Sermons (Page 19)

May 28, 2017 “Drinking of the Spirit”

Religio-centrism — the idea that one set of beliefs or practices is uniquely the “right” one, and all others are “wrong” — has probably caused more human misery over the centuries than any other. And, sadly, Christianity has much to answer for in this regard. In this sermon Pastor Tracy looks at one of the…

May 21, 2017 “Looking Toward Heaven”

On Ascension Sunday, Pastor Tracy examines the actions of the disciples during their last meeting with Jesus (Acts 1:1-11) and finds they have a shortcoming familiar to all of us today: an inability to see a truly new possibility when it appears . . . a failure of imagination.  Despite having witnessed the profound drama of the…

May 14, 2017 “Calgon, Take Me Away”

On Mothers Day, Pastor Tracy examined one of the oldest descriptions of the early Church  (John 14: 15-31.)  The constant use of family words was not metaphorical: To many of the slaves and outcasts drawn to Jesus’s message, that early Church was the only family they had, and the mother/father love they found there is what sustains the…

April 3, 2017 “Came to Believe”

Doubt is not the opposite of faith; it is one element of faith. Paul Tillich On the first Sunday after Easter, Pastor Tracy preached on the traditional text, the story of Doubting Thomas. However, she held Thomas’s doubts up to us as a positive model to emulate. She notes that all the players in the Easter story had…

March 12, 2017 “Faith vs. Works”

As we settled into the self-examination of Lent, Pastor Tracy examined a concept in scripture that generates a lot of confusion: the idea of “justified by works.” (Romans 4:1-5 & 13-17.)  It has been used over the centuries to support theologies of reward and punishment by God, but those theories are in direct conflict with the core idea…

March 5, 2017 “Fasting In Fast Times”

For the first Sunday in Lent, Pastor Tracy examines the origins of Lenten sacrifice in Jesus’s 40 days in the wilderness. (Matthew 4: 1-11) In this familiar story of Satan’s temptations of Christ she finds a practical account of an inspired man getting his priorities in focus as he prepares to challenge the mightiest empire on earth. And, she…

January 22, 2017 “God of the Refugee”

On the first Sunday after the inauguration, our entire service was centered on the issue of refugees. This was a continuation of a project last Spring, where the youth group led a service about refugees and assembled 396 hygiene kits to be distributed to Middle East refugees by Church World Services. During this service, Taylor Cline-Meehan read…

December 18, 2016 “Proclaiming the Good News”

On the Sunday before Christmas, Pastor Tracy focused on the shepherds (Luke 2: 8-20.) She notes that this beloved, familiar story embodies a truly revolutionary idea: that the birth of the Messiah would be announced through the lowest of the low – poor, nomadic workers on society’s fringes, living in constant fear. Today’s “shepherds” are…

December 4, 2016 “Receiving the Good News”

For the second Sunday in Advent, Pastor Tracy used the traditional story of Zechariah’s Vision  (Luke 1:5-20) as a jumping-off point for a consideration of what our role should be as a social Justice church in this scary new post-election world. Her conclusion was a ringing re-affirmation of our role in a world where the…

November 27, 2016 “Yearning for Good News”

On the first Sunday in Advent, Pastor Tracy takes us back to a similar ancient period of expectation and hope when the Jews, having been driven from their homelands by Babylon, yearned for return. (Isaiah 52:7-10 & 61:1-4) She observes that at such times, the “good News” we seek often lies within us . .…