By Erin Martin

• I Do Choose… by Erin Martin (2/11/2009)
  [image]Epiphany 6B - Mark 1:40-45 The healing stories of Jesus are among my favorite stories of the gospels. There is something deeply honest about persons in considerable pain—a woman bent low, a man born blind, a father pleading on behalf of his ailing daughter—coming to Jesus in desperation and placing all their hopes upon Jesus’ willingness t...
• Remember Your Baptism and Be Thankful by Erin Martin (1/6/2009)
  Genesis 1:1-5, Acts 19:1-7, Mark 1:4-11 I remember my baptism very well. It was fifteen years ago, and I felt that as a recent college graduate I was at a crossroads in my life. I remember that I wanted to start new, to wash away some of the painful choices I had made in my life and recommit myself to God. My mother was attending a Baptist church at the time, and so I sat before her pastor and expressed my earnest desire to be baptized. When he lowered me into the water and then raised me up again, the first air I breathed felt like new life to me. I felt like I had died and been raised with Christ. Years later as an ordained Methodist minister the majority of the baptisms I perform look nothing like my own. Mostly I hold infants in my arms an...
• The End is our Beginning by Erin Martin (12/3/2008)
  [image]Isaiah 40:1-11, Mark 1:1-8 Everyone knows that Advent is about beginnings. The season marks the start of a new Christian year. It heralds the b...
• Blessed Are They by Erin Martin (10/29/2008)
  Matthew 5:1-12 This year for All Saints’ Sunday, I am hearing differently Jesus’ famous Beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount. In previous years, I would quickly leap to associating the saints who have gone before us with those whom Jesus calls blessed. My line of thinking would go something like this; it is the witness of the faithful in the history of Christianity and in our lives that demonstrates to us what poverty of spirit and meekness look like. It is the peacemaking “giants” of the past and present who show us what it means to be children of God. As disciples we are simply called to follow their example, to cultivate within us the attitudes these saints so courageously exhibit, and we too shall be called blessed. This year, however, I am hearing Jesus differently...
• How Can We Know the Way? by Erin Martin (8/1/2008)
  [image] It’s become our routine. No sooner have I strapped my two year-old son, Elijah, into his car seat and started driving us on our way than my son pipes up from the back seat, “Hey mom, where are we going?” I alway...
• Coming To Our Senses by Erin Martin (8/1/2008)
  [image]This year our Lenten journey through the wilderness is not one that we walk alone. The persons who come face to face with Jesus in the Gospel of John on the Sundays in Lent are our traveling companions. Nicodemus, the Samaritan woman, the man born blind, Mary, Martha, even Lazarus, all have a place on our journey with Jesus to Jerusalem. From ...