Speaker: Rev. CJ Valenti

This Sunday our texts are about sabbath. Rest is meant for the welfare of all. In our gospel story, Jesus reminds us that well intentioned laws might need to be broken from time to time in order to make space for God’s wide love.  Accompanying Scripture:Psalm 81:1-10, Deuteronomy 5:12-15, Mark 2:23-3:6 

Fifty days after Easter, we celebrate the birthday of the church! Crossing all boundaries that would separate us, the Spirit brings the wideness of God’s mercy to places we least expect it—to a crowd of strangers of different lands and tongues, to a valley of deeply dry bones and to our messy hearts. Today we…

On this sixth Sunday of Easter as we bring worms with us to church, we celebrate spring and our connection with God’s good earth. Being a person of faith is not just something we do on Sundays, but it is something that follows us out into the real world – as we wash dishes, as we…

On this third Sunday of Easter, we are filled with images of real life – joyful hearts, peaceful sleep and eating together. In this season of Easter we celebrate we are proclaimed beloved children of God for this is who we are. Resurrection sometimes shows up in the most mundane simple things.  Accompanying Scripture:John 3:1-7,…

The season of Easter continues as we get a glimpse of the early church in Acts, how they shared everything and everyone had what they needed. In the gospel, we encounter how the risen Jesus greets the frightened disciples behind locked doors. He meets Thomas’s doubts and proclaims a word of peace. In this season,…

Christ is risen! Jesus is alive, and God has swallowed up death forever. With Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome, we may feel astonished and confused, unsure of what to make of the empty tomb. But this is why we gather: to proclaim, witness, praise, and affirm the liberating reality of Christ’s…

On this night we begin the Three Days during which we participate once again in the saving power of Jesus’ passing over from death into life. The Maundy Thursday service includes the words of Jesus’ new commandment (mandatum, from which Maundy comes) to love one another. On this night in which Jesus was handed over…

On this fifth Sunday of Lent we get one last covenant – a promise that God will be as close to us as a tattoo on our hearts. The psalm is a nod back to Ash Wednesday and an ask to create in us clean hearts. As we prepare our hearts to face the horror…

Through our texts today, we are invited to lift up the things that scare and afflict us the most – snakes, sin and even death. In doing so, we remember God asks us not to lift these things up to condemn us but to save and heal us. What would it look like to be…

The third covenant in this year’s Lenten readings is the central one of Israel’s history: the gift of the law to those God freed from slavery. The commandments begin with the statement that because God alone has freed us from the powers that oppressed us, we are to let nothing else claim first place in…