Scriptures: Isaiah 2:1-11, Matthew 5:1-12

Melissa continues her sermon series, Hope in a Time of Fear, focusing on the book of Isaiah. As we're drawing closer to the election, what does hope look like for followers of Jesus?

The people who heard Jesus' sermon on the mount may have been thinking about Isaiah's words when they heard Jesus speak. They had been crushed beneath the heels of a Roman occupation. And here, at this moment, when all hope is lost, the word of God is born into the world.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

This is not the way it is in our world. The merciful are crushed by political pressures that announce being soft on crime. The pure in heart are taken advantage of and accused of being naïve. The poor face a crisis of debt and eviction. The meek are cast aside for faith and weapons. And yet, we hear in Isaiah:

They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up nation, sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.

A seemingly impossible scenario to ever occur. But the impossible is where we as followers of Jesus make our home. Take heart. Have no fear. Jesus is Lord!

Scripture: Isaiah 1:1-3, 11-20

Our world is not well. Our politics are not well. Our land and our oceans and our air is not well. We may be anxious. About the future, about elections, about what comes next for you and your family. So this series based on Isaiah will spend time with people who are in the middle of political and social and personal crisis. These are the people of Judah in Jerusalem.

The Bible is for people who are down on their luck. The Bible is for people facing odds and terrible outcomes. That's when hope shows up. That's when hope matters.

The shape hope takes in our lives has everything to do with how we believe the universe is structured. Hope, writes Walter Brueggemann, is what this community must do. Because it's God's community.

In this last of Melissa's three-part series on Jesus' teaching on bread, the scripture was from John 6:56-59.

As we eat this bread, this Jesus, we see God's life growing and healing us. We become a people; a people that believe that we love our neighbors as ourselves. We become a people who refuse to look away from suffering. We become a people who know that no one is the worst thing that they have done. We become a people who will move toward disaster and danger, because we know that is where God is waiting in the wreckage and where there is suffering.

We also heard from Wick and Jude who shared about why they have chosen to become baptized.

Melissa continues her three-part series on Jesus' discourse about bread.

The bread of life, as Jesus talks about it in John 6:51-58, isn't a pill you swallow or compass giving directions. It's a feast that you get into. It's messy and visceral and fleshy. Jesus wants to get into our lives and become a part of us. Jesus wants to give us life and give it abundantly.

Jesus doesn't intend for us to take a crumb of his life. He doesn't intend for us to use him as a ruler for measurements or a whip for self-destruction through guilt and shame. He is a meal, the life that fills us up, a life of abundance, a life that sustains us forever.

Scripture: Exodus 16:4-8, 13-21 and John 6:35, 41-51

We, along with all the creatures of the world, are invited to be the fullness of our created being.

The passages from Exodus and John tell a story of trust, a dependence on God. Jesus also reminds people about all of the non-human creatures who depend on the Creator for life. The story of manna and of Jesus's body is the story of God's persistent care for all creatures.

2 Samuel 11: 1-5

Melissa Florer-Bixler's invites us to consider King David's abuse of power over Bathsheba, which mirrors abuses of positions of authority we now see in churches, businesses, and other institutions, especially since the beginning of the #MeToo era. The triumphant king in last week's sermon that danced with joy before God and her chosen people has now violated Bathsheba and arranged the death of her husband, Uriah. Melissa cannot help but say the questions out loud that sit silent in our thoughts - where is God in this story? where is God in our stories? Listen to this week's sermon to see how Melissa uses the end of Bathsheba's story (which sees her son Solomon replace David on the throne of Israel) and God's intentional construction of the lineage and life of Jesus to demonstrate how God works to bring down the powerful who choose to exploit the weak and how God's abiding love inhabits all of our stories.

Psalm 23, Jeremiah 23: 1-6

What does it mean to wrestle with our faith when the word calls us not be afraid or reassures us of God's imminent just resolution to injustice? In their first sermon at RMC, intern Katie Magnum explores the connections between Psalm 23 and Jeremiah 23, which are vastly different in tone, but convey a message of God's intimacy and hope to both the individual believer and our corporate church body. Katie invites us to consider how we must turn to God and each other for comfort, guidance, and help in carrying out God's good will for all even when our global, local, and personal circumstances lead us into the valley of shadows.

John 15:14-15 & Acts 8:26-38

Ann Roberston shared two of the favorite songs of her father as our summer series continued. She spoke of learning from him how he loved the songs “In the Garden,” which many of us know better as “He Walks with Me and He Talks with Me,” and “What a Friends We have in Jesus.” In the process of reflecting on the songs, Ann weaves in the passages from John about Jesus calling us friends and from Acts about Phillip befriending the Ethiopian Eunuch and baptizing him.

The ways in which we walk with and befriend Jesus may be different for each of us. Our decision to be a Christian is personal and individually meaningful to each of us in our own way.