Sun, 19 December 2021
Christmas isn't a holiday for nostalgia, it's a holiday to press us more deeply into today and the future that how live now will bring. |
Sun, 12 December 2021
John was great at being a herald. He fell short of being the messiah. |
Sun, 5 December 2021
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Sun, 28 November 2021
The coming of the son of man coincides with a lot of trouble. So, is it good news that we've got a lot of trouble these days? |
Mon, 22 November 2021
The last Sunday of the church year is a good time to wonder whether we're up for another trip around the calendar. |
Sun, 14 November 2021
Numbers are down in congregations across the county, maybe across the country. Endurance is the name of the game for the faithful. So, who's with me? |
Sun, 7 November 2021
The widow might have been happy to give her last penny to the Temple. Jesus wasn't happy for her. |
Sun, 24 October 2021
Jesus urges us to be as children. So what's stopping us from doing that? |
Sun, 17 October 2021
Revolution? Resignation? Some mysterious third way? |
Sun, 10 October 2021
Hell is other people--or maybe that's the kingdom of heaven. |
Sun, 3 October 2021
Pay attention to the things that make your stumble on your way to God, and the things that help you get close. |
Sun, 26 September 2021
The church isn't designed for efficiency. That said, there's no better time for manifesting the reign of God than now. |
Sun, 19 September 2021
Power is meant to serve the good. Beware when power is put to serving power. |
Sun, 12 September 2021
Repentance, which is a change of mind, comes with repetition. |
Sun, 5 September 2021
The moment when Jesus learned he was Christ for the world is an ugly one. Brace yourself for a moment when Jesus was't "the good guy." |
Sun, 22 August 2021
Empires rise and fall, but the word of the Lord speaks as ever. |
Sun, 15 August 2021
Jesus invites us to bring our worst--and our worst is pretty bad. |
Mon, 9 August 2021
Remember that old summer camp song, "They'll Know We Are Christians By Our Love (by our Love)"? Turns out that was pretty good stuff. |
Sun, 1 August 2021
In this age of kitsch, where can we can find what's true, authentic, bearing an aura as almost halo? |
Sun, 25 July 2021
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Sun, 18 July 2021
In Jesus we meet someone worthy of our essential followership. |
Sun, 11 July 2021
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Sun, 4 July 2021
Langston Hughes got it right. Nearly a century ago, he knew America is aim and aspiration. He was right: it was then, and is still. America dies when our aspiration to be America dies. |
Sun, 27 June 2021
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Sun, 20 June 2021
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Sun, 13 June 2021
What if God really is at work in all things for good? |
Sun, 6 June 2021
As we set off into ordinary time, we've got quite a challenge to live out. |
Sun, 23 May 2021
Pentecost, the event, comes after a protracted period of waiting for apostles. Sound familiar? |
Sun, 16 May 2021
This is a weird Sunday for celebrating. On the other hand, it might really speak to our moment. Church on the Hill, Lenox (UCC) With thanks to Nappy Roots' for their song, Good Day. |
Sun, 9 May 2021
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Sun, 25 April 2021
When you lay down your life for your friends, you're dangerous to the status quo, but you're close to the kingdom of God. Church on the Hill, Lenox (UCC) Thanks to Nahkane's "New Brighton" for inspiring the mantra that is the title of this sermon. |
Sun, 18 April 2021
When astonishing truth claims is all you've got--that and a Resurrecting God. |
Sun, 11 April 2021
Are we hoping God will turn back time, or are we good with God redeeming time? Church on the Hill, Lenox (UCC) Shout out to The Call for use of their song, "I Still Believe." |
Sun, 4 April 2021
Resurrection Day! Or might we prefer Insurrection? There's a lot these days to rise up against... |
Sun, 28 March 2021
Palm Sunday reminds us of the two choices we grace, and encourages us to take the way of Jesus. Thanks to Thievery Corporation for their terrific song Forgotten People. |
Sun, 21 March 2021
Considering last week's Godly Play story in the light of this week's terrible events. |
Mon, 8 March 2021
What the ancient way of sanctifying time might mean for us in the age of Zoom worship. |
Sun, 21 February 2021
The rainbow signals a shift, if not in God then at least our perception of God. Jesus' coming confirms it. Church on the Hill, Lenox (UCC) This features Guster's great song Two At a Time. |
Sun, 14 February 2021
Here we take a big breath before diving into the depths of Lent. Church on the Hill, Lenox (UCC) This episode features Regina Spektor's great song "Laughing With." |
Sun, 7 February 2021
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Sun, 31 January 2021
Ours isn't to fight. It's to wirthstand. We're not amidst a battle. We're amidst an arrival and an occupation of good and true. |
Mon, 25 January 2021
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Mon, 18 January 2021
Storming the Capitol is a bad idea. Can we say that? Can we say there are bad ideas? |
Mon, 11 January 2021
Words describe and create, so be let's be careful with them--careful with what you say, careful about to whom you listen. |
Sun, 3 January 2021
Logos became flesh and lived among us? Really? Why? |
Sun, 27 December 2020
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Sun, 27 December 2020
The gift of the say after Christmas is sometimes the simple blessing of getting back to ordinary life. This year, even that simple blessing was a bit much to hope for. Church on the Hill, Lenox (UCC)
