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Sunday, January 01, 2012
Seasons of Time
by Rev. Joyce Antila Phipps
Texts: Ecclesiastes 3: 1-13; Revelations 21: 1-6 As many of you know, I love to sing, but, alas, as most of you know, I cannot read music. So, being totally undaunted by that limitation, back in the summer of 1997 I joined a chorus that was to sing with one of my all-time heroes, Pete Seeger, I hadn't told the rest of the group I couldn't read music. Pete – that's what he told us to call him – Pete put together a disparate and mixed group of people to join him in a concert he was scheduled to give in Katonah, New York, as a fundraiser for the "Clearwater," a replica of a nineteenth century sloop that sailed the Hudson. Since then, this festival has become a major event for protection of the Hudson and other great American rivers. In 1959 Pete had put together a version of our reading from Ecclesiast...
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AT: 01/01/2012 08:30:34 AM
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Sunday, December 04, 2011
How Do We Cry Peace?
by Rev. Joyce Antila Phipps
Texts: Isaiah 40: 1-31, Mark 1: 1-8 Although I have to admit that I was a bit apprehensive about this weekend, the four of them: Felipe from Brazil, Aki and Yu from Japan, Jigsoon from Korea are not only utterly delightful, but they are committed to building peace one project at a time through the Institute for International Cooperation and Development, known as IICD. They are college students who are giving a year of their lives to eradicating poverty in the Third World through sharing their skills in manual labor, teaching, health services, and caring for the world's poorest people. This weekend they are camped out at my house and spend their days raising money for IICD programs. Building peace is more than just the absence of war. The seventeenth century Jewish philosopher Baruch de Spinoza once wrote that peace is no...
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AT: 12/04/2011 08:30:07 AM
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Sunday, November 13, 2011
Taking Risks
by Rev. Joyce Antila Phipps
Texts: Joshua 2: 1-22 Matthew 25:14-30 The mountains lay beneath our plane as we began the descent into Comolapa Airport. You could see the small mountain roads circling edges of deep drops into the valleys below. What's always been amazing to me is not that an airplane can take off – that I understand. What's always amazing to me is that it lands without killing all on board. Our group had booked the flight on Continental, which we chose over the cheaper national airline of Salvador, known as TACA, an acronym for Transporte Aereros de Continente Americano, or as more familiarly known by English-speaking development workers, Take a Chance Airways. International visits, especially in the years immediately following the peace accords between the government at that time, ARENA, and the rebel force...
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AT: 11/13/2011 08:30:47 AM
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Sunday, June 05, 2011
Harder Than It Sounds
Texts: Psalm 68; John 15: 12-17 Most of us have been raised with the idea that to forgive and reconcile is the Christian thing to do, but as we all know it is far more difficult than it sounds – especially when the person who has “wronged” us is close to us. Take, for instance, the case of Carey Dyess, who, no youthful hothead, at the age of 73, opened fire on his ex-wife, her attorney and four other people, killing them all before turning the gun on himself. This didn't happen in some urban den of iniquity but in Wellton, a small farming community of about 1800 persons that features an annual tractor rodeo, a fourth of July town picnic, and a baseball team. This is not a one kind of event; an ex-husband turned a gun on his ex-wife's lawyer in Oklahoma City back in March of this year, and last year more than a do...
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AT: 06/05/2011 08:30:42 AM
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Sunday, December 05, 2010
Preparing for Peace
by Rev. Joyce Antila Phipps
Texts: Isaiah 11: 1-11; Matthew 3: 1-12 So... here we are in the middle of two wars, two days from the anniversary of a day that will live in infamy, the commemoration of the tragic conflict that tore our nation apart one hundred and fifty years ago, anger and hostility all around us over issues such as unemployment, the economy, and health care, to name just a few, and we are supposed to think about peace. How do we do this in the midst of all that is going on around us? On top of that, it’s the so-called holiday season and everyone is rushing around, and we find ourselves caught up in the general anxiety around us. We listen to the words from the prophet about wolves dwelling with lambs, lions and kids feasting together, and think of Currier and Ives images of Christmas from times past and nod our heads think...
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AT: 12/05/2010 08:30:09 AM
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Sunday, November 28, 2010
What Are We Hoping For?
by Rev. Joyce Antila Phipps
Texts: Isaiah 2: 1-5; Matthew 24: 35-46 Well. Thanksgiving is over; there is still turkey in the fridge and Christmas is around the corner. Retail stores were ecstatic over the surge in spending on Black Friday, America’s national equivalent to binge drinking. It was even more than they had hoped for, one of the biggest binge shopping days -- ever! Plastic is fueling the economy again. Oh, boy. The Dillon County, South Carolina, Herald newspaper took an informal poll and found that almost 60% of its readership was planning to shop the Black Friday sales. How can you do without that whatever-it-is made in China for only $179? The hopes of retailers have been fulfilled. Economic recovery may be just around the corner. We all hope for economic recovery of course, but at what cost? Some people citing Thoreau...
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AT: 11/28/2010 08:30:15 AM
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