Renewing Love of Neighbor Pt. 4: Common Ground

John 1:1-5, 14-18 | Colossians 1:15-20

Jeremy Richards

There are many things we’ve learned and continue to learn from the Covid-19 pandemic. One lesson that has struck us most forcibly, especially in our individualistic, Western culture, is just how connected we are to one another – how connected we are to our neighbors here in Portland and in the United States, but also to our neighbors around the globe. Covid went from being a mysterious sickness in a relatively unknown city in China, to overtaking much of Europe, to finally arriving on our shores and quickly shutting the United States down as well.

Renewing Love of Neighbor Pt. 3: Saving Society

Jeremiah 29:4-7 | Matthew 5:14-16

Jeremy Richards

On June 1, 1886, the Second German Baptist Church in Hells Kitchen, New York ordained their new pastor, a recent graduate of Rochester Theological Seminary. His name was Walter Rauschenbusch. Rauschenbusch was the son of August and Caroline Rauschenbusch. August had come to the United States as a German Lutheran missionary, but later became a Baptist. Walter’s Christian upbringing was pietistic, focusing on the personal – personal faith, personal sin, personal salvation, and personal religious experiences. Despite the ways Rauschenbusch’s faith would change and grow as he got older, he never saw this as a negative thing, only as incomplete in and of itself. He said of his upbringing, “I was brought up in a very religious family, and I thank God for it.”[1] At the age of 17, after a rebellious period, he began to pray for help and, in his words, he “got [his] own religious experience.” This experience would stick with him for the rest of his life.

Renewing Love of Neighbor Pt. 2: Practicing Church

1 Corinthians 11:12-14, 27 | Ephesians 4:25-5:2

Jeremy Richards

I don’t think I come across as your stereotypical jock, but the truth is, I’ve been playing sports my whole life. My parents still have a picture of me with my dad, when I was just a couple years older than Esther, and I have full on football oufit on – shoulder pads, a helmet, and a Seahawks jersey. I still remember playing football with him out in the yard beside the house we used to rent.

Renewing Love of Neighbor Pt. 1: Becoming "That Kind of Person"

1 John 4:7-11, 19-21 | Luke 10:25-37
Jeremy Richards

It’s August 15th, we’re almost 8 months into a yearlong study on love, and, maybe a bit surprisingly, we are just now getting to loving other people. One would probably think that love of neighbor would come earlier. In fact, when we think of Christian love, we usually think of giving love as Christians. We think of the loving we do.

Befriending Brokenness

Psalm 139:1-18 | 2 Corinthians 12:9-10

Jeremy Richards

Today we are in week three of our four week series on “Restoring Love of Self.” We’ve been talking about the importance of loving and knowing ourselves in relation to loving and knowing both God and our neighbors. We’ve been using Henri Nouwen’s book The Life of the Beloved as our guide. Nouwen says there are 4 words that characterize the life of the Beloved: taken, blessed, broken, and given. Today we’re talking going to talk about brokenness.

More Than a Machine (Earth Day Sunday)

Psalm 8 | Psalm 19:1-4

Jeremy Richards

I recently finished a book called The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss by David Bentley Hart. In the book, Hart essentially challenges what we might call a materialist or a naturalist understanding of the world – the idea that all that exists is what can be seen, and that the world is essentially something like a machine chugging along with no reason, no truth, nothing transcendent within or without it. What ya see is what ya get, essentially.

The Church Gathered, the Church Sent

Acts 4:32-35 | John 20:19-31

Jeremy Richards

This sermon was preached at Grant Park’s first in-person worship service in the sanctuary in over a year, due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Brie and I are big fans of the show Friends. I know some of you are as well. I also know that some of you are not, and before I go on, I just need to use my pastoral authority to confront a very flawed, very problematic way of thinking when it comes to Friends. I have had people in this congregation say to me, “I don’t watch Friends, I watch Seinfeld,” as if it isn’t possible to watch them both. What a dualistic, exclusive way of thinking. As a church that prides itself on inclusivity, we should recognize that one can (and let’s be honest, should) watch both Friends and Seinfeld. Can I get an amen?

A Poor Conclusion (Easter)

Isaiah 25:6-9 | Mark 16:1-8

Jeremy Richards

Our Gospel reading this morning begins with three heartbroken women trudging towards a tomb – Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome. They are going through the rituals of grief, attending to a dead body in its third day of decay. This ritual, like all rituals that surround death, is meant to bring closure. Two days after the horrific events of Good Friday, these women still weep, they still mourn, but, if they are honest, there is a certain kind of relief that comes from these practices.