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Another Look at the Book of Revelation: A Revelation of God's Dream

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To put it bluntly, that way of looking at the Book of Revelation is wrong. But it captured a popular imagination in this country which has led to two responses. One is that you love that stuff, and even though it hasn't happened yet, you are still looking for it. The other response is just to say, who cares about the Book of Revelation. In 2000 years no one has figured this out, so it is just a waste of time.

I think this is a great tragedy for us because the book of Revelation is a rich book that has so much to offer us if we stop looking at it as some kind of road map, this prediction that happened 2000 year ago, and start trying to understand it differently.

To listen to or read Bingham’s entire sermon for the Sixth Sunday of Easter, click “Read More.”

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A Community of Love

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Whatever metaphor you want to use for the Church, for example, the Church is like the solar system and the star we orbit around is love. Or the Church is a building being constructed and the plumb line of our life is love. Or you can say that we are a symphony and the tuning note of the orchestra is love. We are meant to focus on love. We can disagree on all the other stuff; we can work through it, but love is the center. That is what we are tying to do today in this community. We are tying to be that community of love.

To listen to or read Bingham’s entire sermon for the Fifth Sunday of Easter, click “Read More.”

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Calling Us By Name

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Grant that when we hear God’s voice, we may know who's calling us, and then follow. Like animals who know their caregivers, or children who know their parents’ voices, like siblings, friends, or lovers who instantly turn at the sound of their names and the unique voices of those speaking, Jesus lovingly and longingly calls out our names, beckoning us into relationship with God.

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

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A Life of Prayer and A Life of Action

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Before we can talk about today's Gospel reading from the 21st Chapter of John, we need to step back for a moment and look at Chapter 20. More specifically, we need to go back to Easter Sunday morning when we heard the story of Mary Magdalen on the very first Easter Day while it was still dark, going down to the tomb and finding the tomb empty. The body was not there. She was confused, and so ran off to get Simon Peter and the beloved Disciple.

At this point John includes the strangest detail that I can't get out of my mind. It says that Simon Peter and the beloved Disciple had a foot race. Now, we live in Track Town USA, it's marathon Sunday, so we can understand why they would want to have a foot race in that moment. Why not? But why include the detail in the telling of the story all those years later?

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

A Sacrament of Reconciliation

It is with that understanding of the importance of reconciliation that we come to our Gospel. We hear the words of Jesus when he says to love your enemy. Striking, shocking words "to love your enemy". Jesus says that because he knows, he understands how vitally important the work of reconciliation is.

Click “Read More” to read Bingham’s entire sermon for the Seventh Sunday after Epiphany.

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Conversing with God

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Listen to or read Bingham’s entire sermon for the Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany by clicking “Read More.”

Over the past few weeks we have been hearing a good bit about call, God's call to us. Two weeks ago we prayed in our opening Collect to follow God's call: Give us grace, O Lord, to answer readily the call of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Then we went on in our Epistle to hear Paul talk about different calls we might have. Some are called to be apostles, some are called to be teachers, some are called to healers, etc. all with the idea that there are different calls within the church and are all an important part of the Body of Christ.

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