West End Umc Video Podcast Audio Podcast

For the Sake of the Joy – Today’s scripture is from the letter to the Hebrews, and the Rev. Will McLeane, our Pastor of Spiritual Formation, is preaching. He begins by asking us to recall times when we were in the midst of something and suddenly wondered why we are doing what we’re doing, and what’s the end of all of it? The writer of Hebrews is addressing a community that is experiencing that kind of questioning, perhaps because of their questions about following Jesus. The letter has many references to figures of faith in the Hebrew scriptures as examples in the face of difficulty, such as Abraham who was summoned to leave his home, land, and people and travel to a place he did not know. Will gave some personal examples of such, as he had felt the pressure of being the lead runner in a 4x800-meter relay. Another example was that of a cyclist at the head of a peloton in a bicycle race, that leader not only dealing with the headwinds, but the cyclist’s aerodynamics actually pulling those behind along. I

Exhaling Hallelujah – In our last Sunday of our summer look at psalms, today we are considering Psalm 150, the last psalm in the Book of Psalms. The word, “hallelujah,” derives from the Hebrew, a blend of two words that mean “Praise YAH! This final psalm in the Book of Psalms is a crescendo of praise for God. Carol first briefly reviews some of the psalms we’ve studied this summer, the range of situations and emotions they address, and today with this final psalm we are at the culminating call to praise. Psalms and this psalm are also very much in the middle of the scriptures, a highlight and focus for all of the scriptures. What does it mean to praise the Lord? Perhaps it is offering our whole selves toward God. Praise is not transactional, offering God praise for something in return, rather we are called to offer ourselves in praise to our Creator. Besides God, there is nothing or no one worthy of our praise, and we praise God for God’s steadfast love and faithfulness to us, even at times when we’re

Fully Known – In our summer look at psalms, today we are considering Psalm 139. Carol points out that there are many people around our church in apartments, condominiums, hotels, hospitals, and dorms, and she cites research that shows that individuals are often lonely. As a church, how do we deal with that, not only the loneliness in those people, but also the loneliness of those in our congregation? Psalm 139, attributed to David, expresses awareness that God knows the psalmist intimately and has known the psalmist, even before his birth. This is comforting, but the psalm also expresses knowledge that God is always watching, and that can be uncomfortable. Trying to hide our doubts and things we would rather God doesn’t know can be damaging, but realizing that God does know our innermost thoughts can also be cleansing. The last part of the psalm expresses the psalmist’s hatred for certain people and things, and since God knows everything about the psalmist, perhaps it is best to confess such feelings an

The Power of Stillness – In our summer look at psalms, today we are considering Psalm 46. Rev. Carol Cavin-Dillon begins with a look at the hymn, “It Is Well with My Soul,” an arrangement of which was sung early in the service by Rebecca and Kyle Collier, and which Carol’s extended family sang three times during their annual reunion and camp meeting last week. The hymn’s author, Horatio Spafford, wrote it in 1873 after unimaginable losses of his son to scarlet fever, and then losses of his wife and four daughters in a shipwreck. The hymn and situation for its writing is very much demonstrative of Psalm 46 where the psalmist expresses that God is a very present help in trouble. The psalm describes both natural disasters and human issues such as wars, and in the midst of such troubles it encourages us that God is ever present and is our refuge. The psalm cautions us to be still and know God’s power and presence. Carol gives us some examples, both Biblical and in our lives, of how crucial and important sti

A Psalm for Our Worst Days – In our summer look at psalms, today we are considering Psalm 22, and tenor, Scott Brons, chants the reading of the psalm with the congregation singing a response, and the Rev. Stacey Harwell-Dye, our Pastor of Mercy and Justice Ministries, delivers the sermon. Sometimes the words of scripture are desperate, expressed by someone being utterly alone, misunderstood, surrounded by enemies, and this psalm is a prime example. According to two of the Gospels, lines from this psalm were quoted by Jesus from the cross, which makes it very familiar for us. Stacey preached a sermon on Psalm 22 a year ago in her prison ministry to prisoners who may be feeling more pain than most of us. In this psalm the psalmist expresses: Where is God’s care when I need it most? I have a problem with those around me. I am experiencing impending death. It is clear how this would have been on the mind of Jesus on the cross. And it’s also clear that this psalm expresses one’s feelings in the midst of th

