September 24, 2017
Rev. Ron Patterson Matthew 20:1-16 Recently a friend who supports my sermon-writing habit sent me a list of one liners. Some of them were humorous, some of them were common sense, some of them were outrageous and a few of them were absolutely irresistible. The list included such gems as: “Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it”; “If you can’t be kind, at least have the decency to be vague”; “It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others”; “When everything’s coming you way, you’re in the wrong lane”; “Birthdays are good for you. The more you have, the longer you live”; “Never buy a car you can’t push”; and “Never put both feet in your mouth at the same time, because then you won’t have a leg to stand on.” Those were all pretty good, but the very best of the bunch, as far as I’m concerned, as a former resident of New York City, was the one which stated: “Accept that some days you’re the pigeon, and some days you’re the statue.” I found that one almost good enough to commit to needlepoint and hang on the wall, because it does seem to define a good portion of the human dilemma and especially the topic I want to consider with you today. I want to think with you about fairness. What is fair? How do we define it? How do you know when you are being fair or when someone is treating you fairly? And for the person of faith, is there a difference between fair and faithful? Two comments from friends, two vivid memories, and one troubling Bible story raised this issue for me a couple of weeks ago. We were talking and a friend casually mentioned: “life is not fair.” They were commenting on something in the news, perhaps one of those hard luck situations we have all seen or experienced; or maybe some tragedy major or minor that involved the innocent in undeserved suffering. Life is not fair, they said, the good sometimes die young, the virtuous are not always rewarded, and evil seem to prosper. And then later that same day someone in our building in Tacoma mentioned that during the housing bubble some years ago, they became on paper a millionaire, but that when the bubble popped, it was a very different story. And somehow, that just didn’t seem to be fair. And those two comments brought back two memories. A number of years ago, on Long Island, I was at a public hearing on a new housing development planned in the community where I lived. The developer stood up and said that if he succeeded with his new development, everyone in that community would benefit from higher housing prices. And he was right, he built his mammoth houses, he constructed his 5,000 square foot “McMansions” and the housing prices in that historic area soared. Everyone who owned a house became wealthy on paper at least. A couple of years later, I saw that builder and reminded him of what he had said at that meeting. I told him he was right, everything he had said was true, except for one thing. I told him that he was like the Pied Piper; that he made that town a whole lot wealthier, but that he took away our children, because virtually, none of the children who grew up in that community could afford to live there anymore and somehow, that just didn’t seem to be fair. The other memory is one I’m sure many of you share. It’s the memory of groups of people waiting to be hired as day laborers. I’ve seen it on St. Thomas in the Caribbean, and in some cities I’ve visited in Africa and Mexico and it probably happens somewhere here in Colorado too. Men and women who want to work, day laborers, standing on street corners or in a park, waiting for a contractor to offer them a job. Waiting to pick vegetables, or shovel dirt, or pass roofing tiles. Willing to work and hoping for a job. Some of them get work and some of them don’t. Some of them feed their families, and some of them don’t. And somehow, that doesn’t seem fair. And finally, the Bible story that Jesus told us this morning. It’s a tough one: the story of the landowner who went out to hire laborers for his vineyard. On the surface this is a story about fairness and it’s not fair. The day laborers are hired at different times. Some of them work the entire day, some of them work for just a few hours in the heat of the day and at the end of the day, they are not treated fairly. They are all paid the same wage for different amounts of work and the ones who have worked the whole day protest that the landowner is not fair. And the landowner says look, I don’t care about fairness, it’s my farm and my money and I can do as I wish, get over it. And then he asks the grumbling workers: “Are you envious because I am generous?” Every one of them who went into the field, early or late was paid the same wage. Every one of them received the money necessary to make it through another day. Every one of them was able to feed their family. Was that landowner being fair? Or was that landowner dabbling in something way beyond fair? Now at this point, I have to tell you that I struggled for several hours trying to think about what to say next. But then I went back and looked at the story again and noticed something. This story is a parable and not a news report and so the facts are not nearly as important as the meaning behind the facts. The story begins with those little words: “The Kingdom of God is like,” the reign of God is like this… which should have been a tip off to me and to you that we are not dealing here with how the world works—or with any concept of fairness we might be able to understand—like how when we were kids Mom divided up the chocolate cake so that your piece was exactly the same size as your brothers. That’s