten worship series at The Table on how we can help meet the greatest challenge in human history. In virtually every transformative movement in human history – the abolitionist movement against slavery, the Civil Rights Movement in the United States, the movements for women’s suffrage, labor protections, dismantling apartheid in South Africa, the list goes on – in each of these cases, people of faith have been at the center of the action. Catalysts. Laborers. Visionaries.…
From Ashes, We Rise
CLIMATE + FAITH: A Lenten worship series at The Table on how we can help meet the greatest challenge in human history. In virtually every transformative movement in human history – the abolitionist movement against slavery, the Civil Rights Movement in the United States, the movements for women’s suffrage, labor protections, dismantling apartheid in South Africa, the list goes on – in each of these cases, people of faith have been at the center of the action. Catalysts. Laborers. Visionaries.…
The Couch of Transformation
Worship this Sunday holds the biblical account of transfiguration from Mark 9.2-9 in conversation with the recently released film called Freud’s Last Session. Instead of viewing the film from the posture of feeling compelled to take sides with either Freud or Lewis, we instead invite you to notice Freud’s couch of transformation. Worship online with thetable.live. CCLI #805699 / CCLI Streaming #094804
Celebration of Life for Alan Michael Logan
Celebration of Life for Alan Michael Logan
Taking God’s Love to Heart
Rev. Brian McLaren writes about “Radical Resilience” in this way, “Each of those words is important. The word “radical” means going to the root, going to the depths, going beneath the surface…. So, radical resilience means radical, deep attention to the deepest roots of resilience. “Resilience” is the capacity to withstand and recover from hardship or difficulty. It has to do with the ability to spring back into shape after you’ve been beaten down or knocked over or bent over.”…
Come and See
Worship is rooted in John 1.43-51. Rev. Dr. Audrey West writes, “Who would imagine that God’s anointed one could come from a place so distant from the center of power? A messiah from Nazareth, in Galilee?! Inconceivable! … Whatever the genesis of Nathanael’s opinion, neither Jesus nor Philip argues with him. Instead, Jesus remains nearby and Philip simply invites Nathanael to ‘come and see;—apparently, not a bad evangelism strategy.” Worship invites us to wonder about who invited us to “Come…
We make room
Luke’s Gospel tells us that when Mary gives birth to Jesus, she lays him in a manger, for there was no place for them in the guest room. Scholars argue about where, exactly, the birth occurs—and why. Was it in a stable or the living room of a simple peasant home? Was Bethlehem teeming with visitors who were also there to be counted in the census? Was Joseph’s family inhospitable because they disapproved of his marital situation? Regardless of where…