Origins

“Our origin story includes that truth that we come from a God who made us in their own image. This means that caring for the creation includes care for the value and dignity of every individual human. Because when we do so, we recognize the divine in each of us.”

Meditation by The Rev. Dr. Elizabeth Peterson

Sunday, April 19, 2026

Sitting on a Fence

“God, give us the courage of your compassion.”

Meditation by The Rev. George Waters

Sunday, April 12, 2026

The Good News of Peace by Jesus Christ

“Jesus is the Good News. ... You must know that, because the world will tell you lies.  Someone will tell you that compassion is weakness.  Jesus shows otherwise.  Someone will say that ‘empathy is a made-up … term that does a lot of damage.’  But Jesus put flesh and blood on empathy, lived and died empathy, raised up and proved its real power to save.  Some believe the myth of redemptive violence and the rhetoric of ‘holy war.’  Jesus was a victim of violence, not a perpetrator of it.  He is the Prince of Peace, so whoever sides with those who kill are on the wrong side of God’s equation.  Someone will tell you that God condemns you and hates who you are.  Don’t believe it; you can know that’s not true, because Jesus is good news.” 

“It is not God who stokes and exploits fear.  God’s message is, ‘Do not be afraid’ – we do not need to fear even death.  Jesus is God saying, ‘Look at me!  This way!  I’ll show you. I’ve got you.  Follow me.’  Believe the good news of Jesus.”

Meditation by The Rev. Valerie Coe Lowder

Sunday, April 5, 2026

Resurrection Now

"What does resurrection look like for a community of faith?  What does resurrection look like in our own valley of bones? It can look like a community that has been battered by the daily onslaught of attempts to divide us...a church beaten nearly to death by the knowledge of what our country is doing in God’s name … a people worn down to dry bones by the constant fight against each wave of injustice that empire unleashes-against our immigrant neighbors, our LGBTQ neighbors, our black neighbors, our Muslim neighbors.... It can look like that community grieving together, sharing one another’s pain. Then, reminding one another of God’s promise of steadfast love and forgiveness, opening ourselves to the spirit breath of God, inhaling rejuvenating hope. It can look like us unbinding and freeing each other to do our part of the work of unbinding and freeing our neighboring communities. At this moment, death is now and resurrection is also now. We are all connected by both. May we remember both our oneness and God’s promises so that we live out hope even after every death."

Meditation by The Rev. Tonya Barnette

Sunday, March 22, 2026

The Holy Power of Anger and Despair

“Lament is a sincere form of praising God.  As a people of faith, we must re-claim the powerful voice of lament found throughout the Psalms.  When we raise our complaints to God and demand that God intervene on our behalf, we express our trust that God can and will help us.  In so doing,  we avoid the misdirected feelings of guilt and blame that so often accompany hardship.”

Meditation by The Rev. Dr. Elizabeth Peterson

Sunday, March 15, 2026

“The woman with the alabaster jar of expensive oil at Bethany gave Jesus a gift nobody else was willing to give him: she drew near to him and anointed his head with oil when his death was imminent. She was not afraid to stand by Jesus when the rest of the world looked away.” 

Meditation by The Rev. Dr. Elizabeth Peterson

Sunday, March 8, 2026

Leaving the Garden

“Before we can really appreciate this beautiful narrative about what it means to be a human, we must peel off some of the layers that tradition and the patriarchy has erroneously placed on it:  1.  The snake is not the devil.  2.  The woman is not a weak-willed temptress, and 3.  This is not a passage about sin.”

Meditation by The Rev. Dr. Elizabeth Peterson

Sunday, February 22, 2026

What Comes After the Mountaintop?

“I think, I hope, that we all get at least one mountaintop experience in our lifetimes. And maybe, hopefully? more than one. But the reality is also that mountaintop experiences can’t last forever. We all have to come down from the mountain eventually. It’s not coincidental that Transfiguration Sunday always falls on the Sunday before Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. It is a stark reminder that the journey that takes us to the mountaintop also leads us through the valley. We know there will be challenges, pain and loss, difficult choices, times when we know fear and despair. But our experiences of God on the mountaintop can hopefully serve as reminders, as touchstones, so that we can continue to trust that God is with us in the valley.”

