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SERMONS:
Pastor Peg posts her sermons from our most recent sermon series on this page. If you are interested in reading more of her sermons you can go to pastorpeg.wordpress.com. Our last series was an examination of how we can cope with change during these times. Our current series examines the baggage that we carry in life and how it hinders us . Enjoy.
The Weight of Worry
August 30, 2026 14th Sunday of Pentecost
Philippians 4:4-7 Matthew 6:25-34
I had a good friend who could get worked up about things that never happened. One day he called me because he had just finished reading a book about the Russian mob in New York City and how they terrorized Russian Orthodox priests as a means of social control. Somehow, he had convinced himself that because I was a minister I was going to end up on the front lines of this war. And after explaining everything that was horrible about this situation he ended by saying, “Peggy, please promise me that you will never get involved with any of this.”
I took a breath and I said, “OK. Is there any chance of this happening to me? I don't work in New York City; I certainly don't work with the Russian Orthodox Church. Why would you suppose that this is going to be a problem for me? He paused said, “Well, I don't know, but it could be a problem in the future.”
I took a breath and lovingly said, “You are wasting a perfectly good rant and worry on nothing.”
Jesus said: Don't worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today's troubles are enough for today. But I kind of get my friend, because we all worry about things that could possibly happen, but maybe never will.
God built us that way. I don't know what God looks like physically, but I believe that the idea that we are made in God's image means that God gave us some of His abilities. First of all, like God, we are creative beings. We can look at something and see how it can be used differently or be used to make something else. Second, we are given the ability to see ahead. To imagine what our actions might produce, and what reactions might result. We can see the possible good or bad consequences of our actions. So even though I think my friend was really overreacting, he was just being who we all are. He saw a situation, saw the minute possibility of my future involvement and that caused him to worry. So, he called me up and he shared his worries with me. And in some ways, it was very nice that he was thinking of me.
In Matthew, when Jesus tells his disciples that they shouldn't worry too much about life, I’m pretty sure that he’s responding to their worries. We know the disciples were always asking him, “Can I sit at your right or left hand when you come into your Kingdom?” thinking of course that Jesus was going to become the next king of Israel during their lives and that they were going to have important positions. But they probably also had day-to-day worries. Where were they going to sleep that night? What town was next on their itinerary? Did they have enough money to buy food? Would the local authorities accept them or were they going to get chased out of town?
We all worry about the logistics of our lives, and we all plan for how we want to move forward in our lives. But sometimes we over-plan, because we feel that our lives should unfold a certain way, at a certain time, and when things don’t go according to those plans, we can get very stressed out.
We all carry stress. And we carry it in three ways: We have past stress, present stress, and future stress. Past stress is connected to regret and guilt. We all have things we wish we had, or had not, said or done. And sometimes we regret those actions, thinking that our lives would have turned out differently – maybe better or maybe not – if we had done things differently. And sometimes that regret comes with guilt, especially if people were hurt.
Present stress is the current anticipation of how we’re managing what’s happening to us now. Do, you all remember that song from 1988, Don’t Worry, Be Happy, by Bobby McFerrin? The one that topped most of the music charts in the world, and won a grammy for the Song of the Year? Essentially the song says what Jesus and Paul were saying. Although life gets us down and we have problems we should stop worrying and try to be happy. Because when we worry our worries become double and, by trying to be happy we put ourselves into a positive state of mind. This doesn’t mean that we should go through life not dealing with our problems, but we should approach our problems with a positive outlook, not a negative one.
Future stress is our worry of how our past and present is going to influence our future. Our past does creep up on us and sometimes we are looking over our shoulders for imaginary problems that might arise from past events. But I think the more stressful worry is thinking about those false expectations that appear real. We can get so caught up in thinking about all the ways we can fail in the future, all the ways that things can go wrong, that we just worry ourselves into inaction and/or ulcers.
Also, on top of all the baggage from our past, our stresses of the present, and our worries about the future, is the knowledge that no matter how much we plan, that life is chaotic and often uncontrollable. That’s a lot to carry, and it weighs us down and can make us crazy if we let it. So, how do we keep ourselves from going crazy? How do we let go of the past baggage and the constant worry and uncertainties that plague our lives? How do we lighten our load and lay down some of those burdens by the riverside?
Jesus was trying to get his disciples into a more positive frame of mind, by giving them an assurance: That God was taking care of everything in the universe, so of course God would take care of them too. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. If we take care of being good people who are working on our own connection with God, and we are trying to create and live God’s kingdom on this earth then we will be given what we need.
Now that’s not a magic poof the BMW is going to appear in your driveway. We still have to work for things, and there’s nothing wrong with having goals in your life, but God’s time of fulfillment is not our time of fulfillment. What we need to do is have faith that while we are working that God is working with us.
I was seriously reminded that God is working for me during my spiritual retreat. After talking with my spiritual counselor and doing research I found a book/workbook that intrigued me and seemed to be what I needed. But when I was talking to my grief counselor she recommended another book along the line of thought processing, and I ordered it to check out later. The thought processing book was actually what I needed right now. The other book is fine and I intend to use it. But if you think about it: A spiritual retreat is supposed to help you understand yourself better so that you can connect to God better. And that’s what that book did. If we put out the energy God is going to work with us, in surprising ways.
