For many years, I taught a Monday class here at South entitled, “A Month with a Mystic.” When I finally transcribed a year’s worth of seminars in book form, my editor at Upper Room told me she had a different title in mind, “The Mystic In You” and she was right. There is a mystic, a god-filled […]
United Church of Christ
Sermons by Dr. Bruce Epperly
Genesis 12:1-9 The Bible is about people like us. The Biblical story neither covers up nor white washes human imperfection. The giants of faith struggled with doubts and fears, anxieties and anger, uncertainty and agency, the were burdened by the past and hopeful and anxious about the future, and yet through it all trusted God. I […]
As many of you know, I am a student of Celtic spirituality. I have walked the paths of Scotland’s Isle of Mull and Iona, Findhorn near Inverness, or even looked for the beastie at Loch Ness. I have meditated at Stonehenge and climbed the Tor or Glastonbury, otherwise known as the Isle of Avalon. The Celts and Gaels believed […]
John 15:1-8 I Corinthians 12:4-13, 26-27 Over the past few years, Pastor Pam and I have used the term ubuntu to describe the nature of Christian community. “I am because of you. You are because of me. We are because of one another.” The Southern Africans that coined and popularized the word “ubuntu,” including Archbishop Desmond Tutu knew that […]
Every time we gather for our morning prayer service, we listen to Psalm 23 as our scriptural anchor. Reading the Psalm seemed appropriate when we began morning prayer on Zoom as the pandemic was rising. All of us felt anxiety, uncertainty, worry about our wellbeing, as well as our friends’ and family’s wellbeing, and our congregations’ and nation’s […]
Psalm 19 Today, we reflect on our place in the universe, and God’s call to us on this little blue green planet in the vastness of the cosmos. Psalm 19 connects the heavens above with the moral law within. The heavens are telling the glory of God, the Psalmist proclaims. Each day brings new revelations. Each day […]
Lent 1 – Feb 21 Genesis 9:8-17 Mark 1:9-15 Today’s readings involve awakening to signs of God’s presence in our lives. Do you ever have God moments, synchronous encounters, and insights that seem to come out of nowhere? From time to time, I do – the first time I saw the bumper sticker in front of Craigville […]
Mark 1:21-22, 29-39 In today’s reading, Mark describes a day in the life of Jesus. In Judaism, the day begins at sunset. And so, at sunset, Jesus goes to the local synagogue as a visiting rabbi to give the message for the day. In the course of his message at the synagogue, he is confronted […]
I Corinthians 8:1-3 In these COVID times, we have debated the meaning of freedom in a democratic society. We are a country that has prized rugged individualism – like many of you, I grew up with John Wayne and the Marlboro Man – and this individualistic streak had led to tensions about whether bars, gyms, and […]
Acts 10:1-23, 34-35, 44-48 Matthew 3:13-17 One of my teachers, Ernie Campbell, preaching professor and pastor of Riverside Church in New York City, noted that there are only two kinds of people in the world – “those who are God’s hands and know it and those who are God’s hands and don’t.” The famed preacher asserted that each us belongs to […]