Meditation by Rebecca Avery-Quinn, preacher

Sunday, February 15, 2026

Be Salty, Stay Lit

“In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus was speaking to a plural ‘you.’ He was talking to ‘all y’all.’ There is bad news and good news about this. The bad news: we are implicated by the behaviors—good and bad—of the groups we belong to. In other words, it’s not enough to try to do what is just, we must associate with groups that are trying to do what is just. The good news: we are not alone.”

Meditation by The Rev. Dr. Elizabeth Peterson

Sunday, February 8, 2026

What We Know and What We Don’t Know

You don’t know what church Jesus is going to build in the new building. You don’t know what qualities, what abilities, what potential, God sees in you. You don’t know what Church of the Savior can become or will become.

What do you know? What you know, say boldly.

What you know you don’t know, wait for humbly and hopefully.

And the unknown unknowns? As Tony Soprano said to his daughter, “What you don’t know could fill a book.” You don’t even know what you don’t know.

But know this: God is faithful, and God has called you into the partnership of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Meditation by The Rev. Valerie Coe Lowder, preacher

Sunday, January 18, 2026

"Tender Merciful Love"

“We want merriment. We want twinkly lights. We want jingle-bells. We want bubbles. We want frivolity and festivities and familiar songs with catchy tunes. We want speed. And Advent is none of that. .... Advent is a slow, four-week crescendo of illumination. It takes time. Waiting and watching is the purpose of Advent. We’re supposed to look forward to Christmas, rather than dive right in. Deep sighs are expected. Patience is tested. If we rush through Advent, we miss its beauty and its crucial message altogether. So as we begin Advent, I invite you to slowness and stillness. I invite you to breathe deeper. Advent offers us an expectant pause. I know it’s busy and hectic and sparkly and loud out there. But here and now, in Christian worship, we get an antidote to all that -- a much-needed reprieve. A simple invitation to wait and to hope.”

Meditation by The Rev. Valerie Coe Lowder
Sunday, December 21, 2025

“How Do We Know?”

"Part of the reason we are called to be together in this place (church/worship) is to help one another know when we have encountered the Divine.

We are to be intentional about seeking God, Holy Mystery, the Divine.

We are not on this journey alone - unless we choose to be."

Meditation by The Rev. Linda Miner

Sunday, January 4, 2026

“The Untold Story of John the Baptist"

“On this second Sunday of Advent,

We light the candle of peace

In a world that is still overwhelmed by violence and cruelty,

Oppression and injustice,

Just as it was in the time of John the Baptist and Jesus.

But as followers of Jesus,

We are still invited to participate in a divine-human collaboration

With the nonviolent God

To make the Beloved Community a reality on earth.

And so we sing with Zechariah:

“In the tender compassion of our God,

the dawn from on high shall break upon us,

To shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, 

and to guide our feet in the way of peace.”

Meditation by Rebecca Avery-Quinn, preacher

Sunday, December 7, 2025

“Vigilant Hope”

“We want merriment.  We want twinkly lights.  We want jingle-bells.  We want bubbles.  We want frivolity and festivities and familiar songs with catchy tunes.  We want speed.  And Advent is none of that. .... Advent is a slow, four-week crescendo of illumination.  It takes time.  Waiting and watching is the purpose of Advent.  We’re supposed to look forward to Christmas, rather than dive right in.  Deep sighs are expected.  Patience is tested.  If we rush through Advent, we miss its beauty and its crucial message altogether.  So as we begin Advent, I invite you to slowness and stillness.  I invite you to breathe deeper.  Advent offers us an expectant pause.  I know it’s busy and hectic and sparkly and loud out there.  But here and now, in Christian worship, we get an antidote to all that --  a much-needed reprieve.  A simple invitation to wait and to hope.”

