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Rev. Sarah Buteux   May 15, 2022 Stewardship Sunday Matthew 7:24-27 To View this Morning's sermon click here . The sermon begins at the 44 minute mark. Friends, I think you know me well enough by now to know that there is nothing pollyanna-ish about my approach to the world or the Church. I pride myself on staying well-informed so I can make a clear eyed assessment about the challenges that lie ahead for us as a congregation and as people of faith.   And because I refuse to minimize the troubles that surround us, I know I can come across as a wee bit depressed at times…because, well, I am. It’s rough out there and I won’t deny it.  So what I am about to say may surprise you, but it comes from a very real and realistic place inside [...]

Rev. Sarah Buteux                                         May 8, 2022  Easter 4, Year C Psalm 23 & John 10:22-30 Click here to watch today's service. The sermon begins at the 36 minute mark. “Hey Sarah! How are you?” It was an innocuous question. But when I arrived at Taize on Wednesday night - which is a prayer service we do once a month up at St. Johns - I couldn’t just say, “Fine.”  I looked at Reynolds, who plays guitar for the service, and I sighed.  “How am I?… I don’t know, man. Sometimes I feel like I’m living through one long continuous dumpster fire. How about you?”  Do you all know what I mean? Anyone else feel that way?  Our little cohort of [...]

Rev. Sarah Buteux                                               May 1, 2022 Easter 3, Year C, John 21: 1-19 To watch today's service click here. The sermon begins at the 41 minute mark.   There is perhaps no deeper need in the human psyche than the need to know you are wanted, you are cherished, you are loved; that in spite of all the hardships life can throw at you and all the ways you can mess up, there is still a place where you belong and a people to whom you matter.   When we don’t have that it messes us up…big time. It sets us, not on a path, but on a treadmill… a treadmill where we are forever trying to prove [...]

Rev. Sarah Buteux             April 17, 2022 Easter, Year C, Luke 24:1-12 To view this service click here. The sermon begins at the 33 minute mark.   Ok I’m just going to come out and say what I know we’re all thinking:  Those angels were rude. Like, seriously obnoxious - right?  “Why do you look for the living among the dead?”  I mean, come on, that has got to be be the most self-righteous, passive aggressive, I know something you don’t know, gotcha question of all time.  What a horrible thing to ask people in the deep throes of grief. Because you know and I know and those angels sure as heaven knew, that the women weren’t looking for the living amongst the dead.  They weren’t looking for a resurrected Jesus when they set out for [...]

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 [...]