Author: ppadmin

Watching and Waiting in a Half-Spent Night

A sermon prior to covenant Sunday

Ken Sehested
Circle of Mercy, 28 November 2004
Matthew 24:36-44

Background to this sermon. Circle of Mercy Congregation has no indefinite members.
Each year, on the anniversary of our founding, both new and renewing members join
in a covenant reaffirming our vision and mission, on the first Sunday of Advent
(or second, if the first falls on Thanksgiving holiday weekend).
See "Covenant Vows for new and renewing members.")

            One summer, during my college days, I worked with a road construction crew in Waco, Texas. It was some of the hardest work I’ve ever done . . . or, maybe not because the work was so hard, but the working conditions were so severe, when you factor in the hot Central Texas heat, frequently working close to hot asphalt paving equipment. And the constant cloud of dust broiling up from bulldozers and scrapers.

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Go to the hallowed abode

A litany for worship inspired by Psalm 122

by Ken Sehested

In the face of endless aggrievement and obstinate bereavement, despite hope-contempting fear on display in every mother’s tear,

Let us go, let us go to the hallowed abode of the One who brings solace and cheer.

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Listening for whispering hope

Polling the electoral "whitelash"

by Ken Sehested

“The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.”
—Ezekiel 18:2

        “What on earth are you going to write [about the election outcome]?” a friend wrote this week.

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After Tuesday

Electoral season pastoral prayer

Nancy Hastings Sehested
Sunday 6 November 2016

Thank you God, for the shaping from the saints in our lives…for the foolish and the wise ones, the serious and the silly ones, the reserve and the overbearing ones, the mischievous and the obedient ones…lives whose presence have broadened and enriched our own.

Free us from regrets by your grace. Strengthen us by the witness of your hope-bearing and love-embracing saints before us. May these days make saints of all of us in perseverance in the struggles, in resistance to evil, in reliance on your Spirit.

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Isaiah 65 coloring book & “After Tuesday” pastoral prayer

Reaffirming rainbow promises in light of an electoral deluge

This week members of my congregation are adding artistic colors to one or more of the 22 pages of an “Isaiah 65 coloring book.” Adults have been encouraged to decorate one or more page as they watch elections results Tuesday night.

Each of the pages has a phrase pointing to a profoundly different future, taken from Isaiah 65 (plus one from a similar text in Isaiah 11 and from Mary’s hymn of praise in Luke 1) each against a rainbow background, the sign of God’s re-creational covenant in Genesis 9.

This coming Sunday, 14 November, featuring the Isaiah 65 text, will be our first post-election gathering to discern what “After Tuesday” looks like and what it means for the living of these days. Artwork created by members will be displayed in our sanctuary next Sunday.

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Caught in the mess, caught in the mercy

An invitation to the Table

by Nancy Hastings Sehested

It was field day on the prison yard. A couple hundred inmates were competing in basketball and volleyball games and relay races. The cooler of fruit punch ran out, but they had a water fountain on the side of the building. But Montel was in a wheelchair and couldn’t reach the fountain. He wheeled over to the staff tent and asked for a cup of water from the staff cooler. Several staff said no. Then he turned to me, the chaplain, and asked for water. I said no.

I couldn’t sleep that night. Why didn’t I give a man a cup of water? Jesus said something specific about that, and if anyone gives a cup of cold water. . . .

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Confrontation at the Cannonball

The Dakota Access Pipeline controversy

Introduction to a special issue of “Signs of the Times” (4 November 2016, No. 94)

by Ken Sehested

        By now, DAPL (Dakota Access Pipeline) has become a familiar acronym to many in the US. The confrontation near Cannon Ball, North Dakota, where the Cannonball River joins the Missouri River, is cleft by a thin barricade.

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Longing from below

An Advent meditation

by Ken Sehested

      Advent is a season of great longing, specifically for those longing “from below.”

      The longing is a revolutionary one, however, and frightening to those in charge, who have much to lose if existing hierarchies are breached. Such anxiety is what fueled Herod’s terror against male babies.

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