Sermon 10.08.2023: Each Other's Harvest

It may be aged and worn, but the old hymn "What a Friend We Have in Jesus" has a story to tell! More than a sweet Sunday School song, this chestnut is planted in biblical narratives and calls us into an intimate theology of abiding love.

Kathleen Norris writes, “There is a powerful moment in any religious conversion… in which a person realizes that… it is nothing you have done, but it is all of one event, God’s being there, and being of help.” The author of the hymn, “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” concludes that God’s grace calls for “songs of lou

The hymns we sing in church have a theological and often biblical basis. “Holy, Holy, Holy,” one of the most familiar hymns to Presbyterians, takes language from Revelation. Revelation can be a confusing, difficult book, but the writer was responding to the crisis faced by first century Christians: Do we worship God,

What if the glory we're waiting for is already shining through us? Presbyterian trailblazer, Janie Spahr, preaches on Job's cosmos and Mark's mountain — where Transfiguration means seeing what was always true: dazzling glory, holy mountains, and the light hidden in ordinary flesh. Holy Communion.

Why do so many of us feel so much pressure to compete, judge, produce, win? The Parable of the Prodigal Son is about two sons. One son learns the hard way that he doesn’t have to earn his father’s love. The other son doesn’t get it. With which son do you identify?

God does not create for the sake of creating. Rather, God creates in order to enjoy, relate, connect, and abide in love with all that is created. Sabbath allows us to enjoy and rest in that love.

“Observe the Sabbath day, and keep it holy,” says Deuteronomy's version of the Ten Commandments. Does that sound like one more religious rule that’s too hard, or at least, too inconvenient, to take seriously? Or might an intentional break from our hectic lives be a path to freedom?

The "morning after" our country’s 250th, we turn to a similar would-be dynasty with its own ancient treasury scandal, arbitrary system of discrimination, and freewheeling corruption. As in Queen Esther's time, we live somewhere between our nation's promises and betrayals. And yet miracles still find us!

If you’ve ever thought, “I’ve never heard God’s voice. I couldn't possibly be part of God’s plan or called by God,” the story of Esther is for you! Esther felt the same way. And believe it or not, like Esther, we are called to a particular service, for particular people, in particular times. What do the times call us t