But we’ve got to get specific with our requests and we’ve got to be open minded to accept the way our problems are going to be solved. There is nothing wrong with asking God to help you get college applications together, clean out your garage, or help you straighten out a sticky financial situation. There is nothing wrong with asking God to help you try to put something in your past to rest. There is wrong with asking God to help you to keep thinking positive and to help you avoid the stinking-thinking of negativity and future failure.
Faith is not always easy to hold onto We can lose it. And when we do lose it, it is very hard for us to take Paul’s advice and Rejoice always, I say rejoice. But Paul reassures us, like Jesus did that: The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.
Have faith that God is near. Have faith that you can ask God to help you out. Trust that you can be thankful, even in times of difficulty, and that will keep up your spirits and see you through the storm. And believe that God wants you to connect with him in prayer and thanksgiving. And when we connect with God and remember our blessings we will find strength.
Have faith. You are of more value to God than you know. His eye is on the sparrow, and he watches over all of us.
Unpacking Unforgiveness
August 23, 2026 13th Sunday of Pentecost
Colossians 3:12-15 Luke 6:27-37
Today’s message from Luke is one of the hardest lessons of Jesus to follow. How are we supposed to love our enemies? How are we supposed to forgive them? Feeding the hungry, tending the sick, and basically helping people get through life is sometimes frustrating and often rewarding, but loving and forgiving enemies is just plain difficult. And often it’s something that we don’t want to do. So how do we get to the point of loving and forgiving the enemies in our lives?
The dictionary definition of an enemy reads: A person who is actively opposed or hostile to someone or something. A thing that harms or weakens someone or something.
In other words: An enemy is someone who threatens, or harms, our wellbeing, and the wellbeing of those we love.
So, I started to think about who or what threatens me. I came up with a few ideas, but I had to ask myself: Are many of those people or situations a real threat, or are they a threat that I think might happen? And this made me think: Perhaps we often classify people (or some things or situations) as enemies when they’re really not. It’s quite possible that we create enemies in our lives that aren’t enemies at all.
Lately I’ve been reading about the history of immigration in this country. Did you know that in the late 1700’s there was a smear campaign against Germanic people immigrating to America? The stated reason was that, although they were mostly protestant, they didn’t speak English and their cultural customs were very different from people of English descent. (They ate things like sauerkraut, and bratwurst.) Since they didn’t speak English, so they were obviously not going to be able to assimilate with the American population. A few years later the Irish were vilified because many of them who were coming to this country were Catholic, and it was believed that they were going to take their orders from the Pope, not from our government. This argument was trotted out with the Italians a generation later. And a generation later the Chinese and Japanese had to be restricted because they were going to corrupt our young children by exposing them and converting them to Buddhism. Plus, their languages were so different from European languages that they could never assimilate.
You probably noticed that there was a theme going here. Each of these smear campaigns – and some of them were very vicious – presented the other culture as the enemy to our way of life.
This got me thinking about the political climate of Jesus’ day. Jewish people were living as a cultural island surrounded and occupied by a Greco-Roman culture that threatened their way of life. To help keep their culture pure, every neighbor who was Greek or Roman was portrayed as an enemy – someone who was going to bring harm to them.
Now if you think that someone is going to bring harm to you, you’re not going to trust them, and you’re always on the defensive with them. Which is why people would freak out when Jesus would willingly interact with Greek philosophers, or Samaritans, or Roman Centurions, or Siro-Phonecian woman. They were classified as the enemy, and you do not talk to an enemy because you can’t trust them.
Jesus preached a doctrine of love, but I’m sure that most of his followers thought that loving your neighbor only applied to the Jewish family who lived next door to you. But remember the story of the Good Samaritan who helped a Jewish traveler when a priest and Levite wouldn’t? That story was a challenge for people to think of Samaritans as someone who was human, who wasn’t the enemy or untrustworthy. Jesus was trying to get his followers to think about loving other people outside of their cultural sphere: Greeks, Romans, Samaritans, and Siro-Phoenicians.
What happens when you love, or even like someone? You are willing to talk with them; find out who they are; and view them as a human being who you can relate to, not someone that you have to make sure you have a weapon on hand with because you don’t trust them.
By removing someone as an enemy in our mind, we can start to see them as a human being and not as a symbol of something to be feared. That doesn’t necessarily mean that a person, or group immediately becomes your bosom-buddy. It just means that you can start to get to know them a little without all the baggage of prejudice that we carry with the enemy classification.
What group of people do you carry around in your mind, who you might classify as an enemy? People from certain countries; immigrants; circus performers? What do you fear about them? And is that fear real? Often our fears are just false expectations that appear real. And those fears are understandable. The Jewish people of Jesus’ time really thought that all those foreigners were going to wipe out their culture and religion. They carried that fear and it made enemies of individuals who weren’t their enemies, but who were part of the “enemy” group.
But of course, there is another type of enemy who is closer to home – the person who actually threatens you or causes you harm. How do we start loving someone who has harmed us and how to do we start to forgive them? And why should we!!! They harmed us, we should be allowed to hate them, or even to hurt them back.
