Continuing in the Fourth Gospel for our scripture, today’s reading is the familiar story of the feeding of the 5000, and this account emphasizes how miraculous it was. The writer of this gospel says, at the end, that he has written the accounts of seven signs of Jesus so that the reader may believe. In this story of the feeding of the 5000, we are …

In the Beginning – Today’s scripture is the familiar passage opening the Fourth Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word . . .” With those words we are celebrating Christmas in July to focus on the meaning of the birth of Jesus, the mystery of the incarnation. For Christmas proper we always rehearse the story of Mary, Joseph, and the birth of the bab…

Today’s scripture is from 2 Samuel in which David and his troops transport the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem. Preaching is Rev. Shannon Baxter, our Pastor of Congregational Connection, and he describes his family’s experiences with Nintendo Wii and how it helped with their joy and celebrating via dancing. In the text for today, at the end of uph…

As we continue to read from the Gospel of Mark, today’s reading offers an opportunity to talk about the development of his followers from disciples to apostles. The word, “disciple,” means one who learns, and we have seen many instances of followers learning from Jesus. In this passage Jesus is sending out the twelve apostles, two by two, and “apos…

As we continue to read from the Gospel of Mark, today’s reading includes two stories of Jesus healing, both somewhat unusual and different from each other. The gospel writer integrates them, setting one inside the other. A synagogue leader comes to Jesus, desperate, because his daughter is at the point of death. In the midst of that, a woman who ha…

The scripture for today from Mark is the familiar story when the disciples and Jesus are in a boat on the Sea of Galilee, and a storm hits. In this gospel, the disciples frequently seem to be thick headed and not understanding, but in this situation, their frustration seems more justified. This is, apparently, a terrible storm, and in the midst of …

From this week’s Vacation Bible School, the Children’s Moment, led by Minister of Children and Families, Maggie Jarrell, remembers and celebrates that. We have been working our way through the early parts of the Gospel of Mark, and today’s passage includes the very familiar parables of the seeds and the mustard seed. We live in an age when technolo…

Chosen Family – Rev. Will McLeane is preaching on a story in Mark 3 when Jesus comes to his home, and the crowd is oppressive. The multitudes are there for different reasons: some because of his powers of healing, some because of the words he has spoken, and some who see him as a false prophet and a threat to the status quo. His own family members …

Healing the Withered – The scripture for today is from Mark 3, a scene in which Jesus is being watched to see whether he will, on the sabbath, cure a man with a withered hand. He does, of course, heal the man. This man with the withered hand has likely been overlooked. A withered hand is easy to hide or overlook, and it may be that he wasn’t notice…

Born Into Love (Again) – This is Trinity Sunday, and the scripture from the Fourth Gospel is about the learned Pharisee Nicodemus coming to Jesus at night to ask a number of questions. Much as Nicodemus had questions, even as learned as we may be, we, too, can have questions, even about the concept of “The Trinity.” Although for centuries The Trini…

This is Pentecost Sunday and we are reading the account of the Holy Spirit coming in dramatic fashion to inhabit the disciples after the ascension of Jesus. The account is demonstrative of the power and work of the Holy Spirit as it acts in dramatic fashion, but not in random fashion. The participants are around 120 people, and there were surely di…

This is Ascension Sunday, the day we acknowledge and celebrate Jesus’ ascension to heaven after his crucifixion and resurrection. The text for today is from the opening verses of Acts, recording that ascension of Jesus. In some ways it is reminiscent of this season in our lives when there are graduations from high schools, colleges, and such, where…

Love Is the Way – Today we continue a post-Easter series of several weeks of focus on 1 John and the idea of love, that God loves us and that our response to that is to love God in return, but also to love others. This is also Confirmation Sunday when we present a dozen young people who have been through the confirmation process and are ready to be…

Love Casts Out Fear – Today we continue a post-Easter series of several weeks of focus on 1 John and the idea of love, that God loves us and that our response to that is to love God in return, but also to love others. There are numerous examples in our lives and in our day of fears. Even among some churches the incentive for believing in God is the…

Today we begin a post-Easter series of several weeks of focus on 1 John with some verses from chapter 3 that are centered on God’s love and how our love can be manifested in acts. Although the English word, “love,” can refer to a wide variety of emotions and acts, Greek has several different words that can be translated “love” – philos, eros, and a…

This is West End’s annual Youth Sunday when youth take on every role in the service, including all readings, music, and preaching. The two delivering the sermon(s) are Brazier Pierce and Mary Peacock, both of whom give their own experiences related to the scripture from Luke 24:36-48, where the disciples of Jesus, having seen him crucified, are sur…

