Text: Luke 2:22-40 Receiving is not easy for me. By nature and profession, I am a giver. Giving is what I do best—whether it is giving of myself to another or to a cause; or giving comfort or my time or my resources to people in need; or just giving something tangible to someone I […]

Text: John 1 To Mary’s voice, and that of the angels and the shepherds, we hear the Christmas story through John’s voice. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without […]

Text: Isaiah 40:1-11 & Mark 1:1-8 Thursday night, I sat in the home of Layla and Farris Barakat with twenty-five Muslims and two other non-Muslims. Layla and Farris are the mother and brother of Deah Barakat, the UNC-Chapel Hill dental school student who was shot execution style in his Chapel Hill apartment along with his […]

Text: Mark 13:24-37 Once every eight weeks, I would make the early morning drive up US-1, turn right on Hwy 98 and head toward the town of Wake Forest. At Southeastern Seminary, I would follow 98 to the right, circle around the campus, take the first right onto North College Street and make my way […]

Katey Zeh, author and activist for women’s reproductive rights, as well as a member of Pullen, stood in the pulpit this week. We thank her for daily work as well as her interpretation she brought to the pulpit. Text: Matthew 25:31-46 Growing on up on St. Simons Island off the coast of South Georgia, it […]

*Due to the nature of this message, we are only publishing the audio. Texts: The Hebrew Scriptures – Psalm 123 The Qur’an Imam Abdullah Antepli and Pastor Nancy E. Petty

Text: Joshua 24:1-2a, 14-18 Amos 5:18-24 My grandmother had a ritual after eating dinner. After dinner she would sit back in her kitchen chair and say with a sneaky grin on her face: “Now I need me a little taste of something sweet.” Karla and I have continued this little ritual. At least once a […]

Text: Matthew 23:1-12 “We celebrate those saints who have never been called by that name, who have been excluded from the sainthood because our vision of God’s community is too limited.” These words that we spoke earlier in our prayer begs the question: What shapes our imagination of holiness? Or a different way of framing […]

Text: Exodus 34:1-12   When Death Comes When death comes like the hungry bear in autumn; when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse to buy me, and snaps the purse shut; when death comes like the measle-pox when death comes like an iceberg between the shoulder blades, I want to […]

Text: Matthew 22:15-22 A rule of etiquette in business and at the dinner table is: “never talk about religion or politics.” “Do not discuss politics or religion in general company” is from 1879. Some rules of business etiquette have changed over time, but this well-known adage from Hill’s Manual of Social and Business Forms, a […]