Saugatuck Congregational Church, UCC
© Rev. Alison J. Buttrick Patton
April 25, 2015

Scriptures:  Psalm 23 and John 10:11-18

Fierce and Tender Shepherd: train our ears to hear you, and our hearts to follow you, when you call our names.  Amen.

So here’s my confession:  Good Shepherd Sunday has never been my favorite Sunday.  I know the image of the Good Shepherd is much cherished by many faithful Christians, perhaps by many of you:  What more beloved psalm will you find than the 23^rd Psalm?  And what more ubiquitous image than Jesus as the tender shepherd, most often posed with a lamb cradled in his arms or hoisted on his shoulder?  How many of us grew up in churches adorned with bucolic images of a gentle, long-haired man (often a decidedly non-Arabic looking man, with honey colored hair and blue-green eyes), robed in white and walking sandal-foot through the green grass, a cluster of fluffy, white sheep gathered around his ankles? These are among the most popular images of Jesus, loved by many. But I read verses like the ones in the Gospel of John, which Art read for us today, and it makes me want to write a follow up to Michael Hendricks’ sermon of a few weeks back, which he titled, “Why God is not my King.”  Part II:  Why Christ is not my Shepherd.
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Saugatuck Congregational Church, UCC
© Alexander P. Floyd Marshall
April 19, 2015

Scripture: Acts 3:1-19

In the church where I grew up, a mid-sized evangelical Bible church just outside of Memphis, we took communion by passing a plate of crackers and those trays with the little shot-glasses of grape juice down each row of seats.

We also, like most evangelical churches, put an especial emphasis on personal conversion: the choice of “salvation.”

When I was a young child, the most striking thing I gathered from the stories I heard about older people’s journeys to that choice was that, it seemed to me, when you “were saved” you were supposed to feel really different because something had really dramatically changed inside you. Some of the adults I heard tell their stories really had been dramatically saved from things like addiction, but as a six-year old I didn’t really comprehend that: I just understood that whatever this salvation thing was, it was “different” feeling. And anyway, the real benefit of being an “official Christian,” in my six-year-old head, was that it meant I got to eat the little crackers and drink the juice on the first Sunday of every month when we took communion.

For a while after I decided to “accept Jesus” for myself, I did feel different, probably because so many adults in our church went out of their way to congratulate this little six-year-old “new believer.” But after a while the feeling faded and I started to have some doubts about whether or not it had really worked.
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Saugatuck Congregational Church, UCC
©Alexander P. Floyd Marshall
March 15, 2015

Imagine with me for a moment that we went about living our whole lives trapped in a cave.

Not the opening line you were expecting?

No really, imagine with me for a moment that we live in a cave where we are trapped and all around us shadow puppets are being cast on the walls. They take the shape of all kinds of creatures: birds, dogs, elephants. But having never been outside our cave, nor even knowing where these shadow puppets come from or what is causing them, we have no way of knowing what the shapes they represent are, so we are forced to make up explanations of our own, such as: the shadows are alive.
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Pastoral Reflection at the Rededication Worship for Saugatuck Congregational Church, UCC
©Rev. Alison J. Buttrick Patton
March 8, 2015

“Celebrate all the good things the Lord your God has done for you.”
“You are here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world.”
“Christ is building you into a dwelling place for God.”

Oil the hinges of our hearts’ doors, that they may swing easily open to welcome you.

There they stood on the sandy banks of the Jordan River – the river they’d just crossed over after years of wandering in the wilderness.  Wilderness dust still clung to their feet and ankles; their eyes were wide as they surveyed the beauty before them.  “This is it,” thought the Israelites. “THIS is the land that flows with milk and honey, the land we’ve been dreaming about all these years, the home for which we have yearned with our whole hearts…”
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Saugatuck Congregational Church, UCC
©Rev. Alison J. Buttrick Patton
March 1, 2015

Scripture: Mark 8:31-38

Some of the bravest people I know are recovering alcoholics. The ones who keep showing up for AA meetings. The ones who choose their vacation destinations based on whether there is a twelve-step meeting near-by. The ones who admit, every day that they won’t make it alone, that they need a community and they need God to get them through. What I admire isn’t their ability to stop drinking (although that’s hard enough); it’s the courage with which they acknowledge what is really true for every one of us: that we are flawed; that we screw up, we fumble and fail; that at least some of the time, we all stumble along, weighed down by fear, confusion or doubt. It takes courage – and unrelenting honesty, to admit that we don’t always have it all together, that we can’t make it alone.
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Saugatuck Congregational Church, UCC
©Linda Bruce
February 22, 2015

Scriptures: Psalm 25:1-10, Mark 1:9-15

With great joy I stand before you and truly appreciate the gift of walking together on the Lenten path.  A journey of stories.  My first story comes from the book of Mark. In past sermons and Bible studies we have heard about Jesus being baptized by his cousin John although  perhaps John is thinking, my cousin Jesus is special, he actually should be baptizing me;  but I’m John the Baptist and it seems that there may be something else going on here, maybe there is a bigger story about to unfold (and a lot of theology).

Sure enough, as soon as Jesus is baptized he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him.

¹¹ And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

¹² And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. And for forty days Jesus is tempted by Satan, hanging out with the wild beasts, helped by angels.  He then returns to begin his three year earthly ministry…and crucifixion and Easter and…beyond.

We know this story. I want to re-wind a little bit and go back to that moment when Jesus got the call:  “You’re it!” “You’re the one.”  “You’re beloved.”  “I am well pleased”

…..And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness.

….What? ….

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Saugatuck Congregational Church, UCC
©Rev. Alison J. Buttrick Patton
February 15, 2015

Scriptures: 2 Kings 2:1-2; 8-12 and Mark 9:2-10

Once upon a time, there lived a man. An ordinary, extraordinary man who carried within him the spark of the universe. He had ears to hear the singing of the stars, and eyes to see their shining. He knew them all by name. His heart beat with the rhythm of the waves that lapped the shores of the Jordan River. His feet got dusty from walking and his sun-brown face was etched by laugh lines. His touch was gentle, electric. And he touched often – always with the effect that a person was forever changed. People were drawn to him like a moth to flame – even before that day up on the mountain.

What made him extraordinary, you might ask? This, it seems: That one afternoon, while standing waist-deep in the chilly waters of the Jordan, he saw the sky torn open and heard a voice declare, “You are my beloved.” And he believed it, felt the truth of it at the core of his being. “You knit me together in my mother’s womb,” writes the Psalmist. “I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”
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Saugatuck Congregational Church, UCC
©Rev. Alison J. Buttrick Patton
February 8, 2015

Scriptures: Mark 1:29-39

A rabbi became troubled that his life had no meaning, that he was somehow on the wrong path.  He went out walking, and lost in thought, he wandered onto a military base that was closed to civilians.  A soldier stopped him and shook him from his reverie.  “Who are you, and what is your purpose here?” asked the soldier.  In response, the rabbi asked:  “Soldier, what do they pay you to guard this base?”  The soldier named his fee. “I will pay you the same, if you will ask me those two questions every day.”

“Who are you and what is your purpose?”
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