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Sun, 20 December 2020
Do we need to worry about Mary? Or can we take her at her word? |
Sun, 13 December 2020
Advent is waiting, preparing, and waiting. What gives? |
Sun, 6 December 2020
Preparing for Christmas might cause us to recognize there's no getting ready for what's actually to come. Church on the Hill, Lenox (UCC)
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Sun, 29 November 2020
COVID makes hospitality for all practical purposes impossible. But the guest we await in the world is coming anyway, and coming to take over. Before you know it he'll be the host. So get ready. |
Sun, 22 November 2020
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Sun, 15 November 2020
We're nearing the end of the church year, and we're heading into a dark season dominated by the pandemic. Maybe these are labor pains...? |
Sun, 1 November 2020
This one goes out to all you saints in thanks and praise. Church on the Hill, Lenox (UCC) Thanks to Alchemy for their music! |
Sun, 1 November 2020
Take your time with this one--shorter than usual, but longer than it needed to be if this were simply a matter of information and not inspiration. Church on the Hill, Lenox (UCC) Thanks to Alchemy for their music! |
Sun, 18 October 2020
The children's library has hidden among its shelves a great theological text on the sovereignty of God. |
Sun, 11 October 2020
These are days of longing. For this, we find ourselves in good company, if though from a social distance. |
Sun, 4 October 2020
If God is sustainer, and God is free, could it be that God would withdraw the sustaining spirit? And if that happens, then now what? |
Sun, 27 September 2020
When all falls away, this remnant of what’s real: Church. Seek, hold its frayed hem.
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Sun, 20 September 2020
It isn't often that the Bible strikes a wrong tone because it's just too silly to go with our lived difficulties. But mood-matching has never been easy among otherwise devoted partners. |
Tue, 15 September 2020
Sundays haven't been the same since COVID imposed itself upon our lives. When is it time to settle on new traditions? |
Sun, 6 September 2020
We're awash in kitsch--from our politics to our art to our religion to our homes and self-styling. What's a living being to do? |
Sun, 23 August 2020
Congregations generally face lean times and times of plenty. Here's to the ones who withstand the lean times. Without them, those times of plenty would be lost. |
Sun, 16 August 2020
Jesus preaches against slander, and then slanders someone. What gives? |
Sun, 9 August 2020
The mainline church has become sidelined. This is true in most of our congregations, true even in Lenox and Monterey. So what are doing here? |
Sun, 2 August 2020
How do we understand what the gospel is worth in a place? What are we to make of tiny churches sitting on big endowments and gathering in expensive old buildings? Is this really the most efficient way to do things? |
Sun, 26 July 2020
You might have come to believe the kingdom of heaven is reserved for only a blessed few. We're sorry to have too report its something for creepier than that. |
Sun, 19 July 2020
Clearly, something here is wrong. So, let's figure out what that is, and eradicate it once and for all. But what if that's what about here is wrong? |
Sun, 12 July 2020
COVID continues to keep us at a distance from one another, and gathering outdoors or online. Cast out of our sanctuaries which have long sustained us, what we're left with might not adequately sustain us. What are we to do? |
Sun, 5 July 2020
What are we to make of the slow (but sure) work of salvation and redemption in our midst? How about this: come as we are, receive as we need, serve as we can, and most of all rejoice in the Lord. Monterey Church (UCC) Church on the Hill, Lenox (UCC) Thanks to Alchemy for music! Buy the album for yourself. |
Sun, 28 June 2020
That God is still speaking shouldn't be a radical notion. It requires us still to listen. But maybe that's more than some people would want...? |
Sun, 21 June 2020
It's often said fear is the opposite of faith. I suspect grievance is the opposite of faith. The aggrieved are resentful, not faithful. So, which is it for you? |
Sun, 14 June 2020
This is a sermon for the start of ordinary time, this long season ahead about the only ordinary thing we can hope for in coming months. |
Sun, 7 June 2020
A week of unrest gives us a chance at new creation. |
Sun, 31 May 2020
It's been a terrible week. The anxiety of the pandemic and spectacular acts of police violence against Black Americas, all under the watch of national leadership that is useless at best and cruel at worst, combined to make rage and fear the norm. Oh, and it's Pentecost, so maybe there's hope...? |
Sun, 24 May 2020
Ascension day remembers when Jesus left the world apparently the last time, a separation that feels especially severing in the age of COVID19. |
Sun, 17 May 2020
Staying at home during COVID19 might have us awash in time. That's more stressful than it might at first seem. |
Sat, 9 May 2020
Jesus felt God as abiding in him and him as abiding in God. How might sheltering in place feel different if we turned to the possibility that we might also abide in God and God might also abide in us? |
Sun, 3 May 2020
Good Shepherd Sunday shows up the time every year. Is there anything new to say about it? Actually, is there anything new at all? |
Sun, 26 April 2020
The Son of God became man so man might become God. So said Athanasius of Alexandria in the 4th century. Maybe this time fo suspended time might renew our so becoming.
