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.
Ascension Day – Sunday, May 24 ~~ “Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder“ Ascension Day is the day that Jesus became absent, which may be why it is the most forgotten holy day of the church year. Who wants to celebrate being left behind? As the old adage goes, however, “absence makes the heart grow fonder.” Absence is heightened awareness, a sharpened appetite, a…
Psalm 23 – In the United Church of Christ, the third Sunday of May is Mental Health Sunday. Mental health is a timely topic these days. Social distancing and quarantining are negatively affecting the mental health of many. Older adults and single people may be experiencing increased feelings of loneliness and anxiety. Working parents with children experience increased anxiety as they homeschool…
Luke 15: 8 – 10 On this Mother’s Day, churches around the world will compare God’s love to the unconditional, nurturing, compassionate love of a mother. Many, however, find themselves asking these days, “Does God even care?” After all, the global COVID-19 epidemic is as horrific in the 21st century as the Black Death was throughout Eurasia in the 1300s and small…
Luke 24: 36 – 49 Peter Tupou provides our message today. This year, for some, the joy of Easter felt diminished. Families celebrated the holiday in smaller units separate from one another. Grandparents enjoyed their grandchildren from the other side of a computer screen, children searched for Easter eggs in their own homes, and congregations struggled to implement technology to replicate fellowship.…
Second Sunday after Easter, April 26 ~ “Back to Normal?” These days I often hear the phrase, “I can’t wait until life gets back to normal.” Likewise, in our scripture, Cleopas and his companion travel home to Emmaus to “go back to life as normal.” Along the way, however, they encounter the Risen Christ and they discover that their lives will never…
Last Sunday, we celebrated Easter, the most important holy day of the year. This Sunday, we celebrate Earth Day. At RUCC, Earth Day is as significant as Easter, Christmas, and Pentecost. After all, our first calling and our holiest vocation as people of faith is to be good stewards and care for our holy land. Earth Day 2020 is a special one;…
Easter Sunday, April 12 ~ “It’s Too Early” We had hoped to worship together in our sanctuary on the biggest and most important Sunday of the church year, but it is too early. The current shelter in place orders remain. It is too early to gather together in person. In Luke’s Gospel, the disciples discover it is too early, too. They were…
Scripture: Matthew 21: 1 – 11 Sermon Title: “Space for Grace” With palm branches in hand and “Hosannas” on our lips, we enter into the holiest and most challenging week of the Christian year. In my lifetime, Holy Week never felt more real. As we distance ourselves from one another, we experience fear, risk, loneliness, and suffering. Like those disciples 2000 years…