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Sermons by Rev. Dr. Pastor Pete Terpenning*
*Unless noted otherwise
- November 22, 2009 - Should We Celebrate Thanksgiving? -
"We can reclaim this holiday as a uniquely American holiday: full of the violence, oppression, yearning for freedom, suffering, gratitude and war that have made up our history. It seems a good time to remember our history: a time for confession of genocide, of slavery, of oppression of all sorts that still exists in America. A time for honoring the past, forgiving and seeking forgiveness. God is not done with us yet, and we can reclaim this holiday."
- November 15, 2009 - 2012 End of the World? - ". . we are called to live our lives, one moment at a time. . . . When someone asked Martin Luther what he would do if he knew that he must die that very afternoon, he answered that he would go to his garden and plant a tree."
- November 1, 2009 - Living with Death – El Dia De Los Muertos - "To live this way with death as a friend is to learn to face death courageously."
- October 25, 2009 - Calling All the Children Home -
"When one loses the wealth, intellect, pride or power to find security, then God’s security is all we have."
- October 18, 2010 - Humility "In order to discover who I really am I have to strip away all the layers of this false self and discover my true self."
- May 31, 2009 - May We Know the Gift of God’s Spirit By Rev. Kayrene Pearson - "How fortunate I feel to have this opportunity to explain some of the background for Pentecost and also to share some of the treasured memories of Community UCC."
- April 19, 2009 -The Shalom Community, Creating Our Own Culture - "We are called to create our own culture and not be shaped by the community around us. We are called to create a shalom community, one based on Jesus’ ideals of wholeness, justice and non-violence. It would probably be a good start if we began to treat each other as if we might be the Messiah, with extraordinary respect."
- April 12, 2009 - You Will Encounter Him - "We are directed to keep ourselves open to God’s “still, small voice”, to the presence of Christ in nature, in people, in music, in dreams, in the least of these our brothers and sisters: split wood, He is there, pick up a stone and you will find Him… we will encounter him."
- April 5, 2009 - Stand Up - "Jesus lived in a way and taught a radical message of love that was threatening to the status quo . . . "
- February 14, 2009 - God is Still Speaking - "God is still creating, still coming up with new ideas and new teachings."
- January 25, 2009 - Forgiving the Ninevites: Jonah's Story - "Forgiveness is the first step toward peace and justice in the world. The story of Jonah is the story of all of us: if we can have love and compassion, how much more must God love."
- Jaunuary 18, 2009 - When the Word is Rare - "The practice of Centering Prayer is to sit in silence, to listen for God."
- January 11, 2009 - Conversion - "We are swimming in the ocean of God’s love all the time and we just need to open ourselves to this love; surrender to the reality that has been around us all the time.
- January 4, 2009 - Icons –Viewing Life Spiritually - "We are called to live in this physical world, value it, seek to build God’s kingdom of justice and peace. But in order to do this properly we need to be aware that there is this deeper reality: God’s reality, the True self."
- August 17, 2008 - Insiders and Outsiders - "It was the outsiders of the Roman world who flocked to the Christian movement: poor fishermen, slaves, prostitutes, women, lepers, tax collectors and at least one Canaanite woman. The lesson of the faith of the Canaanite woman is for insiders to remember that it is often among the outsiders that true faith is found. It is not in the powerful, institutional religions that Jesus feels comfortable, but often among the people on the margins, people of faith, wherever they are.
- August 10, 2008 - Gumption and Judgement- "'Having the gumption to live different and the sense to let everybody else live different. That’s the hardest thing, hands down.' ~ Alice Venable Middleton. . . . Matthew 7 reads, 'Do not judge and you will not be judged'. Few transgressions are more strongly condemned in the Old and New Testament. It is a huge temptation of life, to spend our time judging others. . . . Judging others and judging ourselves are just two sides of the same coin."
- August 3, 2008 - Inward Transformation – Social Transformation - "The inner life and life of social action are unsustainable without the other. In fact, my experience with meditation and prayer is that the result of the contemplative life, whether it be Christian or Buddhist or Hindu, results directly in compassion. As one gets in touch with one’s inner spiritual life, this leads inevitably to a sense of connection to the whole. . . Both sides of the spiritual journey are needed: the inner journey of transformation, healing and replenishing of faith, and the outward journey of service and love for our fellow human beings, and indeed, God’s whole creation of plant and animal life."