Forgiveness Is Not What You Think – On the Second Sunday of Easter, our Congregational Care Intern, Dr. Tammy Lewis Wilborn, delivers the Communion Meditation, based on the passage from Genesis 45 where Joseph’s brothers have come to Egypt during the famine to seek food. Unbeknownst to them, he is the one from the Egyptian administration who meets …

Easter Sunday! The Gospel reading for our Easter service is the one from Mark’s Gospel (16.1-8). It is an odd and somewhat unsatisfactory ending to the story in that the three women who go to the tomb and are told that Jesus is risen and are then directed to tell the disciples about that and instruct them to return to Galilee where they will see hi…

This is our Good Friday service, a remembrance held at the traditional hour of the crucifixion of Jesus. It begins with the chiming of the hour, which sets the mood. It includes a reading of two chapters of the Fourth Gospel that describe the arrest, condemnation, crucifixion, and burial of Jesus, a familiar and agonizing section to hear and recall…

We welcome you to listen to our Lenten podcast which will offer guided readings of the Common Prayer liturgies from your pastoral team. We are offering podcasts every day during Holy Week. ...By Rev. Dr. Carol Cavin-Dillon and Dr. Matthew Phelps

This is Maundy Thursday, the service in which we remember and participate in the Last Supper. The scripture for this service is the familiar story from the Fourth Gospel wherein Jesus washes the feet of the disciples and leaves them with the commandment to love one another. Delivering the communion meditation is our Pastor of Spiritual Formation, R…

We welcome you to listen to our Lenten podcast which will offer guided readings of the Common Prayer liturgies from your pastoral team. We are offering podcasts every day during Holy Week. ...By Rev Stacey Harwell-Dye and Emily Robbins

We welcome you to listen to our Lenten podcast which will offer guided readings of the Common Prayer liturgies from your pastoral team. We are offering podcasts every day during Holy Week. ...By Rev. Will McLeane and Rev. Maggie Jarrell

We welcome you to listen to our Lenten podcast which will offer guided readings of the Common Prayer liturgies from your pastoral team. We are offering this podcast every day during Holy Week. ...By Rev. Aimee Baxter and Molly Borneman

We welcome you to listen to our Lenten podcast which will offer guided readings of the Common Prayer liturgies from your pastoral team. We are offering the podcast today, Ash Wednesday, and every day during Holy Week. ...By Emily Robbins and Tammy Lewis-Wilborn

A Humble Walk – Today is Palm Sunday. Through Lent we have been considering what we can do to “act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly,” and our focus is now on “walk humbly.” The script is the Markan version of the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, and we celebrate that with our own palm branches waving as we sing “Hosanna!” We know the sce…

Just Keep Walking – Through Lent we are considering what we can do to “act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly,” and our focus is now on “walk humbly.” The scripture today is the familiar story in Mark 10 where James and John ask a favor of Jesus, which is that they be seated at the right and left of Jesus when he comes into his glory. In all the t…

Through Lent we are considering what we can do to “act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly,” and our focus is now on mercy. The scripture today is the familiar parable of Jesus talking about separating the sheep from the goats: “If you have done this for the least of these, you have done it for me.” Jesus is saying that God is near in the needs of …

A Merciful Messiah – Through Lent we are considering what we can do to “act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly,” and our focus is now on mercy. The scripture today is the encounter of Jesus with blind Bartimaeus who knows Jesus is approaching and calls out to him. Some around the scene react to restrain the blind beggar, but Jesus asks him what he…

What Is and What Can Be: Aligning our Hearts and Heads with God’s – Through Lent we are considering what we can do to “act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly,” and this is the second week our focus is on justice. The reading for today is a passage from Isaiah (10:1-4) that is clearly from a God angry at those who “pronounce wicked decrees” that de…

How the Tables Have Turned – Through Lent we are considering what we can do to “act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly.” The reading for this Sunday is the Markan account of Jesus entering the temple, observing the transactions going on as doves and other sacrificial beings are sold to people arriving to make sacrifices, and Jesus accusing those s…

Observing a Holy Lent – This is our Ash Wednesday service of the imposition of ashes, a time of introspection and confession in the forty days leading up to the Easter celebration of the resurrection of Jesus. Rev. Shannon Baxter, our Pastor of Congregational Connection, delivers the homily. In a sense, through these forty days we walk with Jesus t…