Two years ago at Mine Kill, I did a children’s sermon where I took a backpack and I asked the kids to imagine hateful thing that people did to each other. For small angry things we put small stones in the pack and for large angry things we put in bigger rocks. Eventually the backpack got to be really heavy and hard to walk with. Anger and hate weigh us down and make it harder to move through life. It takes away our focus on good things and keeps us in the negative.
One way to let go of anger and hate is by forgiving those who have hurt you. I know that’s hard but one way to start is to forgive your enemies that are way back in your past and then to move forward. Start with the kid who stole your snack money in first grade. Then the one who broke your bike when you were twelve. How about the kid who ruined your homework in junior high, or the person who dumped you in high school. The colleague who was just mean to you and everyone else at your first job.
Are they now your enemy? And why did they behave that way? Could something have been happening in their lives that made them act that way? When Jesus says to love our enemies, he’s challenging us to see them as humans, not as monsters who are going to attack us.
If you start to see that enemy from the first grade as a human with problems, then the hate and anger might not matter anymore. Why are you holding onto it? Go ahead and forgive them. Take that stone out of the backpack and let yourself feel a little lighter. And then try and forgive the next person on your list. I agree that it will be harder to forgive the closer you get to the present, but maybe you’ll be surprised. Forgiveness is like any other action – the more you practice it the better you get at it.
Unpack your hate and anger with forgiveness. Take it out of your backpack, put it on the ground and leave it there. Jesus tells us that when we forgive that our reward will be great, that we will become his children and become more like Him. And that’s a good thing to work towards, don’t you think?
Hymn Sing Explanations
August 16, 2026 Psalm 98
I was on vacation so my churches had hymns sings. These are brief summaries that were read about each of the hymns chosen.
HYMN UMH 145 Marning Has Broken
Morning has Broken was first published in 1931. The words are by English author Eleanor Farjeon who was inspired when she viewed the village of Alfriston in east Sussex at sunrise. She wanted to write a hymn that could be sung every day, and she wanted it to be set to a simple tune so that everyone could sing it. She chose a traditional Scottish-Gaelic tune called Bunessan, which people already knew because of a popular Christmas Carol called The Child in the Manger.
In 1971 English pop musician and folk singer Cat Stevens recorded it for his album Teaser and the Fire Cat. When Cat Stevens originally sang the song it was so short that his producer said it couldn't go on the album unless it was closer to 3 minutes. So, Cat Stevens created the version that we hear today on the radio. It reached number six on the US billboard charts and number 4 in Canada.
HYMN UMH 314 In the Garden
In the Garden is a gospel song written in 1912, in America, by C Austin Miles. Miles was a former pharmacist who served as editor and manager at a publishing house. It was written for the Lent-Easter season and reflects on Mary Magdalene's witness at the resurrection of Jesus at the garden tomb; humanity’s communion with God in the Garden of Eden; as well as the arrest of Jesus when he prayed beneath the trees in Gethsemane. Ironically, according to Miles’ great-granddaughter, the song was written in a cold and leaking basement in Pitman, New Jersey, that didn’t even have a window in it, let alone a view of the garden. It quickly became a very popular hymn especially among the traveling evangelism circuit. Many famous artists have sung this song such as Elvis Presley, Ella Fitzgerald, Roy Rogers, and Rosemary Clooney. People seem to connect to this song because it talks about a private time that they have with Jesus.
HYMN UMH 374 Precious Lord, Take My Hand
The words to Precious Lord, Take my Hand were written in 1932 by Thomas A. Dorsey, an African-American blues musician. The words are in response to Dorsey losing both his wife and son in childbirth. Dorsey set the words to the tune Maitland which people knew from an older hymn, but he gave a blues feel to it.
Dorsey’s father was a minister and his mother a musician, so he grew up with church music. When he was eight his family moved to Atlanta, but the move was difficult, and he ended up dropping out of school at age 12. He was fascinated with vaudeville and wanted to be musician, so he worked at the theaters and taught himself how to play the piano and other instruments, and to read music. Eventually he became a paid musician and, in 1919, he moved to Chicago, became immersed in the Jazz-Blues scene, and began to compose and play songs for nightclubs. He had a religious conversion and started to compose church music in the blues style, seeking to convey the emotions of religious experiences.
His music slowly began to catch on, although there was controversy because the older generation wanted to stick to traditional music. But the younger generation found his music to be expressive and exhilarating. Gradually his “gospel music” became accepted and now, with over 1,000 religious songs to his name, Dorsey is considered to be the father of gospel music. The historian Horace Boyer has said, “Dorsey was skilled at writing songs that not only captured the hopes, fears, and aspirations of the poor and disenfranchised African Americans, but also spoke to all people.”
Precious Lord has been sung at the funerals of Martin Luther King Jr. and many other noted activists. It has been translated into 50 languages. It’s included in the list of the essential songs of the 20th century by the National Endowment of the Arts, and in 2026 was listed as one of the 250 essential songs of America over its 250 years.
HYMN UMH 369 Blessed Assurance
Blessed Assurance was written in 1873 by two women of faith, Fanny Crosby and Phoebe Knapp. Fanny was visiting her friend Pheobe at the Knapp home and Pheobe played a new melody that she had just composed. When she was done, she asked Fanny, “What do you think the tune says? Fanny replied, “Blessed Assurance; Jesus is mine.”
