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Creating Home
Long influenced by Yale theology professor Willie James Jennings, Frank Scoffield Nellessen spoke about God creating home: a place of safety, of love, of belonging, where we could provide for and take care of one another, get to know one another: a place of life. For “to be a creature is fundamentally to be a…
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Ephphatha, Open Up
Sam Bills was drawn to Jesus’ healing of a deaf and mute man — restoring him to community. It offers a gospel of hope, healing, hearing, restoration and expanded understanding for himself and for our community — all expressed in the word ephphatha, open up. But this is the second story of healing in our…
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When Customs Become Harmful
Tim addresses Mark 7:1-23, where the Pharisees come to Jesus asking why his disciples don’t practice ritual hand washing before meals. Jesus doesn’t get upset that the Pharisees are obsessively following laws, but because they are not sticking closely enough to the law. Their traditions are getting in the way of God’s commandments. The intent…
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The Truth of Redemptive Love
Lisa Thornton begins her encounter with Ephesians 6:10-20 by suggesting we do a google image search on “armor of God,” and see the resulting images of battle armor. This makes sense in the world we live in today. Paul, the author of Ephesians, uses this imagery because it was familiar to his readers; and though…
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Journeying with Thanksgiving and Lament
Midway between gen X and millennials, Tim identifies more with a micro-generation: “the Oregon Trail generation.” This is the final generation with an analog childhood and an adolescence marked by a seismic shift to a digital world. Tim compares the slowness of the Oregon Trail game with the pressures of covid. In Ephesians this week,…
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One Body
Melissa Spolar spoke about venturing out after improvements in COVID care post-vaccine. She participated in two mud & obstacle races. The first, “Tough Mudder,” was presented with teamwork as the spirit of the event. Next, a Spartan Race, was based on self-challenge, success and competition. Feeling covid isolation from church community, Melissa approached Ephesians 4:1-16…
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Reflections on Bathsheba and David
Lauren Murtidjaja tackles this passage that we’re almost too familiar with. Yet scripture is living, moving, breathing — so Lauren jumps in to share observations from her encounter with the text. What hasn’t been said about this story? Why is David not at battle with his troops as a King should be? David catches sight…
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Building the Temple
Tim Reardon contrasts a monument to the Egyptian pharoah Ramses II o the temple that God would build from the time of David through to the time of Christ. The poem, Ozymandias, is a comment on a monument to fallen power — a call to fear. Paul’s description of the temple of God’s people built…
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Three Flags
Jason Timothy Smith deftly weaves together the symbols of our nation’s history, the art and life of Jasper Johns, the call of Ezekial as prophet to the nations of Israel in Ezekiel 2:1-5, and above all — the mercy of Jesus. See and hear as Jason calls us toward that mercy.
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Taking Up Branches
A sighting of bald grapevines led Tim Reardon to look into viticulture — both now and in Jesus’ time. What he learned shed new light for him on Jesus’ parable of the vine in John 15. He learned that there is a source vine — a trustworthy root. And next that there are two types…
Pasadena Mennonite Church 