Hummelstown UCC Podcast

Leviticus 19:18; 1 Corinthians 13:1-7 "A life without love is like a year without summer." -Swedish Proverb

Selections of1 Samuel 20& 31, 2 Samuel 1; Wisdom of Solomon 1:13-15, 2:23-24; Psalm 30: Thanksgiving for Recovery from Grave Illness: A Song at the dedication of the temple. Of David. "If you're not personally free to be yourself in that most important of all human activities — the expression of love — then life itself loses its meaning." -Harvey Milk

Mark 4:35-41; 2 Corinthians 6:2-11; Selections of 1 Samuel 17:1-18:16 "We are not what other people say we are. We are who we know ourselves to be, and we are what we love. That’s okay." - Laverne Cox

Mark 4:26-34; Psalm 92:1-4, 12-15; 1 SAMUEL 15:34-16:13 “Your gifts, leadership, purpose—none of it is about you. Instead, a life of significance is about serving others. It’s about guiding those who need your talents—those gifts, that leadership, and purpose.” -Kevin Hall

“Rebirth” Rev. Dr. Karen Georgia Thompson; John 17:21-23  “Diversity is about all of us, and about us having to figure out how to walk through this world together.” -Jacqueline Woodson

Mark 2:23-3:6; Psalm 139: 1-6, 13-18 The Inescapable God; 1 Samuel 3:1-10; 2 Corinthians 4:5-10  “Observe the Sabbath day and keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, or your son or your daughter, or your male or female slave, or your ox or your donkey, or a...

“Wonder then is a force of liberation, it makes sense of what our souls inherently know we were meant for. Every mundane glimpse is salve on a wound, instructions for how to set the bone right again. If you really want to get free, find God on the subway, find God in the soap bubble. Me, I meet God in the taste of my grandmas chicken, I hear God in the raspy leather of Nina Simone’s voice, I see t...

“inheritance”  “ours is no solitary journey we are invited to travel accompanied by generations calling us into our deeper selves whispering to us of our wisdom and strength” -Rev. Dr. Karen Georgia Thompson Psalm 104:24-34, 35b; John 15:26-27

“While you’ll feel compelled to charge forward it’s often a gentle step back that will reveal to you where you and what you truly seek.” -Rasheed Ogunlaru Psalm 1; Acts 1:15-17,20-26; 

John 10:11-18; Psalm 23 (CEV); Acts 4:5-12 Lucille Clifton, from “won’t you celebrate with me” “what did i see to be except myself? i made it up here on this bridge between starshine and clay, my one hand holding tight my other hand;”

Luke 24:36-48; Psalm 4: Confident Plea for Deliverance from Enemies; Acts 3:12-19 “Sometimes, a story does not make sense as it unfolds. Complex narratives with layers of meaning may need to be revisited time and time again to unpack the clues, metaphors, and relationships the story explores.” -Rev. Dr. Cheryl A. Lindsay

Acts 4:32-35; Psalm 133: The Blessedness of Unity; John 20:19-31 “Patience is power. Patience is not an absence of action; rather it is "timing" it waits on the right time to act, for the right principles and in the right way.” -Fulton J. Sheen

Luke 24:1-12; Luke 9:10-17 The bread has been baked and broken, and now, it is ready to share. Pairing the Easter story with Luke’s story of feeding five thousand, we focus today on how the love of God expands to include everyone in need. Share the Bread of Life and confidently declare Christ is Risen! -Love Will Rise!

Psalm 118:19-29; John 6:25-35 This week we celebrate Palm Sunday, the one day a year when we really acknowledge how desperate and confused we are. We are filled with hope and fear all at the same time, and we turn to God and to one another, never really sure which emotions we will project. Even with all our preparations and attempts, we will fall short. We will be left feeling hungry. We still nee...

Psalm 119:9-16; Luke 13:6-9, 20-21 After so much work, it’s finally time to wait. It is time for the bread dough to rest, but if you watch closely, it is not resting idly. It is slowly rising. We have moved through this season of Lenten preparation to arrive at this moment of sabbath resting and hopeful rising. We are almost ready to follow Jesus to his last days of bread broken, shared and given...

Micah 6:6-8; 1 Corinthians 1:18-31 The cross and the church are foolishness in the world. Are they foolishness to you? Are you willing to do your part to see the foolishness of God redeem the world? Are you using your gift to the glory of God or was God just being foolish in centering plans in you?

Psalm 19: God’s Glory in Creation and the Law; Matthew 13:24-33 One of the most difficult steps of making bread is milling the wheat grains into flour. It takes both time and labor. The Bible doesn’t have very many references for milling flour, so we will focus this week on the Parable of the Weeds in Matthew 13, in which Jesus spoke about the farmer allowing weeds to grow alongside the wheat, sep...

Psalm 22:23-31; Exodus 16:2-5 , 13-30 It is hard to find a balance in life between what God does and what we do. When things are going well, how do we find a balance between gratitude for God’s blessings and celebration of our own hard work? When things are not going well, how do we balance our own frustration with trust in God’s provision? We continue our worhsip series this Sunday with a focus o...

Psalm 25: Prayer for Guidance and for Deliverance; Luke 8:1-5 When Jesus preached his sermons and parables, he often used illustrations relating to everyday life at the time- farming, family, cooking and sharing meals. In order to understand his meaning, it is helpful for us to learn more about bread in Jesus’ time. What was the process and labor needed to produce a loaf of bread? This Sunday, we...

2 Kings 2:1-12; Psalm 50:1-6:The Acceptable Sacrifice: A Psalm of Asaph; Mark 9:2-9 “God places us in the world as his fellow workers-agents of transfiguration. We work with God so that injustice is transfigured into justice, so there will be more compassion and caring, that there will be more laughter and joy, that there will be more togetherness in God's world.” -Arch Bishop Desmond Tutu

PSALM 147:1-11, 20; MARK 1:29-39; ISAIAH 40:21-31 Today I choose life. Every morning when I wake up I can choose joy, happiness, negativity, pain… To feel the freedom that comes from being able to continue to make mistakes and choices – today I choose to feel life, not to deny my humanity but embrace it. -Keyvin Aucoin

MARK 1:21-28; PSALM 11; DEUTERONOMY 18:15-20 “Scripture tells us that love “binds everything together.” It is how we are held. It is how we exist at all. Let us reawaken ourselves to love’s presence in this community through service. May our worship not be a rote motion, but rather an experience of relationship with you and those gathered here. Open in us what love is requiring of us today, O God,...

PSALM 62:5-12; MARK 1:14-20; JONAH 3:1-5,10 “In an ideal world we would all learn in childhood to love ourselves. We would grow, being secure in our worth and value, spreading love wherever we went, letting our light shine. If we did not learn self-love in our youth, there is still hope. The light of love is always in us, no matter how cold the flame. It is always present, waiting for the spark to...

JOHN 1:43-51; PSALM 139:1-6, 13-18;1 SAMUEL 3:1-20 “I don't have many certainties about God. I do have many hopes. Chief among them is that it’s true what they say: that God is love, is made of love and looks at the faces of you and me and my gramma and, without hesitation or demand, delights. ” - Cole Arthur Riley

Genesis 1:1-5; Matthew 2:1-12 Modern Herald - Audre Lorde “There are no new ideas. There are only new ways of making them felt.” OPENING MEDITATION “The beginning is always today” -Mary Shelley