Sabbath isn’t only rest, Rev. Derek van Gulden says: it’s delight, and a different kind of work, the liberating work Jesus did when he healed a woman bent over for eighteen years. A song a granddaughter played on repeat leads to a memory of a club in Burlington where people could finally be themselves, and to the simple ways we can set each other free.

Jesus says he came to bring fire and division, hard words in a world already divided and burning. Rev. Gracie Paterson places them in the line of prophets like Jeremiah, who refused to be a king’s yes-man, and finds the good news in a fire that clarifies and purifies: God’s standards of truth and justice are a torch in the darkness.

Rev. Gracie Paterson reads God’s promise to Abram of descendants as many as the stars alongside Hebrews’ roll call of the faithful, and finds three kinds of star power in our ancestors, whether by blood or by inspiration: awe, assurance and guidance. And we are all becoming ancestors for someone else.

Jesus’ parable of the rich man who builds bigger barns, and Mary’s song of the hungry filled and the rich sent away empty, speak loudly in a time of hunger at home and in Gaza. The congregation answers what it means to be rich toward God: prayer, listening, kindness, gratitude, sharing. Even Joseph stored grain, Rev. Derek van Gulden points out, so that all could eat.

Prayer is a conversation with God, says Rev. Derek van Gulden, but sometimes the words won’t come. Years ago in Kenya, a priest named Simon sent him out to help with the maize harvest instead; this spring, during an evening of chanting in the sanctuary, the words finally returned. The congregation is invited to add a word or two to a shared prayer.

Martha and Mary are often pitted against each other, but Rev. Derek van Gulden remembers a woman named Sylvia at the Floating Bridge Church in Vermont, coaxed out of the kitchen by a four-year-old, who turned out to be both at once. Hospitality matters, and so does sitting down to listen: true hospitality is being present with the guest you’ve invited in.

The Good Samaritan is so familiar we can miss it: the lawyer can’t even bring himself to say ‘the Samaritan.’ Rev. Derek van Gulden asks who the Samaritan would be in today’s divided world, and remembers an anonymous gift of a suit at the church rummage sale that helped someone land a job. Help often comes from where we’d never expect, and we’re called to give it the same way.

Jesus sends out the seventy with a blueprint: travel light, go in pairs, bless whoever welcomes you. Rev. Derek van Gulden remembers medical mission trips where leaving the extra stuff behind freed the team to listen, and reminds a congregation worried about its building that we are called to serve, not to keep a building, and never alone.

On Pride Sunday, Rev. Derek van Gulden asks whether flags and parades are enough, and follows Simon out into deep water, where the nets fill only after an exhausting night. Drawing on his own family’s story and a World War II Marine he once treated, the sermon calls for the next step: learning, giving, and getting involved where the need is.

On a Sunday celebrating music, Rev. Derek van Gulden shares Bonhoeffer’s words on music bringing us back from confusion to joy, invites the congregation to name the hymns that move them, and tells of a praise service in Vermont, years before ordination, where ‘Down to the River to Pray’ carried him somewhere he still returns to. We sing to God, about Christ, and for each other.