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Sunday, February 26, 2012
Reaching Too High
by Rev. Joyce Antila Phipps
Texts: Genesis 11:1-9; Mark 1: 9-15 About ten years ago I participated in a workshop attempting to bridge the suspicions that Black and Latino communities often have of each other. Having been raised in an era when race was what divided people, I was surprised to hear both groups talk about language. Language, or the lack of communication between the groups, was the dividing line. Each group was totally convinced that the other was plotting against them and because Latinos spoke Spanish did not understand English and vice versa that trust became particularly difficult. But, then, as I thought about it, the comment made sense. I remembered my own parents wanting me to pretend not to hear so that I could communicate what hearing persons were saying because they were convinced that they were the targets of comment....
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AT: 02/26/2012 08:30:34 AM
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Sunday, September 25, 2011
By What Authority: Making Decisions
by Rev. Joyce Antila Phipps
Texts: Psalm 78: 1-8; Matthew 21: 23-32How often have we internally cringed at that ultimate symbol of state authority when encountered: the traffic cop. In those cases we usually know we've done something wrong, whether it was trying to beat the light or turning right on red without coming to a complete stop. Authority. We yield it to some, give to certain people a cloak of legitimacy, and yet from others we withhold it. How do we make our decisions about authority and who has the power to wield it? The word “authority” has an almost stagnant quality to it, but authority itself is not a “thing” but a process, a process of interpreting power whether it is the cop who stops you on the road or Members of Congress bickering over the process of paying for disaster relief. Let's examine the categori...
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AT: 09/25/2011 08:30:38 AM
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Sunday, July 10, 2011
Finding Good Soil
by Rev. Joyce Antila Phipps
Texts: Acts 9: 10-19; Matthew 13: 1-9, 18-23Experienced gardeners know that the secret to a great garden is building good, rich, organic soil. The problem is, of course, how to do that and protect your potential seedlings from the elements that would destroy a young plant: birds, the summer sun, or a heavy rain that washes away all your efforts. Gardening, a source of weekend pleasure for many of us, was a full-time occupation for our ancestors. They didn't have lovely little plots of land with plants purchased at Dearborn or Home Depot; they harvested seeds from the plants they had and carefully planted them for food. If the seeds didn't take enough to grow, and if nature didn't cooperate in some manner, there was no food. Our agricultural forebearers knew that certain things were essential to h...
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AT: 07/10/2011 08:30:47 AM
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Sunday, March 06, 2011
Be Careful What You Pray For
by Rev. Joyce Antila Phipps
Texts: Ecclesiastes 10: 12-16; Matthew 7: 7-12 Over the past few weeks the Middle East has been shaken by a number of popular revolutions calling for an end to autocratic governments, dictatorships, corruption, and all the evils that accompany such governments. Many of us have been thrilled by the power of peaceful protest in Egypt and Tunisia, appalled at the continuing brutality of Ghadafi and his regime, and apprehensive about the outcomes of these movements. As protests escalate across the Arab world, much of our concern here in America has been focused on questions of oil, Islamic radicalism, and the place of women in Arab society. Resistance to sweeping changes is not limited to the Javerts of this world nor is the excitement of revolution limited to Enjolras and the stirring lyrics he sings. Although we
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AT: 03/06/2011 08:30:29 AM
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Sunday, September 12, 2010
Mapping the Way
by Rev. Joyce Antila Phipps
Texts: Psalm 42; Luke 15: 1-10There are times when so-called technological improvements aren’t really improvements at all. Take the new Mapquest website, for example. Now, I want to know what on God’s green earth was wrong with the old Mapquest? It was easier to use -- didn’t have all those little symbols cluttering up the image, not to mention the fact that for the most part you really could find what you were looking for. And don’t even mention Google maps. Click onto that little underlined word map and you end up with something that could be Timbuktu. By the way, there really is a Timbuktu. It’s in Mali. Positioned near the intersection of north-south trade routes, it is over a thousand years old and was a center of Islamic learning in the Western Middle Ages.
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AT: 09/12/2010 08:30:36 AM
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