- July 27, 2008 - Kingdom Stories - "The Kingdom [of God] seems to call people to really reshape their lives. This revolution of Jesus is a drastic one. Jesus is not talking about business as usual, or about a little reform for our lives, he is talking here about a radical transformation of our lives. . . There is nothing civilized about Jesus’ Kingdom. It’s wild and calls us to confront uncomfortable things like racism, homophobia, injustice, war, greed and selfishness."
- June 22, 2008 - Hagar and Other Outcastes - "One thing I know for sure about Jesus; he stood with and for the outcastes and outsiders. If we seek to follow him, we too must stand with them. We must seek our best to be part of the solution and not the problem."
- February 24, 2008 - Two Mountains, Religious Pluralism - "Us and them is the theme of John’s story, The Woman at the Well. . . . One of the main issues of our time is religious pluralism, and people of different faiths learning to live in peace. As Christians we must be leading the way toward acceptance, love and compassion. . . . Jesus called people out of the religious institutions of his time and called for radical inclusion, non-violence and love between all, and promised that God loves all people and saves all people, regardless of religion."
- February 10, 2008 - Everything is Alive – Evolution Sunday - ". . .our purpose in life is to discover this God who is in everything, in all existence, in water, in animals and in humans. It is to discover our true selves as one with God and how God is present in all things. The science of Evolution is not contradictory to the study of God, but one of the ways that God as Truth is revealed or uncovered. As we learn about the way the world evolved, we are learning about the way God works."
- January 20, 2008 - Walking With God - "For abnormal fears and phobias there are many cures from psychiatry and other methods, but for the fear of death, nonbeing and nothingness, the best cure I know is faith."
- January 13, 2008 - Baptism: Dying to the False Self - "Baptism symbolized here an internal transformation of dying to an old way of living and birth to a new way of living. . . When we become fearful or angry or violent it is because some aspect of our false self or ego is threatened. . . . This process of dying to the false self is a universal spiritual experience."
- January 6, 2008 - Seekers: Following the Light - "[The story of the Magi] resonates with every one of us who has been a seeker for truth. My experience has been that this quest always leads to the same truth. It leads us to compassion, to a sense of unity with all people, and indeed, with all creation, it leads to the discovery of love and non-violence as the way to peace and justice, it leads to forgiveness, it leads to a belief in a higher power, the existence of whom remains a mystery."
- November 4 , 2007 - Surprized by Joy - "Sometimes we are surprised by Joy. In that moment that we know God is present and we realize that we are loved. Then somehow we must respond with love."
- October 21, 2007 - Kicking the Darkness Until it Bleeds - " . . . God’s justice is like the grass and the Rabbit Bushes, Mustard Plants and Sedums. They grow no matter what you do to keep them down. God’s truth will come out in the end. The moral arch of the universe does bend toward justice. Do not give up hope, do not despair, we have to keep writing letters, and marching, and voting and praying. Keep 'kicking at the darkness until it bleeds daylight!'"
- October 14, 2007 - In Between Places - "A caterpillar has to die and dwell at the threshold of a new life in a cocoon before it can be reborn as a butterfly. We all instinctively want to avoid pain and hardship, but it is in the desert that we are transformed. It is in facing fear that we conquer it. It is in letting go of the old comfortable way of dealing with our pain that we find our way past the pain."
- October 7, 2007 - Habakkuk’s Lament and God’s Justice
- September 23 , 2007 - Patterns of Truth - " . . . the pursuit of truth is a kind of holy pilgrimage, and that we can discover the truth way to live and thus be in harmony with God. Truthfulness, therefore, is Godliness. . . . I choose to call this pattern of truth, God, but you can call it anything you want. But I believe that Lao Tzu, and Gandhi, and CS Lewis and the Buddha, and Tolstoy and Thoreau, and countless others, were all holding on to a piece of it. And for me, as a Christian, I believe that Jesus embodied this truth, lived it and died rather than betray it."
- March 4, 2007 - Fear and the God of the Things That Will Be - " . . . the only final cure for fear is faith."
