All the Assembly Kept Silence

by | Jul 11, 2021 | America, democracy, economic justice, environment, evil, history, hope, inequality, justice, mass incarceratiom, militarism, race, racism, relinquishment, salvation, social justice, spiritual community, transformation

Download a PDF of this sermon Amos 7:7-15 • Acts 15:6-12 In 2008, a fragment of a sermon by Rev. Jeremiah Wright of Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ got clipped into the news cycle for some days. To the shock and awe of millions, that preacher, who was pastor...

A Mystery in History

by | Aug 19, 2012 | economic justice, history, sermon 2012, stewardship

In the year 1712, the future began. Thomas Newcomen developed the first useful steam engine. Supplanting the power of a few hundred horses to drain water from the bottom of a coal mine in Dudley, England, Newcomen’s engine enabled much more coal to come up from the earth. Therefore more power came to homes and businesses. Jobs began to multiply. The standard of living improved and, to be a rather short-spoken about it, before long people began to think that this earth was a good place to live, with a future.

Permanent Revolution

by | Feb 27, 2011 | democracy, history, Lent, salvation, sermon 2011, social justice

. . . Thus, after a long affliction, there was a revolution in Egypt. The people had been treated harshly. Their labors were hard, their pay like slave wages. Then, on the wing of an exterminating angel moving swiftly over the land, the oppression in Egypt crumbled. According to Exodus, it happened one night. According to our newer news, it happened in one fortnight of February 2011. Now, the whole world is astonished as Tunisia, Bahrain, Yemen, Iran, Libya, and even Iraq at last feel movements of the people against their oppressors. But it is too soon to guess what governance the people will secure in these lands. Trusting an ancient pattern, let us undertake to think more clearly about our times by returning to Israel’s central story of liberation in Egypt. . .