Appalachian Spring
Michael Conley • May 26, 2017
Calvary Chancel Choir & Orchestra Spring Concert, May 2017 “From These Mountains”
“Appalachian Spring” by Aaron Copland (1900-1990) original version for 13 instruments Calvary Orchestra;
Michael Conley, conductor
As we continue reading the Book of Revelation as a book of resistance, we encounter a story of a woman who gives birth in space, while a dragon waits to eat the baby. Hopefully, none of our own birth stories are that dramatic.
But there are days, and sometimes years, when life comes at you in ways other than you predi
"Why dost thou doom scrolleth even now?"(Victor 3:16) On this Queer Pride Sunday, we worship the One who shows us how to live with integrity and profound joy. That which is against God shall not stand! As the world unravels, celebration reveals our power to resist.
The book of Revelation includes scary beasts with horns and special marks with numbers revealing who they are. But rather than foretelling future events, what if they were unveiling current rulers and empires who preyed on their people? Let us slay the beasts of oppression and injustice as we resist the empire and embr
This week we will begin a sermon series on the Book of Revelation. It is often used by Christians to predict future events, but it wasn't written for that purpose.
The Book of Revelation was written to call people to resist the Roman Empire. It carries on the tradition of 'apocalypse' which is Greek for 'revelation'. In apocalyptic literature, God reveals, or makes clear, how to respond to the world in which we find ourselves. But it is written in a way that obscures the message from the people who it critiques.
The story of Pentecost is a story of adoption. God takes strangers and makes them family. And while adoption is good news for those of us who experience it, that good news doesn't make it easy. God brings strangers together and makes them family, but God doesn't make us all the same. We are adopted into God's family with all of our differences and our disagreements. How can we celebrate the differences between us, rather than using them as wedges to divide us?
This week's story from the Book of Acts speaks of the importance of hospitality when life is difficult and dangerous. Where does God call the church to be when people are facing exile, persecution, and danger?
Rev. Bruce Reyes-Chow's sermon for May 25, 2025
A queer preacher takes on a notorious “clobber passage” and its history of pain and death. The sin of Sodom has nothing to do with same-sex marriage or trans children—and everything to do with willfully ignoring God's command to welcome strangers and practice hospitality. Let them know we are Christians by our love.
When I have offered hospitality, often I thought I was doing something kind for someone else. And I sometimes have tried to figure out how to get out of it, because it is work to welcome people in to your life. But it has almost always ended up being a much bigger gift to me than it might have been to the person I thought I was helping. God uses the people we meet and encounter in our lives to call us deeper into God's mystery of grace.
The Book of Acts continues the story began in the Gospel of Luke. The Good News of the Gospel is being taken to the ends of the Earth, because the Spirit is on the loose!
From being a movement of people who knew Jesus, and people who had heard him teach and speak, it grows. Exponentially.
From Jerusalem, to the rest of the Middle East, and then to Europe, Asia, and even San Francisco.
This is the Good News--that God's Spirit will not be limited or constrained.
How do we welcome and celebrate the differences that come with the Spirit's invitation? How does hospitality create, and re-create the church?