Fanny Crosby was a prolific author and hymn writer. During her life it’s believed that she published 8,000 hymns. Back then the publishers of hymn books only liked to include one or two hymns from a person, so she invented 200 pen names so that she could have more hymns included in a book. She also published four books of poetry. The amazing thing about this was that she was blind from about six weeks old when she developed an infection that inflamed her eyes.
Pheobe Knapp was the Sunday School superintendent for the 200 children in her church. She wrote the curriculum and collaborated with Fanny on simple children’s songs to help the students remember their Bible lessons. She wrote over 500 tunes for her church and Sunday school hymns. Both women were members of the John Street Methodist church in New York City, although Fanny didn’t attend regularly because she and her husband moved a lot for his work.
Fanny Crosby said that the song reflected her walk of faith as expressed by the apostle Paul in Philippians 1:21: For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.
HYMN UMH 451 Be Thou My Vision
Be Thou My Vision is one of the oldest hymns in our hymnal. It was originally an Irish hymn dating from around the 10th century, and it is still sung in old Gaelic in Ireland today. The original hymn has about seven verses. These were translated from Old Gaelic into English in 1905. Then in 1912, another more modern translation was made with only five verses. The original five were used in Methodist hymnals in the early 20th century but were then shortened to three in later publications. Today we only sing the 1st, 2nd and 5th verses. (But you can look up the other verses on-line.)
The music we used for the hymn is also an old Gaelic tune. No one knows how old it is and it’s a good bet that it’s probably derived from the original tune. The tune is called Slade because that is the town nearest to where the hymn is believed to originate.
The lyrics follow the structure of an Irish prayer of protection called an Iorica. In the verses we don’t sing, the symbolism talks about God protecting us with His sword and shield. Military symbolism was common in the Middle Ages because of clan warfare. Also, God as the High Chieftain or High King is traditional in Irish medieval poetry, casting God as a heroic protector. So, when we sing this song, we are singing a song that monks and laity sang 1,000 years ago.
Serving With Joy through Change
August 9, 2026 11th Sunday of Pentecost
Psalm 100 John 15:1-11
When I was serving at the Sharon church in Connecticut a vacationing visitor came to a service. After the service she hung around for coffee hour and said to me that she had really enjoyed the service, especially the Joys and Concerns. That caught me up a bit, because while I feel connected to my congregation when we pray, I thought it was a little interesting that a stranger to the community would feel a strong connection. So, I asked her what she liked about the prayers.
She said that we lifted up joys and concerns. We give time to those things that we should celebrate as well as the things that we should be concerned about. And then she said something that surprised me. In her church they only lifted up concerns – never joys – so the pray time was often very depressing and sometimes people left church feeling worse than when they had come in.
Now I am not of the opinion that church should always be an only happy and uplifting place. I know that you all come here for various reasons. Sometimes you might find church to be a calming place where you can recover from a hectic week. Sometimes we come to learn something new in a sermon, a prayer, or a song. Sometimes we look for a connection time with our friends. Sometimes we need a spirit of uplift because things aren’t going well in our lives. Sometimes we need to bring with us a hurt in order to find a way that we can begin to heal. Sometimes we come because we haven’t been able to find God out there and we hope to connect with him in here.
There are hundreds of reasons why people come to church, and often our reasons and motivations for church change, sometimes week-to-week. That’s okay because everyone is on a different journey and this space should reflect that. And part of that journey is our joys as well as our sorrows.
We often view joy through the lense of counting our blessings, and our lives give us things to celebrate. Birthdays, weddings, graduations, sports victories, good catches when fishing, going out for ice cream with friends, county fairs – there is a lot in our lives to be joyous about. There are definite times when it is so easy to be joyful and say: Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth. Worship the LORD with gladness; come into his presence with singing. Know that the LORD is God. It is he that made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him, bless his name. For the LORD is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.
That song is a proclamation of all the blessings that we have in our live. We all feel that way sometimes; like we are connected to the greatness and goodness of God because we have so much that is good in our lives. And the psalmist tells us that that we should be singing in praise and thanksgiving. That we should share our joy with those around us.
Well, we don’t always live in those incredible highs that some experiences give us. But we all have little positive things that surround us and that happen to us. Those are little blessings that keep us going. We are told to count our many blessings to keep us positive. It sounds a little trite, but counting our blessings does work to help keep us in a positive frame of mind. I know several people who were in a negative state, and then they started to keep a blessing journal: To write down, at the end of the day, three things that they were blessed with. And this helped to get them out of their funk and into a better place. I offer it to you as one tool in our spiritual toolbox that we all can use.
But when you’re in the midst of radical change, sorrow, or tragedy, joy is a tough thing to find and hold onto. A couple of weeks ago I compared the process of accepting change to the process of grief: Denial, anger, depression, bargaining, and acceptance. We feel these emotions during change because we have to let go of something that was, and accept a new condition in our lives that maybe we don’t want or we don’t feel that we’re ready to handle.
And it is so easy when radical change happens to find yourself in a dark place without joy. Sometime the change is so grief-filled that we can’t find joy. Looking around and seeing blessings is a chore that doesn’t seem worth it.
Jesus understood this. You know I’ve read this description of Jesus as the vine many times and I’ve seen it as metaphor of spiritual growth – but this time, through the lense-of-change, I saw it as a process of life in Christ.
