Sunday, January 19, 2025

Dear Friends,

This weekend, we pause to honor the life and witness of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. As we reflect on the extraordinary impact of his vision and work, we are reminded that the task he began remains unfinished.

Dr. King understood that true transformation does not come easily. He faced fierce resistance, imprisonment, and ultimately gave his life because he dared to speak out against the entrenched evils of racism, segregation, and poverty. Yet he remained steadfast, grounded in hope, and firm in his belief that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

As we remember his legacy, we must ask ourselves: Are we willing to continue his work? Are we ready to confront the injustices of our own time, even when it is uncomfortable or costly?

Dr. King envisioned the “beloved community,” a world where people of every race live as siblings, bound together by love and justice. His dream was not a vague ideal but a hope deeply rooted in the Gospel—a conviction that God desires the full flourishing of every human being.

This weekend invites us to consider what that vision means for us today, in this moment of history. In a world fractured by political polarization and charged rhetoric, King’s challenge to us remains clear. From his cell in Birmingham in 1963, he wrote: “Be an extremist for love.” Let us embrace that call—not to despair or divisiveness but to bold, radical love, peace, and nonviolence.

This work begins within our own hearts, as we examine our complicity in injustice and recommit ourselves to sharing God’s love. From there, it flows outward into our communities, shaping a world that more closely reflects the Kingdom of God.

May we be instruments of grace, transforming King’s dream of the beloved community into a lived reality. Every step, no matter how small, brings us closer to the justice and love that Dr. King so courageously proclaimed. May it be so.

Love,

Cheryl

Sunday, January 12, 2025

Dear Friends,

The refrain of the 80’s/90’s song “Back to Life, Back to Reality” was the theme for many this week.  For some, it was the first “normal” rhythm that any of us had in a few weeks.

But was does it mean to live life and what is our reality? It’s a question that we ask often, especially as we return to the rhythms of our lives and work. And where is God in all of this? As we explore the themes of the epiphany season – the theme of seeing where God is manifest to us—it is an incredible time to not only be aware of God in it all, but to see God’s love reaching directly out to us so that we can share that with the world. 

This week we will hear the story of Jesus’s baptism by John in the Jordan River.  God declares to Jesus “You are … the beloved; with you I am well pleased.”  The question for us is whether we, as we go about our daily lives, are able to hear God’s voice declaring that truth about us. And how we can use this epiphany moment to better live our lives, better serve our community and better love a world that needs it. When God says, “I love you,” we don’t have to earn this love, prove our worth, or fear that we don’t measure up.  We need only accept it, receive it, rely on it, and share it.

This week we welcome back the Rev. Jake Miles Joseph to the THCC pulpit.  Jake is a UCC minister and the Associate Director of Alumni Engagement at Yale Divinity School. For two years prior, Jake was at the Anti-Defamation League, where he served as Associate Regional Director for Connecticut. He has served churches in Georgia and Colorado, and, most recently, two churches in Connecticut: First Congregational Church of Guilford and First Congregational Church of Fairfield where he is currently Preacher-in-Residence.  A Grinnell College alumnus, Jake served on Grinnell’s Alumni Council from 2021 to 2023. He has also been a leading advocate for fair housing, LGBTQ equality and creating change through an equity lens. In addition to his undergraduate degree from Grinnell, Jake has an M.Div. from Emory University. He has also earned a Certificate in Business Management Essentials from Cornell University and a Graduate Interdisciplinary Certificate in Human Rights from Emory.

I look forward to seeing you on Sunday!

Love,

Cheryl

Sunday, January 5, 2025

Dear Friends,

The dawn of the new year always directs my thoughts towards time, but even more so this year.  The build up to Christmas and having both the Christmas Day Holiday and the New Year’s Day Holiday fall on a Wednesday has me wondering even more about time and how I use it. While the calendar says that this is Friday, January 3, 2025, there is a part of me that feels like it is a Tuesday. I am finally taking this Friday to welcome the new year with a renewed perspective and hope for all the possibilities it holds.   
 