We welcome you to listen to our Lenten podcast which will offer guided readings of the Common Prayer liturgies from your pastoral team. We are offering the podcast today, Ash Wednesday, and every day during Holy Week. ...By Carol Cavin-Dillon and Shannon Baxter

This is our annual Shrove Tuesday Jazz Mass, a celebration before Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent. Aimee Baxter, our Pastor of Young Adults delivers the Communion Meditation, and she begins by giving a number of examples of someone being up, then down. It is much like we will experience with this Shrove Tuesday of celebration and then tomor…

Invited to the Thin and Thick Places – This is Transfiguration Sunday, and we read the story from Mark where Jesus takes Peter, James, and John with him to a mountain, and he was transformed before them with Elijah and Moses appearing, too, certifying Jesus as the fulfillment of the law and the prophets. As she delivers this sermon, Carol gives exa…

We have been reading through the first chapter of Mark, and in today’s reading Jesus and the first four disciples go to the house of Simon and Andrew. There they find Simon’s mother-in-law is sick with a fever. Jesus heals her. Then that evening, everyone in the town gathers in front of Simon’s house, and Jesus heals many who are ill or afflicted w…

You’re Invited into Healing Liberation – Today’s passage is from Mark, early in Jesus’ ministry but after he has called the first four disciples. He is in Capernaum, enters the synagogue and begins teaching, and the people are astounded by his authority in that teaching. Then a deranged man cries out, and Jesus exorcises the demon in the man, heali…

Today’s scripture from John 1 is about Jesus meeting Philip and calling him into discipleship, but it is also about Philip, in turn, inviting Nathanael into discipleship, too, with the invitation to “come and see.” The Gospel of John uses that phrase several times, and we are invited to share in the excitement and the invitation. Nathanael’s initia…

Today, using the account in Mark, we read about the baptism of Jesus by John at the Jordan, and we remember and celebrate our own baptism. A question that often arises with the baptism of Jesus is why would Jesus need to be baptized like the sinners to whom John was preaching, “Repent and be baptized”? Maybe Jesus was baptized and the spirit descen…

Invited to Another Road – This is Epiphany Sunday, the day we remember the trip of the Magi to see the baby Jesus. Although many legends about the magi have grown through the centuries, the account in Matthew is the only account available, and it does not reveal how many magi were in the group, where they came from (it says only “the East”), or how…

We have now celebrated the birth of Christ and are at the brink of a new year. The scripture for today is from Joshua, the account of the people crossing the Jordan River into the Promised Land, and God tells them to set up a pile of 12 stones, one for each tribe, as a memorial. Rev. Stacey Harwell-Dye, our Pastor of Mercy and Justice ministries is…

Today, the fourth Sunday of Advent and also Christmas Eve, the scripture is the section of Luke where the young Mary responds to the announcement of her pregnancy with “the Magnificat,” praising God for raising her from her modest place to this place of honor as mother of this holy infant. This comes when Mary famously visits her cousin, Elizabeth,…

As we enter the fourth week of Advent, take a few minutes to stop, center yourself and ponder this guided meditation on love, led by Rev. Will McLeane.By Rev. Will McLeane

– In the season when many people are joyous over the birth of the Christ child, gift giving and receiving, and family gatherings, many among us are experiencing loss, aloneness, grief. This service, held on the longest night of the year, is meant to provide comfort and hold a safe place for those who need quiet reflection. The service incorporates …

Justice and Joy – Through this Advent season we are reading words of Isaiah, and today’s prophecy from chapter 64 comes again to a people in despair but offers a glimmer of hope, and beyond that hope it offers comfort and joy. Today, the third Sunday of Advent, we light the third candle, a pink one representing joy, and in that sense this section o…

As we enter the third week of Advent, take a few minutes to stop, center yourself and ponder this guided meditation on peace, led by Rev. Aimee Baxter.By Rev. Aimee Baxter

Through this Advent season we are reading words of Isaiah, and today’s prophecy of “Comfort Ye, Comfort Ye My People” comes from chapter 40 but is also familiar to us as the first choral movement in G. F. Handel’s Messiah. The message comes to a people whose city, Jerusalem, has been devastated, the temple destroyed, and they have been displaced an…

As we enter the second week of Advent, take a few minutes to stop, center yourself and ponder this guided meditation on peace, led by Rev. Shannon Baxter.By Rev. Shannon Baxter

This is the first Sunday in Advent, and our scripture is from Isaiah’s words to people who had great reason to feel that God had abandoned them. The prophet describes a God who had done awesome deeds in the past, but then God’s abandonment had given rise to the people’s abandonment of God. The prophet speaks of repentance, a turning around of the p…