- February 25, 2007 - Growing Legs & Slow Transformations - "[Repenting] is the process of becoming disciples. It is less about feeling guilty and changing our sinful ways, and is more about transforming our lives.
- January 27, 2007 - Letting Love Flow - "Like the water cycle, we could talk about the love cycle, moving from God to creature, to other creatures, back to God and back to creature. . . Love, like water, flows through us."
- October29, 2006 - Calling All Children Home- "When we have no wealth or success to fall back on, we are left with only God. God was calling them back from exile, and now, in exile, humbled, they were in the position to hear God."
- October 22, 2006 - Servants of All - A Question of Greatness "To be great, you must be the servant of all. The last shall be first and first shall be last."
- October 8, 2006 - Job, Caught in the Whirlwind "Job asks a universal question, 'Why?' 'Why is this suffering happening to me?' 'Where is God?'"
- September 17, 2006 - Get Behind Me, Satan "The root word in Hebrew is 'stn' meaning 'one who opposes, obstructs, or acts as an adversary'. The word in Greek is 'diabolos' from which we get the word 'devil' and means 'one who throws something across one’s path.'"
- September 10, 2006 - The Day Jesus Gave the Gospel to the Dogs "Jesus, after this incident, finds himself part of a long and somewhat subversive sub-culture of the Bible that calls for the inclusion of outsiders."
- February 12, 2006 - Evolution Sunday - ". . . science and Christianity are not mutually exclusive." "I think the ministry of Jesus Christ illustrates the evolution of spirituality toward greater compassion and love, thereby revealing God’s process of moving with us as we evolve in this direction."
- January 22, 2006 - Going Fishing - "Jesus converted people to a way of life, a way of love, forgiveness and gentleness. We are the best fishers of people when we live out this way of life and share our vision of a loving God."
- January 15, 2006 - Sometimes We Need to Get Out of the Way "There’s room for everyone, and we make a big mistake when we start trying to keep people away from the altar. There’s room for liberal Christians, conservative and fundamentalist Christians, Buddhists, Agnostics, Muslims, Hindus, Jews, Janists, Sikhs, humanists, even Atheists. There is not a person alive who isn’t an instrument for God to use in some way. What’s the final test to see if they are on the right path? There are probably lots of tests, but one I’m sure of is compassion. Where we find charity and love, where we find compassion, there we will find God."
- January 8, 2006 - Ministers - The Whole Congregation "So who gets this power? I believe it is available to each person, perhaps each creature of God’s creation. It is for everyone."
- October 2, 2005 - Who Gets to Sit at the Table? Sermon for World Wide Communion Sunday. "...we have an 'open table' of communion. What this means is that you decide if you are going to come forward for communion, not me, not the denomination or elders or anybody else."
- September 25, 2005 - The One Who Went and Did It "I see Jesus calling people again and again to be like the Son who says it is too hard, but goes and does it anyway. . . . I don't think Jesus would have cared whether someone called themselves Christian."
- September 18, 2005 - Return to a Peaceable Kingdom. - This sermon for Native American Sunday compares the two creations stories in Genesis.
- July 31, 2005 - You Give Them Something to Eat: Lessons in Compassion
- April 10, 2005 - Why I am a Universalist "Universalism was originally a Christian movement. From the earliest days of the church there have been people who argued that Jesus came to save all people; no exceptions."
- September 5, 2004 - Counting the Cost
- August 29, 2004 - Exalting the Humble
- August 22, 2004 - Unbending Women
- July 25, 2004 - Sacred Unity, Giving Birth to the World
- May 9, 2004 - Greening Christianity
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March 21, 2004 - The Parable of the Loving Father
- March 14, 2004 - Traveling Third Class: The Gospel of Gandhi
- February 1, 2004 - Chosen, Blessed, Broken and Given
- January 18, 2004 - Unexpected Joy – Cana
- January 4, 2004 - Never Get Used to It
- November 10, 2002 - Keep Your Lamps Burning
- October 27, 20002 - Sauntering - Stop Eating the Bread of Anxious Toil
- April 7, 2002 - Thomas: What's So Bad about Doubt?
- March 31, 2002 - On the Move
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