PastorSarah

Rev. Sarah Buteux March 27, 2022 Lent 4, Year C Luke 15:1-3a, 11-31 (We had some technical difficulties this morning so our service begins just a little ways into the scripture. The sermon begins at the 4 minute mark. Click here to watch) 2000 years ago, Jesus sat down and broke bread with a bunch of sinners.  Other than the tax collectors, we don’t know exactly what sort of trouble these folks got up to, but the fact that they were recognized as sinners meant that they were the sort of people who sinned in a way everyone else could see, which somehow made their sins just that much worse.  And when the scribes and the Pharisees saw these folks sitting around Jesus, they were pretty seriously put off.   The scribes and Pharisees were good men after all: smart, literate, [...]

Rev. Scott Barton March 6, 2022 Lent 1, Year C Deuteronomy 26:1-11; Luke 4:1-13   The Lord be with you.   (And also with you.)   Oh, boy! Some of you know that response! I’ve never had the nerve to do this; but I fantasize going to Starbucks, and telling the barista who takes my order that my name is, “The Lord be with you,” so that when my name is then called out, I watch how many people respond as you just did!   There are words and experiences we remember that tell us we’re not alone. Maybe something in you connects you with a long-lost past, such as, “The Lord be with you; And also with you,” maybe from when you sat as a child in the pew with your parents, or you heard your grandmother humming a [...]

Rev. Sarah Buteux February 20, 2022 Luke 6:27-38 Epiphany 7, Year C To view this morning's service click here. The sermon begins at the 34 minute mark. If you want to know who your enemies are, it might help to consider your heroes. I don’t think of myself as someone who has personal enemies out there - like, an arch nemesis in the vein of say Nellie Oleson or Rachel Lynde, Sauron or Thanos, Moriarty or “he who must not be named”… you know… (Voldemort).   But I sure do have heroes, men and women I love to listen to and follow like Roxanne Gay and Stephen Colbert, Aubrey Gordon and Michael Hobbs, the late Rachel Held Evans, Nadia Bolz-Weber, Brene Brown, our own Dan Miller and Bradley Onishi, and of course the deep bench of Op Ed writers at [...]

By Rev. Sarah Buteux February 13, 2022 Epiphany 6, Year C Luke 6:17-26 To watch this morning's service click here. The sermon begins at the 35 minute mark. Before we begin, there is a confession I need to make.  In the interest of full disclosure, there is something you need to know before I can even pretend to interpret this morning’s scripture reading, and it is this: I am blessed…like seriously blessed…and apparently not in a good way. In this very moment, standing here in front of you, I am slightly embarrassed to admit just how rich, full, and happy I really am.  I love my family. I love my house. I love my church. I have my health plus insurance. I have friends and a good reputation. I got a hefty raise when Todd left and I became the [...]

By Rev. Sarah Buteux                                             February 6, 2022 Epiphany 5, Year C Luke 5:1-11 (To watch this morning's service click here. The sermon begins at the 34 minute mark.) I know it says in Proverbs that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” but I sometimes wonder if “fear of the Lord,” isn’t where it all went wrong for religious people (1:7).   From Adam and Eve hiding from God in the garden to Jonah jumping ship to avoid both God and Nineveh, to the Israelites wiping out entire peoples like the Canaanites, the Amorites, or the Amalekites lest they be defiled by false religion and displease said God, on down through the ages, it would [...]