See below for sermons delivered at RUCC. If you’d like to see videos please join our Facebook group “RUCC Members and Friends”, where we stream the service live each Sunday and have the videos available subsequently.
Matthew 5: 1 – 9, Jill A. Kirchner-Rose, MDIV, DMIN This past week marked a significant anniversary in the life of our country. It was exactly 400 years ago, in late August of 1619, that Africans were brought to this shore, to the coast of Virginia. It is the 400th anniversary of the dawn of American slavery. This past week many African…
Matthew 14: 22 – 23, Jill A. Kirchner-Rose, MDIV, DMIN My Epiphany word for this year is “Relaxation.” Over the last few months, I truly embodied that word. This season of relaxation has been bookmarked by two silent retreats with the church. One in May and the other last weekend. The silent retreats are a time to rest, relax, pray, meditate, hike,…
Psalm 33:12-22 Bill Maury-Holmes I’m sticking with you Cause I’m made out of glue Anything that you might do I’m gonna do too “I’m Sticking With You,” by the Velvet Underground, 1969 Lyrics by Lou Reed I think that I got lucky around the time that I became a Christian in the early 1980s, blessed if you will. One of the many…
Genesis 6: 5 – 8, Jill A. Kirchner-Rose, MDIV, DMIN – The President sat at his desk in the White House. He took out two Bibles, opened them to the gospels, the story of Jesus. He grabbed a knife or perhaps a razor and began cutting up one Bible, then the other. The President was Thomas Jefferson. The year was 1804. Jefferson…
Genesis 1: 26 – 28 and Luke 7: 36 – 39 Jill A. Kirchner-Rose, MDIV, DMIN In her new book, Shameless: A Sexual Reformation, Nadia Boltz-Weber opens her book with a powerful illustration. While in an airplane, flying over the farming fields of the Midwest, she gazed down at the fields below her and noticed something peculiar. The patterns of crops seemed…
John 4: 7 – 9, Jill A. Kirchner-Rose, MVID, DMIN — Carol Robb approached me some months ago and suggested that we have a “Beatles Sunday.” I was intrigued by the suggestion and brought it before my staff. They enthusiastically agreed that a Beatles Sunday could be both fun and meaningful. So, welcome to Beatles Sunday! Given that there is a new…
1 Corinthians 12: 25 – 27, Peter Tupou – “Trendy sayings like “Teamwork makes the dream work” or “You can’t have community without unity” are popular slogans in justice work. If anyone could have done it alone, you think it would’ve been Jesus. But even he surrounded himself with a community, the same community to which we are called to be part…
Matthew 5: 13 – 16, Jill A. Kirchner-Rose, MDIV, DMIN – Today is an Elton John Sunday! Why? For several reasons. For one, today is Father’s Day, and Elton John became a father for the very first time at the age of 63! He and his husband, David, have two children. That inspires me because I became a mother for the first…
Acts 2: 14 – 18; Matthew 25: 31 – 40, Jill A. Kirchner-Rose, MDIV, DMIN – The movie I have chosen this morning for our movie sermon series is a documentary entitled, “Mother Teresa – Legacy Film.” You won’t find it in the movie theater, but you can find it on YouTube. According to a Harvard Medical School experiment, just watching this…
Exodus 3: 7 – 12, Jill A. Kirchner-Rose, MDIV, DMIN – Since children remain in worship on the first Sunday of the month, it was important to me to choose a family friendly movie in our movie sermon series. The spectacular family friendly movie that is out right now (and which I highly, highly recommend) is Aladdin. Karen and I were on…