how moms are supposed to do it and that’s what you and I expect. But this is a story about what the reign of God will be like, how the “kingdom of God” will unfold. This is a story about how the world might work and about how life might become if and when we choose to live it by the light of God’s love. This is a story about how God as you understand God or how the God spark in you and me might be operating. And then it dawned on me. I can’t think of a single fair thing—as I learned about fairness as a kid, or as an adult or as we might think about it in terms of politics or business or our day-to-day lives—I can’t think of anything fair in the entire sweep of biblical history. Fairness is just not a biblical idea. Let me tell you what I mean. If it were simply a matter of fairness, every one of us would always get exactly what we deserved every day of the week and then big time at the end of the line. If God were running the universe like a chartered accountant and keeping tabs on our actions and our attitudes like some sort of heavenly bookkeeper, then most of us would be a far piece up the wrong creek. Fair is what I expect from my banker, thank God, I don’t receive fairness from God. How does the Psalmist say it? “God is merciful and gracious; slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love”? (Ps. 103:8) Now, it is just possible, since I don’t know most of you, that there is a perfect person present here today. It is just possible that there’s someone here today who has never said or done something that they hope to heaven no one ever finds out about. It is possible that there is someone here today who hasn’t messed up big time or small time and who carries absolutely no regrets about anything. That’s possible, I suppose, but I doubt it. God is not fair. God is gracious and operates with grace. It is God who is the landowner in the story of the workers in the field. It is God who gives to each one of those workers the means to live and to survive another day. It is God who gives me and you the next breath and who does not judge us based on our actions or our attitudes or our foibles or our imperfections. God begins from the place of grace, accepting us and renewing us and giving us the chance to be gracious and caring for one another. And Jesus lays out the story of the workers in the vineyard to invite us to treat one another and this world with the same sort of grace. In my mind, this story says something about hungry children. It has something to say about the children who have never seen a dentist or the thousands of families right in our back yard who can’t afford houses or proper health care. It is a judgment on the pettiness of the political arguments that oppose universal health care. It says something about the grace we are called to show in our dealings with the world and our call to live justice. In my heart I might argue that if the world were fair, every person would have a living wage, every person would have a place to live, everyone would have enough to eat and basic health care—but we all know the world is not fair. Well, the idea behind this story is that God expects something a little more powerful than fairness from those of us who choose to become the servant disciples of Jesus—God is inviting us to embrace the amazing way of grace and become little outposts of an outbreak of the reign of God—tiny encampments of the mercy and caring of God, small settlements of justice doers reflecting the goodness of God in a world that defines fairness mathematically rather than mystically. One more thing: Were you ever in love? If you were or if you are, then you know that love has absolutely nothing to do with fairness. Relational fairness is about quid pro quo. Relational fairness is about giving something to get something. You scratch my back and I will scratch yours. You invite me to you house for dinner and I will invite you to my house for dinner. I give you a present, you give me a present. I am nice to you so you will be nice to me—all a part of a very pleasant and very necessary social contract. Polite people do this sort of thing all the time and there is nothing wrong with it, it’s all very fair, but it’s not love. Love is giving expecting nothing in return. Love is sacrifice without any expectation of reward. If I love you only because I am hoping that you will love me, that may be fair, but it is not love, it is business. Love is giving yourself away, because it is really the only thing any of us has to give. It is the way of God. Our little bible story ends with a very strange sentence. Jesus says: “the last will be first, and the first will be last.” That, too, is not fair. That, too, is not the way the world works; but then we have a different path to follow. We are called to follow the way of Jesus. We are called to love and we are called to forgive, we are called to work for justice and peace and we are called to give, because we are loved and we are forgiven, and we have received God’s grace in Jesus Christ. It’s not fair; it never was and never will be. We didn’t earn it, we don’t really deserve it, but it’s a free gift. Accept that gift and you will know abundant life on your journey today, and forever and in the process, together we might make this world a better place. Amen. AuthorThe Rev. Ron Patterson came to Plymouth as our interim for the fall of 2017 during the Rev. Hal Chorpenning’s 2017 sabbatical. Ron has served many churches from Ohio to New York City and Naples UCC in Florida, where he was the Senior Minister for many years before retiring. Ron’s daughter-in-law and grandchildren attend Plymouth.
