Branches Oc

Accessing kingdom life through dependency upon God and interdependence with one another.

Jesus didn't just tell stories... He disrupted social norms, flipped status games, and exposed our illusions of importance. In this sermon, we explore one of His most subversive parables in Luke 14. Why do the invited guests bail? Who ends up at the banquet? And what does it say about the upside-down kingdom Jesus came to bring? This one might mess with your seating chart.

What do we do about evil in the world, in the church, and in ourselves? In this message, we explore Jesus' unsettling parable of the wheat and weeds. Instead of judgment and control, Jesus calls for radical patience and trust. Drawing from Robert Farrar Capon, the early church's theology of patience, and real-life stories of justice and grace, this sermon challenges our impulse to uproot what we don't understand. Could it be that forgiveness not force is the way the kingdom grows?

Why did Jesus-God in the flesh- choose to speak in riddles, stories, and metaphors? In this sermon, we explore the artistic and subversive nature of Jesus's parables through the lens of Matthew 13. With insights from Robert Farrar Capon, Amy-Jill Levine, and the BibleProject, we discover how parables are not meant to simplify truth but to stir the soul, provoke the heart, and invite us into deeper mystery. Featuring the Parable of the Sower as a central example, this message invites us to ask: What kind of soil am I? Jesus' stories aren't cozy bedtime tales. They explode assumptions about who belongs and how God Works.