From The Pulpit of DUMC

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#200. This Thing Called Church - Episode 16 - January 19, 2022 Jan 20, 2022

Show notes

David, Kevin, and Karen are back and kick off 2022 with a new episode! On today's episode the three recap the holidays and then discuss the new churchwide book study that is starting at the end of the month. The book is called The Prodigal God and it's not too late to get a copy, join a small group, or follow along on your own. A book study is a great to start your new year!

#199. Rev. Jim Humphries - January 16, 2022 Jan 18, 2022

Show notes

This Sunday in worship we will read John 2: 1-11, the story of Jesus turning water into wine at a wedding in Cana of Galilee. This is one of the most well-known narratives of the Bible, to be sure. And because it's such a familiar story, perhaps we've never asked ourselves: Why would Jesus do such an odd thing? We're accustomed to reading about Jesus' healings and other miraculous deeds, but turning water into wine seems like a very different kind of miracle, does it not? Perhaps there's something deeper and more significant going on that John, the gospel writer, wants us to discover. We hope you can join us Sunday morning.

#198. Rev. Jim Humphries - January 9, 2022 Jan 10, 2022

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This week we gather and hear the story of Jesus’ baptism. Like Jesus, who was claimed at his baptism as God’s beloved Son, in baptism, we too have been claimed by God. The most basic truth about who we are comes not from what we have, or what we do, or even what we’ve failed to do, but our truest and most basic identity comes from whose we are. Like Jesus we are God’s own beloved sons and daughters. No matter what identity we have claimed for ourselves, no matter the identity others have tried to impose upon us, no matter the label we have earned from our good choices or our worst mistakes, we are first and foremost God’s beloved. In thinking about making a new beginning, in a New Year – we begin at the font, remembering that baptism gives us a new story. We are God’s beloved. Friends this is what it means to be baptized into Christ. Baptism is about finding our identity, finding out who we are, in Jesus Christ.

#197. Rev. David Hockett - January 2, 2022 Jan 04, 2022

Show notes

On Sunday we will hear the story of the Magi from Matthew’s gospel. It’s often read around January 6th, or a holy day, that in Eastern Christianity, rivals Christmas as a day of celebration and significance. In some traditions it is known as Three Kings Day. We have it on our calendars as the Feast of the Epiphany. The word epiphany simply means appearing or appearance, or to make manifest, or to reveal. So, this particular day and season of the Christian year is the time when the Church recalls the “concrete, physical, in the flesh way in which Jesus reveals God to all of humanity.” Jesus is an epiphany, a manifestation, a revelation of the glory of God. Jesus is the Light of God shining in the darkness – a light so bright the darkness cannot overcome it, a glorious light that draws Wise Men and others to the brightness of its dawn. The season of Epiphany asks us then to consider how God has revealed God’s self, made God’s self known to us in Jesus, and what that revelation, that manifestation means for us as his followers and friends? Having seen the glorious presence of God in Christ, having seen the light of God’s new day dawning on the horizon, how are we called to live differently? How are we called now to be instruments of the revelation of God, instruments of the light who make the love and light of Christ manifest in the world?

#196. This Thing Called Church - Episode 15 - December 15 Dec 16, 2021

Show notes

For the last episode of the year, David, Kevin, and Karen discuss the meaning of incarnation, if Jesus was really human, and why it is so important to understand. Kevin features his special holiday apparel which also ties into what "national day" it is. Thank you to everyone who has watched and supported us this year. We wish you all a very merry Christmas and a happy new year!

#195. Rev. David Hockett - December 12 Dec 16, 2021

Show notes

While the world is scrambling around trying to buy happiness, Mary, the favored one of God, sings. She sings not a song of sentimental Christmas happiness, but a song of joy, because she expects that things will be different, things will change through the birth of her son. Mary’s Magnificat (Luke 1:46b-55) is the radical proclamation that, in her son, the world is forever changed, turned upside down. She boldly sings of what God has done, especially for people we don’t normally think of as being blessed. Mary sings for the lowly, the dispossessed, the hungry and the poor, people like her, claiming that in her womb grows the one who will upend the kingdoms of this world and all their posturing and pretension. Mary’s song announces that Jesus, God in the flesh, is bread for the hungry, water for the thirsty, liberation for the oppressed, healing for the broken-hearted, and a Way in the wilderness for the lost. Our calling is to learn the tune and sing along.

#194. Rev. David Hockett - December 5 Dec 05, 2021

Show notes

Our lives are pointing to something or to someone. We are telling a story by the way we live. And make no mistake about it, our neighbors are listening to what the Church says, and are watching what the Church does. Right or wrong, fair or unfair, they are drawing conclusions about the truthfulness and the usefulness of the gospel based upon what they see and hear in us. They’re drawing conclusions about Jesus, based upon the lives of Jesus’ people. This Sunday we encounter Zechariah who, with his wife Elizabeth, had spent his whole life waiting for the salvation of Israel. Their son, John, would be the one to announce and point to the birth of Jesus as the fulfillment of the promised coming of God’s peace and light. Advent reminds us that our vocation is both to wait and prepare like Zechariah and Elizabeth and then to live in a way that our lives point to Jesus and the hope, peace, joy, and love he brings.

#193. This Thing Called Church - Episode 14 - December 1 Dec 02, 2021

Show notes

David, Kevin, and Karen recap their Thanksgivings, and Karen gifts David another cup for his coffee cup collection. We are now in the season of Advent and the three discuss preparing for this special time and what it means. David and Kevin also give some tips on how to keep a holy Advent and not be caught up in the busyness and stress of the holiday.

#192. Rev. David Hockett - November 28 Nov 30, 2021

Show notes

On Sunday, we enter the season of Advent, or the Church’s four-week-long season of preparation for our celebration of the birth of Jesus. We’ll begin the season exploring a passage from the prophet Jeremiah who, in the face of devastation, imagines an alternative reality: the restoration of Israel, the practice of justice and righteousness, and the flourishing of life in the land that God has promised. Not because of any strength or wisdom or intelligence that Jeremiah possesses, but because, even if he doesn’t know when or how God will act, Jeremiah trusts in the goodness and the faithfulness of God. Advent is about learning how to live with hope when there seems to be a great chasm or gap between what is and what we wish could be. It’s about living each and every day trusting that God will finish what God has started – even if we can’t see when or how. The good news of Christmas, the good news for which we watch, and wait, and prepare, is that Jesus, Mary’s son, is the righteousness of God in the flesh. He is our healing and salvation.

#191. Rev. Dianne Lawhorn - November 21 Nov 30, 2021

Show notes

This Sunday, November 21, we celebrate Christ the King Sunday. This Sunday marks the bridge between ordinary time after Pentecost and the beginning of Advent that starts the new church year. This Sunday’s purpose is to celebrate the reign of Christ as King. This service will use scripture and song to offer a worshipful reflection on the fulfillment that Christ brings to the reign of God. Our scripture for the day will be Psalm 93, which is called an “enthroned” or “royal” Psalm. It was composed to be set to music and sung within worship liturgy as it proclaimed “The Lord is King.” This Psalm highlights God’s reign from the very foundation of the world and points us to the Messianic age that brings fulfillment of the reign of God, as the whole world recognizes that Christ is King.

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