Our livestream audio is still echoing. Please know we're working to address the issue. In the mean time, you can read the text of this morning's sermon here and use this link to generate a star word https://www.trcnyc.org/starwords/

What if I told you were already enough?



Good enough. Smart enough. Healthy enough.



Just, you know, enough.



So much so that you don’t have to resolve to be anything other than who you already are?



What if I told you that all the rushing around trying to perfect your life - especially at this time of year - is actually a massive distraction from what God has already equipped you to do?



What if I told you that all the pressure to improve yourself right now is actually a deep denial of who God has already created you to be?



Would you believe me...

(Note: The audio on the recorded service has a pronounced echo which didn't hurt the music but makes it hard to hear the speakers. We'll see if we have back up audio this week. For now, here is the text of the sermon from Christmas Eve).

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness—on them light has shined. ~ Isaiah 9:2

I suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder. When the time change hits and we lose that hour in November, my spirits sink like a stone. And one of the ways I manage the storm is by getting ready for Christmas.

I find that Advent helps a lot because

We’re allowed to be sad and acknowledge the dark and

b. We’re supposed to light candles and (in my house at least) put up a gazillion little white lights.

And you can’t put up Christmas lights without Christmas music playing in the background. So I do. (Sometimes, if it’s a particularly hard year, I even do it before Thanksgiving. This year I probably could have started in September).

Anyway, music helps set the mood...

Does anyone here read the U.C.C. Daily Devotionals that come via email? Well, then, you might have seen the one this past week where Molly Baskette tells of a family tradition gone awry. Every year, she and her daughter cut down a Christmas tree together, stuff it in the car, and then toast their lumberjack skills with homemade cocoa on the tailgate. But “one year,” as Molly tells it:

we went on a hike beforehand and came back to a smashed car window, a stolen electric saw, and a spectacular amount of broken glass all over the car seats. (Nevertheless,) We drove to the tree farm and met my sister and her 4-year-old. We wrestled the 6-inches-too-long tree into the car amidst the sparkling glass, and toasted our mixed morning.  

Then the 4-year-old splattered a tsunami of cocoa all over himself, the tree, the glass, and the ground. He looked down. He looked up. He looked at us… and said loudly: “It’s all right. It’s just a mess.”

“It’s alright. It’s just a mess.”

O man, that hit me hard, because ...

We were joined by St. John's for a lovely vespers service. Click on the link above to watch.

“Be careful that the life you are building in the present
aligns with the dream you have for the future" ~ Audre Lorde


“What do you want for Christmas?”

People close to me are already asking and, well, I don’t mean to sound like a Scrooge or the Grinch, but that is my least favorite question at this time of year.

“What do you want for Christmas?”

It’s my least favorite question because the truth is, I don’t know.

I have no good answers because....

Deep down inside of me

I got a fire going on

and part of me

wants to sing about the light

and part of me

wants to cry, cry, cry

That’s a song by Adelle Getty that Jeff Olmstead shared with me the other day. He'd come in to talk to me, as so many of you do, about the state of our union and the state of his soul. And Jeff being Jeff, began with a song…. a song that really captures where so many of us are right now.

In a weird way, or maybe it’s not weird at all...

A pastor gets up on Sunday and announces to her congregation that she has good news and bad news. “The good news,” she says, “is that we have enough money to fix our steeple, repair the front steps, and repaint the church.” “

“That’s great,” they all say. “What’s the bad news?”

“The bad news is that it’s still in your pockets.”

***

A teen comes home late one Friday night and tells his parents he has good news and bad news.

“Tell us the good news,” says mom....

We began this Season of Origins questioning what really happened in Jericho during the days of Joshua and thanks to the lectionary we are ending in the city of Jericho as well. I didn’t expect this or even notice it until this week.

When we set out to design this new liturgical season we decided to stick with the established lectionary passages rather than go in search of new ones that were more conducive to our theme.

I wondered how the story of Zacchaeus might tie into all of this and didn’t make the connection till this week that he is the chief tax collector of the same city that Joshua was said to have conquered 1400 years earlier. That got me curious about the history of Jericho and when I get curious I go digging.

It turns out that...

Tuesday was a long day here at the church, made longer by the fact that I got a call from my neighbor who was hosting 30 Southern Baptist pastors from Korea. He was really hoping he could bring them by to see the church where Jonathan Edwards began his ministry, so of course I said yes.

I let them into the sanctuary so they could look around and pray, and then went back to my office to study. After about 45minutes, they came and found me and asked if I would come and give a talk about Jonathan Edwards....

Alright my friends, we are now in the second week of a brand new liturgical season, the Season of Origins. How many of you made it up to St. Johns last week? Good for you. Thank you.

For those of you just tuning in, we are making history right now. We are joining with a handful of other churches across the country as we develop a whole new liturgical season - much like Advent or Lent- from the ground up.

The Season of Origins will begin each year on Indigenous People’s Sunday and run for 4 weeks. And, if all goes well, it will be adopted by the wider church in the coming years.

On week one, which we celebrated for the first time ever last week, we will ....

Has anyone here ever suffered from contextomy? It’s ok to admit it if you have. It’s certainly nothing to be ashamed of. I mean it’s effected everyone from Jesus to Shakespeare, Marie Antoinette to pretty much any one who has ever run for public office. And we’ve all grappled with the effects of second hand contextomy, whether we know it or not.

But has anyone here ever suffered directly from contextomy? You know, the condition of being quoted out of context in a way that distorts what you actually meant. That’s all contextomy means (for those of you who didn’t know… which included me before I started writing this sermon).

So anyone? Anyone here ever suffer from having your words taken out of context and used against you? Yeah, see. It happens. And now, thanks to Facebook and the Tik Toks, reels, threads, late night comics, and the Youtubes, it happens now more than ever.

We live in a contextumous age, which is a word I just made up, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Seriously, it has never been easier to clip, edit, and now, thanks to AI, even generate out of thin air, videos of anyone saying anything, whether they said it or not. And that’s scary.

So thank goodness we don’t have to deal with those kind of shenanigans here in the church, right? I mean...

(Photo by Luke van Zyl)

At some point this afternoon, Charlie Kirk will be laid to rest. I hope I am wrong, but given the preliminary line up of speakers including:


President Trump,

Vice President Vance,

White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles,

Secretary of State Marco Rubio,

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth,

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard,

Donald Trump Jr.,

Tucker Carlson,

and Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller



- something tells me that his funeral is going to feel more like a political rally than a somber memorial for one whose life was taken far too soon.



I know Kirk was a ...