And then he goes on with kind of a group of mixed metaphors about the power of the tongue and talk. The bottom line he is getting at is that the words you say have the power to destroy or create. The words you put into the world can seem so innocent. You did not do anything, you just said something or maybe even hinted at something. If someone else chose to take action on your words, you can’t control that. And James says no, your words, the messages you send out into the world either build the world up or tear it down. 

The power of our words October 2 2022

The power gets the loudest voices. The poor, the people without the power are often treated like pawns in a game. And it is a game that we will never win. That is what James is saying here….don’t you get it. These power plays, these games we play to cater to the powerful to get more power to be protected ourselves will never end well. Power and money never find their way to trickle down to us. 

Marching to the Beat of a Different Drum

There are days where we feel like we are killing it. We are doing amazing. We are loving our neighbors, caring for our world, loving those closest to us well, and we feel the presence of God in our own lives. In these days it is easy to lose site of God’s presence with us because we can easily think we are doing it on our own. We deserve the things we have. We may just write off our mistakes because everybody makes them. 

Another look at David August 21 2022

We choose every day who we will follow. We choose who we will learn from. We can choose to fall into the stereotypes or believe the stereotypes. We can choose to think that anything other than God can save us. We can chase after the approval of someone who is well connected, has the look, has all the answers. Or we can think outside the box. We can find value in leaders and teachers who do not look like we would expect. We can value in humility and a really good question. We can learn from someone who does not look like us, who does not have our background maybe even is someone that we don’t at first agree with

Unlikely Leaders August 7 2022

It is helpful to ask our selves if the way they talked about God is to be descriptive of God, or more descriptive of their understanding of God at the time. Remember the culture in which this was written. They really did believe that God, and other cultures around them, their gods, made everything happen. They did not have the science we do today. They had no other language. Now, do I believe that God allowed these things to happen, I certainly do. God gave them chance after chance, tried to show them the way, and over and over again they abuse their power and their are consequences to that. They make wrong choices about how they live their lives and their are consequences. But do you see how that is different that a violent, wrathful God who hates the things that I do, and who has had enough and smites everyone? And I know that language is in scripture but again, is that God or is that the only language they had. I am certain that even today we all know someone who blames every good or bad thing that happens in their life on God. It takes away all responsibility, for the good and the bad. 

Another look at Deborah July 24 2022

It takes courage to celebrate. But life without celebration is a life of just wandering around in the dessert, moving from one calamity to another. This morning, let’s grab the tambourines and celebrate. Let’s have the courage, this isn’t just kid stuff. While the world and life are so hard around us, let us engage in the spiritual discipline of laughing, feeling joy and celebrating what God has done, what God has given us, even in the us that God has created. Let us be people who can dream also. 

Another look at Miriam July 17 2022

Somewhere in the middle of Joseph’s story he recognized the presence of God with him. He recognized the presence of God working to make all things good, working to shape and mold him. It did not make the slavery, the prison, or the deceptions any less awful but it did allow them to have a different purpose. What his brothers meant for bad, what Potiphar’s wife meant for bad, what the cupbearers forgiveness meant for bad, God was present in. God worked them for good and somewhere along the way Joseph realized that. Our perspective changes when we can see God in the middle of it with us. In the thick of it with us. 

Another look at Joseph July 10 2022

As humans we look for a lot of things to give us our identity and to help us feel secure, our blessing in this world. A position at work, a relationship, the next high grade, getting into the right school. We spend our lives chasing some sense of peace and purpose that God has been offering all along. We think, we would just achieve this next thing, all will be well. When this problem is resolved, when this relationship is fixed, when the next, when the next, when the next. That peace, purpose, that promise is always just out of reach and we become like Jacob, we are just grasping for the next thing that will surely fix it. 

