Awaken Bowness Podcast

Falling in Love: Jesus and Barabas

Nostalgia makes us want to fight to go back to how things were and idealism makes us want to fight to rush ahead into how things should be. Privilege makes us want to just stay exactly as we are - status quo. Here we find ourselves having to choose between our religious authorities, our violent insurrectionists, and our comfort with how things are.

Falling in Love: Jesus and Pilate

Who has the power? Pilate? Rome? Or the Crowd? This is a sermon and meditation about power, people pleasing, and silence as a gesture of resignation version courageous resistance.

Falling in Love: Peter’s No and Jesus’ Yes

This week the story moves from the garden to the house of the high priest in Mark 14:53-72. Jesus is carried there under arrest while Peter follows close behind. Over the course of the night both Jesus and Peter are asked three questions. 

Falling In Love: Betrayed with a Kiss

This week we focus on Mark 14:43-52, and the story of Jesus' arrest in the garden of Gethsemane. We meditate on what the love of Jesus looks like in the midst of betrayal, resistance, violence, and desertion.

Falling in Love: Stay Awake

As we enter into Lent we will not lose sight of the Love we’ve learned from our series on 1 Corinthians 13. Paul has invited the Church to rise in love – to be patient and kind and humble and hopeful. With this challenge in view, we will spend the 40 days of Lent moving slowly through the last 24 hours of Jesus’ life and watching Jesus fall in love. Is it possible to rise to the call of Love even if Love brings us down?
This series will carry us through Mark 14:32-15:31. We begin in the first week of this series with a reflection on Jesus' plea to STAY AWAKE and keep watch in Gethsemane with him while he prepares for the painful 24 hours ahead and his final act of love.  We will stay awake and strive to notice, together, what love incarnate looks like and why Jesus is entirely trustworthy.

From Generation to Generation: We Can Choose a Better Way

At Awaken we enjoy focusing on Mary's "yes" to God but this Sunday we turn to focus on Joseph. If we only had Matthew's account of the birth narrative, we would never hear Mary speak. There would be no angels, no shepherds keeping watch, no census and no need for "room at the inn". The Joseph story in Matthew's telling involves four dreams and a brave father who must say yes. Joseph could have chosen to follow the scriptures and divorce Mary but instead, he offers a wild and costly yes to a better way - he marries the God-Bearer and becomes the God-protector. This story invites us to also choose a better way when faced with loving each other and loving our neighbours. 
 
The sermon series is based on the Advent Package created by A Sanctified Art LLC, and is shared with permission. Find more information on their liturgical packages at sanctifiedart.org

From Generation to Generation: God Meets Us in Our Fear.

Do not be afraid is the most common command in the bible, it is a phrase offered to God's people over and over again in times of distress and trouble. When the angel appears before Mary and she is troubled, confused, and afraid, this phrase is given again. In this sermon Kara talks us through how we experience the voice of fear, and what we can learn from Mary's response about how we can respond to the voice of fear.
 
The sermon series is based on the Advent Package created by A Sanctified Art LLC, and is shared with permission. Find more information on their liturgical packages at sanctifiedart.org

From Generation to Generation: There’s Room in Every Story

In Mary's song she says, "His mercy extends to those who fear him, from generation to generation." We reflect, on this first Sunday of Advent, on the ways Mary is pregnant with both the past and the future. The genealogies of Jesus in Matthew and Luke tell us that it's not about he bloodline of Jesus, but the story that shaped the people that shaped the story that shaped the people. So we are here, in this moment, between what came before and what come next. The light comes to us from the past and it comes fro the future so we pray with the grandparents who've gone before us and the grandparents yet to come.
 
The sermon series is based on the Advent Package created by A Sanctified Art LLC, and is shared with permission. Find more information on their liturgical packages at sanctifiedart.org

Dear Empire: Romans 14-16

Welcome everyone and do it in love. Paul concludes his letter to the Romans with a scandalous call to radical welcoming. The ideology of Rome tells us we have to adapt to belong, but the Good News of Jesus says we are welcome in our differences. We may see things differently, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be in relationship. You are fully welcome, you are welcome fully, and you are fully welcome to be fully you. Safe and connected. And that script shapes our imagination for community - I welcome you with the welcome, I myself received.

Dear Empire: Romans 13

In Romans 13, Paul instructs the church in Rome to submit to the governing authorities which God has placed over them. This text has been used throughout Christian history to instruct Christian to support governing powers, including when those powers upheld injustice, oppression, and slavery. How are we to understand this text in light of Paul's mandate that the greatest authority, and the truest fulfilment of the law, is love?