love

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Gifts for the Common Good: Living Out Love

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The third thing that Paul argues, and I think this is the most important one because it will lead us to that message of love. Paul says that every single gift we have has been given to us for the common good. These gifts we have been given are not just for us to enjoy for ourselves. You may take pleasure in the gift, but they are given to us for the other, for the community, for something bigger than ourselves, for something outside of ourselves.

Listen to or read Bingham’s entire sermon by clicking “Read More.”

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Christmas: A Feast of Light and Love

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God wanted to shine a light in the midst of the darkness that we experience. And there is a lot of darkness in this world from the global level down to the personal level, and everything in between. God wanted to make sure that in the midst of all this darkness there would be a light.

Listen to or read Bingham’s entire sermon by clicking “read more.”

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The Abundance of God’s Love

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In St. Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians that we heard today, Paul offers a prayer for the people. He prays that they may be rooted and grounded in love. And he also prays that they may know the height and length and breadth and depth of the love of God. A love that surpasses knowledge, Paul says. When people are filled with this love, he says that God, through us, can do infinitely more than we can ask for or imagine.

Listen to or read Bingham’s entire sermon by clicking “Read More.”

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Sowing the Seeds of Love

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We are to be sowers, all of us, scattering the seeds that come from our experience of God’s love for us. I love this image of us just going all around, here and there a seed, a kind word, a smile, a compassionate conversation, a very real help in a time of trouble, a shared experience of the divine, a powerful moment together.

Listen to or read Ryan’s entire sermon by clicking “Read More.”

Forward with Love

The next thing the Disciples do is something normal as we process grief, and try to go back to the way it was before. We pretend the loss didn’t happen. We try to recreate the past, as if we could. What do the Disciples do? They say there used to be twelve of us. We lost one, that Judas guy, so let’s pick a new Judas. So they create a criteria for the next Disciple.

Listen to or read Bingham’s entire sermon for the final Sunday of the Easter Season by clicking “Read More.”

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Rupture and Reconciliation: Walking the Way of Love

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It is also a story of a clash of two different world views or mindsets, imaginations of how this world should operate. One mindset is the one of the brothers, who are afraid. It is a mindset of punishment, revenge, vengeance, an eye for an eye justice. They know they did wrong, they know they should be punished for it, and are afraid of what that punishment is going to look like. That is their view of how things are probably going to go.

The other mindset is the one that Joseph has, which is the imagination of forgiveness, of mercy, of grace, of reconciliation. I think the brothers’ mindset is probably where most of the world is. A lot of the time, most of us feel that same way, too.

Listen to or read Bingham’s entire sermon by clicking “Read More.”

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The Intentional Practice of Love

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Jesus is teaching us the Gospel message to love. I know it is not always easy. In fact, it is rather difficult sometimes. We think of love as being that feel good feeling, but love is so much more than that. Love is the very intentional practice of caring about another person, even when there doesn’t seem to be very much to care about. Love is that act of blessing and not cursing that Paul talked about last week. Love is not an easy thing. It is one of the most challenging things to do sometimes.

Listen to or read Bingham’s entire sermon by clicking “Read More.”

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