The God Who Sees – In our summer look at psalms, today we are considering Psalm 94, and we read it as a call-and-response reading with the congregation. In some ways it is a shocking psalm, crying out for God’s judgment on the wicked, those who oppress God’s people, but it is certainly appropriate for us to read for Justice Sunday. Carol begins her sermon by considering the separation of church and state, citing times in history when church support for a particular king or group was injurious, when people of faith want to be in power. But there have also been significant times when the church has held leaders accountable and have advocated for the oppressed. Throughout the Bible, beginning with the Ten Commandments, we are called on to care for the widow and the orphan. Jesus was the prime example, spending time with those who were outcasts. Psalm 94 cries out to God because the leaders of the people are unjust and there are many who are suffering. We are called to look at our society through the lens

The One (and Only One) We Worship – In our summer look at psalms, today we are focusing on the very familiar Psalm 100. It is a short psalm that is all about worship. Carol describes Sundays for most of us, parts of our worship, then asks why we go through all the trouble to get ready and come to Sunday worship. It is God who gives us life, who accepts us, who loves us, and our response is that God is worthy of our devotion. There are many people and things we can worship, but only God is worthy of our worship, and the psalmist gives some examples of how we can worship, entering with thanksgiving and praise. But sometimes we come into worship with anger, frustration, confusion from things in our lives such as the deaths of the children in the Texas floods this week. But the psalmist tells us to come into the presence of God with praise and singing, and doing so can be healing. As we worship God, we, ourselves, can become more in God’s fold and behave more in God’s spirit.

On the Road with God – In our summer look at psalms, today we are focusing on Psalm 121. Instead of reading this psalm in the scripture section of our service it is being sung with a sung response from the congregation, reminding us that the psalms were very likely originally sung. This past week was our annual Vacation Bible School for elementary school children, and that is a significant part of the worship service today. The theme for VBS was “Road Trip,” and one of the songs, which they sang today in the Children’s Moment, was “On the Road with God.” The sermon begins by noting that much of scripture reflects that theme of journeying. Psalm 121 is in a section of “Psalms of Ascent” in the midst of the Book of Psalms, highlighting psalms that may well have been sung as part of traveling to Jerusalem. Psalm 121 is a blessing for a traveler. The word, “keep” (or “keeper”) referring to God appears six times in this psalm. God as our keeper does not mean we are protected from illness or job loss or suc

The One True Shepherd – In our summer look at psalms, today’s scripture is the very familiar 23rd Psalm. Senior Minister, the Rev. Dr. Carol Cavin-Dillon begins by talking about the familiarity of this psalm as it has landed in the midst of a time of great conflict. The psalms run the gamut of emotions with some full of praise and joy and others expressing despair. While she leads us through the psalm in her sermon, she invites us to explore our own feelings as we explore it, too. “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want,” is a declaration that reminds us that nobody leads us except “the Lord,” and because of that we lack nothing. The next part of the psalm describes what the Lord provides for us. We are charged with working for justice and the furtherance of God’s plan, but we are also invited to re-charge through rest and also through worship together. All are invited to God’s table, including those who might be “enemies.” The psalm ends with the assurance that we are not pursued by enemies but by

Trusting Thirst – Today is Trinity Sunday, and, in our summer look at psalms, today’s is Psalm 42. The Rev. Will McLeane, Pastor of Spiritual Formation, delivers the sermon. This psalm is full of emotion, pain, and longing as a thirst for God. Thirst is something that connects us to all living beings, and Psalm 42 is based on the desperate thirst for God. Will begins with an article he recently read on how hydration is critical to the players in the French Open tennis tournament. This particular psalm through the centuries has expressed desperation and longing for God. Even the last words of Jesus express such a situation. We often, in times of desperation, reach out to things like food, drink, drugs, but the psalmist reaches out to God. Psalms often say it like it is, and this one remembers how it once was, how it should be, but says that it is not that way now, and it appeals to God to restore things. The generosity of God is the bedrock of faith. Rev. Will gives several current examples of despe

