Born from Above - New Creation
Born from Above – New Creation – Really?
The New Testament language about the impact of the Good News is strikingly radical. New birth. New Creation. No Jew/Greek; slave/free; male/female. Crucified with Christ. What does it mean? Paul tells the struggling Corinthians about New Creation as a fact. Jesus’ words to Nicodemus about being “born again” evolved into an Evangelical cliché that talks more of a method of conversion or testimony or even politics. What is Jesus’ challenge really about?
Nicodemus is a leading teacher, positive toward Jesus. Jesus confronts him with the “kingdom of God” that’s breaking in. The teacher must start over: birth from above. So must all. Nicodemus struggles to understand. Water and Spirit: Spirit-Wind/Breath, blowing but unseen. The Good News of God’s reign is a new, challenging reality. You have to learn from the only one who truly embodies it: Son of Man/Son of God. Lifted up in death. Giving life that extends beyond death. This is God’s reality bursting into new clarity – embodied. God’s love for the cosmos, his kingdom is here. Can I see it? It’s light. Do I really want it?
May They Be One: What's Prayer Got to Do with It?
Ephesians 3:14-21 & John 14:12-14
Julie Short, one of the Elders at Manhattan Church of Christ, preaches on Ephesians 3:14-21 and John 14:12-14.
Sanctification not Segregation: Growing Together in the Light of the Bible
John 17:1-26
Walter Edwards leads the congregation in a meditation on Black History and the impact of African Americans on the church. Along with Larry Mudd, Carl Garrison, Mary Joseph, Adolf Everett, and Alva Burton. A vital message of hope, repentance, and racial consciousness.
Light of the World
John 1:1-4
Jesus told his disciples and crowds, “You are the light of the world!” Amazing! How? Shine the light in beautiful/excellent works that show God’s glory: live the Sermon on the Mount.
John sets that process within the great event that God has accomplished in Jesus. Last week we looked at the Foolish Cross/Resurrection as God’s Wisdom/Power that unites physical and spiritual, heaven and earth. Human life and work matters (‘not vain’) toward new creation.
John’s intro overviews the grand event all the way back to the Beginning (Gen 1). The Logos (Word, Reason, Wisdom), the depth of God: “with God” relationship, “was God” identity. From “being” to “becoming.” Creation through Logos. “In him,” life comes to be as the place where Logos is shared. For humans that life becomes illumination, Light : a physical image for a life of purpose, relationship, meaning. That’s the event: Light is shining... bringing the “being” of God/Logos into the “becoming” created world. Not stopped.
A Foolish Cross and the Wisdom of God
John 20:19-29
Seeing the Fool ... Not Being a Fool
April 1. When people walked by Jesus being crucified, they saw the perfect fool. He imagined he was king, savior, Messiah. Now look! Crucified. A clear, humiliating refutation. His disciples felt they were fools too. “We had hoped...” (Lk 24:21). But then, the women, that empty tomb!
Following Jesus in an Age of Many Faiths
John 14:1-10
Nearness – The Challenge and Mystery of other Faiths
As a child, I grew up in a sectarian world. We joked about being the only ones going to heaven, but thought it likely true. A small heaven. The religious “others” were Baptist, Methodist. The Nat. Geographic still explored unknown regions of earth. Now we’re all next door.
I’ve learned a lot by study and relationships: Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, vast cultures and literatures. I’ve learned the vast variety in Christianity. There’s so much I’ll never grasp because I don’t live inside the world of Vishnu or Pure Land Buddhism or Greek Orthodoxy. We can’t escape human limitation. A continuing journey, drawing on resources of faith.
We live in a secular world that deals with faiths by saying none/all are “true.” I partly share in that. I put little trust in “religion” as a general phenomenon in human culture. It’s both good and bad. My faith stakes all of life on Jesus, on the God of Israel known in Jesus, on the God who as creator is the source of all existence, the lover of all, giver of life and hope.
