Luke 24:36-48 In this second in a series exploring questions, wonderings, and themes that come from our congregation, Juliet joins Melissa to bring today's message. After Jesus' resurrection, he keeps showing up. Jesus meets their doubt with what they need and gives it to them. Jesus helps us know that we all are special. What do you need for God to be in your life ..read more

Colossians 1:15-23 Melissa started a new sermon series this week, "I'm not sure about that," focusing on questions that we have. The most frequent submission was around the subject of hell. We live our whole lives bearing consequences, around retribution and punishment. If you make a bad choice with money, no one is coming to bail you out. If you break the law, you go to jail. We want bad people to get what's coming to them. But that should also give us pause. Just a few months ago, Pope Francis was asked what he thought about the afterlife. "I like to think hell is empty," he told an Italian ..read more

John 20: 1-18 Happy Easter to everyone! In this sermon Melissa Florer-Bixler preaches on the resurrection and the appearance of Jesus to Mary Magdalene at his tomb. Jesus asks Mary, "whom are you looking for?" This is a loaded question, however, as Melissa shows us. The question asks us to look into our own selves, our own motivations, and our hopes when we seek out Jesus, who asked this probing question of Mary, his disciples, and also (tellingly) Judas. Whatever you come seeking for from Jesus you will find it, for even Judas got a quick payout. Ultimately, Melissa asks us to consider how we ..read more

John 12: 20-33 Note: At 2:19, ten seconds of audio was lost due to a technical problem during the live recording. Melissa Florer-Bixler preaches on a time in Jesus' life where there is no time left for ministry, but only to speak to those present of his imminent demise and fulfillment of God's plan. The Jesus who has constantly upset our comfortable balance with life and often called us to the do opposite of what we instinctively think correct, again reminds us that if we choose to follow Jesus faithfully, our path will lead to the cross. But the wheat that dies bears a field of fruit, albeit ..read more

Numbers 21: 4-9 John 3: 14-21 Our perspective on the trials and tribulations of life can have a profound effect and how we formulate our understanding of God's character and our own place and purpose in God's creation. Melissa Florer-Bixler preaches on the long and arduous Exodus of the Jewish people from Egypt and how their focus on the harsh environment, dangers, and discomforts of the wilderness caused them to doubt the truth of God's love and divine plan for their rescue. God's response to their criticism wasn't to send snakes as a punishment but to let them go: to remove some of the many ..read more

John2: 13-22 Melissa Florer-Bixler preached on the cleansing of the Temple by Jesus. From this gospel we learn that the existence of an economy for selling sacrificial animals and exchanging currency was not what angered Jesus, being necessary for travelers to participate in rituals, but rather the proximity of these activities, within the holy space that God comes to inhabit and meet us. Melissa uses the destruction of the Temple and the Crucifixion of Jesus, Earthly places God has inhabited, to wrestle with the question of what kind of home does God make among us now? Without these touchston ..read more

On this second Sunday in Lent, Melissa preached from Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16 and Romans 4:13-25, focusing on the story of Abram. Way before Moses gives those laws on the tablets, Abram is righteous before there's a temple to sacrifice things in. Even before circumcision. And that's really important, especially for us, because most of us are not obligated to the 613 laws of the Torah like our Jewish siblings. The only reason that we're here? The only reason at all is that we have faith in the same God. And the same story. Somehow this promise, this miracle, has overflowed to us. In Abram's wilder ..read more

RMC member Phil Jackson preached on the temptation of Christ in the wilderness as told in Mark 1: 9-15. Although this relation of the beginning of Jesus' ministry is very brief, we should not be fooled into reading too quickly past Mark's description of this pivotal event. In it we can see how Jesus is being set up as the new embodiment of Adam and Eve, who will not falter under temptation and hardship unlike those first people, or God's people wandering in the desert for 40 years, or us. At the core of our faltering resides the persistent doubts that tear us down, sown by the accuser into our ..read more

Mark 9: 2-9 What will we do when we meet God? Will we run away? Cower? Ask questions? Or can we make a tent for God to inhabit and live among us? Melissa Florer-Bixler explores and unpacks the experience of Peter meeting God in the story of the transfiguration of Christ in the Gospel of Mark. Here we see that God not only wants to dwell with us, but also more importantly, within us - into the very blood and breath of our being. Our prayers and willingness of heart can build a special place for God to inhabit our bodies and allow us to experience God's love in its fullness ..read more

Scripture 1 Corinthians 8: 1-13 How do we conduct our lives as believers when our decisions affect not only ourselves, but can cause harm or distress to other Christians or those in other communities around us? What do we do when our choices are technically righteous, but still harm other believers with a different interpretation? Melissa's sermon unpacks Paul's letter to the house church in Corinth addressing the controversy over the ethics of eating meat sacrificed to idols, a hollow but almost unavoidable practice baked into the everyday Roman life for the wealthier members of the church, a ..read more