As a Christian community, called to peacemaking and reconciliation, we affirm that people of any race, ethnic identity, gender, who are gay or straight, of any ability, age, or economic status, are welcome to full participation in our congregation.
Scripture: John 19:1-16b On this fifth Sunday of Lent, we continue the story of Jesus before Pontius Pilate. Through lots of questioning Jesus is mum. When Pilate gets quite frustrated and asks if Jesus is not aware that he has the power to release Jesus or to have him crucified, Jesus answers, “You have no […]
Scripture: John 18:28-40 There are so many points of reference for our lives today in this story of Jesus before Pilate that Susan spoke about on this fourth Sunday of Lent. Pilate was a politician, not a statesman, not a leader, but a politician. To Pilate, truth was something to manipulate. The dissonance between Pilate […]
Scripture: John 18:12-27 Seth brought the message on this third Sunday of Lent. We find Peter, the beloved disciple of Jesus, at probably one of the worst times of his life, denying he knew Jesus when he swore he wouldn’t. But this story isn’t so much about Peter as it is about us. We all, […]
Scripture: John 13:1-17 At the start of her sermon on this day after the US and Israel rained bombs on Iran, Susan admonished us to keep up the coordinated, persistent, non-violent pressure on the administration, and to keep up the prayer. The way of Jesus is the way of love, and today’s text is all […]
John 11: 1-44 The first Sunday of Lent Susan Scott delivered a shorter sermon than normal to allow time for a major church life meeting after the service. Lent is a season when we tend to lean more intentionally into engaging with the life and character of Jesus. The scripture was story of Lazarus’ resurrection. […]
Scripture: Luke 4:1-13 This Sunday we remembered Martin Luther King, Jr. and also focused on the temptations of Jesus as recounted in Luke (and Matthew and to a lesser degree in Mark). Temptations offer a test. There’s a chance to pass it and a chance to fail it. With Lent soon approaching next month, Susan […]
Scripture: Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32 How many times have we heard Jesus’s parable of the Prodigal Son from Luke 15? While the focus is usually on the son who leaves with his share of the inheritance and squanders it away, Melissa brings us a fresh perspective on the father and the eldest son. Not only was […]
Scripture: Isaiah 55:1-9 God’s version of confession and penance is entirely different from the world’s understanding of confession and penance. During Lent we have to let go of the anxiety that comes from the long-held cultural myth that confessing can only make things worse. Penance is to accept responsibility and to repair what is broken. […]
Scripture: Luke 4:1-13 When Jesus is tempted in the desert, Satan offers Jesus power over all of the world, which Satan has been given, if Jesus will just worship Satan. (Luke 4:6) God has handed over the powers of this world to a cosmic being called Satan. We may wonder why God allows this arrangement. […]
John 12: 20-33 Note: At 2:19, ten seconds of audio was lost due to a technical problem during the live recording. Melissa Florer-Bixler preaches on a time in Jesus’ life where there is no time left for ministry, but only to speak to those present of his imminent demise and fulfillment of God’s plan. The […]
Numbers 21: 4-9 John 3: 14-21 Our perspective on the trials and tribulations of life can have a profound effect and how we formulate our understanding of God’s character and our own place and purpose in God’s creation. Melissa Florer-Bixler preaches on the long and arduous Exodus of the Jewish people from Egypt and how […]
John2: 13-22 Melissa Florer-Bixler preached on the cleansing of the Temple by Jesus. From this gospel we learn that the existence of an economy for selling sacrificial animals and exchanging currency was not what angered Jesus, being necessary for travelers to participate in rituals, but rather the proximity of these activities, within the holy space […]
On this second Sunday in Lent, Melissa preached from Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16 and Romans 4:13-25, focusing on the story of Abram. Way before Moses gives those laws on the tablets, Abram is righteous before there’s a temple to sacrifice things in. Even before circumcision. And that’s really important, especially for us, because most of us […]
RMC member Phil Jackson preached on the temptation of Christ in the wilderness as told in Mark 1: 9-15. Although this relation of the beginning of Jesus’ ministry is very brief, we should not be fooled into reading too quickly past Mark’s description of this pivotal event. In it we can see how Jesus is […]
On this fifth Sunday of Lent Melissa preached from Romans 8:6-11. Our bodies are not neutral. We are formed by environments, constrained or freed, or subjected to housing laws and legal decisions, physical borders, corporations. Our bodies, our racialized bodies, our aging bodies, our gendered bodies, these are formed by forces much larger than our […]
On this third Sunday of Lent, Melissa spoke from Romans 5:1-11. Most of our sins aren’t interesting or dangerous. They’re mostly petty and boring and cruel. We short change both the chasm of our failings and the grace of God when we limit the scope of our sins to doing bad things. Our sins are […]
On this second Sunday of Lent Melissa preached from Romans 4:1-5, 13-17, weaving in basketball with the ongoing theme of confession, along with talking about community and identity. What if our identity isn’t a story about heroics or world-changing? What if the only way to tell each other apart is that we forgive each other?
On this first Sunday of Lent, Melissa preached from Genesis 2:15-17 & 3:1-7 and Romans 5:12-19. During this season we are focusing our time and attention toward “confession.” We have varied experiences with confessions. Confession is when we come clean, when we tell the truth about who we are. We are not God!
In this continuing series during Lent, today’s story is about Mary pouring out expensive perfume, washing Jesus’ feet with it and drying his feet with her hair. Rather than agreeing with Judas’ chastisement for wasting money on such extravagance, Jesus says, “She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my […]
The parable is The Prodigal Son but Melissa’s sermon focused on the older brother. The brother that stayed behind, served his father, tended the fields and flock and waited for his inheritance. He’s working in the field when his brother returns having squandered the inheritance he demanded while his father was still alive. Facing starvation […]
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 […]
On this second Sunday of Lent, Brian Recker provided our sermon based on the passage from Luke 9:28-36. The last two years have been tough. During that time we’ve had lots of expectations that have been thwarted. Whether they were expectations in our personal lives or in the world around us, the last few years […]
On this first Sunday of Lent, Melissa preached from Luke 4:1-13, the story of Jesus’ temptation. The last two years of the pandemic have held untold losses. We are entering Lent brimming with trauma and fear of these past two years. We each have been holding in so much. It’s hard to know what the […]
Sojourners recently published an article, “Fasting from Food Waste in a Season of Hoarding,” that features a core group from Raleigh Mennonite Church who have made a commitment this Lenten season to reduce food waste as a spiritual practice. Little did the group know when Lent started that this season would land us in the […]
Mailing Address
& Meeting Location
121 Hillsborough St.
Raleigh, NC 27603
Phone: 919-831-2969
Get in touch with us!
