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...
by Robert McCracken | Sermons
This morning we welcomed Rev. Dr. Allan Aubrey Boesak to the pulpit. Dr. Boesak served as Desmond Tutu Chair of Peace, Global Justice, and Reconciliation Studies at Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis from 2012 to 2017. He has emerged as one of the world’s...
by Robert McCracken | Sermons
Texts: Isaiah 52: 7-10; Matthew 26: 47-52 Notes on an American Epidemic How beautiful upon the mountain are the feet of the messenger who announces peace. So says the prophet Isaiah. Those words were later applied to Jesus. How difficult it is to hear such an...
by Robert McCracken | Sermons
This morning we welcomed the Rev. Dr. John Selders to the pulpit. John is the minister of Amistad United Church in Hartford, and the leader of Moral Mondays CT, along with his wife Pamela Selders. John and Pamela traveled together on our most recent Tree of Life...
by Robert McCracken | Sermons
Texts: Amos 5: 21-24; Romans 12: 3-8; Romans 14: 7-9 The Feeling of Absolute Dependence On what do you depend? On whom do you depend? What is it within your life that you cannot live without, that you gives you reason to be? What is it that you depend upon for a sense...
by Robert McCracken | Sermons
Texts: Psalm 121; Matthew 16: 13-20 A Song of Ascent What Plato is to philosophy, what the Sistine chapel is to painting, what Shakespeare is to drama, what Tolstoy is to the novel, what the Beatles and Dylan are to rock and roll, Mozart’s Don Giovanni is...
by Robert McCracken | Sermons
Texts: “Let the Trees Be Consulted,” and “We Have Forgotten Who We Are” Stand by Me I’ll conclude our series of reflections with what, to me, seems an improbable but true occurrence. One of the traditions that’s emerged in our Green Grass visits these...