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September 17, 2017
Rev. Ron Patterson Matthew 18:21-35 This morning I am going to venture into dangerous territory and beg your patience as I do so. I know a great deal about a few things and a little bit about a lot of things. That makes me a pretty good Trivial Pursuit player and an armchair devotee of the TV show, Jeopardy. I like to flatter myself with the belief that I received a pretty good liberal arts education. But...of all the things I do well and of all the things I do less well, the very bottom of the list is anything grammatical. When my grade school teachers asked us to open our grammar books, I must have been looking out the window. When they taught that lesson about sentence structure and pushed the importance of sentence diagramming—remember that (?)--I must have been absent that day and during the week they laid out the parts of speech, I must have had the measles or maybe the mumps. If I learned anything at all about adverbs, adjectives and gerunds it was because the people who did pay attention and did learn those lessons—have been patient with me and kind and caring. So, I ask for a bit of that same patience today, because my sermon idea is about the difference between a noun and a verb. I think I know that a noun is that part of speech that includes persons, places and things and if I remember correctly a verb is a state of being or an action. Taken superficially, you and I are nouns. I am standing in a pulpit and we are sitting in a church, up there is the steeple and you are the people. There is the table which some call an altar. On the table are candles and there’s a cross. This is my sermon. And those are just a few of the nouns that surround us. The subject of my sermon today is heaven and heaven is a noun. In classical religious terms, some folks will tell you it is a place; and for some people who love Jesus, it is a destination. Some will tell you that have to do things to get there. I was taught (and maybe you were too) that if you live a good life, heaven is where you end up when this chapter of life is over. The streets are paved with gold, the houses there are mansions and even those of us who can’t manage a tune in a bucket get to join the heavenly host, pick up our golden crowns and harps and spend eternity hanging out. Does that sound wonderful to you? There’s an old preacher’s joke about the preacher who got wound up one morning on the subject of heaven. He got his congregation all stirred up with his picture of heaven and then shouted at the top of his lungs, “If you’re ready to go to heaven, stand up.” And everyone stood up except an older man in the front row, who didn’t even stir. And that bothered the preacher and so he pointed to the man and said “Why aren’t you standing, brother?” And the man answered: “If you don’t mind, pastor, for the present I’m doing fine right here.” And I guess I feel the same way. And while if you asked me about heaven, I would invite you to wonder with me about what it might mean to imagine a place of joy and reward and a destination where the pain and sorrow of this life will be replaced with something a whole lot better than what we have here, I do confess that I am not anxious to get there. I look forward to heaven, but heaven can wait, because life is good and I’m not quite ready to make the trip. And that’s the thought that came to me as I looked at the parable we heard just now and at the whole string of little parables Matthew share about the Kingdom of God or the reign of God. Jesus did say a few things about heaven as a noun. He did offer a few glimpses of the other shore, but the funny thing I noticed as I was preparing for today is that most of what Jesus said about heaven had absolutely nothing to do with a place or a destination. He never talked about streets of gold. He never mentioned harps or halos. And when he did talk about the Kingdom of Heaven, he mainly talked about this life and this place, as if heaven was right here and right now and not up there or out there somewhere in a place a whole lot better than this place. He actually said that the Kingdom of Heaven is within—in the heart and in the mind and in the soul of every one of us. And if I asked you now to open your heart and your soul and your mind do you think you would find heaven there? I took a look inside and I have to say that what I saw didn’t leave a whole lot of room for heaven. In fact what I saw was a little scary. I saw some fears about the future. I saw a bundle of worries over things I’ve done and said that I wish I had not said or done. I saw a pile of regrets and a swamp of inadequacies. I saw a dozen or two doubts and a dried out stack of disappointed dreams. Did you ever notice that when you go looking for trouble, you usually find it? That when you believe the glass is half-empty it usually is or when you think negative things, negative things happen? Well, I don’t think Jesus looks at us in that way. I think when Jesus looks at your life and mine the first thing he does is look right past all of those negative things and Jesus sees heaven—not as a place, not as a destination, but as a living reality. Not as a noun, but as a verb. And here I am at the very edge of my grammatical ability and at the far side of my ability to understand or to communicate, but the heaven that is in you and in me is about loving, caring, serving, giving, forgiving, and living to make all of those things real possibilities in our own lives and in