Sermon Transcripts

Thursday, December 24, 2020 – Pastor Teressa Sivers I remember my first Christmas here, at St. Paul’s UMC, and our three very distinct Christmas Eve services. The noon service was the contemplative one. The 9:30 pm service consisted of lesson and carols and communion and choir. And the 7:00 service, why it had, what a previous organist called the “Wow Factor.” The 7:00 pm service had a worship script that went on page after page...

Sunday, December 20, 2020 – Pastor Teressa SiversIsaiah 9:2-7John 1:1-18 During this long pandemic I have strengthened my devotional time each day by reading one of my favorite Christian authors, the Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor. She is an Episcopal priest, teacher, amazing speaking, and, of course, prolific author. I just finished her book, Learning to Walk in the Dark, in which she explores the holiness found in darkness. Her...

Sunday, December 13, 2020 – Pastor Teressa SiversIsaiah 57:14-19Luke 1:1-4, 26-56 I am deeply indebted to the Rev. Jan Richardson, United Methodist clergy, amazing artist, and beautiful poet, for the blessing she wrote based on our Luke reading for today. Hear these prayerful and powerful words: You hardly knewhow hungry you wereto be gathered in,to receive the welcomethat invited you to enterentirely—nothing of youfound foreign...

Sunday, December 6, 2020 – Pastor Teressa SiversIsaiah 7:1-14 & Matthew 1:18-25 Ahaz, son of Jotham and Joseph, son of Jacob…two descendants of the house of David, and yet, could they be more different? Ahaz, King of all Judah, the Southern Kingdom, centered in the capital city of holy Jerusalem itself. Ahaz literally sits on the throne of David, a man of power and wealth. And yet, scripture repeatedly describes him as one...

November 22, 2020 – Pastor Teressa SiversMatthew 25:31-46 Do you remember your baptism? Or, if you are like me and baptized as an infant, can you call to mind a baptism that you witnessed. Or perhaps you can remember the yearly reaffirmation of baptism service with which we begin each year on the second Sunday of January. The sacrament, the sacred mystery, of baptism is beautiful to behold. Picture it in your imagination: the...

November 15, 2020 – Pastor Teressa SiversMatthew 25:14-30 As I was graduating high school and entering into college, I was introduced to the book, The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran. I think this book is a right-of-passage of sorts for young adults, an introduction to new ways of thinking about common topics. In The Prophet, Gibran composes prose-poems on different topics, each poem entitled “On ________.” Though I was...