See below for sermons delivered at RUCC. If you’d like to see videos please return to the home page and scroll down, or visit us at youtube.com/RedlandsUCC.
Genesis 9:20 – 27 and Ephesians 6: 5 – 8 – Jill A. Kirchner-Rose, MDIV, DMIN This Sunday we conclude our sermon series on “The Gospel According to Hamilton” and there is much to celebrate about this hip-hop, revolutionary, boundary-crossing phenomenon. The Broadway show casts founding fathers as people of color. The significant role of founding mothers is honored and revered. Hamilton…
Genesis 3:6 – Jill A. Kirchner-Rose, MDIV, DMIV Lin Manuel Miranda had an allegiance not only to people of color, but to women who are portrayed as both powerful and vulnerable in his musical. In the Hamilton song, “The Schuyler Sisters,” Angelica sings: You want a revolution? I want a revelation So listen to my declaration “We hold these truths to be…
Jill A. Kirchner-Rose, MDIV, DMIN – Exodus 16: 1 – 8 We continue with our sermon series on “Hamilton,” a name cemented in every history book and now brought to life in a revolutionary way. This Sunday we will meet the character, King George, who smuggly sings to the colonists, “You’ll be back.” Those could be the very words that Pharoah sings…
John 1: 43 – 46 – Jill A. Kirchner-Rose, MDIV, DMIN – We begin a new sermon series based on the electric, exhilarating, musically varied, harmonically rich musical, Hamilton. By casting the United States’ Founding Fathers as hip-hop singing men of color, the show radically revises our perspectives on the very meaning of this country’s origins. Hamilton is a story of modern revolution. Lin-Manuel Miranda,…
Genesis 1: 26 – 27 Genesis 1: 26 – 27 – Rev. Erin Beardemphl — What does it mean to be made in God’s image? Is it a position of power? An honor? A responsibility? All of the above? And what does this have to do with art and spirituality? As it turns out, it has everything to do with who we…
Luke 4: 18 – Jill A. Kirchner-Rose, MDIV, DMIN – We honor the life of Congressman John Lewis who passed from life to Life last week at the age of 80 years old. From the streets of Selma to the halls of Congress, John Lewis sat in for justice and stood up for equality. As the last living speaker from the March…
Psalm 91: 1 – 6 — Jill A. Kirchner-Rose, MDIV, DMIN – Julian of Norwich lived during a tumultuous time in which waves of the bubonic plague continued to devastate Europe. This plague claimed the lives of 50% of Julian’s city population. Julian was only six years old when the first such plague occurred. In the midst of this reoccurring pandemic, Julian…
II Corinthians 4: 7 – 9 and John 1: 5 In the midst of a global health pandemic and a racism pandemic, want to try a worship riddle? Why not? What do the following have in common: the first candle of Advent; an ancient Oscar winning Song of the Year’; II Corinthians 4:7-9; Bishop Desmond Tutu; the valley of the shadow of…
Isaiah 58: 1 – 10 – – “Politics don’t belong in the pulpit,” a congregant once said to me after I preached a sermon against the Iraq War. “I don’t want the Sacred to be tainted by the profane. Let’s keep church and politics separate.” While I agree that the Gospel is not partisan, I do believe that it is most certainly…
Scripture: Luke 18: 1 – 8 — Let’s hear it for the Supreme Court! As an Open and Affirming Congregation and as an Immigrant Welcoming Congregation, we are grateful for the recent rulings to protect the LGBTQ community from employment discrimination and to protect Dreamers from deportation. On this Pride Sunday, we affirm Jesus’ lesson from the Parable of the Unjust Judge.…