In Your Face

Sunday morning worship at 10:30 a.m.

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SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, February 2, 2025

Dear Friends in Jesus –

Jesus has spent thirty years in his hometown of Nazareth when he is nudged by the Spirit to strike out and join others in their pilgrimage to be baptized by his cousin John.

He emerges from the water and the heavens open. He is affirmed by a voice from heaven, then driven into the wilderness where he is challenged and tempted, emerging again forty days later battle tested – and ready to launch his work teaching and healing, offering a new message. What better place than the hometown temple! Jesus brings his defining message – that yes, he has come in fulfillment of the ancient texts, but for all the people.

Shocking, dangerous, radical love.

Come this Sunday and experience this cosmic power. Bring a friend (and some chili!)

In anticipation,

 

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Source: sermons

What's My Line?

Sunday morning worship at 10:30 a.m.

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SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, January 26, 2025

Identities are interesting claims to make. Have you ever thought about all the ways we are named and identified in today’s ever-changing landscape? We have family names, personal names, social security numbers, student ID numbers, phone numbers, emails, avatars, and the list goes on and on. I remember moving from SC to Washington, DC in the late 1990’s and the personal conversations I learned from the South switched from, “Where are you from?” to the DC proper, “What do you do?” I guess in DC it was more important to know what you did for a living than to know your family lineage.
 
Maybe it’s true the often quoted saying, “The more things change; the more things stay the same.”  In Sunday’s lectionary text from the Gospel of Luke, Jesus finds himself at the beginning of his ministry having to answer some of those same questions: “What is your purpose here? Aren’t you Joseph’s child?  Who and whose are you? “
 
Cress is attending a funeral in New York this weekend and has asked me to preach on Sunday. We are now directly in the season of Epiphany and there is much to discern in Luke 4 as Jesus returns home to Nazareth to begin his ministry and reintroduce himself. How will we receive and respond to his message? Maybe as confused and stunned as his hometown was in the first century?
 
Hope to see you Sunday,
Steven

 

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Source: sermons

Beloved

Sunday morning worship at 10:30 a.m.

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SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, January 19, 2025

Dear Friends in Jesus –


"The end of nonviolent action is reconciliation; the end is redemption; the end is the creation of the Beloved Community.”

- Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr
 

Last week we saw Jesus (whose time had come) embark on his life’s work.
 

His first move was to accompany others to the Jordan to his cousin John, to join the holy and the hoi polloi shoulder to shoulder in the muddy waters to be baptized.
 

The heavens opened, the Holy Spirit settled on him as a dove and a voice declared him beloved. He was then led (others say driven) into the wilderness where his humanity was attacked - tempted, as we are.

His spiritual conditioning proved as strong as his resilient spirit.
A lesson for today, tomorrow and the days ahead.

Though some may be tempted to gloat, or rend their garments, or recede from the tensions, disillusionment and seeming impossibility of world and national narratives, our Jesus models our struggles leading to inevitable victory for the beloved of Jesus God.
 

Dress warm. Remember your umbrella. Come share in the baptism of Crevon Brown, Sr. and welcome him and Tina Murphy, Patricia Toately Blake, and Susan Lovell home.
 

In great anticipation –

 
 

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Source: sermons

He Gets It

Sunday morning worship at 10:30 a.m.

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SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, January 12, 2025

Dear Friends in Jesus –

The commentator Barclay writes: "For thirty years Jesus had waited in Nazareth, faithfully performing the simple duties of the home and of the carpenter's shop. All the time he [must have sensed that a task was waiting.] The success of any undertaking is determined by the wisdom with which the moment to embark is chosen. Jesus must have waited for the hour to strike, for the moment to come, for the summons to sound. And when John emerged Jesus knew that the time had arrived.”

This Sunday we engage the texts, imagine the impact on the community then and now. Why was Jesus baptized?

Invite someone you know or want to and share the mystery of God’s incarnation positioned for God’s love.

In anticipation –

 
 

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Source: sermons

Epiphany Sunday

Sunday morning worship at 10:30 a.m.

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SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, January 5, 2025

Dear Friends in Jesus –

Do any of you have phrases that seem to appear in response to certain situations? Or actions or feelings that seem to be recurrent?

At the new year it seems that I default, as many of you may know, to the image of Janus. Janus was among the pantheon of gods – Jupiter, Pluto, Apollo, Mars – that the ancient Romans worshiped. He was thought to keep the gate of heaven. And so he was the god of gates and doors, beginnings and endings; portrayed as having a double-faced head, each face looking in an opposite direction.

