Sermon: Christ Devoted to Destruction

Text: Joshua 6.1-25

It’s funny how we as Christians turn difficult and violent Biblical tales into children’s songs – think “Arky, Arky,” about God’s judgment on the earth and his saving of Noah. Or, “The Walls of Jericho,” a song about the walls of Jericho coming down, which fails to mention what happened after - the slaughter of all living things.

What do we make of this slaughter? What do we make of the command of God to “devote to destruction” all living things of Jericho? Christians have had three responses:

1. This a mystery. No two ways about it, God will somehow sort it all out.

2. We should not judge God’s ways. Just because he ordered the destruction of entire populations (what we call “genocide” these days) doesn’t mean he was wrong.

3. Don’t pay attention to the blood and gore. This is the children’s song approach.

But what if there is another way to think of this? What if this story shows us something else about God?

Find out by listening!

Text: Deuteronomy 32.1-44

We all have sacred cows. Whether this be a favorite political hobbyhorse or a church tradition, we all believe some things are completely sacred, because we believe the bring us life. Any threat to them we meet with opposition, because we are afraid that if what we believe is sacred is ruined, then we are too.

Yet God is beyond the sacred. God is the source of life and death, the one beyond our ideas of what is sacred and what is not. This is what the Song of Moses is all about, and it helps us learn how to confess, how God frees us from enslavement to our sacred cows.

Listen to find out how!

After a wonderfully enriching Lenten season and a thought-provoking Holy Week, we are back in Eastertide with table fellowship and worship on Friday nights.

Sermon: Christ: Priest and Prophet

Text: Deuteronomy 18.15-22

The season of Easter brings up some important issues for us as Christians. After the resurrection, the early Christians realized that somehow what had just happened was that God came to them, and God’s forgiveness was made real in the person of the resurrected Christ. In other words, atonement happened!

But how do we understand atonement? This week we looked at atonement in the role of priest and prophet in the Old Testament. We saw that the New Testament understood Jesus as priest and prophet, as the liturgical witness to God’s salvation, as the mediator of God’s salvation, and as advocate for us before God.

Sermon: A Fragmented Map

Text: Genesis 45.1-15

The theologian Herbert McCabe once said that “the world is a bad map of God.” Sometimes, in some events, it’s hard to see the goodness of God, because of all the evil that appears. The story of Joseph and his brothers is like this. Terrible dysfunction, violence, and slavery. What are we to make of this?

Joseph gives his own answer to this question, and it is something like Herbert McCabe’s: “the world is a bad map of God. But it is not a map of a bad God.” Listen, and find out how Joseph answers.

This Epiphany we kick off another edition of Community Worship Night, right here at Salem, every Friday night starting at 6:30. As a part of Salem’s spiritual development initiative Deepening our Roots, we will be focusing on the communal readings.

And in case you’ve missed our first few weeks, here is the sermon for January 6, 2012

Sermon: Reflecting the Glory of God  

Genesis 1.1-2.3

The beginning of most good books tell us a lot of what the book is about. It gives the characters, the setting, and then sets up the tension that becomes the driving force of the drama. So what’s the beginning of the Bible about? Click to find out.

May:
5/06/2011
5/13/2011
5/20/2011
5/27/2011

June:
6/3/2011
6/10/2011
6/24/2011

2011 Confirmands

Please join us for our morning worship service beginning at 10:00. You may view the church calendar to see what other events are coming up.

Worship is the central most important act we do together as a church. Everything else we do as individuals and as a church body emanates from our honor of God that we collectively mark each Sunday in the service of worship. We come to give thanks and praise and to be challenged in our daily walk with the Lord.

Sunday School for all ages will resume in the fall.