March 11th – Steve Jungkeit – with audio

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  Text: Luke 16: 19-31 Slanted and Enchanted IV: The Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus               During the season of Lent, we’ve been focusing on the parables of Jesus, the slanted and enchanted stories that he tells throughout his ministry.  We need...

March 4th – Steve Jungkeit – with audio

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Text: Luke 19: 11-27 Slanted and Enchanted III: The Parable of the Talents             The final lines of Shakespeare’s King Lear may well sum up the whole of the Christian Gospel.  After all the misrecognitions, all the betrayals, all the bloodshed and heartache,...

February 25th – Steve Jungkeit – with audio

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Text: Luke 10: 25-37 Slanted and Enchanted II: The Parable of the Good Samaritan             “Tell all the truth, but tell it slant,” is how Emily Dickinson begins one of her poems, a line that was shared with me after the sermon last Sunday.  It’s a fitting way to...

February 4th – Steve Jungkeit – with audio

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Texts: Luke 2: 25-38; Philippians 1: 3-11 Integrity Blues             I began reading George Eliot’s classic novel Middlemarch this week.  It’s set in an English village that’s undergoing convulsions as a result of the industrial revolution, and it tracks the...

January 28th – Steve Jungkeit – with audio

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Texts: Matthew 14: 22-27; I John 4: 16b-21 Faith Against Fear   I’d like to begin this morning with a famous story about Jesus.  It’s a story about fear, a story that I’ve been reflecting on over the past several weeks, as 2017 came to a close, as I thought about...

January 14th – Carleen Gerber – with audio

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 Isaiah 49:8-13 Matthew 25:31-40 John 17:15-19 “…And the End of All Our Exploring will be to Arrive Where We Started and to Know the Place for the First Time.”  (T.S. Eliot)            As our sermon opens, I’d like to take you back in time to the year 1900.  And I’d...

Jan 7th – 11 AM – Paul Verryn

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This morning we welcomed The Rev. Paul Verryn to our pulpit. Our church has been in partnership with Paul and the Methodist churches he serves in South Africa for nearly thirty years. As always, it is wonderful to have Paul visiting with us. Paul did not use a written...

Jan 7th – 9 AM – Paul Verryn

by | Sermons

This morning we welcomed The Rev. Paul Verryn to our pulpit. Our church has been in partnership with Paul and the Methodist churches he serves in South Africa for nearly thirty years. As always, it is wonderful to have Paul visiting with us. Paul did not use a written...

December 31st – Steve Jungkeit – with audio

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Texts: Isaiah 61: 10-62:3; Luke 2: 22-40 A Story of Christmas The SnowMama By Jeanette Winterson             It is snowing.  In the English language we do not know anything about the ‘it’ that is snowing.  It might be God.  Maybe.  Maybe not.  Anyway.  It.  Is. ...

December 17th – Steve Jungkeit – with audio

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Texts: Isaiah 61: 1-8; Luke 1: 26-38 Tell Us Our Names             You can read a story a hundred times.  You can hear it told over and over, year after year, and still miss a detail that, after the hundred and first time, suddenly leaps out at you.  That’s what...

December 10th – Steve Jungkeit – with audio

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Texts:  Matthew 2: 1-12 To Follow That Star             “This is my quest; to follow that star; no matter how hopeless; no matter how far.”  Those are the words that Don Quixote sings in the musical Man of La Mancha, words that I’m grateful we were able to hear from...

December 3rd- Marilyn Nelson-with audio

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This morning we thank Marilyn Nelson and welcome her to our pulpit. Marilyn is a member of our church and a Poet Laureate of the state of Connecticut. In celebration of the 350th anniversary of our church, Marilyn has published a volume of original poetry entitled...