One in the Spirit – Today is Pentecost Sunday, and, in addition to our Summer of Psalms reading from Psalm 133, we hear the Pentecost story from the Book of Acts when, after the crucifixion and resurrection, believers are gathered and, miraculously, see and feel the flames of the Holy Spirit. In her sermon, Carol describes sitting in her office early in the week and hearing an odd sound, then realizing it was a bird at the window, attempting to get in. Not recognizing the type of bird, she consulted her phone app and was struck by the beauty and diversity of the breeds of birds, their features, and their songs. We live in God’s creation where the variety of lands, plants, animals, and people is demonstrative of divine creativity and design. In the Pentecost story, one of the features is that people are gathered from many lands and languages, and yet, in the Spirit, they can hear and understand those other tongues. God’s mercy and love extend to every culture and land, and God’s wish is that we all live t

The Wisdom of Trees – This morning we travel our Summer of Psalms by reading Psalm 1. The Communion Meditation is delivered by our Senior Minister, the Rev. Dr. Carol Cavin-Dillon. She notes that there are references to trees throughout the Bible. The Genesis story of the Garden of Eden has stories involving several trees, and in the last book of the Bible, Revelation, there is also a tree of life. Carol lists some other familiar stories of trees in the Bible, and here, in the first Psalm, is an example of a tree as a very positive image for us. As pointed out in the psalm, she examines the characteristics of righteousness versus wickedness, as we do not often classify ourselves in either extreme, but maybe the images aren’t extreme. The image of a tree whose roots are deep is a clear example for us, keeping practices of justice and righteousness at the forefront of our lives so we cannot be moved. Trees with deep roots at a stream as depicted in Psalm 1 never stop growing, and that, too, is an example

Praying in the Dark – Today we begin our summer series of scriptures from the Psalms, this one from part of Psalm 143. Delivering the sermon today is Dr. Tammy Lewis Wilborn, our pastoral intern in Congregational Care. She points out that the psalmist is crying out in deep despair with a tired, troubled soul and a plea to God not to turn away or the psalmist will die. In some ways this is indicative of a need for suicide assessment of the one crying out. But this psalm is also penitent, confessing that the psalmist has hurt a lot of people but knowing that God still loves the psalmist. Dr. Wilborn points out three possible factors that can send us to this deep despair: (1) choices we make and conditions we are enduring (like illness, loss), (2) interpersonal relationships that are crashing, and (3) institutions, much as the world we may find ourselves in currently. Dark times call for desperate measures, and prayer is an SOS in such times. This psalm teaches us that we can always go to God in prayer,

Making All Things New – Today’s scripture is from Revelation 21, where John of Patmos, the visionary, sees a new heaven and a new earth, a new Jerusalem, coming down from heaven, along with an announcement that God will be dwelling with the people and there will be no more tears, sorrow, crying, or pain. It is appropriate for the Easter season when the agony of Good Friday was tossed away by the resurrection of Jesus. The question for us is whether we believe that God is always doing a new thing. In her sermon, Carol gives several personal examples of times when things appeared dismal, but then they turned around. She also cites several places in Biblical prophecy where those kinds of things were heralded by the likes of Isaiah and Jeremiah. She reminds us of the setting for the Book of Revelation, believers who were suffering because of their beliefs in God as ruler rather than the Roman emperor as ruler. Those believers were sometimes even executed for their beliefs, but this word from God through Joh

