Recent Sermons

Rev. Ellen Jennings
~ Matthew 13: 31-35 ~

In 1973 E.F. Schumacher published a book entitled, Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics as if People Mattered.  It was published in a world on the brink of globalization, in the process of mechanization, and right before the wave of computerization.  Schumacher argued that mass scales of production both dehumanized individuals and were ultimately unsustainable on a planet of finite resources.  His philosophy of “enough-ness” appreciated both human needs and the

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Daniel Sack
~ Genesis 22:1-18, Luke 10:25-37 ~

Let me tell you a story. One night, a long time ago, in what is now Iraq, God called to an old man named Abram. God told Abram that if he left his home and headed to the land of Canaan, God would bless him and make his descendants a great nation. Through Abram, God said, all the earth would be blessed. This seemed too good to pass up, so Abram did

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Rev. Ellen Jennings
~ Psalm 103, 1-13 Psalms for Praying, Matthew 7:1-5, 12 NRSV ~

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.  Meanwhile
the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

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Tonetta Landis-Aina
~ Job 42 ~Final Sermon in Sassy Love, Sacred Faith series ~

Not too long ago, I read of a woman whose teenage son was killed in a car accident, his life cut short much, much too soon (Newsom). On the morning of his funeral, she decided to begin the day by reaching for her Bible. This mother – who must have been dealing with aching despair and the abyss of grief – decided to read the divine

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Tonetta Landis-Aina
~ Job 38-41, Sermon 4 in Sassy Love, Sacred Faith series ~

Cleveland Park, I’m aware that over the course of these last few Sundays you may have grown suspicious of me. I’ve talked to you about the cockamamy book of Job . . . about a nearly incomprehensible conversation in heaven which results in an ethically dubious divine test on earth. And I’ve talked to you about a man who responds to that test with sass, curses,

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