Most of you know that UCUP is affiliated with two different denominations – UCC & UMC. We have lived together for 49 years – holding the tension of the different ways each denomination operates. Some of you joined this church specifically because of its affiliation with one of those denominations. Some of you are a […]
Do you remember learning how to swim? And the first time you went into deeper water? I don’t remember if it was the FIRST time, but when I was 4, my family took a road trip to southern CA. We stopped at a motel that had not only a swimming pool which is not so […]
Most people know these words from wedding ceremonies, celebrating the spiritual bond of love between two people. They are often spoken to unify two individuals for a lifelong journey of faithful marriage. Except this chapter, considered to be one of the most beautiful chapters in the Bible and other literature, was not written with the […]
Who says you can’t go home again? It’s a Sabbath day soon after Jesus’s baptism and temptation in the wilderness. Filled with the power of the Spirit,”Jesus receives a warm welcome in synagogue after synagogue, extending to his hometown synagogue in Nazareth. An attendant hands Jesus the scroll; and he reads from the prophet Isaiah: The Spirit […]
Until 2-3 weeks ago, I always equated Epiphany with a bright star leading the Magi with their gifts to the Christ child. And while that HAS been the emphasis of the Western Church, the Eastern Church primarily focused on two events of Jesus’ ministry in Epiphany themes – Baptism and transformation of water into wine […]
We are in Year C – the 3rd lectionary cycle. Year C unfolds in the new year by giving us the story of the Magi today, the baptism of Jesus next week, and according to the Gospel of John, Jesus’ first miracle of changing water into wine on 1/20. Rev. Paul Nancarrow draws a connection […]
Throughout Advent, the theme of Learning to Walk in the Dark by the luminous light of the moon & star-lit nights ushered us into the culmination of experiencing the Christ Child being birthed into our hearts once again on Christmas Eve when over 200 of us filled this sanctuary with joy & hope & music […]
Every Christmas Eve, outside a small chapel in Oberndorf, a picture-postcard village in the foothills of the Austrian Alps, thousands of carolers bundle up against the cold to sing the world’s most-beloved Christmas carol. Amid sparkling lights, and a star-filled sky, two men strumming a guitar, stand in front of the chapel to sing, “Stille […]
Our theme throughout Advent has been Learning to Walk in the Dark by the luminous light of the moon or starlight. Throughout scripture, we find multiple references to God’s creation in the night sky. Psalm 8:3 “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in […]
Alfred Burt, an American jazz musician, wrote an annual Christmas carol every year, to send out to friends and family, in a Christmas Card greeting. A few of his carols have become well known including one written not long before his death at the age of 34 in 1954. It goes like this: Caroling, […]