A Vision with Hope – Often when we need comfort or hope and reach out for a Biblical passage for help, we latch onto things like “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want” from Psalm 23, and most of us do not turn to the book of Revelation because of its graphic scenes of destruction. However, this final book of the Bible gives us glimpses of God’s kingdom, and those glimpses, as with today’s scripture from Revelation 7:9-17, are full of hope and comfort. It helps if we realize that Revelation was written to believers in a period when they were being crushed under Rome for their beliefs and rejection of the Roman emperor as the king. Some believers were even killed for that. This passage is one of the visions in Revelation of God on the throne with the lamb, representing Jesus, there, too, and innumerable people from every nation and language dressed in white, carrying palm branches, and praising God. It is a model for our hopes when things are bad and we need comforting. In the end it is the love of G

Feasting and Feeding – Today is Confirmation Sunday and we are confirming/baptizing seven youth who have been through the confirmation process. Today’s scripture is the familiar story from the Fourth Gospel of the post-resurrection appearance of Jesus to seven of his disciples who are fishing. As part of this story, Jesus fixes them a meal so that when they come ashore he feeds them. After the story of the resurrection in the previous chapter, we might feel like the story of Jesus is over, but this story underscores Jesus’s challenge to the disciples to carry on what Jesus had been doing throughout his ministry. First, they are nourished, and then, most especially with the conversation between Simon Peter and Jesus, they are commissioned to go forth. In many ways, it is a model for our own baptism and commissioning, and it is demonstrative for the confirmands who are being baptized and brought into church membership today. The questions and challenges Jesus has for Simon Peter reflect that the basis of

Today’s scripture is a passage from the first chapter of the Letter to the Ephesians, and delivering the sermon is Rea Green, a student at Vanderbilt Divinity School and our Ministry Intern. Rea begins by saying that she recently saw the moon and was struck by its stunning beauty, only to have a friend tell her that it wasn’t the moon at all but a streetlight. In this way she introduces us to the fact that she is very much vision impaired. She gives some background and different viewpoints of the author and setting for Ephesians, but says what is clear is that it is written to a people that need assurance and unity, and the letter describes God’s love for the “we” and “us” referred to in that letter, and it thus calls for unity under the love of God. And unity does not mean “uniform,” but a coming together in the knowledge that all are loved by God, even through our diversity. In that sense, the letter calls for awareness and recognition of our differences, but it then calls us to move beyond awareness

Recognizing Resurrection – Today is Easter Sunday. Traditionally, the scripture for Easter Sunday is the story of the empty tomb, but our scripture chosen for today is the familiar story in Luke’s gospel of the two men walking to Emmaus and, unknowingly, being joined by the risen Jesus as they walked. One of the reasons to have this story on Easter is that our Lenten theme has been Table Transformations, and this story concerns yet another table, this one hosted by the risen Christ. The two disciples in the story are unknowns to us and not among the twelve, and, having witnessed the crucifixion, they are walking away, paralyzed by their grief. Are we in situations paralyzed by grief and loss? They call him a prophet, but now they have doubts that he was the expected messiah. Their hopes have been dashed. Maybe we, too, have lost hope, and, if so, we are on the road to Emmaus, and, whether we recognize it or not, we are accompanied by Christ. In the story, when they sit down for a meal, the guest becom

Persevering Love – Today is Good Friday, the time of solemn remembrance of Christ’s crucifixion. The Rev. Aimee Baxter is delivering the Good Friday Meditation, and the scripture reading is the Fourth Gospel’s account of the trial, crucifixion, and burial of Jesus. Rev. Baxter first referred to the series from several years ago, “WandaVision,” that built on the grief Wanda experienced in the death of Vision. Rev. Baxter said that many of us sit in loss and sadness, too, and she pointed out how much of that is demonstrated in the narrative of the trial of Jesus, then his crucifixion. Even Judas grieved his betrayal of Jesus and ended his own life. Peter, who denied even knowing Jesus, reacted in grief and rage in cutting off the ear of a soldier. And well beyond that, we can imagine the grief of the closest disciples of Jesus, and certainly of his mother who stood at the foot of the cross. But throughout the narrative, Jesus asserts the presence of the love of God and demonstrates it in his own acceptan

Rev. Will McLeane and Sheyla Soriano lead us in a liturgy and prayer for Good Friday of Holy Week.