This year I also think about the Masks of Comedy and Tragedy – images diametrically opposite but that encompass as well the margins and contain the bulk of the experiences of our lives. So here at the beginning of this new year 2025, I again take the opportunity to look in back on the past year and to state why it is that I believe we, with our ups and downs, may look forward to 2025 informed, conditioned, encouraged and poised for what’s next.  

Will it be challenging? Sure. Will it be joyful and exhilarating? It may be. And it will be if we keep our sights on the one whose name we would bear – Jesus!

Come this Sunday for communion and for strengthening, positioned for God’s grace and experiencing Jesus. It’s all good!

In great anticipation –

 
 

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Source: sermons

Home Alone

Sunday morning worship at 10:30 a.m.

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SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, December 29, 2024

Dear Friends in Jesus –

While we did not have a “white Christmas” in Charleston this year, we had a joyous celebration of Jesus’ birth with two moving worship services on Christmas Eve. I am not sure about you, but I find the Christmas season can come and go so quickly and it seems that white Christmas never materializes.
 
This Sunday Cress has asked me to preach, and I am truly honored. The lectionary text this week sends us ahead a few years to Jesus at 12-years-old in the temple with the religious leaders and scholars. It appears even Mary and Joseph had a hard time keeping up with Jesus during his pre-teen years!
 
I hope we have not left Jesus behind with all the presents unpacked and colorful decorations stored until next year. It would be disappointing to miss what lies ahead on the journey with this precocious child.

See you Sunday!
Steven

 

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Fourth Sunday of Advent

Sunday morning worship at 10:30 a.m.

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SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, December 22, 2024

Dear Friends in Jesus –

The Scriptures say little about Joseph the carpenter, but what we do know about him is significant:

  • He was a righteous man. (Matthew 1:19)

  • He obeyed the requirements of the government. (Luke 2:4)

  • He followed the directions of the angel of the Lord. (Mt. 1:24; 2:14; 21; 23)

  • He showed respect and restraint toward Mary, his wife. (Mt. 1:25)

We also know that he ‘fostered’ the savior of the world. Is Joseph unsung? Not this Sunday.

See you in worship!

 

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Source: sermons

Third Sunday of Advent

Sunday morning worship at 10:30 a.m.

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SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, December 15, 2024

Dear Friends in Jesus –

This is What You Do…

Scripture says that folk ‘from all over Judea’ came to hear John. They had heard what was going on in the desert, so they knew they weren’t going to a day spa. No, John had been going around preaching – and the word he preached was the word he had received from God, ‘Prepare the way of the Lord!’ They were summoned. Everyone from the hoi polloi to the holy were called. Maybe for some it was a lark, a chance to get away and goof on the guy who bailed on a cushy temple job for an assignment in the desert. Others might have been curious to find out what all this was about. And surely some longed for Messiah and wanted to be ready.

John wasn’t coy, if anything he was callous, but his purpose was clear. Something’s about to happen and if you want in, something has to change -- YOU!

See you in worship – invite a friend or someone you’d like to be.

In anticipation,

 

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Source: sermons

Second Sunday of Advent

Sunday morning worship at 10:30 a.m.

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SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, December 8, 2024

Dear Friends in Jesus –

Heads Up! John the Baptizer returns to the lectionary quoting Isaiah and spitting fire. He speaks with an urgency that resonates across the centuries. What was going to break Rome’s occupation? What was going to break the Jewish pharisaical death grip? It would take more than a longed for liberator. It would take an intervention by God in a stealth move – as a baby. 

Announced by the Baptizer, summoned by the Spirit, come to a place of possibility, we are offered new life through a redirecting of our lives.

Heads up!

(Invite somebody – share the news!)

 

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Source: sermons

First Sunday of Advent

Sunday morning worship at 10:30 a.m.

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SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, December 1, 2024

Dear Friends in Jesus –

Happy New Year! This Sunday we join with Christians around the world to begin the season of Advent.  We take down the green liturgical colors and replace them with purple – the color of royalty. We leave the season known as ordinary time – as if there is such a time – and we look to celebrate the adventus of the Christ – the coming, the arrival, the in-breaking of God into our world.

JB Phillips, the great translator of the Bible into modern language, writes:

“By far the most important and significant event in the whole course of human history will be celebrated with or without our understanding, at the end of this season, Advent. The towering miracle of God’s visit to this planet on which we live will be glossed over, brushed aside or rendered impotent by over-familiarity. Even by the believer the full weight of the event is not always appreciated. His faith is in Jesus the Christ – he believes with all his heart that this man who lived and died and rose again in Palestine was truly God incarnate. He may have some working experience that the man Jesus is still alive, and yet be largely unaware of the intense meaning of what he believes.”

