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Raleigh Mennonite Church

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Pouring out Despair – March 20, 2022

March 21, 2022

Continuing the series during Lent, Melissa preached from Luke 13:1-9. Despair is that intractable boulder that won’t move. Despair is the feeling of weariness after prying and pushing and pulling with all your might.

From the passage, Jesus doesn’t provide pat answers when folks come to him in despair. “No, I tell you, but unless you repent, you will perish.”

With spring here, Melissa shared that she is spending time working with her compost pile. Carefully feeding it and aerating it, the bacteria turns all this waste into compost, and then the compost goes into the garden that creates flowers for pollinators. And that’s how we all eat food.

My compost pile smells amazing. It smells like life. It smells like resurrection. Like things that were waste and leftover, breaking down and becoming new, and offering life to other things.

Jesus invites us take our despair, our shared pain, and lay it down for the good gardener who is working in and among us to return it as compost for life, and wholeness and health.

Raleigh Mennonite Church
Raleigh Mennonite Church
Pouring out Despair - March 20, 2022
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Download file | Play in new window | Duration: 17:25 | Recorded on March 20, 2022

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Tagged With: compost, despair, Gospel of Luke, Lent, Melissa Florer-Bixler, new life, Pouring out, resurrection

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