Sermons

John McCain had a pretty undistinguished early life.  He was the    son and the grandson of Admirals in the United States Navy so he did what everyone expected him to do:  he went to the United States Naval Academy.  While there, he absolutely failed to distinguish himself.  He graduated near the very bottom of his class.  The word was that he could not have cared any less about academics and military discipline, which, if you think about it, is pretty much the heart of the United States Naval Academy.

Read More

So, who’s the first generous person you remember in your life?  The first generous person when it came to cash for me was a man named Joe Schmidt.  I was getting ready to go to college.  I had some scholarship help that already made my out of state private school less expensive than my in state private university (which, of course, generous donors to the college made this possible.) Mr. Schmidt called me on the phone, asked me to come over, met me at the door and ushered me into his office, which was fancier than any office that I had ever seen.  He sat me down and asked about my college plans.  Then, he puled out what I thought was his calendar but was in fact his check register.  He wrote out a check, put it in an envelope and handed it to me.  He told me to study hard.  I opened the envelope when I got home and saw that the check was for a thousand dollars, more money than I could really imagine.  At the time, I was working three jobs, the highest paying of which paid $3.75 per hour.

Read More

In May of 2005, American professional tennis player, Andy Roddick was playing Fernando Verdasco of Spain in the round of 16 at the Italian Masters tournament in Rome.  Roddick was the number one seed in the tournament and a heavy favorite to with this match against Verdasco.

Roddick dominated, as expected and had a triple match point when something extremely unusual happened.  Roddick couldn’t return Verdasco’s hard second serve but the linesman called the serve out and awarded the point and the match to Roddick. 

Here’s the unusual part.  With the crowd cheering for Roddick, Verdasco ran to the net to shake Roddick’s hand and congratulate him on his victory.  However, Roddick knew something that the linesman, the umpire, the cheering crowd and Verdasco, himself, didn’t know.  Roddick knew that Verdasco’s serve had, in fact, been “in” not “out.”  The ball had hit the line, making it in.

Read More

I want to talk about hope this morning but I don’t want to talk about otherworldly hope.  It is a totally natural thing to think occasionally about what happens when this life ends.  Such thoughts become much more pressing when I’m losing or have lost someone that I love.  As we grow older, our own mortality becomes more evident every time we look in the mirror and every time we go to the doctor and something new isn’t working quite right.  The urgency with which we ask the question grows.

Read More

So, I was out walking Echo, my dog, the other day, which should not come as a surprise to anyone who knows me.  This day happened to be one of the beautiful days that we’ve had of late.  Mentally, I quickly slipped into my “reflective” frame of mind and Echo and I hit our stride.  Right away though, we came around a corner and there was a dog—one that I recognized.  Clearly, so did Echo.  The two of them sniffed each other up and then began hopping around together in the dust of the trail.  This dog was a rescue dog.  No dog ever looks happier to be in Open Lands.

Read More

This morning, I want to start by trying to define three words:  sympathy; empathy; and compassion.  I know that definitions aren’t necessarily the most exciting thing to think about but in order to talk about what I’d like to talk about this morning, we need to be precise.

Read More

I want to tell you a baseball story this morning.  It’s an unusual story because it doesn't involve any big-name stars or any major league teams.  No…this is a story about kids who were just starting to play the game. The story appeared a few years ago in Sports Illustrated.

Read More

Today, we continue our work of teasing out the threads in the Union Church “tapestry” that make us who we are. We examine each “thread,” or core value, and ask, “How does this thread shape our life together?” This morning’s core value is patience.

Read More

This morning, our project continues:  to lay a foundation for talking to one another about the future of the church.  My job is to talk to you about who I think we’ve been and how I have seen us be that church.  Your job is to think about what it might look like to be that kind of church in a new way.  How do we grow and not lose our identity?  

What I’ve said to you is that the church is a tapestry of different threads—different essential traits.  I’ve tugged on one of those threads already:  gratitude.  Last week, I tried to talk about what it means to be a grateful church.  This week, I want to tug on another thread—humility. 

Read More

I feel like I have two important roles during the next 10 months.  First, I need to provide continuity and stability during the transition.  You know me and I know you.  We have songs we enjoy singing and rituals we practice and work we love to do.  We need to dance to the chicken dance and eat some fried chicken.  We need to pipe Advent in one more time.  We need to keep collecting food for those who are in need.  We need to be the church that we’ve been.

At the same time, the congregation needs to begin to discern the church that we are being called to become.  It is not my job to answer such a question or to even shape an answer.  No…my job is to lay the foundation for the conversation.  I would like to “prime the pump,” by inviting everyone to start thinking about a few things now, things which, I hope, will empower people to find their voices and be ready to enter the conversation.

Read More

This morning, I want to start a long walk with the congregation.  The pastoral transition team has been challenged to lead the congregation in a discernment process that will unfold this fall.  The questions will be about who the church has been, who it is now, who it might be in the future.  The tricky part of the project is not to just answer who it is that we would like to be but who it is that God is calling us to be.  There is a church that we aspire to be, that we would enjoy being.  However, far more dauntingly, there is a church whom God is calling us to be.  How would we ever hear—or discern—that calling?

Read More

One of the earliest experiences of our ancestors in faith was the movement from being slaves to being free.  As slaves, there were many securities.  The people were valuable brick makers.  As such, the Egyptians had a stake in feeding them and housing them and generally keeping them healthy.  This was what it took to get the bricks that the Egyptians wanted.  For generations, there was a certain security to our ancestors’ life:  “we can’t go where we want; we can’t do whatever we want to do; but our basic needs are met.”

Read More