We are part of the vine of Christ; everything, not just people, are all branches of the main vine. And Christ says that some branches do die and that God prunes them. And I don’t think he necessarily means people. Sometimes customs or philosophies just don’t work anymore, and we need to get rid of them. We don’t send children off to work at the age of 10 anymore. We don’t have arranged marriages. It is okay for us to get rid of things in our culture that don’t work so that something else can grow in its place. The vine of our life is going to change; somethings will blossom and bear fruit and somethings are not going to work out. And sometimes there is going to be a serious pruning that we’re not going to like. But Jesus says that if we live in God’s Commandments, if we nurture ourselves with the love of God, our neighbors and ourselves, if we love as Jesus taught us how to love, then we will be abiding in God’s love and that God will be with us through all the change in our lives. In our sorrow and our joy God will be with us.
But how can we serve with joy through it all? Well, I want you to use the past, the present, and the future to help you with joy.
Back to the blessing journal. Sometimes it’s hard to find our blessing right here and now when we go through change. But we can remember the joyous times that we’ve had in the past. I urge all of you to write down any blessing and joys that you have had throughout your life in a little book. You don’t have to do this every day, and it doesn’t have to be chronological (our minds don’t always work that way.) But keep plugging away at it because what you are doing is creating a savings account of good memories that you can look at when you feel that you don’t have joys in your life. A bank savings account is your emergency fund for difficult or unexpected events, right? A blessing book is your emergency fund for when times get bad.
Now that’s your past. The present is a bit more active. First of all, in that blessing book write down something good that happened to you today. You can mix it up with the other stuff or divide your book in half, however you want to do it. Second of all, consciously do one thing a day that will give you joy, and for inspiration follow the three Great Commandments while doing this. Maybe your joy today will be praying and connecting with God. Maybe your joy today will be reaching out to a neighbor who needs a phone call. Maybe your joy will be cleaning out a closet. Maybe your joy will be watching a sunset. Maybe your joy will be baking cookies for a birthday girl or boy. Give yourself an assignment every day to do something joyous. Even if it’s a little thing it’s still a joy.
Now I know that if you are in a radical change and the world is dark, it’s hard to go forward and connect with God and do something nice for yourself or another person. But actually, it’s acts of kindness that keep us going and bring us closer to God. I remember reading that the people who made it through the holocaust camps were often the ones who could be kind to others and help others. Finding small moments of joy will get us through dark places.
And then there’s the future. And the future is very scary because we don’t know if there’s going to be joy or sorrow. But when we’re going through change, we have the assurance that God’s Holy Spirit is going before us. God’s plan is already happening in the future, we’re just catching up to it. All we do now, God is taking and using to build the His kingdom. And Jesus tells us that if we abide in his love, we can ask God to show us the way into the future. And maybe the change we fear and think we are not ready for, we’re being made ready for it now.
So find the joy in your life and you will be able to weather and find the joy in change. And we will find that Jesus will have joy in us, and our joy in Him will become complete.
Connecting in Changing Times
August 2, 2026 10th Sunday of Pentecost Communion
Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 Romans 12:3-11
May you live in interesting times. That’s an old Arabic saying that can be both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, interesting times produce a lot of new things. Often there is new technology that comes out of the necessity to solve problems. Or there’s new art and literature as people work through the failures and triumphs that they’re living with. But interesting times don't promise a lot of stability because they happen in the midst of a lot of change.
I would say that we’re living in interesting times. Just to name a few interesting items: Our technology is changing at a breakneck pace, people are trying to work through our political theories which are in flux, and we are experiencing global climate change. All of this has happened before. When the printing press was invented, it revolutionized the way people exchanged ideas. Instead of painstakingly copying a manuscript by hand, multiple copies of a book could be manufactured in a few days. The issue of slavery rewrote the values of the political parties in the United States. And in 1812, after several volcanos erupted, the world had a yearlong winter in which crops around the world produced lower harvests or failed completely.
Throughout history humanity has had to adjust, whether we like it or not. And yet, we are still here. What keeps us going? It’s our connections and relationships with ourselves, each other, and with God.
Think about what happens when you have a connection with God – a belief that there is a power that is beyond yourself. George Lucas classified this as The Force for his films, but he admitted in an interview that he didn’t make up The Force. It was just the name he gave to the power that humanity has tried to define through every religion on the earth. As Christians we don’t sub-divide that power like the Greeks or Egyptians did; we define it as one entity called God. And the Bible tells us to love God, this creative-generative power of the universe, with all our beings. That’s the first commandment. We are asked to acknowledge the existence of the power, and we are offered a relationship with it.
How we tap into that power is through worship and offerings. I like to think of worship as communicating directly with that power. You can do it through prayer, meditation, journaling, art, music, gardening, or fishing – it doesn’t matter what vehicle you use. When you worship, you’re acknowledging this power outside of you that gives you energy.
Offerings are another way we worship. I don’t just mean giving our offerings on Sunday morning. Those offerings are important because you’re saying that you want this church to continue as an organization that helps people in the community and provides a safe space for people to come together and worship. But offerings are bigger than that.
Think of the second commandment: To love our neighbors as we love ourselves. Every act of help, kindness, mercy, or compassion, is an offering to God. The prophet Micah once said: You know what is good. To do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God. Also, every time we are kind to ourselves and take care of ourselves is also an offering to God.
