Sermons from 2021 (Page 2)

Preacher: Pastor Liz Miller Date: May 16, 2021 Text: Exodus 20:8-11             Six months ago I was in a meeting with Edgewood’s Governance Council and we started talking about my upcoming sabbatical. It is a common practice that about every five years of service in a church, pastors leave for sabbatical for a few months. My sabbatical was on the horizon and we were beginning conversations of all the logistics it would involve, all the different types of planning and…

Preacher: Pastor Liz Miller Date: May 9, 2021 Text: John 15:9-17 If I had to sum up my theology in three words, I would say, “God is love.” I choose those three words because no matter which way you arrange them, it invites us into a deeper exploration and understanding of what they mean.God.God is.God is love.Love.Love is.Is love God?Love is God.We are a church that celebrates much of the diversity we hold, in our identities, in our faith backgrounds…

Preacher: Pastor Liz Miller Date: May 2, 2021 Text: Acts 8:26-40 There are times in worship and in private study, when we take the Bible and we pull it apart, unpack it, isolate verses from what comes before and after so that we can understand the language, the context, the history, and the implications of what has been written and passed down. It’s an important part of our practice of studying scripture. But, there are times when it is most…

Preacher: Pastor Liz MillerDate: April 25, 2021Text: Psalm 23 and John 10:11-18 This Sunday is a little known special day in the Christian church known as Good Shepherd Sunday. The only thing we have to do to honor the day is read the gospel passage that talks about God as the good shepherd. Check – we’ve officially celebrated Good Shepherd Sunday this year! Perhaps because of this day, there was a video floating around Facebook this week – a patient…

Preacher: Ed SmithDate: April 18, 2021 Text: Genesis 1:1-2 and Mark 12:28-34 In the midst of my career as a science educator I revisited a sense of calling to the ministry that I hadexperienced at times earlier in my life. A major element of the ministry I envisioned was the articulation of a theology that my scientifically oriented friends and colleagues could find meaningful, a quest I had pursued for myself at least since high school. I ultimately chose to…

Preacher: Pastor Liz MillerDate: April 4, 2021Text: Mark 16:1-8 This time last year, as I spliced together dozens of recordings of Edgewood members from the safety of their homes proclaiming, “Christ is risen!” I thought that would be the only time I celebrated Easter outside of the church sanctuary, the only time I would be hearing a virtual choir with a virtual orchestra accompanying our singers instead of having brass spilling out of the crowded choir loft, the sanctuary radiating…

Preacher: Pastor Liz MillerDate: March 28, 2021Text: John 12:1-19 Beth got her first COVID-19 vaccine this week which was great news in our household. It was not without some trepidation as she has a lifelong fear of needles and would rather do anything than voluntarily get a shot. But when the health department said it was her turn, she made an appointment. She drove herself to the MSU pavilion, and when a member of the National Guard approached her car,…

Preacher: Pastor Liz Miller Date: March 21, 2021 Text: John 12:20-33 Beth and I went to MSU’s Broad Art Museum this week for the first time in over a year and I was reminded how often art helps me build a bridge between scripture and my life, the artist’s images and imagination to create deeper meaning and connections. I went in with the theme of reformation in mind, the idea that God is always re-forming or transforming us, our community,…

Preacher: Pastor Liz Miller Date: March 7, 2021 Text: John 2:13-22 I recently took a class on community organizing. I learned a lot about how to bring people with shared passions together to work on issues that are important to them. One of the things we talked about in the class was the qualities of a leader. When we were asked what the qualities of a leader where, all of us students responded with things like, ‘Bold! Makes decisions! Strong…

Preacher: Pastor Liz Miller Date: February 28, 2021 Text: Mark 8:31-9:8 I have been thinking about grief lately. Grief has been a steady presence this past year in every home in some way or another as our work, school, and social lives all changed, as we missed out on important connections and moments. There has also been the grief of loss of family members and friends both to COVID and during the time of COVID, loss made bigger and harder…

Preacher: Pastor Liz Miller Date: February 7, 2021 Text: Isaiah 40:21-31 Every year on the day of our Annual Meeting I like to give a State of the Church address.There’s not a lot that inspires me in politics – mostly things that aggravate me – but I do love watching Presidents and Governors and even Mayors reflect on the past year and lay out a vision for the year ahead. It’s about more than campaign promises. It’s about bringing us…

Preacher: Pastor Liz MillerDate: January 31, 2021 Text: Mark 1:21-28 One of the many things I love about Edgewood is that we are a Christian church filled with many beliefs. We are people who have grown up in different faith traditions, from Catholic to Charismatic and from Methodist to Mennonite. Some of us even grew up in the United Church of Christ, or the Congregational and Evangelical Reformed churches that proceeded ourdenomination, and some of us even grew up right…