Another look at Jacob and Esau June 26 2022

But the truth is that life is a series of settling and unsettling. It is a cycle. There is illness, untimely death, a marriage falling apart, a child that makes choices you don’t agree with, a job market that drastically changes, families who have different opinions/ways of seeing the world that make it difficult to be in relationship. Abraham’s life was the same. The initial promise was go to the land I will show you, which appears to be Canaan. God promises that land to Abrahams ancestors but they don’t stay there. There is famine and war that has Abraham moving around. The promise was not just to go and settle. God keeps moving and working in Abraham’s life even in the unsettling seasons. 

Another Look at Abraham June 19 2022

I grew up in a culture where if you didn’t believe in a literal creation of the earth in six days with a day of rest, you weren’t really Christian. In fact, we were trained to argue it in our schools….to not let that scientific education get the best of us. Now, I believe that God could have created the world in six days if God wanted to. But I do not believe that arguing that was ever the point. I think that is also why we have two creation accounts. In the chapter immediately following this one, there is another account and in some traditions, like the one I grew up in, we mix the two, picking and choosing and saying that you have to understand just what we have picked from the two stories literally. 

Another Look at the Creation Story June 12 2022

Sermon from June 5, 2022Together we commit to being present for each other. Present on Sunday mornings, present in life. We commit to remembering that we cannot do this alone. I believe today in our culture we have lost site of the fact that the work of God, the work of the spirit, the work of the local church gathered on a Sunday morning is not just one of the many options we have available to us, but it ought to shape our we see the world, shape how we use our gifts, shape how we use our time. It should be the starting point out of which everything else flows. 

The Birthday of the Church

It has been awhile since we have uploaded a sermon due to our expanding technology. This was an important one to start back. "In our little worlds we stand up to those who would harm or belittle or make fun of others because we know that each person is made in the image of God. In our own little worlds we stand up to racist jokes, to jokes about peoples appearances, to the vilification of women and girls because those that abuse power are propped up by large systems of people who are often never lovingly challenged them to think or act differently. We have the hard conversations, we stick our necks out, we call or email or send letters to our politicians because they need to hear that we care.Our silence in these moments will be deafening. Benjamin Cremer said, “Our public witness as Christians should make people say, ‘look at the power of their love,” not “look at how much they love power.” What is your love motivating to do today?"

What Now Shall We Do? May 29 sermon

"And if there was anywhere we should be able to fall apart it is at church. But somehow we have this belief that God expects us to be able to handle it all, to have it all figured out. We tried to brush away vulnerability and weakness maybe because of our pride, maybe because of something we learned along the way that God is only for the strong, there is not room for weakness and vulnerability in Christianity. But to be the church, we have to learn how to do that together. We will only be able to go alone so long until like Moses, we are collapsing under the weight and wondering where God is. We have to be doing the hard and messy work of caring for each other."

We Need Each Other

"And as we remember that there is room for everyone at the table, we need to look around and see who is not here. What people are we just not paying attention to, where is God moving outside of our normal ways of understanding him as we try to keep things neat and tidy? Life with Jesus is messy and the miracle, the love of Jesus cannot be contained. When we have open hearts to engage, to listen and learn, the power of Jesus spills over the table, it makes room for everyone and moves in ways we would not expect."

Lessons Learned

Here is our teaching and sermonette for our Sunday focusing on enneagram twos, the helpers among us.

enneagram two

Enneagram ones are known as the fixers, the reformers and the perfectionists. Here is our teaching and sermonette from July 25 as we learned more from our enneagram ones.

Enneagram one

This week we learn about enneagram nines and their desire for keeping the peace.

Enneagram Nine

Here is our interview, teaching and sermonette for Enneagram 8, the challengers and/or protectors amongst us.

210711- Worship Audio

Enneagram Sevens are our enthusiasts. They seek to make the most of life and to enjoy themselves as much as possible. Listen to learn more about this point of personality and about how to use these forces for good. We need more whimsy and holy curiosity in the world, but we also can know that even when life is not fun, when life is hard, God is still with us.

Enneagram Seven

This week we look at the enneagram six point of personality, the loyalists.

Mosaic Church of Clayton

Mosaic Church of Clayton

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