Text of sermons preached by The Rev. J. Gary Brinn, Pastor and Teacher of The Park Church unless otherwise specified. Scripture readings reference the Common English Bible.
Title: "After The Fire"
📖 Readings are: Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Ephesians 1:11-23
Title: "Unfollow Your Bliss"
📖 Readings are: On Happiness, Psalm 84:1-7
Title: "Gimme That Old Time Religion! (PDF)” by the Rev. Gary McCaslin
📖 Readings are: from John Scotus Eriugena and Psalm 19:1-6
Title: "Considering Matriarchy" (PDF) by Jenny Monroe
Today we gather to commemorate Indigenous Peoples Day. It is good to be together to learn about the people who lived along the Chemung River, where we call home today. I have chosen to present snippets of information from the history of the Seneca Nation. They call themselves Keepers of the Western Door of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy. Founded at least 350 years before Christopher Columbus discovered himself in the Americas, their prophet Peacemaker brought five warring nations into a representational confederacy based on a matrialineal/matrilocal clan system.
In 1794, the Canandaigua Treaty established three territories for the Seneca people to live as a sovereign nation within the borders of New York State. Here they continue their traditional life ways and self-governance on a tiny section of their original land base – one of only a few indigenous peoples in the Americas who can say that. It has been my privilege to share information about their culture to white audiences as I was asked to do in 2005 by Wolf Clan Mother, Dr. Hazel Dean John.
World Communion Sunday - no Park Church Service
Title: "Fixing Stars"
📖 Readings are: G.K. Chesterton, Heretics, Jeremiah 32:6-15
Though many know him best as the creator of the fictional priest-detective Father Brown, G.K. Chesterton was a prolific author. His works include several on the Christian faith. In 1905, he wrote:
A man with a definite belief always appears bizarre, because he does not change with the world; he has climbed into a fixed star, and the earth whizzes below him like a zoetrope. Millions of mild black-coated men call themselves sane and sensible merely because they always catch the fashionable insanity, because they are hurried into madness after madness by the maelstrom of the world.
Title: "The Prize We Pay For Love"
📖 Readings are: The Rev. George Lorimer (1881), Jeremiah 8:18-9:1
Title: "There Are No Mongeese"
📖 Readings are: Wesley Clark, 2013, Luke 15:1-10
Title: "Day Labor"
📖 Readings are: The Rev. Chris Hedges, 2021, Deuteronomy 24:14-21
Title: "Here Be Dragons"
📖 Readings are: Neil Gaiman, Coraline (2002) and Jeremiah 2:4-13
Title: "Words and Beyond" by the Rev. Beth Frigard, guest pastor
📖 Readings are: from Carl Sagan (1934-1996) and from Psalm 24
Title: "Last Refuge of a Scoundrel"
📖 Readings are: Howard Zinn, Declarations of Independence: Cross-Examining American Ideology (1991), Jeremiah 23:23-29
Title: "The Problem With Religion"
📖 Readings are: adapted from Margaret Cho, 2008, Isaiah 1:1, 10-20
Title: "Black Creeks"
📖 Readings are: ‘Worship of the Guns is Worship of Idols’, Eugen Schoenfeld, Hosea 11:1-11
Title: "Angel Gets Lost"
📖 Readings are: from George Washington, 1783, Genesis 18: 20-32
Title: "Better Business"
📖 Readings are: from Buckminster Fuller, Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth, Amos 8:1-12
Title: "Homos and Hurricanes"
📖 Readings are: from President Barack Obama, 2015 and Amos 7:7-17
Title: "Revolution"
📖 Readings are: from Thomas Jefferson and 2 Kings 5:1-14
Title: “Karma Is A...”
📖 Readings: “Instant Karma” by John Lennon and 2 Kings 2:23-25
Title: “Wanted For Murder: Elijah”
📖 Readings: 1972 interview with former president Lyndon B. Johnson and 1 Kings 19:1-15
Title: "An Ode to Wisdom" Guest Pastor: The Rev. Beth Frigard
📖 Readings are: from Jonas Salk and Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31
Title: "A New Spirit"
📖 Readings are: from Audre Lorde and Acts 2:1-21
Title: “He ain’t Superman”
📖 Our readings are: from "Train of Thought" #5, 19 and Luke 24:44-53
Title: "Stirred Up"
📖 Readings are: from a 2020 interview with Noam Chomsky and John 5:1-9
Title: “New Jerusalem” by The Rev. Paul Nixon
The service will also be available via Zoom.
Title: “New Jerusalem”
📖 Readings are: “Listen to Your Life” by the Rev. Frederick Buechner and Revelation 21:1-6
Title: “Placebo”
📖 Readings are: Acts 9:36-43 and John 10:22-30
Title: “The Big Why” Guest Pastor: The Rev. Beth Frigard
Readings are: from “Man’s Search For Meaning” by Viktor E. Frankel, John 21:1-19
Title: The Rules of Time Travel
Readings are: from “The Angels Take Manhattan” episode of Doctor Who
Title: Practicing Resurrection
📖 Readings are: Wendell Berry “Farming: A Handbook, John 20:1-18
Title: Good and Crazy
📖 Readings are: “Hoping Against Hope”, Luke 19:29-40
Title: The Slap
📖 Readings are: Micah 6:8
📖 Readings are: “Walden” by Henry David Thoreau and Luke 13:1-9
Title Lenten Organ Recital: New Songs To Sing.
📖 Readings are: God Spoke, Rhythms of Life, In/Out, The New Song, and God’s Voice.
Title Dashavatara
📖 Readings 'The Mahabharata' and Psalm 27:1-5, 14
Title True Lies
📖 Readings “The Last Temptation of Christ” by Nikos Kazantzakis and Deuteronomy 26:1-11
📖 Readings
Title Membrane
📖 Readings: Our readings are: from “Community: The Structure of Belonging” by Peter Block, and Genesis 45:3-15.
The prelude and postlude this week are by Felix Mendelssohn, German composer of the early Romantic Period of music history. The organ had by this time lost its popularity and Mendelssohn was the first of only a few major composers to rediscover and promote the music of J. S. Bach 100 years after Bach’s death. Although primarily known for his piano music, Mendelssohn also wrote several pieces for organ, and is especially known for six works he called “Sonatas,” even though, aside from the fact that they had multiple movements, they showed little in common with earlier sonatas. Thank you to Linda Couchon for joining me for the hymns and for the postlude.
Title Race Theory is Critical
📖 ”An Affinity of Hammers” by Sara Ahmed, and Luke 6:17-26.
Why We Covenant by the Pastoral Relations Committee
and Doug Couchon
📖 Readings are from
Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians 3:4-6
Flipping Tables Is A Legitimate Answer
📖 Readings are from the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and 1 Corinthians 12:1-11
📖 Readings are from .
Who's Afraid of the Dark
📖 Readings are from Isaiah 60:1-6 and Matthew 2:1-12