the lives of other people and out there in the world. Do you want to go to heaven? Let me say it simply: if you want to get the noun, become the verb. If you want to lead your life in the sure and certain hope of eternal life right now and in the world to come whatever that looks like, don’t worry about heaven the place, be heaven, become heavenly, live your life ‘heavenescently.' Forgive me, I think I just created a new word. I think you know the word: “effervescent”—it means bubbly, sparkling, engaging, thrilling, lively—the sort of person who makes an entire room come to life with their joy. Well, ‘heavenescent’ is living so fully in the present that nothing this life can throw at us can cloud the powerful reality that we are God’s children called to be Jesus to one another in every part of our living. And so Jesus, a little earlier in Matthew, says the Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed—that little wonderful spark of the divine in you and in me. Jesus says the Kingdom of Heaven is like yeast--that tiny miracle of life added to the ordinary substance of life that transforms every moment with life renewing possibility. Jesus says that the Kingdom of Heaven is like treasure hidden in a field—and the hidden treasure is the power of love to make everything worn out and weary in our hearts into something bright and beautiful. Jesus says, the Kingdom of Heaven is like the pearl of great price—a treasure so precious that just having it puts every single thing in your life and mine in perspective. And then finally in answer to Peter’s attempt to build the reign of God into a noun bound box of religious rules and regulations about how often we need to forgive, Jesus tells a wild tale of extravagant love known as the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant that breaks open life with grace that is amazing. And all of that is an invitation to live heaven and do heaven and in our very humanity become heavenly. Heaven is not a noun, it’s a verb. When you dreams are dashed and you keep on dreaming, that is heaven. When you think you can’t forgive and you forgive anyway and keep on forgiving, that is heaven. When you know that despite what you have done in the past, you hear Jesus promising you that you can begin again, that’s heaven. When you come to believe that even your worst nightmare will have a happy ending, that’s heaven. When you lay your head down at night and never worry whether you’ll wake up or not because you know God loves you, that’s heaven. When you come to realize that you can be the missing piece to another creature’s puzzle, that’s heaven. When you give someone else the permission to be themselves in your presence without pretense or phoniness, that’s heaven. When you realize that because God accepts you as you are and you come to accept others, that’s heaven. When you give another person the strength and the courage they need to take an unpopular stand and join them in letting the love of God get a hearing in this cold cruel world, that’s heaven. When you overwhelm another person’s cynicism with understanding and compassion, even if you disagree with them, that’s heaven. When you give yourself away without any thought of return, that’s heaven. When you become an answer to another person’s problem or their prayers, that’s heaven. When we look around this place and realize that our job as the church of Jesus Christ is not to judge but to care, that’s heaven. When we get together to make a difference in this community in our mission and in our service, that’s heaven. When we pray together and trust the power of our prayers, that’s heaven. When we speak the truth in love to one another, that’s heaven. When we sacrifice our cherished opinions and love our enemies beyond any logical expectation, that’s heaven. When we stand up for the poor, or those who lack health care or confront the haters and the hoarders with powerful love in action, that’s heaven. And even when we feel like we’re walking the very streets of hell and know that on that walk we are not alone, that’s heaven. Heaven is not a noun, it’s a verb. Let me end now with a story you may have heard before. It was told first in the writings of the poet and scientist Loren Eiseley. (The Star Thrower) “Once upon a time there was a man who was walking along a sandy beach where thousands of starfish had been washed up on the shore by a storm. He noticed a boy picking the starfish one by one and throwing them back into the ocean. The man observed the boy for a few minutes and then asked what he was doing. The boy replied that he was returning the starfish to the sea, otherwise they would die. The man asked how saving a few, when so many were doomed, would make any difference whatsoever? The boy picked up a starfish and threw it back into the ocean and said: ‘Made a difference to that one….’” “The man left the boy and went home, deep in thought of what the boy had said. He soon returned to the beach and spent the rest of the day helping the boy throw starfish into the sea…” God in Jesus Christ is calling us to life. Who we are is whom God loves and heaven is in our loving. God give us the strength to be heavenly. Amen. AuthorThe Rev. Ron Patterson came to Plymouth as our interim for the fall of 2017 during the Rev. Hal Chorpenning’s 2017 sabbatical. Ron has served many churches from Ohio to New York City and Naples UCC in Florida, where he was the Senior Minister for many years before retiring. Ron’s daughter-in-law and grandchildren attend Plymouth.
