The expert in the law wants to know how to experience life to the fullest. No, he's not talking about heaven when he asks about eternal life. He's asking about how to experience life deeply - now - in the present. Jesus turns the question around on him (we'll have a little fun with this here). He responds, "love God, love your neighbor." Jesus says, "good - do this and live!" Then the expert asks another question (again, we'll have a little fun with this), "Who is my neighbor?"

Maybe what he's asking is, who is NOT my neighbor? How much love are we talking about, Jesus? Where do I draw the line? Surely you don't mean everyone is my neighbor.

Then Jesus tells the story. One of the most famous stories ever told. At the end - he asks the expert, "who was the neighbor?" Yeah, the one who showed mercy. Jesus: "go, and do likewise." Do it. Draw close. Feel empathy. Let that move you into showing mercy - showing kindness. Do it.

Bottom line - love. In everything - love. In all things - love.

Speaker: Aaron Vis
Scripture: Luke 10:25-37
http://bible.com/events/49463266

July 13, 2025 "Who Is My Neighbor?"

This is the story of the Valley of the Dry Bones. To put it mildly - Israel probably felt like those dry bones - disconnected and isolated - alone and probably a bit dead inside during this time. Captivity, forced separation from loved ones, oppression, isolation in a new land. We know what those dry bones feel like.

Then God asks a curious question: "Can these bones live?" Uh, they're dead, God. What are you even talking about? The bones can't do anything for themselves. All they can do is sit there in the dust. Then God tells Ezekiel to call upon the breath - the four winds. Help comes from outside ourselves - comes from beyond ourselves.

He calls on the breath - the wind - and the bones live. The Spirit is the power beyond ourselves.

But God also sends Ezekiels into our lives. This happens throughout history, and we can see it. God sends us Ezekiel's, too. So the next time you feel disconnected and isolated and alone - pray for and watch for and wait for the Spirit. But also pray for and watch for and wait for an Ezekiel to enter into your life - new life might be just around the corner. So here we end on a hopeful note, of new life being possible.

Speaker: Aaron Vis
Scripture: Ezekiel 37:1-14
http://bible.com/events/49466472

July 20, 2025 "Will These Dry Bones Live?"

Speaker: Suzanne Vogel
Scripture: Romans 1:18-32; 2:1-4
http://bible.com/events/49469584

July 27, 2025 "Romans Reconsidered"

Speaker: Sara Nielson
Scripture: John 4:10-15
http://bible.com/events/49472871

August 3, 2025 "This Is Living Water"

We've got the end of the story of Noah and the Ark. This will be a broad, sweeping retelling of the story starting in Genesis 6. This is a conventional divine judgment story. God looks at the state of humanity and has some regrets - decides it's time to wipe the whole thing out - system reboot - clean slate. God decides to do what nearly all Near Eastern deities do - start over.

But then, in Israel's story, something amazing happens. God has a change of heart. God notices Noah and his family and gets a little worried. In the middle of this horrific story we have a brand new and radical idea emerging in the ancient world: God isn't an angry tyrant who needs to be placated. God is more like a concerned parent - a father/mother grieving for a lost child.

In order for this new emerging idea about God to persist, Noah needs to survive. So God gives him an ark. God saves Noah. God makes a promise - never again will God flood the earth. And God gives the rainbow as a symbol. A rainbow. An upside-down symbol of violence. The symbol of violence is turned into a symbol of God's promise to love and care for all the earth - every living creature, for all generations. This is a radically inclusive promise.

But this story isn't just about God. It also tells the truth about us. If left alone, we're doomed. Not much has changed in thousands of years. We're still nasty, disobedient, and violent. 

There's also the truth about the ark. God gives us the ark. We have an ark in a stormy world - and there are some crazy waves out there.

Let's remember the truth of the promise and the rainbow - God's promise to love and care for all the earth - through all generations. AND there's the truth about the symbol the rainbow foreshadows - the truth about the cross. It's another symbol of violence that Jesus turned into a symbol of God's grace and unconditional love for all of humanity. God's grace covers us and then God sends us out into the world with that same grace.

