Sermon Archives

February 25, 2018

Wild Dignity

This week our community made the national news. Floods, water in our houses and businesses… Mess… Distress…for ourselves and our neighbors. We look for a caring community…people who will lift sandbags and help us deal with the muddy situations in life. This week meals have been shared and visits have been made, and we celebrate […]

February 18, 2018

Being Alone with the Alone

Most of us go into the wilderness at some point in our lives, but there are at least two kinds of wilderness experiences. The first kind of wilderness experience is the one most of us do not want. We get divorced, and the divorce is difficult. Our best friend dies, and we mourn for several […]

February 11, 2018

The More of God

In 1975, I climbed a mountain. In actuality it was probably just a big hill, and it was behind our short-term voluntary service unit in San Clemente, California. (We were there to help in the resettlement of the boat people who had escaped from Viet Nam.) That morning I’d read an article encouraging women to […]

February 4, 2018

Come and See

A few weeks ago, after work I took a look at my news feed on my phone. I find that over the past year I do so with a great amount of fear and trepidation.  I was amazed that a certain crude, descriptive word, not censored, no stars or symbols where certain letters should be, […]

January 28, 2018

A Visual Discipleship

On September 19, 2016, our former pastor, Marilyn Rudy-Froese, began a three-and-a-half month sabbatical. None of us knew it at the time, but that day marked the beginning of seven pastoral transitions in our congregation. The first pastoral transition was receiving Ron Guengerich, who worked as a substitute pastor while Marilyn was on sabbatical. When […]

January 14, 2018

The Boo of Christ

At the beginning of Advent, I was walking with our 2 year old grandchildren in Pittsburgh. And when we came to a nativity scene in a neighbor’s yard, they both commented that there was no baby Jesus there. Where is he? they wanted to know. I tried to explain that it’s Advent and we are […]

January 7, 2018

Going Home by Another Route

Christmas is not over. Not yet, anyway. This Sunday is Ephiphany, the day we celebrate the 3 Magi, or wise men, or kings, who came to Bethlehem because they heard the king of the Jews had been born. The Magi are rather central to the story, because they’ve made such an impression on commercialized Christmas. […]

December 31, 2017

What Makes a Good Life?

What makes for a good life? You can find one vision of a good life at a blog called mrmoneymustache.com. Since 2011 the host of this website, who calls himself Mr. Money Mustache, has been handing out opinioned arguments on how people ought to be managing their money and their work lives. His basic point […]

December 10, 2017

Preparing the Way for Blessedness

What does it mean to be blessed? I feel as if we live in a world where we have a tendency to say things without really thinking about what they mean, and this word is no exception. On Instagram you can find pictures of manicures and pedicures, or family, or even one’s dinner with the […]

December 3, 2017

Enthusiastic Collaborators

What do you think a holy person looks like? When you get to know someone, what clues suggest to you that this person may be holy? Do you know holiness when you see it? Consider Tom. Almost every Sunday, Tom came to church all alone and sat in the same chair. He was a quiet […]

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