Edina Morningside Community Church

Today’s scripture reading: John 9:1-41

Sermon audio:

A company called Second Sight has been working for years on technology that gives sight to the blind. The model they are testing has cameras implanted in a pair of glasses. Images are then wirelessly broadcast to a receiver that’s implanted in the surface of the eye, which sends them through the retina to the brain. Those who once were blind are now able to see—well enough to go skiing, take up archery, and move around at will.

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Edina Morningside Community Church

Today’s scripture reading: John 4:1-42

Sermon audio:

We start today with a puzzle of biblical geography. John’s gospel says that Jesus had to go through Samaria, but that’s just not the case. In the last chapter, Jesus was in Jerusalem and had that midnight conversation with the Jewish leader Nicodemus. Now we’re told that he leaves Judea and goes north again to Galilee. Any reasonable traveler between those two regions would have used either the coastal route along the Mediterranean, or the inland route along the Jordan River. Both are well-established paths of trade and travel, easier to navigate than the high hill country between them and to the east, which was Samaria. So when John writes that Jesus “had to go through Samaria”, that’s like a travel agent sending you from Minneapolis to Duluth, through Fargo. Something else is afoot. If Jesus does have to go through Samaria, it’s because of who he will meet there.

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Edina Morningside Community Church

Today’s scripture reading: John 3:1-17

Sermon audio:

The global visionary, humanitarian, and writer Danaan Parry uses the imagery of a trapeze artist to describe how humans navigate through growth and change. He swings along, Parry writes, hanging from a bar that symbolize confidence and certainty. But then the trapeze artist sees another bar swinging towards him. “…I know, in that place in me that knows, that this new trapeze bar has my name on it. It is my next step, my growth, my aliveness coming to get me. In my heart of hearts I know that, for me to grow, I must release my grip on this present, well-known bar and move to the new one.” But letting go of a thing that’s certain requires surrendering control and knowledge. It means hovering in a space where the past is past, but the future is not yet seen. Parry concludes, “Perhaps this is the essence of what the mystics call the faith experience. No guarantees, no net, no insurance policy, but you do it anyway because somehow to keep hanging on to that old bar is no longer on the list of alternatives. So, for an eternity that can last a microsecond or a thousand lifetimes, I soar across the dark void of ‘the past is gone, the future is not yet here.’”

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Edina Morningside Community Church

Today’s scripture reading: John 2:13-22

Sermon audio:

What do all these things have in common: horses, currency, the compass, the telegraph, internal combustion engines, radio, the Internet, and smartphones? These are all examples of “disruptive technology”—transformational new methods of trading, traveling or communicating. They have an outsize impact on the history of civilization, changing the course of human activity in revolutionary, unforeseen ways. Fifty years from now, which of these will be added to the list: virtual reality, artificial intelligence, 3D printing, gene editing, or driverless vehicles? Which of them will have the effect in the 21^st or 22^nd centuries that the printing press had in the 16^th century? It’s easy to recognize disruptive technology after-the-fact, but we are surrounded by such innovations in their infancy today.

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Edina Morningside Community Church

The day’s reading: John 2:1-11

Sermon audio:

Does anyone recognize this? Do you know what it is? A wine aerator! I forget who first taught me about this, but somewhere along the way I learned that there’s more to wine than just the taste after it comes out of the bottle or bag. Pouring through an aerator such as this adds oxygen to the wine, which changes how it tastes. With such intention and care, wine “blooms” with fully-developed fragrance and flavor. Javen makes fun of me for bothering with an aerator, but I’m certain that his taste remains unrefined. After years of using one, I find it disappointing to drink non-aerated wine, because it seems to forego the potential in the glass. Admittedly, this is a silly, first-world gadget. But I love the way it makes even common table wine taste like a rare and complex vintage, using nothing but air and a little bit of time. It’s delightful to discover extraordinary potential in the ordinary things of life.

Continue reading “Come and See God’s Glory” →