The Rev. Jake Miles Joseph
Plymouth Congregational Church, United Church of Christ Fort Collins, Colorado September 7, 2017 (Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost) Romans 13:8-13 [Silence from Pulpit looking out at the congregation.] Have you ever had the feeling [PAUSE] that there was so much (so much 2x) you MUST say to someone that you couldn’t even start to speak? Today is one of those days for me as a young pastor. There is so much to say this morning and so much need for sacred, indignant Christianity in the face of Empire. But there is also a need for comfort and God’s assurance that All Shall be Well again… eventually in God’s Realm of Love and God’s Providence/ God’s dream for us as co-inhabitants of this finite planet and finite, mortal lives. It appears to me, and many scholars, that the Apostle Paul, the author of this letter to the Christian community in Rome from the lectionary for today, was in a similar situation as a preacher. He had so many concerns and so little time to try to say it all to the communities he was leading. This means that Paul, in the midst of so much to say, sometimes contradicts himself, but today’s reading from Romans 13 seems to be Paul breaking free from systemic gridlock, confusion, logistics, and institutional minutia into a moment of absolute ethical clarity. We imagine Paul saying to himself, “Yes, this must be said to Rome, forget about disagreements about laws, antiquated and complicated and contradictory as they are. Rather, refocus on Love (agape).” Like Paul, today, let’s get back to the basics: “Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.” All of the commandments, “are summed up in this word, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no wrong to neighbor; therefore, love is fulfilling of the law.” As I humbly attempt to channel a bit of Paul’s predicament and also clarity from Romans this morning, I covet you for your prayers. Pray with me? May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be good and pleasing to you, O God, our Rock, Our Sustainer, and Our Dreamer. Amen. Hurricanes (plural) made of wind and rain and hurricanes of bad policy that puts old law before young people, protectionism before those who most need protection, a political base before the basic ethics of Christian faith. Bombs tested this week both in the arena of diplomacy and international relations with North Korea and in the middle of the living rooms, educations, and the personal lives of DACA/ Dreamer residents of this country— our neighbors. Where is God? Is God also on a golfing vacation somewhere in New Jersey? This is a question that the Romans and the other early Christian communities also probably ask themselves—well, except without the New Jersey part. Where is God? Verse 12 says, “the night is far gone, the day is near.” Paul is writing to a community of Christians he has never visited in person, and he is trying to share with them the dream of Christian hope, a law of love, and a sense of where God is in the midst of persecutions, hiding, and life threatening potential conflict. Because the letter to the Romans is written without much specific familiarity, it is Paul’s most comprehensive letter with the biggest vision for what Christianity is all about. Paul, like his contemporaries, saw his time, as some of us see our own here and now with conflict, persecutions, and global climate change, as apocalyptic in one form or another—a time of great change and crisis. Scholars agree that this chapter from Romans, while filled with a deep sense of love for neighbor (which means the whole world… all people... and not just a literal neighbor) is rooted in the genre of apocalyptic literature and a feeling of urgency, fear, and a sense of God’s Realm being the dawning of a new day...like tomorrow or now. So next time you hear this Romans passage being used in a wedding, I want you to chuckle to yourself and remember it is an apocalyptic text being used for that wedding! While the immediate reality around them was grim, the call of Christianity from this letter onward has been to be the Dreamers for a better world that goes beyond borders, nationalities, and politics. Christians are called to be dreamers for a world beyond violence, deportations, and cold hard expediency or literal law. This is what Augustine wrote in The City of God. Christ calls us to post-borders, citizens of God’s realm of Love, to be Dreamers and enactors of a world of Holy Love for all. “The night is far gone, the day is near.” “The night is far gone, the day is near.” We are, in many ways, on this Sunday of setbacks and contradictions, wars and rumors of wars, weapons of unimaginable destruction, and deportations (separating of families and friends in the name of law and order)…kindred Christians with Paul’s community in Rome. We feel the need for a new day. We are on the brink of something new. Paul is writing to and for us. Additionally, like Paul’s Christians, we know that after us Christianity will never be the same. What will be left of our legacy? Today, therefore, is the day to ask this question: What is the core, fundamental, back-to- basics dream of Christian faith? Let’s get back to basics. For Paul, the law doesn’t go away and still has value, but it is summarized first and foremost by a focus on striving to love and take care of one