Sermons
That They May All be One
2 Corinthians 4:7-11
Luke 14:1, 7-14
Our new mantra at Plymouth Congregational Church, United Church of Christ is, “No matter who you are or where you are on life’s journey you are welcome here.” That mantra was not dreamed up by anyone who is in this congregation. We are the beneficiaries…
continue reading…Can You Ever Go Home Again?
Hebrews 11:13-14
Luke 13:10-17
Can you ever go home again?
Perhaps you remember it. Perhaps you remember in your mind how it was: the fragrance of rose petals in your grandmother’s bedroom or perhaps the smell of your dad’s pipe smelling of smoking tobacco. You had tried to go back and you…
Not My Race, Not Your Race, but Our Race
Hebrews 11:29-12:2
Luke 12:49-56
Hear again the lesson from Hebrews (Ch 11:29, verse 12-2). I will read part of it, or speak part of it, from Eugene Peterson’s paraphrasing and conversational tone called, The Message. Here is how Peterson translates the text:
Women received their loved…
Do You Believe in Destiny?
Have you ever wondered why some things happen in your life when they do? Did you ever have a friend appear in your life that you’ve not been in touch with for many years, and you wonder, why now? This last week a couple that stood for us at our wedding thirty years ago suddenly reappeared in…
continue reading…This is Your Life
When Peter asked me some time ago to preach today, I quickly agreed to do it. I began looking for a sermon idea. I searched through my sermon collection and I discovered that I had preached exactly four years ago almost to the day on these same scripture texts. (I’m sure you all remember it…
continue reading…Persistence in Prayer
St. Thomas Aquinas, I think, was the one who said it first: “ Reason in the human mind is rather like God on earth.” I take it to mean that we cannot hear God directly, we cannot see God directly, but we can see God in the lives of people when they are living correctly. Reason is in the head,…
continue reading…When It’s You Lying in the Ditch
Can you remember a time when you did not know the story of the good Samaritan? Doesn’t it seem like this is a story we have known since we were knee-high to a grasshopper? How often when we’ve heard the story of the good Samaritan, we have instinctively identified ourselves with at least…
continue reading…Our Dual Loyalties
Happy Birthday, America—234 years old. Happy Fourth of July. It is a very special occasion, to be gathered in this historic sanctuary on the Fourth of July, the 234th year of our independence. It is special because it reminds us of our ancestors who came to Kansas, who left the comfort and…
continue reading…How to Lose Influence and Earn Dislike
A ten-year-old child wakes up in the middle of the night with an idea, goes to the kitchen, moves a chair over to the counter and climbs it. The child opens the cabinet above the refrigerator and pulls out a jar of cookies. A child at midnight, enjoying a cookie, when all of a sudden the child…
continue reading…Love Beats the Demon
Today’s story stars a naked man full of demons. He has been labeled an outcast by his friends. He has been made to leave his town; he has been deprived of the sacred right to housing and has been forced to live in the tombs of the dead, where other unclean things linger. His story also costars…
continue reading…