And this is where the third commandment comes in: To love each other as Jesus has loved us. Now I want to think for a minute about how Jesus loved us. First of all, Jesus was kind to everyone. This part has to do with loving our neighbors; He didn’t show partiality to Jewish people or Gentiles. He talked with, listened to and healed women, children, Samaritans, Greek philosophers, Roman Centurions, lepers, Pharisees, Siro-Phoenicians, rich and poor people, along with the regular Jewish population. Can we do the same? Can we be friends with people of other nations and races, and other social-economic groups? Can we speak with the Lepers of our time: people who have substance abuse problems or serious diseases?
Second, Jesus taught us that God loves us and forgives us. This has to do with loving ourselves. Jesus gave us his salvation so that we don’t have to be trapped in cycle of unforgiveness and shame when we make mistakes. We don’t need to be constantly beating ourselves up. When we make a mistake, we can go to God and Jesus and confess what we did, and then, knowing that we are forgiven for messing up, we can ask them to give us the strength to fix things and to try to make things right. Being kind to yourself is understanding that you are going to make mistakes but with Jesus’ help you can find a solution that will repair and lead to your absolution.
But what does that have to do with coping with interesting times? Well, it means that what we need to get through the day is to dedicate ourselves to working on loving relationships. How can we love the people around us? How can we connect with them and let them know that in these times that we are there to help each other. Yes, it helps to bring people a casserole when they need it, but just connecting with people strengthens all of us because then we know that we’re not alone.
Now I know that some people are not lovable and some people are downright annoying. I had a friend who used to say: We are commanded to love everyone; but that doesn’t mean you have to have lunch with them. If you know of a person who you can’t have lunch with you can pray for them. You can pray that they get over whatever hurt or stress is causing them to be mean. You can pray for yourself to realize that they are hurting. You can pray that you don’t contribute to their problems. And you can pray for the realization that their meanness is not about you. (After all, 99% of life is not about us. Yes, 1% is, and that’s the part we should be paying attention to: but reduce your stress and leave the other 99% alone.)
Also, look at our network of connections. Okay, I’m going to diverge here a bit and talk about the connections in the Methodist church. We all know that this single church is connected to 9 others in the Delaware Headwaters charge and Mountain Beacon Parish. And I think that it’s really great that we do stuff together like the Soup’s On, the Mine Kill worship and most recently the Family Fun Day. Maybe each church could do all of that alone, but it’s more fun when all of us work together. If this church has an idea for a new ministry, then all the other churches can help us realize that idea. Our churches are stronger together.
But it’s the same with all of our connections. We can get more done when we band together to support our schools in a positive way. When we reach out to make our community parks better so that we can have a place to gather. When we help out with a local thrift store or our animal shelter. All those connections go into a feedback loop of positivity that strengthens everyone around us.
And we can reach beyond our communities with our love through organizations like UMCOR (the United Methodist Committee on relief) or the Red Cross. We live in a web of connections that give us opportunities to use our talents. And each time we connect with an offering of love we are worshiping and connecting to the divine force of the universe.
All times, in some ways, are interesting. All times, in some ways, carry a certain amount of stress with them. But don’t worry about the 99% of noise. Focus that on that 1% that is yours, and with the connecting power of Jesus’ love for your neighbor and yourself and you will be connecting with The Great Force of the universe.
Adaptability to Change
July 26, 2026 9th Sunday of Pentecost
Ruth 1:1-18 Philippians 4:11-13
Change is inevitable. The world changes whether we want it to or not. Sometimes something cataclysmic happens like a tornado, or earthquake, and sometimes something personal happens to us like a family member dying.
Ruth’s family experienced both. First her future husband’s family moved to Moab (which was located on the eastern side of the dead sea) because of famine, a cataclysmic event. They built a life and the two sons ended up marrying local girls. Unfortunately, after 10 years, a personal tragedy happened and the two sons died. Naomi was left without any family support, and she had to make a tough decision: Would she stay in Moab or go back to her hometown in Israel? Her daughter-in laws, Ruth and Orpah, also had to make the decision to go back to their families or stay with her.
Naomi makes the decision to return to Israel. But the story presents that decision without any of angst that she must have been working through in her mind and heart.
How many of you have heard of the five stages of grief? When we lose something we experience grief in five stages: Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. These stages don’t always happen in that order, although acceptance is usually the last one. When we go through an event that forces us to change, or when we experience change in our lives, we can also go through those five stages. Why? Because when something changes, or we have to change our behavior or how we do things, we also lose what was or what was before. Resistance to change often is centered around the grief of that loss.
Let’s take a look at that for a minute: You all fill in a change you’ve had recently into this dialogue. Denial: This isn’t happening; nothing’s changing; and everything will return to normal soon. Anger: Why on earth does this have to change? We were all doing fine with the old system. Bargaining: Maybe if I do X, Y, and Z we can fix things and we won’t have to change anything. Depression: I really like the old way of doing things. I was comfortable with it. I don’t want things to change. Acceptance: Well, I suppose we’ll have to figure out what to do now.
I’m sure that Naomi went through all those stages before she made her decision.
