Sermons & Newsletter Articles

Unexpected Glory

Year A Isaiah 9:2-7 Psalm 96 Titus 2:11-14 Luke 2:1-14 May the words of my mouth O God…  speak your truth… Every ten years…  our government conducts a census…  the main purpose of which is to count heads…  to know how many people live here…  so it can figure out how many seats each state receives in the...

Love and Dreams

Year A Isaiah 7:10-16 Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19 Romans 1:1-7 Matthew 1:18-25May the words of my mouth O God…  speak your truth… Presbyterian minister T. Denise Anderson writes that in today’s passage from Isaiah…   God tells King Ahaz to ask for a sign…   Ahaz rules the southern kingdom of Judah…  which includes Jerusalem…  King Pekah of the northern kingdom...

Waiting for Everything

Year A Isaiah 35:1-10 Canticle 15 James 5:7-10 Matthew 11:2-11 May the words of my mouth O God…  speak your truth… When there’s going to be a space launch…  like Thursday’s Falcon 9 rocket…  which deployed an array of low-Earth orbit satellites…  there are literally hundreds…  if not thousands of variables which must be seamlessly integrated and precisely...

Gardens Within Deserts

Year A Isaiah 11:1-10 Psalm 72:1-7, 18-19 Romans 15:4-13 Matthew 3:1-12May the words of my mouth O God…  speak your truth… John the Baptist wears symbolic clothing and eats symbolic food…  both of which suggest people and processes in Israel’s past…  both of which explore the dynamics of repentance…  John’s clothing is reminiscent of Elijah’s…  in a story...

Nurseries for Stars and Humanity

In March 1616, the Catholic Church issued a prohibition against the Copernican theory, which claimed that the Earth was not at the center of the universe (geocentric), but that it rotated around the Sun (heliocentric). This led to the Inquisition and Condemnation of Galileo Galilei (in 1633) as a suspected heretic for his subsequent astronomical observations (such...