by The Rev. Lindsey Altvater Clifton | Sep 3, 2023
This has been a difficult week. Last Saturday, a white man wearing a mask and firing an assault rifle emblazoned with a swastika gunned down three Black people in a racist hate crime in Jacksonville, Florida, again bringing questions around white supremacy and a lack...
by The Rev. J.C. Austin | Aug 27, 2023
Yogi Berra, the great philosopher of baseball, once said: “It’s déjà vu all over again.” But after reading our Old Testament lesson today, I think it was probably God who said it first. It’s déjà vu all over again for God with the Hebrews. Once...
by The Rev. J.C. Austin | Aug 20, 2023
In November 2001, I traveled with my brother in Chile. I was a pastor in New York City at the time, and the cumulative weight of responding to the September 11 attacks was weighing heavily on our pastoral staff, so we each swapped out a week’s vacation to recover. I...
by The Rev. Dr. Ginny Smith | Aug 13, 2023
Scripture Reading: John 3:1-17 The gifted humorist Will Rogers once stated: “About the time one learns to make the most of life, the time is gone.” There’s tremendous truth in this. We spend a great deal of time trying to clarify our lives, to put it into a coherent...
by The Rev. Suzanne Trump | Aug 6, 2023
Scripture: Matthew 14:13–21 Text Focus Sentence: Jesus withdrew to be alone but the crowds followed him and he had compassion on them curing the sick and feeding the 5000 with five loaves and two fish. Sermon Focus Sentence: Jesus instructs the disciples to feed the...
by The Rev. J.C. Austin | Jul 30, 2023
When I was traveling in Turkey many years ago, I had the opportunity to attend the annual Turkish wrestling festival near Edirne, which is a smallish, non-descript town several hours west of Istanbul (near the border with Macedonia, Greece, and Bulgaria), with nothing...
