Sermons

Imagine you are in the room. What are you seeing? What are you thinking? Today's Text: Luke 7: 36-40, 44-48 This reflection was offered at First United Church of Christ/DC as part of our confirmation trip to Washington, D.C. Simon, the well-established Pharisee. Jesus, the wandering rabbi. An unnamed woman with long hair. A house. A meal. And dirty feet. Today’s story from the Gospel according to Luke contains a lot of vivid images, none more vivid than the unnamed woman letting down her hair, dripping tears on Jesus’ feet and then gently anointing them with oil. It’s not only ...
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I think one of the challenges for us in a congregation that identifies with the progressive, liberal, more open view of Christianity is to navigate the religious and political disagreements that will be in our midst. Today's texts - Galatians 1: 11-24 and Luke 7:11-17 Last week when folks in the congregation were posing questions about many things, one question had to do with people who disagree with us. I talked about listening, about realizing that I might have more to learn, that there were occasions when I could even be…wrong. And then someone asked whether some of those folk...
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Come with me on a quest for Wisdom. Today's texts: Proverbs 8: 1-4, 22-31 and Romans 5: 1-5 Listen again to those words that began our first scripture reading this morning: Doesn’t Wisdom cry out and Understanding shout? Atop the heights along the path, at the crossroads she takes her stand. By the gate before the city, at the entrances she shouts: “I cry out to you, people; my voice goes out to all of humanity.” So come with me on a quest for Wisdom. Given that I’m a pastor, you might well expect that my quest for Wisdom would begin with a sacred text, like our Bible. Th...
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Two Pentecost threads: listening in the midst of things we don’t understand and dealing with the discouragement of a world that sometimes seems to be running off the tracks. Today's texts: Romans 8: 14-17 and Acts 2: 1-21 I’m not much of a builder, but I’m a pretty good errand boy, so a number of years ago when I was part of a mission trip to Nogales, Mexico, I was the one sent out with the car for various errands. Transport the crew, get some food, go to the hardware store. Of course, going to the hardware store in Nogales – we’re not talking Home Depot here – involves knowledge of a cou...
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Paul may have freed the slave woman from her possession by a pithian spirit… but he did not free her from being a possession. Today's texts: Acts 16: 16-34 and Revelation 22: 12-14, 16-17, 20-21 There is an amazing cast of characters in the story we heard today from the Acts of the Apostles. There are Paul and Silas, of course. As they begin to expand the reach of Christianity out of the Middle East to the edges of Europe, one of their first stops is the city of Philippi in Macedonia – what is now in the northeastern part of Greece. It was a major Roman outpost with Greek heritage...
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On this Sunday, we focused on issues around rape and other sexual assaults as part of an effort initiated by Rev. Moira Finley and the Wisconsin Conference of the United Church of Christ. Erin Thornley Parisi, director of the Dane County Rape Crisis Center, joined Pastor Phil in a conversation during our reflection time. You can see a video of that conversation  from the 10 a.m. service here. Below are some of the prayer resources we used, drawn from the Break the Silence Sunday web site and the Our Whole Lives program. Call to Worship We come this day trusting in God’s grace, ...
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We simply can’t go on producing and gobbling up land and resources and ruining the water and warming the atmosphere as if there were no consequences. We can be evicted for bad behavior.  Today's Texts: Excerpts from the Creation Story in Genesis 1 and excerpts from the Flood Story in Genesis 6 and 7. By Marty Smith My life-long fascination with the weather began on a warm, overcast afternoon in July 1950. We were in my grandmother’s kitchen in northwest Ohio when suddenly the wind picked up, and the door to the back porch blew open. My dad got up to close it, but could barely hold it ...
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Think about the times in our lives when we get stuck because we are so focused on the empty nets that we miss the possibilities if we would look in a different direction. What if we shifted our focus? What if we looked to the other side? Today's texts: Psalm 30 and John 21: 1-19 It’s getting dark out there on the Sea of Galilee – or the Sea of Tiberius, as it is called in today’s Gospel story. There were still clouds hanging over the lives of Jesus’ followers as well. Sure, they had glimpses of him in the days after his execution. A couple of people on the road to Emmaus recognize...
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The Gospel story of Thomas is important for us in church world and it’s important in a society where political divisions are fracturing us in really serious and occasionally violent ways. Today's texts - Acts 5:27-32 and John 20:19-31 I suppose one lesson from today’s Gospel about Thomas missing the first appearance of Jesus after the Resurrection is that when you are hanging out with the Jesus gang, maybe let somebody else go out for the groceries – or whatever it was that Thomas was doing that evening. I think there’s a more important lesson, though. It is how a community holds ...
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A story that slaves brought to America from Africa is a story of hope in the midst of suffering. It is a story of resurrection. Today's texts - Acts 10: 34-43 and Luke 24: 1-12 Come with me to John’s Island, nestled along the coast of South Carolina just south of Charleston. Come with me to the early 1800s, when the plantations on the island used many slaves to harvest the crops. Come with me to a particularly memorable day in the fields as the slaves were at work. The sun was hot, the work was hard, the slave driver was keeping a careful watch on this crew of coffee black, ...
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