I learned this week that the etymology of resolution is resolvere (Latin): loosen, release. Yes, that’s right. Instead of battening down the hatches to hit harder at our goals, we’re supposed to use the New Year as an opportunity to let go.  We need to let things go to move forward into new beginnings. It is so much easier to find momentum to move forward if we lighten our load. This year, let’s embrace intentions that move us forward. If the Advent and Christmas seasons are about preparing room for Christ to be born in the stable of our hearts and Epiphany is seeing the light of Christ that allows us to move into new directions, I hope that we can live each day as a new beginning and a unique opportunity to encounter Emmanuel, the God with us. There is grace hidden in every moment. It is a gift, and it is up to us to see it. It is a meaningful and achievable resolution in the truest sense of the word. As we begin 2025, I invite you to join me to reflect on your inner life—not as a resolution to achieve, but as an act of love for yourself and the world around you. 
 
This week we are thrilled to welcome David Stuart to the pulpit.  Dave is a third-year student at Yale Divinity School.  He recently retired as a partner at the New York City law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore, where he spent most of his 28-year legal career.  Upon his retirement from Cravath, he began serving as Special Pro Bono Counsel at the firm overseeing the Incarcerated Survivors’ Initiative – an award-winning program he founded to represent incarcerated survivors of domestic and/or sexual violence. Later this month, he will begin a new role as Pastor of Teaching and Preaching at Wilton Congregational Church.  We are so lucky to have him with us.
 
We look forward to seeing you on Sunday morning.
 
Love,
Cheryl

Sunday, December 22, 2024

Dear Friends, 

Every year, we tell this amazing story.  It is full of mystery and magic.  It contains a large cast of unlikely characters.  We have a relatively poor young man, Joseph, and a remarkable young woman, Mary, who is reportedly a virgin.  We also have shepherds, angels, and astronomers.  The astronomers travel a great distance to bear witness.  

The heart of the story is quite remarkable.  It is intended to move God closer than God has ever been before.  God is not stuck up in heaven.  God is not only on the mountain top.  God is not trapped in big, or small, temples (or churches).  And to be very clear, God is not the possession of the rich and powerful.  God has arrived through a peasant girl in a barn somewhere outside of Jerusalem.  

What is the point of the message?  For one, God shows up in the everyday circumstances of our lives.  The good.  The bad.  The ugly.  With God, nothing is off the map.  Why does God show up in this manner?  Well, humanity is in real need of a gift.  There is an obvious problem on hand.  Human beings keep trying to make sense out of things … to feel better about themselves … to try and justify their existence in terribly misplaced ways.  Not to mention the corruption and violence that creeps into everything ….

So the gift arrives.  It’s hard to get your head around it, and in some ways even harder to get your heart around it.  Yet it’s an amazing story that threatens to give you more of what you need to have a better life or, at least, a life with more heart, more promise, more freedom.  More God.  

We hope you will come around this weekend.  On Sunday, we celebrate our version of the Christmas Pageant, “The Inn Keeper”.  Then on Christmas Eve, we will celebrate at 5:00 and 10:00 p.m.  Please come, and please let the story speak to you in some unexpected way.   

Warmly, 

Carter       

Sunday, December 15, 2024

Dear Friends,
 
We are at halftime!  Yes, halftime.  For those of you counting, this Sunday will mark our half way point in Advent and point towards Christmas, just a little over two weeks away. 
 
There is more to sports and spirituality than meets the eye. Think for a moment about what halftime is for sports fans:  Whether your team is winning or losing, there is enough of a game left for the outcome to go either way. It is also a scheduled time to take a break from the intense watching and grab a snack and a conversation with a friend.  Even if you aren’t a superfan and you went to the game out of duty and/or curiosity, halftime is the place where you don’t have to feign interest in the game. Moreover, if you are a player, halftime is the chance to recharge, reconnect with your team and review the strategy for the second half of the game. The third Sunday of Advent is that kind of halftime for our spiritual lives. We turn away from the challenging introspective reflection of the first two Sundays of Advent and we concentrate on seeing the joy that is always there.  We even light the pink candle to show that this week in Advent is just a bit different. This halftime break is an important time to remember that even in the darkest, most inward journey, there is always a place for joy.  It’s God’s gift to us.
 
Whether you are at Halftime at a sporting event, or halftime in Advent, joy causes us to forget about ourselves for a while. It allows us to bask in God’s great love and then return that love by sharing our joy with others.  I look forward to seeing you on Sunday to dwell in this joy and send some of it back out into a world that needs it.
 
Love,
Cheryl