Modesty – Learning from other Faiths
The Harvest of the Wicked Wounded
John 4:27-28
A Small Text to Radically Reorient Our Worlds
This text falls in an awkward place in the middle of one of the most famous narratives from the Gospel of John. We have before us a side conversation, and a cryptic one at that, as John is often want to do. Here Jesus offers John’s version of a most elemental metaphor for Christian faith and witness: the harvest. But as is often the case in the fourth Gospel, Jesus is here not just to communicate but to disrupt our assumptions, to jar our categories, and to enable us to reconsider God’s work in the world and our place in it. In other words, Jesus is concerned with nothing more than the revelation of the very nature of God in himself and his encounters with people, particularly those who are seeking some answers, some hope, something that doesn’t perish, spoil, or fade.
Jesus in this engagement with his disciples is concerned that they have a change of vision, a change of priorities, a transformation on the way in which they engage with and perceive the needs of the people around them.
But when you and I approach this text we do not come to it blindly, as if we are hearing for the first time. Neither do we come to it in a vacuum, as if what is really going on here has no bearing on this response that Jesus has to those closest to him. And what I want to explore are a number of ways that we have been misshaped to read this text, and the larger story that it is a part of, and more importantly how we have thought about our place in the world as the redemptive presence of God in a deeply wounded world.
Life in Death: Jesus at the Tomb in Bethany
Jesus and the Wind of the Spirit
John 3:1-16
The Searcher Struggling to Understand John gives us a glimpse of a likely long, but amazing conversation. Jesus has just confronted the temple authorities and now one of them, impressed, comes to Jesus: a Pharisee, a teacher, member of Sanhedrin, open to Jesus’ teaching, affirming God’s presence. Jesus takes him seriously. He has seen signs, but they point to revealing a new reality in Jesus. He unveils the new level of God engaging humans, doing what the temple had symbolized. Birth “from above” (another) can also mean “again.” It’s misunderstood by Nicodemus. Birth from Above and the Breath of God
Glory Revealed
Amy Henegar shares a scripture reflection from John 2:1-12 at our monthly Saturday Evening Service.
Who Are You?
John 1:19-34
Amy Henegar shares a scripture reflection from John 1:19-38 at our once a month Saturday Evening Service.
Jesus is the Light
John 1:1-18
Amy Henegar preaches from John 1:1-18 at our first Saturday Evening Worship gathering.
Do You Truly Love Me?
John 21:15-17
Reggie Jackson brings a message pointing to the church as the original “Community of Hope” found in the New Testament.
The Candle of Hope: God's Surprising Sizzle Reel
John 1:1-14
This week, Jeff Walling is our guest speaker for this week.
Jeff is from Pepperdine University in California, where he directs the Youth Leadership Initiative. He is an outstanding preacher who has led congregations on both the east coast and west and is widely called on to speak at conferences and lectures. Jeff delivers the message on HOPE for the first week of Advent. Download the message above, and listen to Jeff as he illuminates the HOPE found in the story of God coming to be with us in Jesus.
Worship or Wither
John 15:1-11
Larry Mudd preaches on the importance and vitality of worship within the body of Christ.
Shepherding for the Kingdom of God
Matthew 10:11-18
Jason Isbell, the Children and Student Minister at the Manhattan Church of Christ, brings a message exploring the connection between fatherhood and Jesus’ self-identification as a shepherd in John 10:11-18. The sermon looks beyond a simple calling to be a “Good Father” and challenges the church body to be people, in the words of Jesus to Peter, that “feed my sheep.” This sermon was delivered on the Sunday immediately after the horrific attack on the Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina.
Key Ingredients
Matthew 12:43-45 and John 7:37-39
This sermon explores the implications of Jesus' brief parable in Matthew 12:43-45 in which a soul that is left empty after an evil spirit's departure is subject to an even worse state when the spirit returns with 7 others. Following God is not simply about abstaining from evil, but also replacing that evil with all the good that Jesus has promised us, and with the promised Holy Spirit in particular. The sermon includes an illustrative demonstration of jars (representing souls) being filled with dried beans of different colors to represent the forces of darkness, the world, and the Holy Spirit.