Edina Morningside Community Church

Today’s scripture reading: 1 Corinthians 15:19-26, 51-57

Sermon audio:

One of the gifts of springtime is watching our ferns grow. They’re in a side garden of our house, beneath an overhanging crabapple tree. For days we watch tightly curled fiddlehead ferns, stubbornly pushing their way up from stubby, apparently dead husks that were last year’s stumps. But every year there’s one morning when they all open up into these gorgeous fronds, broad fans lifted skyward in praise. The bare ground has been transformed to the springtime green of new ferns.

Continue reading “Perpetual Change” →

Edina Morningside Community Church

Today’s scripture reading: 1 Corinthians 13:1-13

Sermon audio:

Annie Dillard writes nonfiction and contemporary American novels. She got her start with a memoir called A Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, which begins by describing her home in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. She writes, “I think of this house clamped to the side of Tinker Creek as an anchor-hold. It holds me at anchor to the rock bottom of the creek itself and keeps me steadied in the current, as a sea anchor does, facing the stream of light pouring down. It’s a good place to live; there’s a lot to think about.”

Continue reading “Enduring Love” →

Edina Morningside Community Church

Today’s scripture reading: Acts 17:1-9

Sermon audio:

Several weeks ago, the other church staff members gathered online for a check-in. We took turns naming our sorrows, joys and sightings of God in the midst of these times. The conversation shifted to a question of what we are learning in this time, what in our ministries might be forever changed because of our experiences right now. We are starting to see life-altering, church-transforming impacts of the pandemic, and that the future will look drastically different from what we have known to this point. Laurie Eckberg reminded us of what church historian Phyllis Tickle has suggested, that every 500 years or so the Christian church goes through a great rummage sale of sorts, deciding what to keep and what to let go of, how to be church in a new era. Could our current global transformation be on the same scale as the fall of the Roman Empire, or the upheaval of the Reformation in Europe? Truly, we do not know what will come of this time, only that it will be remarked upon in the histories of the world that are told generations from now. The pandemic has turned the world upside down.

Edina Morningside Community Church

Today’s scripture reading: Acts 3:1-10

Sermon audio:

I heard an interview this week with a farmer in rural Minnesota, describing how the work stoppage at pork-processing plants is creating chaos in her farm practices. Because there is no working plant to process her pork, she can’t sell the pigs she has on hand. She could maintain her current stock until conditions change, but like other farmers she’s contracted to receive thousands more baby piglets this spring. When they arrive, there will be no space to put them in, and because sales have nearly halted, there will no money for the months of food necessary to grow them into adult hogs. The only recourse that she hinted at was euthanasia. Indeed, MinnPost reported this week that “COVID-19-related plant shutdowns could force hog farmers to kill and dispose of 200,000 pigs.”

Edina Morningside Community Church

Today’s scripture reading: Mark 16:1-8

Sermon audio:

We almost didn’t have Easter today. A few weeks ago, our church leadership, staff and I had discussed not marking the resurrection today. We would do the other events of Holy Week, yet press “pause” on Easter until we could be back together in person. Then we would hold a grand celebration, and it could be the most glorious embodied experience of resurrection. I couldn’t imagine celebrating Easter when it feels like we’re all still in the tomb!

Continue reading “Finish the Story in Galilee” →

Edina Morningside Community Church

Today’s scripture reading: Mark 11:1-11

Sermon audio:

The author E.L. Doctorow has described his craft in this way. “Writing,” he says, “is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” The same can be said of life itself. We don’t always know where the road will take us. It’s like Highway 1 along the Pacific Coast in California—weaving and turning around sharp corners, slipping through unexpected tunnels, and then opening suddenly into a breathtaking vista of the wide-open sky. It comes in bits and pieces, one stretch at a time. We can’t take in the whole journey, with the best of headlights, or even in the daytime. If we could see everything instantly, we might know what parts of the trip hold the greatest consequence. What chance meeting will change life forever, and which will be just a blip in passing? Where should we be careful, lest a careless detour lead to many lost hours before a U-turn? But we can’t know these things because we can’t see the whole trip at once. Only looking back can we recognize what’s of the most importance.

Continue reading “Committing” →

Edina Morningside Community Church

Today’s scripture reading: Mark 5:21-43

Sermon audio:

One of the things I did for fun in seminary was sing with the gospel choir. It was a community of deep care, and rehearsals were just as worshipful as the chapel services in which we sang. One favorite gospel song starts out this way: “I need you. You need me. We’re all a part of God’s body. It is God’s will that every need be supplied. You are important to me—I need you to survive.” The song is honest about vulnerability. “I need you. You need me.” We are necessary to one another—we cannot make it on our own.

That said, being vulnerable does not come easily.

Continue reading “Healing Power” →

Edina Morningside Community Church

Today’s scripture reading: Mark 5:1-20

Sermon audio:

Some years ago, Javen and I used to visit a friend who lived in Lake Elmo. When we were almost there, we’d turn the car onto a road marked, “Legion Lane”. Without fail, we’d turn to each other and say one of the creepiest lines in Scripture: “My name is Legion; for we are many”!

Continue reading “Liberating Power” →

Edina Morningside Community Church

Today’s scripture reading: Mark 4:1-34

Sermon audio:

Denise Levertov’s poem “The Avowal” memorably captures the trust in unseen grace at the heart of Christian faith. She writes,

As swimmers dare
to lie face to the sky
and water bears them,
as hawks rest upon air
and air sustains them,
so would I learn to attain
freefall, and float
into Creator Spirit’s deep embrace,
knowing no effort earns
that all-surrounding grace.

Jesus points to such trust in divine care in his parables of seed and soil.

Continue reading “Teaching Trust” →

Edina Morningside Community Church

Today’s scripture reading: Mark 2:1-22

Sermon audio:

Ten years ago, I was just starting ministry with my first congregation, in a small blue-collar suburb southeast of St. Paul. The church had mostly older, white, straight members and struggled to make its budget. Yet they had made the bold decision to become Open and Affirming to LGBTQ people during the interim process, and had invited me there fresh out of seminary. In meeting with a pastor colleague to prepare for my ordination, she suggested that my ministry would be planting a new church within the old one, rather like a fallen nurse tree gives its energy and nutrients to new trees that grow up from its trunk.

Continue reading “Breaking Convention” →