Meditation by The Rev. Valerie Coe Lowder, preacher

Sunday, November 30, 2025

“Today”

"Today, we enter paradise.  

Water springs from our driest moments.

Light detaches us from the darkness.

The path before us reveals all who share 

the name “Beloved.”

The mission Christ fulfilled has become ours.   

We have become agents of reconciliation.”

Meditation by The Rev. Dennis Loy, preacher

Sunday, November 23, 2025

“Imagine There’s No Heaven, No Hell Below Us”

“I believe that Yahweh will end evil and violence without condemning anyone to eternal torment ... that God will usher in Beloved Community on a verdant restored earth that looks a whole lot like this one, with flowers and animals and mountain streams with cold, clean water...communities of trees and elephants, and people who laugh and sing and listen. I don’t know how or when God will end evil and restore Earth, and I don’t think we need to know. Our vocation as followers of Jesus is to live into Beloved Community here and now until God restores creation. It just might look like the Kindom of God, a New Earth...with no hell below us, above us only sky.”

Meditation by The Rev. Tonya Barnette, preacher

Sunday, November 16, 2025

“God of the Living”

“Jesus points out the fundamental flaw: the Sadducees assume that human systems of inequality will still exist in a post resurrection reality; but the patriarchal model where women legally belong to their fathers or husbands has no place in God’s kingdom. According to Jesus, systems of domination, of power over, will be overthrown when God’s realm becomes real on earth.”

Meditation by Rebecca Avery-Quinn, preacher

Sunday, November 9, 2025

“Putting a Spoke in the Wheel of Injustice”

“We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself….

Silence in the face of evil is itself evil…

Not to speak is to speak.

Not to act is to act…."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Meditation by The Rev. Charles Fels, preacher

Sunday, November 2, 2025

“Truth”

“Jesus said in John 8, ‘Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.’ The Greek word for truth, alethea was, at Jesus’ time, infused with collective meaning. In other words, truth required a group consensus, borne of experience and observation, where all were made secure, safe, and whole. The Greek word for freedom, eleuthera, carried the meaning that to be free is to grow. Eleuthera also carried a collective meaning: eleuthera signified freedom for a group of people, and not just individuals. Putting it all together, ‘the truth will set you free’ meant, from Jesus’s mouth, “We can grow as a people when we reach an agreement or consensus together where all are made to feel safe, secure, and whole.”

Meditation by The Rev. Elizabeth Peterson, preacher

Sunday, October 26, 2025

“What Do You Know?”

“It is incumbent upon Christians and Christian churches to tell the truth, to speak up for those who are persecuted, and to speak out for what we believe.  And that begs the question:  What do we believe?  You’ve got to know your stories – your history, church history, your own and each other’s testimonies, Bible stories.  What do we know reliably?  What do you need to know?  There is a saying attributed to Mark Twain:  “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”  Do we know our own sacred Scriptures?  Are we well equipped to use them, and to know when they are being misused or misquoted? Who instructed you in Christian faith?  Can you fully trust that they knew what they were talking about?  Or maybe you know that you don’t know much.  Are you willing to learn?  Are you willing to be challenged?  Or will you only listen to those who suit your own liking?  Do you have itchy ears, as Paul cautioned Timothy against accumulating ideas that are interesting or entertaining, but not necessarily sound?

I think that now is a very good time for us to grapple with what we believe, and prepare ourselves to speak out and act out Christian faith in the public arena.  I doubt that there will be lions in the arena this time, but there may well be persecution.  Now is the time to get ready, to train in righteousness, to become evangelists – which simply means people who tell good news.  There’s a lot of bad news out there – but there is also a lot of good news.  What do you know?  Do you know where your help comes from?  Are you steady and ready to fulfill your ministry?”

Meditation by The Rev. Valerie Coe Lowder, preacher

Sunday, October 19, 2025