First Congregational Church

In the Bible—in both the Hebrew Scripture and the New Testament—the name Asaph appears over 30 times.  Often an unsung hero, our scripture for today points to his significance for the Hebrew people and their faith.  Listen now to this reading from 1 Chronicles 16: 2-13:

When David had finished offering the burnt offerings and the offerings of well-being, he blessed the people in the name of Yahweh; and he distributed to every person in Israel—man and woman alike—to each a loaf of bread, a portion of meat, and a cake of raisins.

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New Testament Reading—1 Corinthians 10: 16-17

First a disclaimer: The following story is from the point of view of a fictional character named Stephanie Marks.  She is a junior at Washington University studying abroad in Kingston, Jamaica.  While the recipes and the names of the foods I’ll be mentioning come from an actual article about the food eaten by poor people in Jamaica and while the historical events I will be mentioning did occur, the rest comes from your pastor’s imagination.

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To listen to this sermon, click here.

Hebrew Scripture Reading—Jeremiah 8:18-9:1

One of my least favorite memories of college was the semester I decided to take a course entirely devoted to Dostoevsky.  Those of you who read my recent newsletter on Tolstoy will no doubt now conclude that I have an antagonistic view of Russian novelists. Whatever one concludes, I did at first enjoy the class on Dostoevsky.  The goal of the class was to read just about every single short story and novel written by the prolific author in chronological order.

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