Create in me a Clean Heart

Rev. Tayler Necoechea

Ash Wednesday offers us an opportunity to begin our Lenten journey of reconciliation, renewal, and restoration. 

On this Ash Wednesday, we will pray free through systemic and relational transformation. 
that God will cleanse us and make us a new heart as we turn our eyes towards the most vulnerable among us. This begins with confession, allowing God into those spaces of ourselves we might not like others to see. 

Ash Wednesday | March 5, 2025

Fasting on Justice and Mercy

Rev. Jenny Smith Walz

Jesus tells us what acts of mercy are: feeding, clothing, visiting, welcoming.

Jesus also invites us to join him in the work of justice: setting the oppressed free through systemic and relational transformation. 

If Lent includes fasting, might we, like the writer in Isaiah 58, choose the fast of justice and mercy? 
With whom will our hearts be as we fast in this way?

March 9, 2025

Where You Go, I Will Go

Rev. Jenny Smith Walz

After living as a refugee and losing her husband and sons, Naomi urges her daughters-in-law to return to their homes to have a chance at a new life (and a hope for security through marriage) as she makes her way to Bethlehem. 

However, Ruth’s love for her vulnerable mother-in-law compels her to go with her in solidarity, potentially giving up this chance for security, and promising to live with her and worship with her for all the days of her life. 

March 16, 2025

Share Everything

Rev. Jenny Smith Walz

In the very early days of the Church, those who believed in Christ shared their wealth so that the apostles could distribute food and resources among them. 

This solidarity through sharing of resources (such as food and land) certainly was not easy for everyone (like Ananias and Sapphira) but when it was done well, there was not a single person who went without!

March 23, 2025

Journeying Together in Darkness

Rev. Tayler Necoechea

The 88th Psalm has been named by scholars as an accurate description into the life of someone suffering from depression. 

Whether or not we have experienced the struggles of any mental illness, we can use Psalm 88 to find deeper understanding and compassion as we journey alongside, and even grieve with, all those who struggle with their mental health. 

March 30, 2025

Out of Hiding

Brooke Foster

There are countless ways we hide from one another, from God, from ourselves, afraid to be seen fully, unsure we’ll be accepted, loved, belong. Jesus was someone who saw people, and helped others see with new eyes, transformed by grace. God is giving us eyes and hearts to see who is suffering from the ache of not being seen, to love one another into being through community.

April 6, 2025

That We May be One

Rev. Jenny Smith Walz

As we receive again the passion of Jesus, we hear Jesus’s final prayer for us: that we might be one with God and with one another. Might this be what salvation looks like? May the love with which God loved Jesus be in us, and flow through us, so that we might be saved, so that our joy might be complete, together. May the cross guide our hearts to be with one another such that we all experience the loosening of our bonds, the healing of communities, and the repair of our world.

Palm Sunday | April 13, 2025

We Wash One Another's Feet

Rev. Jenny Smith Walz

With whom is Jesus’s heart? It is always with God, always with us, always with the most vulnerable among us. Jesus’s heart is always serving, loving, bringing us into unity, relationship, solidarity with him, with God. What does it look like for God to be in solidarity with us? It looks like Jesus, on his knees, at our feet, washing away the dirt. 

Maundy Thursday | April 17, 2025

Solidarity in Our Suffering

Rev. Tayler Necoechea

Though Christ has died, we pray that God remembers us as we seek justice and mercy for all God’s creation. 

On this in-between day, we sit and wait in solidarity with those who suffer, have disappointments, shattered hopes. We do this because Christ taught us this kind of solidarity, painful as it might be.. 

And we ask God to remember God’s people, we hope that God brings God’s resurrection hope tomorrow. 

Holy Saturday | April 19, 2025