Rev. Timothy J. Ensworth
Heartbreak (Click on the sermon title for a .pdf copy)
Ecclesiastes 8:9-17
October 29, 2017
Life, your life, is not all sweetness and light, is it?
Sometimes it is disappointing.
You had to reserve the campground four months in advance, so this one day is your window of opportunity to climb the mountain you’ve waited thirty years to climb, and it’s raining. … Continue reading ...
Plain and simple (Click on the sermon title for a .pdf copy)
Ecclesiastes 7:1-10
October 22, 2017
It is better to go to a home where there is mourning than to one where there is a party, because the living should always remind themselves that death is waiting for us all.
Sounds rather Eeyore-ish, doesn’t it? You remember Eeyore?
Eeyore, the old grey Donkey, stood by the side of the stream, and looked at himself in the water.… Continue reading ...
I don’t know (Click on the sermon title for a .pdf copy)
Ecclesiastes 6:1-12
October 15, 2017
As of July 1 next summer, my life’s journey will take me into unknown territory. I have never been retired before. Some of you are retired and you’ve told me it’s a good thing, but I’ve never experienced it for myself.
My whole life has been impelled by clear duties: obey my parents, do well in school, do well at my job, and my identity and sense of self-worth have come in large part from fulfilling those duties. … Continue reading ...
Awe (Click on the sermon title for a .pdf copy)
Ecclesiastes 5:1-7
October 8, 2017
Alleluia.
You sing it quietly and confidently. You sing it loudly and joyfully. You sing it urgently. You sing it plaintively. You sing it gratefully.
You sing it, you say it — “alleluia” — in so many different ways. There is no one right way to say it. … Continue reading ...
Dust (Click on the sermon title for a .pdf copy)
Ecclesiastes 3:16 – 4:6
October 1, 2017
This is as bleak as Ecclesiastes gets. This is one of the darkest chapters in a rather dark book.
Hard work is useless.
Our lives have no more meaning than the lives of animals.
It would be better to have never been born.
Bleak. … Continue reading ...
Business (Click on the sermon title for a .pdf copy)
Ecclesiastes 3:1-15
September 24, 2017
During choir rehearsal last Wednesday evening, Ben commented on the unusual piano introduction to Rutter’s “To Everything There is a Season.” He said he was not sure what it meant, but that he was sure it meant something! What do you think it means? Listen again …
(Miah plays on the piano the first twenty-four measures of the piece.)… Continue reading ...
Chasing the wind (Click on the sermon title for a .pdf copy)
Ecclesiastes 2:4-17, 24-26
September 17, 2017
So here we are, you and me, a hundred and some of us, gathered in the sanctuary on a Sunday morning, here together for one hour of the twenty-four hours of this day, for one day of the seven days of this week, for one week of the fifty-two weeks of this year, for one year of the however many years each of us have lived already and however many years each of us have left to live. … Continue reading ...
Short and hasty … and useless? (Click on the sermon title for a .pdf copy)
Ecclesiastes 1:2-11
September 10, 2017
Useless, useless, said the Philosopher.
I used to be a philosopher. I was a student of philosophy at Yale University. There were few of us then and probably even fewer now. I was so thrilled when I found out that Cole Highnam was studying philosophy and loving it.… Continue reading ...
Do not let evil defeat you (Click on the sermon title for a .pdf copy)
Romans 12:9-21, Jeremiah 15:15-21
September 3, 2017
Do not let evil defeat you.
Do you believe in a personal devil? I don’t know. I don’t know if I do or not, but I most definitely do not believe in anything like the caricatured devil of fable and popular culture, you know, some kind of hideous, sneering, leering red demon with horns and a trident.… Continue reading ...
Moses (Click on the sermon title for a .pdf copy)
Exodus 1:8 – 2:10
August 27, 2017
I pulled him out of the water, and so I name him Moses …
Moses. His name was Moses, which means “pulled out,” because he was pulled out of the water, pulled out of the place among the reeds at the edge of the river where his mother has hidden him, pulled out by the slave of an Egyptian princess.… Continue reading ...