We will engage scripture and our personal experiences to plumb the depth, the wonder, the glory of what we claim and who claims us.

 

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Source: sermons

Weed Control

Sunday morning worship at 10:30 a.m.

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SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, November 24, 2024

Dear Friends in Jesus –

Life is messy. Too many bad things happen to too many good people. Evil seems to flourish alongside the righteous. And why do good things happen to bad people? Why doesn't a good god fix it? These are deep questions for folks, and believers as well.

Perhaps what we are given is not so much an answer to the questions, but a God who is with us, even in the questions… especially in the questions!

Let’s engage a parable I call Weed Control. We’ll celebrate our Jesus and the promises made and kept.

In anticipation –

 

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Source: sermons

Commitment Sunday

Sunday morning worship at 10:30 a.m.

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SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, November 17, 2024

Dear Friends in Jesus –

A few years ago I found myself swept up in a cultural ‘moment’. It seemed that a kid from Canada was taking pop music by storm. He wrote lyrics that weren’t filled with expletives. He wrote music that was singable. He wasn’t old enough to shave, but he made my daughter’s girlfriends in the fourth grade squeal. So when the biopic of his journey from the streets of western Canada to a sold out gig/coronation as teenage pop icon at Madison Square Garden came out, I took my daughter and her friends.

When the other parents asked who was going to take them, I said “me.” Almost to a person they couldn’t believe that I would take the time, endure the screams, wrangle the gaggle of fourth grade girls. They didn’t know I was a ‘belieber’! I was a fan!

Well, now you may ask Justin who? He who said, "You're able to do whatever you set your mind to as long as you remember to keep God first and stay grounded,” is no longer on the charts, but often in the tabloids.

This Sunday we gather to worship and to offer our commitment to Jesus and the work we are called to do/ that we get to do through the Second Presbyterian Church for the dynamic, inclusive realm of God!

Last week the question was not, ”do you believe in God?”, but “do you believe God?" as through scripture the faithfulness, the constancy, the courage, the power of love is revealed and made manifest?

See you in worship.

In great anticipation –

 

(I’m a Believer!)

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Source: sermons

Church in the Park

Sunday morning worship at 10:30 a.m.

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SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, November 10, 2024

Dear Friends in Jesus –

Now what?

When I sat down to write,  I was riddled with dis-ease, discomfort rather than relief that years long battles have been waged across the airwaves and at the coffee shop don’t disappear overnight. Then I remembered my job is not to referee but to position myself, and those who I may, for the inexhaustive grace of God.   

What I want to focus on is what we get to do Sunday and each moment of our lives – engage God’s word, become willing to be led by the Spirit and allow the love of God to pour through us as the antidote, the balm for the wounds we incur and that we cause.

So...

This Sunday we engage Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians. He is gathering a purse for the saints in Jerusalem where there has been a severe famine. But as Paul makes his case to the Corinthians to perhaps outshine the church in Macedonia in their generosity, he provides us with a template for generosity.

This Sunday, we worship al fresco. We breathe the fresh air of our beloved renovated Wragg Square and sing and pray reflecting the faith, compassion and joy of the way of Jesus.

Invite a friend, family member, someone you want to know or even someone you’d rather not. God’s grace is for everyone!

In great anticipation –

 

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Source: sermons

What Do You Want?

Sunday morning worship at 10:30 a.m.

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SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, November 3, 2024

Dear Friends in Jesus –

One of my favorite texts in scripture is the narrative of Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus. It’s especially resonant for these particular times.  

Why Bartimaeus? Within the narrative are the elements that describe the heart of Jesus and the necessity that we know what it is we need and the courage to ask for it.

These times cry for clarity, for confidence, for courage.  

Come to worship! Face time is quality time. We’ll all share some time with Jesus as well!

In anticipation,

 

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Source: sermons

Grow Up!

Sunday morning worship at 10:30 a.m.

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SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, October 27, 2024

Dear Friends in Jesus –

‘Ah, the wedding text’ you may say when you hear Elise read from 1 Corinthians this Sunday. It’s true that this text is often read at weddings, even though it’s out of the context in which it was written. It does speak poetically to love’s maturity and enduring that would do for a lifetime of fidelity, commitment, purpose and joy.

But the Apostle is writing to what should be, what could be and what must be to salvage what is for a community in crisis.

A commentary on and prescription for these times as well. 

We are better together – see you Sunday –

 

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Source: sermons