On Epiphany, Rev. Derek van Gulden wonders what the Magi’s gold, frankincense and myrrh might mean for us now, and members of the congregation step forward as stargazers and a shepherd to name the gifts God asks of us: justice, joy, compassion and peace. Look up to the skies, and into each other.

A young farmer in a snowed-in Vermont church once taught Rev. Derek van Gulden to keep it short, and this sermon does. Simeon and Anna join Mary and Joseph, the shepherds and the Magi in a line of unlikely people God chose to recognize who this child was; we all take our own time to notice.

In the Christmas Eve homily, Rev. Derek van Gulden hands the story to Malachi, cousin of Joseph, whose house in Bethlehem was so full of relatives that the only room left was downstairs with the animals. With that first cry, Malachi says, time reset itself, and hope came back into an occupied world.

On the last Sunday of Advent, Rev. Derek van Gulden turns to Joseph, who could have done what custom demanded and instead wrapped his arms around Mary and the child. Their two yeses made love available to the world in a new way, or, as a favorite professor put it after a certain Christmas movie, love actually.

On the Advent Sunday of Joy, Rev. Derek van Gulden takes Mary down off the pedestal: a poor teenager in an occupied land who says yes anyway, and whose Magnificat is a protest song about scattering the proud and filling the hungry. Which church, the sermon asks, would welcome Mary if she walked in today?

Jesus was born into a world where those who spoke up disappeared and a few had everything. Rev. Derek van Gulden turns to Zechariah, struck silent until his son John was born, who still found ways to do what he was called to do, and asks us to use the voice we have, together, for those who have none.

On the first Sunday of Advent, Rev. Derek van Gulden describes the world Jesus was born into, centuries of silence and occupation under Caesar and Herod, and asks the congregation to name what feels oppressive now. The good news is that God chose that moment to enter the world, and hope, however small, is still the antidote to fear.

Thanksgiving is about sharing a meal, and so was much of Jesus’ ministry, from the agape feasts of the first Christians to the feeding of the five thousand. Rev. Mike Duda reads the parable of the rich man and Lazarus as a word for today, when food aid is being cut at home and abroad, and calls the community to gather, eat together and stand up for those at the gate.

In a stewardship sermon, Rev. Derek van Gulden takes James at his word (quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger, and doers of the word, not only hearers) and walks through all the Old Sloop does: faith formation, outreach, music, the Old Sloop Fleet and a building open to the whole town. What does this church mean to you, and how much of yourself will you give?

Rev. Derek van Gulden sets a plastic Jesus amid a beach’s worth of plastic and calls our dependence on it a modern golden calf, harming the sea, the poorest neighborhoods and perhaps even the water in the baptismal font. Psalm 23 reminds us we’re given all we need; a refillable water bottle is a place to start.