The two daughters in law also had to evaluate their lives. And here’s where we see two different personalities. Ruth was willing to take a risk, and she went with Naomi into a land that she didn’t know. Orpah wanted to play it safe, and she went back to her parents. And that’s okay, because to ask someone to leave their home and culture that they’re comfortable with is tough. The Bible presents Ruth as being the more loving and devoted daughter in law because of that decision, but I don’t think that’s necessarily true. I think we need to allow that maybe Orpah didn’t have the personality or the courage to take a risk like that. Also, maybe Orpah had a good and loving relationship with her parents that she didn’t want to give up. Maybe Ruth didn’t have a good family to return to. How we accept change and follow through into future actions has as much to do with our personalities and circumstances as it does with our opportunities.
We don’t know what happened to Orpah – did she return to her parents, and find another person to marry and maybe have children? She could have had a very happy life. Ruth though, had adventure. She supported Naomi, which earned her respect among the community that she was adopted into. Ruth also found a husband, Boaz, who saw her devotion and worth, and eventually she became the mother of King David’s grandfather. I’m sure that she was held as a beacon and remembered as a good example to her family and eventually the nation. Because after all she has her own story in the Bible.
Naomi, Ruth, and Orpah all accepted the change that happened to them and they ended up in pretty good places. But they had to get to acceptance before they could move forward.
You all know that I’m taking a class this week and my textbook had a very interesting quote in it that really struck me. Kennon Callah wrote a book in 1997 called Twelve Keys to an Effective Church. (The book is a bit out of date logistically because the world has really changed in 30 years.) But the quote says: The dark malaise of the Christian Church in our time is that so many congregations have developed a preoccupation with their weaknesses, their problems, and their concerns it's as if there were no open tomb or risen Lord. It's as if these congregations preferred to live locked in a closed tomb, focusing on their past and refusing to recognize the strengths God has shared with them, that they might be in ministry in the world.
Wow! He’s talking about churches, but I think you can apply that to any change we go through and our resistance to change. When something changes, we get so preoccupied with our denial, anger, bargaining and depression about the change, that we tend to see our weaknesses that tell us why we can’t change. And while we are sitting in our denial, anger, bargaining and depression, and all the reasons why we can’t change, we close ourselves off to the possible joy of any future possibilities.
What happened when Jesus walked out of the tomb? Jesus showed us that what we think is the end of the story is only the beginning. The disciples believed that Jesus’ movement was done; that the last three years of their lives was over. And Jesus walked into the Upper Room and proved to them that they didn’t have to worry about death because there was a continuation of life.
No matter what the change is that happens in our lives there is a continuation. But how do we adapt to change? Well first of all, we have to get out of a traditional way of thinking and move into an innovative way of thinking.
Before change happens, we are in a place of tradition-slash-comfort. We’re going a long with our lives and they’re okay. But then change happens and we end up in a place that’s uncomfortable, so we try to fix it. And often we try to fix it to get it back to the way it was before. But, we need to acknowledge that nothing ever goes back to the way it was before. We need to be thinking of and allowing ourselves to be moving into what the new normal is going to be.
I once read about a church that had aged and it didn’t have kids anymore and a new pastor came onto the scene. When the pastor asked them: What do you do for Christmas services? the congregation lamented that they could no longer have a pageant because they didn’t have any children. In days past they had wonderful pageants with a full complement of the holy family, angels, shepherds, wise men, and sheep, plus a full chorus to sing the hymns. But now they don’t have that anymore.
Okay – we’ve got grief going here, understandably those sound like they were good times. But then the pastor asked them: Well, why can’t you do a pageant with adults playing the roles, or at least doing the readings of the parts? The congregation is shocked: We can’t do that! Christmas eve pageants are for children.
Maybe eventually that congregation got out of that tomb that they had stuck themselves in. Maybe the congregation will try something different and innovative. When the do they will walk out of that tomb and move into a new version of themselves instead of being stuck.
Where are we stuck? What change in our lives are we not accepting? What version of ourselves are we refusing to allow to adapt to a new reality? And why are we not allowing ourselves to dream of innovation, to try something new? What are we afraid of? Is it failure? That’s a valid fear. Is it that we won’t know how to do the new thing and make mistakes? That could happen.
When you get to that uncertainty you can remember Paul who said: In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.
Christ doesn’t want us to stay in our tombs. He’s there to give you strength when you need it. There is a big world out there of possibilities. He wants us to walk out into the newness that life brings us, and we can do all thing with God, Christ and the Holy Spirit who are with us and giving us their strength.
July 19th was our all Parish worship and Picnic at Mine Kill State Park. I did not preach and the laity ran our worship service. A fun time was had by all.
Persevering Through Change
July 12, 2026 7th Sunday in Pentecost
Exodus 16:1-11 Romans 5:1-5
There's the saying that I use to put on my checks attributed to Benjamin Franklin which says: Nothing is certain but death and taxes. I tend to agree with that, except I would have to change it a little to: Nothing is certain but death, taxes, and change.
Change is the natural order of life. We tend to think of stability as being a no-change state of being, but in reality we are changing all the time. Just standing here right now the cells in my body are going through a continual cyclone of change. Cells are dying, cells are being renewed. I have blood cells moving through my system bringing oxygen to various places. I have white blood cells that are out there searching for infections that they can get rid of. Just standing outside and looking out at nature there is constant change happening under the surface of the same view that we see every day from the front door of our homes.
