by Mario Baldessari | Sermons
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...
by Mario Baldessari | Sermons
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...
by Mario Baldessari | Sermons
Texts: Luke 19: 41-42; Revelation 22: 1-5 We were pleased to welcome Shelly Altman to the pulpit this morning. Shelly is the co-chair of Jewish Voice for Peace, New Haven, and he traveled on our Tree of Life journey this year. It is a pleasure to have both Shelly and...
by Robert McCracken | Sermons
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...
by Robert McCracken | 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...
by Robert McCracken | 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...
by Mario Baldessari | Sermons
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. ...
by Mario Baldessari | Sermons
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...
by Mario Baldessari | Sermons
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...
by Robert McCracken | Sermons
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...
by Robert McCracken | Sermons
Steve Jungkeit and Abigail Cipparone Texts: Acts 28: 1-2 Lessons from Lesbos: Stories from the Moria Refugee Camp (Steve) I begin by begging your pardon. This past Monday Carleen, David Good and I ventured down to New York to catch our most recent Nobel laureate in...
by Robert McCracken | Sermons
Texts: Psalm 150; Luke 17: 11-19 How to Render Praise? This is a Sunday that presents the preacher with a wide palette of colors to paint with, having to do with food, the offering of thanks, and of course, communion itself. But given communion, and given the holiday...
by Robert McCracken | Sermons
Texts: Genesis 28: 10-19; Isaiah 54:2 Messages Along a Sidewalk, Lessons Along a Street Jacob is on a journey in the story we heard from Genesis. He’s departed from his home, having said goodbye to his mother and his father. He travels alone in territory that is...
by Robert McCracken | Sermons
Texts: Hebrews 13: 1-6; Revelation 3: 14-22 “Behold, I Stand At the Door and Knock” If you had occasion to visit Lyme Street on Tuesday night, you would have seen hundreds of people on either side of the street decked out in all manner of costumes, ringing...
by Robert McCracken | Sermons
Texts: Mark 6: 54-56; Luke 8: 43-48 “Somebody Touched Me” The life was seeping out of her. Some rupture in her life, some wound within her body failed to close, and the blood just kept draining from her in a slow drip drip. At first, it terrified her, for it seemed as...