Speaker: Aaron Vis
Scripture: Genesis 9:8-17
http://bible.com/events/49476084

August 10, 2025 "An Ark In A Stormy World"

This is one of my favorite - if not my favorite story about Jesus. It's not a healing - it's not miraculous - it's Jesus' first sermon. In it, he pretty much frames what his whole life has been and will be all about.

I'm going to help us visualize the story by describing in detail what things might have looked like.  Let's talk through the movements - the scroll, the attendant, the pointer, the Moses Seat. I like it. Jesus reads from Isaiah, and says that this scripture is fulfilled in their hearing. He's claiming the whole freedom for the captives, setting prisoners free, sight to the blind stuff as what his whole life was going to be about - essentially because that's what God has been up to all along.

His hometown people like what they hear but they're skeptical. Jesus moves on - and essentially preaches a sermon that condemns his own people - they should have been about this the whole time - but they haven't been. Then, the people try to kill him. Yeah, like whaaaat? 

Some thoughts here. First, sometimes God chooses to speak to us in unexpected ways - ways we sometimes reject.

Next, sometimes anger and violence and compromising integrity are the last defense of those who have to face the truth of their crooked religious affirmations.

Finally - and we talked through this in our The Bible...Really? class. Sometimes we have to read the Bible creatively. Jesus quotes Scripture - but he cuts some of it out. He leaves the violence and destruction out of it. He reads Isaiah within the context of the whole Bible, which leads to God not destroying the world, but healing it.

Speaker: Aaron Vis
Scripture: Luke 4:14-30
http://bible.com/events/49478832

August 17, 2025 "Freedom For The Captives"

(Apologies for the late upload, this sermon was previously posted the week of the 24th but didn't process correctly the first time)

The calling of Abraham next to the calling of Matthew. I've done this before - this time we come at it from a very different angle. Change for us human beings is difficult. It's less of a point I'm making, and more of a way for us to feel something as we enter into the stories.

First let's look at the story of Abraham and Sarah's initial calling. Here we have another foundational story. And in it, faith seems to be defined as people responding to the voice of God calling them into change and uncertainty. This is interesting - since for the past 100 or so years faith has been defined as being certain about different ideas about God, Jesus, the Spirit, humanity, the Bible - etc. But here, at the beginning of the Bible, we have a story defining faith as a journey into the uncertain.

This is where the story of Matthew comes into play. He leaves his tax booth and follows Jesus. During the beginning of his journey he comes into contact with unclean people - marginalized people (ironically, he's one of those marginalized, too). And in coming into close proximity with them as he follows Jesus (loving people), I wonder if his thinking about them is changed, too.

Maybe faith is less about being certain about a set of ideas and beliefs about God or anything, really - and it's more about going, leaving, moving into the uncertain future trusting that God will be with you and that blessing is coming.

Speaker: Aaron Vis
Scripture: Genesis 12:1-9; Matthew 9:9-13
http://bible.com/events/49482587

August 24, 2025 "Our Call During Uncertainty"

Jesus isn't holding anything back - he's letting the crowd know what it's going to cost to actually follow him. I appreciate that about Jesus - let's get all the cards on the table!

We're going to spend a lot of time asking some questions, and these questions aren't necessarily going to be easy to answer. That's okay.

Here are the questions that will help us get at the heart of the "cost of discipleship."
1) Who is my "we"? How narrow or wide is the circle that includes "my people"? Are we willing to risk a "we" that goes beyond race, religion, gender, sexuality, politics, etc?
2) What do I think is mine? What do we hold on to more tightly than the divine?
3) What are we willing to hate? In other words, what are we willing to let go - to move beyond? Beliefs? Traditions? What source of safety and security do we trust more than the divine?
4) What version of the faith are we selling? The easy kind? Or the kind that has only one non-negotiable? Self sacrificing, self giving love?

Speaker: Aaron Vis
Scripture: Luke 14:25-35
http://bible.com/events/49489368

September 7, 2025 "The Cost of Discipleship"

Speaker: Bev Modlin
Scripture: The Book of Jonah

September 14, 2025 "What Is Your Nineveh?"

ReNew Community: Following Jesus to renew lives that renew the world.
UP with God, IN with one another, OUT in service.

August 24, 2025 "Our Call During Uncertainty"

ReNew Ames

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