When I studied philosophy, I noticed there was a distinct difference between Western philosophy and Eastern philosophy. Western philosophy looks for the concepts that are consistent and which don't change; then it moves to change. Eastern philosophy, especially Chinese philosophy, is actually based on the fact that life changes, and starts with the question: What is the change and how does one adapt to the changes?
In Chinese philosophy there are three types of change that you used to assess any given situation. The first is the no-change point, the point of consistency that you have at that moment. The second is cyclic change, the change that repeats itself. An example of this would be the seasons: Spring, summer, fall, winter. The third change is evolutionary change. That’s the type of change that is growing into something or even decaying into something. And all this change interacts with each other. A tree can be viewed as all these changes at once. It is the tree that’s always there in your yard. But the tree changes through the seasons in a regular cycle. Yet it’s also growing from a seed, to a full grown tree, to then dying, and becoming dirt again. To assess a situation you examine what the no-change point is, what the cyclic change is, and what the evolutionary change is.
I think that it's part of our human nature to be afraid of change. We don't like it because change means that something new and different is happening and we don't know if we'll be able to handle it. Will our skill sets be applicable to the new job; or the new relationship; or the new place that we're moving to? Are we going to be able to handle the subject in school that we've never done before? I'll be honest I was totally scared when I took geometry. I was pretty good with algebra, but geometry was very different and I didn't know if I could deal with it. But you know, I got through it.
And sometimes we don't believe that we can handle something new. When I went to college in Colorado I had so many friends who said: I can't imagine going that far away to school. You can imagine some of the reactions I got when people found out that I was moving to Japan: I could never do that! I could never go live in a country that didn't speak English. It is amazing the limits we put on our own abilities to grow and change.
A lot of the story of Exodus, when the Israelis are led out of Egypt, is about resistance to change. The Israelites have gotten so used to living in Egypt under the conditions of slavery that they didn't know how to be a people and a nation who could determine their own destiny. They really didn't know how to take care of themselves. They find themselves with a lack of food – which admittedly is a worrying thing – but instead of putting their minds to solving the problem they complained to Moses that it would have been better to die in Egypt than to be hungry now in the desert.
They lament the fact that at least in Egypt they would be sitting by the flesh pots, the household pots that meat was cooked in. The Israelites as slaves probably wouldn't have been allowed to eat the meat; that was reserved for their masters. They would have been stuck with bread and Egyptian beer, and maybe a carrot or two. But at least they would have smelled the meat cooking; a smell which was comforting to them. Moses took them out of their comfort zone in order for them to gain their freedom and self-determination. And they’re frankly very scared because they just don't know how to do and be these new people.
But all during those travels, God shows the Israelites that He is with them, and that He is providing for them. He gives them manna from heaven. (And, yes, I tried to look up what that was and nobody knows what it is.) He provides them water in the desert and meat for them in the form of a quail migration. And most importantly he provides for them commandments and laws that they can live by and build a nation from.
And these commandments are so important, so right, and work so well that they endure down through the ages. Two thousand years later Jesus is challenged by a Pharisee to name the most important commandment and Jesus replies: Love God with your whole being and love your neighbor as you love yourself. On this all the other commandments are based.
And that right there, for us is our no-change-point. Plus we’ve been given a third commandment: To love others as Christ has loved us, to add to our no-change point.
Look, I know that the world is changing very rapidly. When I was a kid, we still had dial phones that were connected to the wall; computers were used only for major things like collecting weather data; and if you wanted to make a copy of a piece of paper you used a carbon copy sheet. Now I have a phone and a computer in my hand, and a printer sitting on a table at home.
When I was young, a woman wasn’t allowed to have a bank account without male permission and people who were not white were often refused spaces at colleges or mortgages to buy houses. There has been progress and change, but sometimes it happens so fast that we feel the ground is shifting beneath us and that the future is unsteady.
But how we get through the change is to evaluate the changes and our actions against the commandments of Christ. Are we using the changes to help us live in the connection of love with God, our neighbors, and ourselves? And are we doing it the way Christ wants us to live it?
This phone can be used to contact me at any time to let me know when one of my parishioners needs me, instead of just leaving me a message and hoping that it will get through. Facebook can help me get the word out about events like a Bible Study or Youth Group, but it can also be a platform of gossip, lies, hateful things and division. We have to ask ourselves when we text or post messages: Are we spreading dignity, respect and love, or are we spreading hate?
Life changes; but being a disciple of Jesus doesn’t. Being kind to others, respecting others, giving people their dignity, showing forgiveness when we make mistakes, and giving grace by helping each other to get out of the messes that we make, is our no-change consistency of action that keeps us grounded. It is who we are, and who we will continue to be, and become better at being, because that’s what following Jesus is all about. And sometimes we have to wrestle with how we’re going to do that in our crazy world. But we are not doing it alone; we’re here to help each other do it right.
When Paul says We are justified by faith, that doesn’t mean we’re right all the time. It means we are made right by God’s grace and forgiveness; and knowing that we can handle anything that the world throws at us.
So embrace change. Embrace the cycles, embrace the evolution of growth and decay, knowing that you are standing on the no-change point of God’s love and Christ’s salvation. And no matter what the world throws at you, you’re going to make it through, because God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are walking with you.