Denver Community Church

May 31, 2020: Get Off Your Ass and Do Something – Michael Hidalgo

One of Jesus’ most famous parables is about The Good Samaritan. Most people know it well, but what is often missed is the set up to the story. Jesus is asked about the greatest commandment, and he follows up talk of loving God, with practicing love for our neighbor. It is then Jesus is asked, “And who is my neighbor?” In other words, “And who do I have to love?” Jesus then launches into the story of a man who gets robbed, beaten and left for dead. He is on the side of road looking dead when a couple of religious people walk past, and eventually a Samaritan helps the poor guy out. Jesus concludes by asking, “Who is the neighbor?”

In doing so he turns the original question around. Instead of asking, “Who should I love?” Jesus points toward the reality that the practice of loving others is what it means to be a neighbor. For us then, it is not a question of who we should love, but are we loving others? This is the challenge in this story - and the challenge we face in our context today.

May 24, 2020: Love is God and God is Love – Scott Oppliger

The 13^th Century mystic, Marguerite Porete, famously wrote, “I am God, says Love, for Love is God, and God is Love …” These are a few of her words found in her book, The Mirror of Simple Souls - a work, that because she refused to recant, led to her death on charges of heresy. Her observation recorded here points toward a mystery at the heart of the greatest command: Love is God, and we are to love God, which means we are to love, Love. More simply, we are to love what the Divine is.

 Which raises the question: what does this look like? There is no singular response to that question, but it can begin with our simply response being a willingness to participate in the life of God. It is this Divine life that already sustains all things, including us, and we can embrace that reality or resist it. Should we choose to embrace love, we just may find ourselves loving God.

May 17, 2020: The Engine of the Universe

When Jesus came screaming into the world from the womb of his mother, it wasn’t his first showing. He’d always been around, but this time he was showing up differently. He had put on flesh and made his dwelling among humanity. This is a deep truth attested to throughout the text. In him all things were made and in him all things hold together. This mysterious power, energy, force - the glue that holds our expanding universe together is something that still stumps the most brilliant scientists in the world. However, the biblical writers had no problem naming it - it was the life of God and that life was not made human. We can now see it, touch it and it has a name.

Jesus. The face of a God who is love. It is this realization that led Teilhard de Chardin to claim love at the heart of the universe. He recognized all things were powerfully drawn to one another in relationship. This, he observed, is love. If love, then, is the engine of the universe it’s possible when we participate in anything else we work against the very life of God.

May 10, 2020: All for One – Michael Hidalgo

Paul is writing to a group of people who, like all of us, have religious, gender and social identities. And he argues none of that matters. All the labels, the divisions, the identities and classes are irrelevant, for all are in Christ. Which means, there is only one. There absolutely is NO them, there is only us. Whether Jew or Gentile, gay or straight, Republican or Democrat, far or near, liberal or conservative, male or female. It does not matter … in Christ, we are one.

 

What if we focused on questions that did not divide, but came together around the table? What if we asked, “Can we agree on Christ’s broken body and blood shed for the reconciliation and healing of the world?” “Can we agree on our need for the reconciliation and peace of Christ?” The answer, of course, is yes. We all need these things. And, in Christ, all the divisions cease.

May 3, 2020: So That's How it is in That Family - Amanda Lum

Join us for another week of our season of teaching “Everything & Everyone” where we will explore what it looks like to “have all things in common” - even in the midst of dramatic difference. This is exactly what the Acts 2 community experienced. 

April 26, 2020: Beyond Kin, Family, and Tribes - Dave Neuhausel

Scripture: Genesis 12.1-4

God makes a promise to Abram, but this promise comes with risk and responsibility. First, the call for Abram to “Go” - this is risky. No one in his day would dream of leaving their country, their people and their father’s household.” To do this would be to betray the family and the tribe. In this time, you stayed. In staying you devoted yourself to the tribe; ensuring its prosperity, fortune and protection. To go was to be out on your own, and would have been seen as a betrayal of the family and the tribe.

But this call to go was not for Abram alone, and it was not just for his family or his tribe alone. The call was an election to responsibility - he, and his offspring, were to go and bless all people. This is the earliest record we have of anyone being invited to be trans-tribal. To transcend the interest of their kin and consider the interest of others. This early call is what informed Jesus and his followers - those who understood the future was beyond tribe.

April 19, 2020: You Look Divine - Michael Hidalgo

Scripture: Genesis 1:26, 27

The words “image” and “likeness” were known in the Ancient Near Eastern context. But they were not words used for everyone; they were regal terms reserved for royalty. It pointed toward those in places of power and prestige. In Mesopotamia, Egypt and Assyria the kings were the image and likeness of the gods. Here in the creation poem of Genesis 1 we find this term was used to speak of all people in all places in all times. If we are to practice community, then we must consider who it is we are in relationship with. It’s not just a person, but one who reflects the beauty, power and majesty of the Divine. A regal individual. When we behold the face of another, we see glimpses of the Divine. How might this change the way we speak to others? Treat others? Act toward others?

April 12, 2020: Easter Sunday - Michael Hidalgo

Listen as we draw near to the mystery of this day, that there can be no resurrection without death, and that Jesus is intimately connected to our shared humanity, certainly in our joy, but also deeply within our pain and suffering. Now more than ever, Easter is a day that brings us bright hope for the future.

April 5, 2020: Divine Feminine Remixed – Scott Oppliger

Much has been made about the prologue to John’s gospel, and rightly so. It is there we read of the Cosmic Christ, one who “was with God … and was God” from the beginning. In John’s context he is clearly speaking of the historical Jesus - the Divine in human form who is the universal context we know as “The Word.” But here’s the thing: what John riffs on in the first fourteen verses of his gospel was not original with him. It’s a remix of a much earlier poem, one that, like John’s Prologue, speaks about the birth of the universe and the one through whom the universe came to be. The poem John references is found in Proverbs 8, but it does not speak of Jesus, nor does it speak of a male. It speaks of Wisdom and she is a woman. Wait, wait; then why would John apply this to Jesus when he was clearly a man? It’s possible John knew something about the universe and how it is all held together. Like Shekinah, Wisdom is often directly associated with the Divine, to the extent is becomes another way of speaking about God. Proverbs 8 shows us the extent of this connection by showing Wisdom’s role in bringing about the universe. Which means this world is not just masculine, but feminine as well. It is within this synergy that we exist and live and move and have our being.

March 29, 2020: A Child At Her Breast – Michael Hidalgo

“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne?” This is the question posed by the prophet, words placed on the lips of God. The answer of course, is “No.” But just in case, the prophet writes, “Though she may forget, I will not forget you!” The picture is obvious - God, like a nursing mother, holds Her people to Her breast and gives of Herself to nourish Her children. 

This paints a picture of tender intimacy; one that science now shows happens at the physiological level between a mother and child during breastfeeding. There is a connection between the two unlike any other connection that occurs between human beings. This is what we are invited to contemplate, and what the prophet suggests. That even in the moment when the people of Israel and suffering exile, even when it seems God is nowhere, God’s response is to remind them She is the God who tenderly holds and feeds Her children at Her breast.