Sermons & Worship by Rev. Laurie DeMott (Page 17)

Matthew 13:1-9, 33 The other day, I was indulging my love of silly sci-fi by watching a show about time travel and in this particular episode, the characters had traveled back to the 1940s where they met the film actress Hedy Lamarr.  Hedy Lamarr was a classic MGM star, known for her stunning good looks and seductive demeanor but in this episode, the time travelers had arrived right before her big break and, as always happens in these stories, the…

John 1:1-11 There’s a lot of competition today between the tech giants Google, Amazon, and Apple as they constantly vie to be the best that technology can offer but I recently saw proof that Apple is closer to perfection than all the rest or at least its assistant Siri is.  You see, Siri is without sin.  Literally.  I know this because when I am walking my dogs, I often use my phone to take notes on my musings for the…

Luke 5:1-11 This is a slightly different sermon than I planned on preaching because as you know, this past week, in an event that is becoming despairingly frequent, a young man walked into a high school in Florida and opened fire, killing 17 people.  When the news broke, our hearts also broke… again as they have so many times over the past few years.  There has been so much killing — sometimes the violence has been racially based as it…

Luke 4:16-30 In today’s passage from Luke, Jesus stands up in worship before his neighbors and friends in his hometown of Nazareth and reads from the scroll of Isaiah. Initially, the people are pleased with him, proud of his scholarship and the eloquence of this man they’ve watched grow up. Moreover, he has declared that God’s favor is about to poured out on the world which sounds pretty good to them. Who among us wouldn’t love to hear that God…

Luke 4:1-15 Winter in western NY can be harsh.  Even in a fairly mild winter, there will be days when the wind scours your skin and the cold burrows into your bones, when you walk with creaks and clackings, a brittle skeleton of living icicles.  When my oldest son John was looking at colleges, he decided to go to Nazareth College in Rochester partly because its system of underground tunnels allows students to walk from their warm bedrooms to their…

Luke 3:23-38 No matter how old we get, no matter how far from childhood we’ve come, family always seems to be with us.  And I don’t mean it in a physical sense like they’re always dropping in with a car full of luggage to disrupt your routine and eat you out of house and home but what can you do about it because, after all, they are family?  I’m talking about the way they take up residence in your psyche,…

Luke 3 and 6 Today is a 3 for the price of 1 Day! Instead of getting just one measly sermon for your money this morning, you will also get a little bible study and a church history lesson complete with visual aids. And by the time you walk out of here, you will know a little more about the doctrine of the Trinity, the meaning of the incarnation, and why anyone should care. Obviously we have a lot of…

Luke 2:21-35 A young man once climbed to the top of the bell tower of the local Episcopal church hoping to impress his girlfriend with his courage but to his embarrassment, he got stuck up there and couldn’t get down. Seeing the rector passing by below, he called out, “Father, save me! Save me! The priest looked up and said, “Young man, we are Episcopalian. We don’t use that kind of language here!” Although all Christian groups recognize the word…

December 31, 2017 NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS  “From the desert monastics” by Daniel B. Clendenin Daniel Clendenin is a professor of theology who earned his Ph.D. from Drew University, taught at William Tyndale College in Michigan, and then at Moscow State University for four years.  Though raised an evangelical, his time in Russia led him to in-depth explorations of Christianity’s orthodox traditions.  He spent several years reading the fourth century writings of monastic hermits who fled the growing corruption of church at…

Philippians 2:1-5 At Christmas time, we tell stories of shepherds and angels, of stars and magi, and of stables and cattle a-lowing, and every year, news magazines run articles that evaluate the historicity of the nativity story. Astronomers discuss whether the star of Bethlehem might have been a supernova or a particular alignment of planets that sent the magi scurrying to Judea to check out the prophetic implications. Theologians debate whether the virgin birth was real or a Christianized version…