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10/21/2020 0 Comments

The Sunday Sermon: Spiritual Disciplines

PRAYER "PRAYER" by VinothChandar is licensed under CC BY 2.0

By the Reverend Sally S. Weaver

Editor's note: Pastor Sally gave this sermon on October 11; we're just now getting it published. We're grateful for your patience!

Some years ago I attended a clergy conference in which the speakers were pastoral counselors and therapists from Care and Counseling. A key learning from that conference was "structure binds anxiety." By this, the experts mean that when people are anxious to the verge of panic, establishing routines and disciplines significantly lowers anxiety levels.

In today’s Old Testament reading, the Hebrew people are extremely anxious. They have left behind their old routines and structures. Sure, they were slaves in Egypt. But at least they knew what to expect; they knew what each day would bring and how they might cope. Since Moses led them out of Egypt, they’ve lived each day understandably anxious about survival in the desert: Would they wander in this wilderness forever? Where would they find sufficient food and water?

Yes, God had provided for them through the agency of their leader Moses. But now Moses is gone. What seems to the Hebrews like ages ago, Moses entered the cloud surrounding Mt. Sinai and disappeared. Moses’ return is long overdue. “As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt,” they say, “we do not know what has become of him.” The Hebrew people are anxious.

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10/13/2020 0 Comments

The Sunday Sermon: Francis of Assisi

Rhododendrites/CC BY-SA

By the Reverend Sally S. Weaver

Editor's note: Pastor Sally gave this sermon on October 4; we're just now getting it published. We're grateful for your patience!

Today we’ve abandoned the lectionary readings set for this 18th Sunday in the season of Pentecost. Instead we are celebrating the saint whose feast day occurs on Oct 4, Francis of Assisi. Next to the Virgin Mary, St. Francis has to be the most popular yard art statue in existence. Even people who have no idea who St. Francis is are familiar with statues of him holding a basket for bird seed with a bird sitting on his shoulder and a wolf or other four-legged creature at his feet. Francis is the patron saint of ecology. He loved all creatures, great and small. But there was more to Francis than just his admiration of nature and his respect for God’s glorious creation.

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10/8/2020 0 Comments