Sermons

When we are rooted in God, then, we can transform the hard things into blessings, bringing a wholeness in our lives, because none of us lives either a perfect life or a life without struggles. Today's texts: Psalm 15 and Matthew 5: 1-12 As you heard that wonderful scripture passage known as the Beatitudes read this morning, you may have been thinking, “Wait, that doesn't sound right! Shouldn’t it say “Blessed are?” Shouldn’t it say “poor in spirit?” Those are the words we are used to hearing. The translation that we heard this morning comes from the Common English Bible, a relativ...
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Whether it is something as fleeting as a football game or as life-and-death as someone seeking to devour your flesh as war rises up against you, the common thread here is figuring out how to respond. Psalm 27: 1, 4-9 and 1 Corinthians 1: 10-18 If you want to know what the writer of Psalm 27 that we heard this morning was experiencing, you might want to think a bit about Aaron Rodgers. Yes, I know, the star quarterback of the Green Bay Packers was only facing the Dallas Cowboys and the New York Giants and the Detroit Lions and the Minnesota Vikings and so on. He was not facing what...
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What I’d like to do with you this morning is explore the religious dimensions of Martin Luther King, how he drew on those dimensions to motivate him and to sustain him. Today's texts: Psalm 40: 1-10 and John 1: 29-42  When Martin Luther King Jr. was a sophomore at Morehouse College in Atlanta, he went through one those classic college-age crises of faith. As he wrote about his religious development, he said was in a “state of skepticism” toward religion until he took a course on the Bible in which, in his words, “I came to see that behind the legends and the myths were many profou...
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Pastor Phil preached today at at First Congregational UCC in Madison as part of their celebration of the tenth anniversary of the Prison Ministry Project. Here's what he said. Today's tex: Matthew 2: 1-12  Three magi come from the east to Jerusalem, chat with King Herod a bit, then go to Bethlehem to meet a child who apparently called to them from a star. It’s a pretty familiar story at this time of year. We call it the Epiphany – which the dictionary defines as the manifestation of a divine being or the perception of the essential nature of something. For the early Christians,...
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We have had plenty of brutality in our world in the past year and this really is an important story for us to spend some time on as we head in to a new year. Today's texts: Hebrews 2: 10-18 and Matthew 2: 13-23 Remember how often in the Gospels, the message is “Be not afraid?” The angel says that to Mary when she learns she is pregnant and to Joseph when he learns she is pregnant and to shepherds in the fields when Jesus is born. Jesus says it as he gathers his disciples, he says it to his followers when they see him walking on water and when they experienced his transfigured o...
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Let’s look for the connections of the people in first century Palestine and the people in our world today. And then let’s see where are our imaginations take us as – like Mary and Joseph and their baby – we look to an uncertain future. Today's texts - Luke 2: 1-20 and John 1: 1-14 One of the wonderful things about the stories of Jesus in the Gospels is the way at they allow us – with a little imagination – to put ourselves in the stories. One of the greatest opportunities for that is the Christmas story that we hear over and over at this time of year. It’s beautiful and haunting i...
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We need to be overshadowed by God’s Spirit and we need to give birth to the thing that will reshape our world. Today's text: Matthew 1: 18-25 Let’s start with what I think is the hardest line in this story – “she became pregnant by the Holy Spirit – and then let’s ponder for a moment the way Joseph reacts to an unbelievable situation. We can pretty quickly get tangled up on the biology of Mary’s conception. But thanks to a reflection I heard this week from Jacqui Lewis, the senior minister at Middle Collegiate Church in New York City, and Jim Kast-Keat, their associate minister fo...
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So it goes with so many parts of our lives. We think the birth of Jesus upended the old order, yet we still struggle with issues of pride and greed and occupation and exploitation. Today's texts - Isaiah 35: 1-10 and Luke 1: 46-55 Let’s combine four very different scenes from history this morning and then carry them all into our own day. The first reading we heard today was from the great Jewish prophet Isaiah. The Jewish people had lived under occupation – a common condition. They lived in exile in Babylon. Yet in this reading, there is hope and joy. Out of the desert of th...
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One of the characteristics of the wise and knowledgeable leader? “He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear.” Today's texts - Isaiah 11: 1-10 and Romans 15: 4-13 It was a March day in 2015 when a 56-year old man walked to the midcourt of a basketball floor in the Greensboro, N. C. arena to try to make a half-court basket for a million dollars during the halftime of an Atlantic Coast Conference semi-final tournament game. Scott Park was a life-long basketball fan. He had won the chance to do this in a contest that provided an all-expense paid trip to ...
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A national UCC leader takes us into the midst of the Syrian refugee crisis. Today's texts:  Jeremiah 23:1-6, Psalm 46 and Luke 1:68-79 Greetings to you in the name of our Savior and Redeemer, Jesus Christ! I am delighted also to greet you on behalf of the national setting of the United Church of Christ, and Global Ministries of the UCC and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)! It is good to be with you this morning, and I want to begin by expressing gratitude to you for your commitments to God’s mission through the church, and your generosity to the Wider Mission of the chur...
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