another. The dreamers we are called to be for God’s world of love are threatened by unholy temptations to turn inward! Vestiges of Theological Education, remnants of denominational infrastructure, and catastrophic shifts in institutional function and arrangements threaten to take all of our attention as Christians to save what was and has been rather than dream of what could be. Some want us to dream of yesterday of before everything went wrong; but that is nostalgia, not a dream. Nostalgia in national politics and in church culture doesn’t lead to love-in-action. Christianity is the faith of the dreamers for God’s realm of now and tomorrow not the faith of nostalgia for a past that never really was. To dream is what God does and it is something that comes for the future. When we release ourselves from the bonds of conflict and false prophets of nostalgia, and open ourselves up to love, then we are Christian Dreamers with God. Does being dreamers for a world of love mean that we are inactive or passive observers? Verse 11 and following: “Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep…the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us live honorably as in the day…not reveling and drunkenness, debauchery and licentiousness… NOT in quarreling and jealousy.” This week, veiled in confusing tweets and promises, those who were brought to the United States as children, raised as friends and patriots here, educated, invested, loved here as their home and country were told that they are no longer safe, no longer neighbors, no longer able to dream. You have heard of "un-friending," like on Facebook? [Ask for a show of hands.] This action is un-neighboring of 800,000 beloved and their families. DACA or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients, also known as dreamers, are the subject of Romans 13 today! You know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep! As Christians, we also claim full solidarity with the dreamers being un-neighbored by policies of false nostalgia and false promises. As Christians, borders and political excuses don’t limit our ancient faith and ancestral calling. God’s dream is too big for that. You know what time it is! I am not going to leave you guessing today. God is a DACA recipient. God is a dreamer. Where is God? That is where God is—sleeping in a cold deportation center cell in Aurora. God doesn’t need more lawyers debating God’s intent. Love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no wrong to neighbor. God is the one in our midst who looks like a neighbor or a childhood arrival immigrant working for a better future in education, community, and hope. This is how we live honorably as in the day of love rather than in the night of quarreling and jealousy—we work for justice and hope for DACA recipients. Only by showing love of neighbor in real ways can we wake from sleep and live-into the dreamer status we are called to embrace… to become Christian Dreamers (ALL) as God intends for us. You know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep! In responding to the needs of DACA recipients, supporting them in following their dreams, recognizing their contribution, and standing in solidarity in these days of uncertainty… we love our neighbor as ourselves. You know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep! In giving to the victims of Harvey and Irma and by advocating for policies that will protect God’s beloved planet and people from further climate change and devastation… we love our neighbors as ourselves. You know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep! In our prayers and voices advocating for diplomacy and de-escalation rather than war and destructions, bomb tests, and global anxiety. By advocating for peace for the planet, we love our neighbors as ourselves. You know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep! It is time for love. It is time to be dreamers with the DACA Dreamers for a better world and a better tomorrow. It is time to dream a new world into bring. Yes, we are dreamers called by God as Christians to imagine a better world, but that doesn’t mean that we are asleep to the needs in our midst. We are dreamers— visionaries for a world rooted in love. Like Paul, we live in a changing and dangerous world that often seems apocalyptic. Often we get bogged down in politics and church nostalgia, but today we go back to basics… to love and to dream a dream for a new world. You know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep! The dreaming has only just begun. Amen. AuthorThe Rev. Jake Miles Joseph ("just Jake"), Associate Minister, came to Plymouth in 2014 having served in the national setting of the UCC on the board of Justice & Witness Ministries, the Coalition for LGBT Concerns, and the Chairperson of the Council for Youth and Young Adult Ministries (CYYAM). Jake has a passion for ecumenical work and has worked in a wide variety of churches and traditions. Read more about him on our staff page.
Jane Anne preaches on Exodus 3:1-15.
AuthorThe Rev. Jane Anne Ferguson, Associate, Minister, is a writer, storyteller, and contributor to Feasting on the Word, a popular biblical commentary. She is also the writer of sermon-stories.com, a lectionary-based story-commentary series. Learn more about Jane Ann here. |
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