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Showing posts from August, 2021

Sermon for the Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost, Year B, "Imitating God," Ephesians 4:25-5:2

Sermon 8/8/21 Ephesians 4:25-5:2 Imitating God For many years before we merged with our nearby conferences to become the Upper New York Annual Conference, I was the Conference Youth Coordinator for the North Central New York Conference Council on Youth Ministries - CCYM. One of the tasks of the CCYM every year was to interview candidates for the Mission of Peace, a trip for young people from the Northeastern US to visit young people in countries around the world, to build relationships, connections, and peace. The interview team was made up of youth leadership, past trip attendees, and a couple of adult advisors. Well, one year, there were only two candidates who applied, and we had three positions we could fill from our area. We were going to interview them anyway, but a bad winter storm meant we had to cancel our interviews, and we decided to go ahead and affirm the candidates for the trip, even without the interview. They went on the trip, had a great experience, and came back rea

Sermon for the Tenth Sunday after Pentecost, Year B, "One," Ephesians 4:1-16

  Sermon 8/1/21 Ephesians 4:1-16 One This summer I’ve been taking a  tutorial with my advisor - I'm currently working on my PhD at Drew Theological School, studying Christianity and Ecology with a focus on Animal ethics. In my tutorial, we’re spending a lot of time thinking about Christians who are concerned about the environment and climate change and what motivates them, and conversely, what motivates Christians who are distinctly not concerned about the environment and deny that climate change is happening. I’ve learned that studies show a couple of things that I find kind of disconcerting and discouraging. First, Christians are actually less likely to care about the environment than the population as a whole, and more likely to deny that climate change is happening or that climate change has human causes. But second - and this is the one I’ve really been chewing on - the biggest predictor of whether or not someone prioritizes care for the environment is not faith or religious