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Sat, 18 April 2020
Resurrection living suggests we're to be present in body as well as spirit with one another. The coronavirus insists upon something else. What to do then? |
Sun, 12 April 2020
Crisis is opportunity because Christ is always one of our options. |
Sun, 5 April 2020
Palm Sunday is supposed to be a festival day. We're supposed to gather and to wave palm fronds and shout, "Hosanna" to the one who saves us from that from which actually--and pressingly--need to be saved. Not so this year. This year, we shelter in place, prisoners of a virus, which casts into yet fuller relief our state also of being prisoners of hope. Save us, Lord, as we bless the work also of those who would save us from this sickness that is on the loose. |
Sun, 29 March 2020
Our faith demands that we work in the world to ease suffering no matter at what cost to ourselves. It also invites to see that death comes to nothing in the life of God into which all are enveloped and embraced. As we face a world newly vulnerable to death with the coronavirus spreading so fast, we join in the struggle to limit the spread of suffering and death even when this puts us at risk. For those doing this most pressingly--those in healthcare and in other "essential services"--we pray and stand in astonishment at their labors. |
Sat, 21 March 2020
The is the second partial worship service we're posting on-line. This, because of Coronavirus having us stay at home. Social distancing is a particular challenge for the church, but internet-based worship might have us all the more aware of the blessing of one another. The first portion of this is the Call to Worship and the Prayer of Invocation. (To join in on this, click here.) At 4:45 the scripture readings begin. The sermon begins at 13:00. |
Sat, 14 March 2020
Coronavirus is having us exercise caution about gathering in groups. For the small congregations of Lenox and Monterey, we do plan to hold worship though we know many of our members will stay home on Sunday. Here's a way to participate via podcast. To follow along with the Call to Worship and Prayer of Invocation, click here. |
Mon, 9 March 2020
What happens when there's no more frontier, no more unmapped territory to strike out into in search of the next thing, that "something new"? Is decadence our only option? |
Mon, 2 March 2020
Here's a Sunday for the 1st Sunday of Lent, an attempt to hear the stories of Adam & Eve, and Jesus and the devil, as if for the first time. Sometimes familiar stories are the hardest ones to hear. |
Mon, 24 February 2020
On the irrepressibility of the human spirit--or is it the pervasive, penetrative Holy Spirit? Or some combination of the two? And sorry about the cough at then end of this episode!! I thought to mic was off, and I'm too lazy to go back an correct it. (That and I have Ash Wednesday services tomorrow, a wedding this weekend, and Sunday is always coming!) |
Sun, 16 February 2020
We're still with Jesus has he preaches his Sermon on the Mount, and what started out as promising abounding blessing now seems like quite a heavy lift. Can you manage it? |
Mon, 10 February 2020
Christianity has been thought as a dangerously lawless enterprise. After all, if everything comes of God's grace, then what does it matter how we live? |
Mon, 3 February 2020
We could exhaust ourselves trying to grow the church or even to "save"the church. How much more delightful would it be, though, if we were simply to be the church. That would be its own appeal. |
Mon, 27 January 2020
Jesus gathered disciples who in turn were to gather other. What does that mean for us? Evangelism is no easy prospect, especially for those of us in the mainline church, and especially in a world where there's no shortage of people "selling" something. How then to do it, and why?
Direct download: Would_You_Like_to_Come_to_Church_with_Me.m4a
Category:general -- posted at: 5:44pm EDT |
Sun, 19 January 2020
Church on the Hill is one of the most photographed meetinghouses in New England. So goes the legend. But what does it mean that it's not necessarily conducive to the on-going life of the church? |
Tue, 14 January 2020
Little churches might seem an ineffectual way to make a change in the world--to improve things or influence things for the better. Consider, though, the gentle servant of Isaiah's imagining, or the gentle Christ who comes though expected to be harsh and decisive. Maybe little churches are just the vessel God needs to plant the kingdom in our midst. |
Tue, 7 January 2020
Why would the transcendent choose to submit to immanence? |
Tue, 7 January 2020
Anti-Semitism is like a virus in the brain that humanity just can't kick. The Church bears some responsibility for its perennially infecting us. Here's a sermon that makes a case against it as a habit of mind and a violation of our faith and our humanity. |
Tue, 7 January 2020
Christmas Eve comes with a lot of expectations. People bring to the service of lessons and carols a desire to feel a certain way, to be made to believe in magic and unadulterated happiness. This sermon won't necessarily enchant you into the Christmas spirit you might have felt as a child. You won't mistake your life as a existing within a snow globe. But you might learn how to live out Christmas hope even when all hope seems lost. The world isn't an easy place these days. Of course, the world Jesus was born into wasn't easy either. |
Mon, 23 December 2019
Serious faith isn't about "believing" in what seems impossible. It's about allowing the story of our faith work in our lives, bearing forth all its implications for how and why to live. This sermon wanders through kitsch and art, sin and salvation, history and that which is beyond history. |
Tue, 17 December 2019
Sheela Clary joins Liz once again, this time to talk about living in a Meritocracy, and how to resist its appeals. |