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Alison Bucklin
Contributing sermons since Oct 18, 2000
Newest Sermons
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Worship And Justice
Contributed on May 28, 2023
We deplore the loss of morality, the loss of civility, the loss of social stability - and yet how many of us recognize that those are only the deeper symptoms of a greater loss, the loss of our sense of accountability before God?
Judah, the Hebrews’ southern kingdom, was big on denial. By 740 BC, when Isaiah began to preach, the brutal and ambitious kingdom of Assyria had amply demonstrated their intentions and abilities. They were bent on conquering Egypt, the prize of the Mediterranean, and had to conquer everything else ...read more
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Eyes Front
Contributed on May 28, 2023
As long as we’re looking at other people, we’re not getting on with what God has called us to do.
The disciples had just come back from going fishing. In the passage just before ours, we see Simon Peter, James and John, Thomas, Nathanael and two others, out in a boat on the Sea of Galilee, fishing. But then comes the twist in the story. We've already seen how Jesus appeared on the shore and ...read more
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The Third Word
Contributed on May 19, 2023
Mary waits beneath Jesus' cross.
Mary had been rigid with tension all week. Rumors of plots had eddied around the streets of Jerusalem from the moment Jesus had entered the city at the beginning of the festival week. Everyone was edgy, watchful. There were more Roman soldiers around than usual, too, even for the Passover week when ...read more
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The King Of Truth
Contributed on May 19, 2023
People often become obsessed with royalty because they need someone to look up to, to be part of something larger than themselves. But they are always disappointed.
We fought a war, once, to get rid of a king. Two hundred and twenty-two years ago Americans took up arms to win our independence from King George III of England. Some of the biggest issues were trade and taxes, sound familiar? “Fast Track” and IRS reform, 18th-century style. I suppose it’s always ...read more
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The Ultimate Wilderness Guide
Contributed on May 15, 2023
Lack of belief is a sin because if you don't understand that reunion with God is the purpose of life, you will wind up lost. Literally.
I was 8 years old when my family moved to Brazil. Everything changed: language, food, customs, weather. And one of the things that I at least did not expect was the absence of school buses. If Dad couldn’t take us we had to take public transportation: a taxi, a tram, a bus. We usually took a city ...read more
Newest Sermon Series
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Displaced Women
Contributed on Nov 26, 2022
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A Letter To Jerusalem
Contributed on Aug 7, 2011
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The Inheritance Of The Church
Contributed on Jul 6, 2011
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Wilderness Temptations
Contributed on Jul 5, 2011
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Waiting For Jesus
Contributed on Jul 3, 2011
Newest Sermon Illustrations
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Holy Office?
Contributed on Apr 21, 2023
When a Christian – the temple of the Holy Spirit – walks into an office at IBM, IBM becomes a spiritual place. Tim Downs, Finding ...read more
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Carrion Comfort
Contributed on Mar 30, 2023
Not, I’ll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee; Not untwist - slack they may be - these last strands of man In me or, most weary, cry I can no more. I can; Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be. But, ah, but O thou terrible, why wouldst thou rude on me Thy wring-world ...read more
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God's Currency
Contributed on Mar 19, 2023
Jesus might have asked, when presented with the coin with Caesar's image on it: "Whose image do you bear, whose image is stamped on you?” And the answer would have been - or should - have been: "We are carrying God’s image, we are carrying God’s name.” He coined us in his image. He ...read more
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Seven Stanzas At Easter
Contributed on Mar 19, 2023
John Updike put it in his wonderful poem : Make no mistake: if he rose at all it was as his body; If the cells dissolution did not reverse, the molecules reknit, the amino acids rekindle, the church will fall. Let us not mock God with metaphor, Analogy, sidestepping transcendence; Making ...read more
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Order From Chaos
Contributed on Mar 17, 2023
The late Harvard mathematician and philosopher, Alfred North Whitehead, maintained that the whole scientific enterprise of the western world rested upon the belief that at the bottom of things science would find order rather than chaos. Where animists were afraid to probe a world enchanted with ...read more