Shows
Yes! We're Open: Living Faith with Needham UCCLearn to Rest, Not to Quit (Rev. John MacIver Gage: August 17, 2025)We're pivoting this Sunday to address what's shaped up to be a pretty stressful and painful week (in the midst of a stressful and painful season) for a lot of folks, what with the occupation of Washington, DC by federal law enforcement, a formal request to the Supreme Court to overturn marriage equality, the ongoing starvation of Gaza, etc. etc. etc. and God only knows what's going on in your life. This isn't a preaching service but a praying one, with a lot of help from author Cole Arthur Riley's Black Liturgies: Prayers, Poems, and Meditations for Staying Human...
2025-08-1729 min
Yes! We're Open: Living Faith with Needham UCCThe Very Real Challenges of Uniting in Christ (Rev. John MacIver Gage: August 10, 2025)"How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity," sings the Psalmist (Psalm 133:1). Sure, it can be, but it's also really hard. In fact, sometimes the closer we are with our family, the harder it can be to "live together." But finding ways to live together in unity--not uniformity-- with our wider church family is an important part of following Jesus and a sign of the way and reign of God he preached and embodied. This Sunday we'll reflect on that work in light of decisions made at General Synod this summer to move into...
2025-08-1024 min
Yes! We're Open: Living Faith with Needham UCCJust Stop It (Rev. John MacIver Gage: August 3, 2025)The political conflict between the state of Israel and Hamas is complicated by history, religion, anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim hatred, the entangling alliances with both parties, and, not least, the special place the state of Israel holds in the theological fantasies of American Evangelical Christians. But the moral calculus is much simpler. Israel isn't just conducting a war against Hamas but carrying out a campaign of genocide against the entire Palestinian people--men, women, and children--and we in the the U.S. are helping to fund it. Just stop it. (Jeremiah 31:15-17)In Worship 7/27-8/24, "Big Picture: Themes from...
2025-08-0418 min
Yes! We're Open: Living Faith with Needham UCCWe're All Sodomites Now* *Just Not the Way You Think (Rev. John MacIver Gage: July 27, 2025)The ancient city of Sodom has been synonymous with sin and the consequences of sin for thousands of years. These days it’s sexual sin they’re most associated with and infamous for, specifically homosexuality. But that’s a modern development and not what the Hebrew prophets or even Jesus meant when they considered the city. For most of history, Sodom’s sin was understood to be the hoarding of resources and inhospitality to immigrants. So watch out, United States of America. Given how we’re treating the foreigners among us, fire and brimstone might be in the forecast for us, to...
2025-07-2723 min
Yes! We're Open: Living Faith with Needham UCCOne Flesh (A Year W Sermon)For the beginning of Lent, we're taking it all the way back to The Beginning, when God made the entire variety of human beings from one flesh. Yet ever since, it seems, we have been dividing and categorizing and ranking people because they are different. And from the beginning, women have borne the brunt of that division. But God loves our differences and God doesn't divide. So can we get a do-over? Can we begin again, better? (Genesis 2:7-9, 15-25) Rev. John MacIver Gage, preaching.This sermon is part of our Year W project, spending a year l...
2023-02-2823 min
Yes! We're Open: Living Faith with Needham UCCTrickle Up (A Year W Sermon)In this country we’ve long been told by so-called experts that the best way to help Main Street and the folks struggling to live there is to support Wall Street and the fat cat corporations that do very well there, that they economic blessings bestowed on them will trickle down to those below. But those below are still waiting. Good thing God doesn’t wait and helps them first. (Luke 4:16-27; 1 Kings 17:8-16) Rev. John MacIver Gage, preaching.This sermon is part of our Year W project, spending a year listening for the voices of women, girl...
2023-02-2823 min
Yes! We're Open: Living Faith with Needham UCCThe Multiplication of Blessing (A Year W Sermon)Sadly, we don’t talk much about blessings these days, aside from the holidays, perhaps, when we are reminded to “count our blessings.” Which is fine as far as it goes, but if we stop there, we miss the point that we are called to multiply and share our blessings, even--espeically--with those we deem 'least likely." Because that's what God does. That's who God is. (Genesis 17:15-22; Luke 1:39-45) Preacher: The Rev. John MacIver GageThis sermon is part of our yearlong Year W journey, a year listening for the voices of women, girls, and the divine feminin...
2022-12-1319 min
Yes! We're Open: Living Faith with Needham UCCChoosing People (A Year W Sermon)If you’ve been around the church at all, especially around Christmas time, you’re likely familiar with the story of the Annunciation, when God announces to Mary that has been chosen to bear a special blessing. But the Biblical witness is that God chooses lots of people, many even less well-off and far less well remembered than Mary, including Hagar. (Luke 1:26-38; Genesis 16:7-13) Preacher: The Rev. John MacIver GageThis sermon is part of our yearlong Year W journey, a year listening for the voices of women, girls, and the divine feminine in scripture with the g...
2022-12-1328 min
Yes! We're Open: Living Faith with Needham UCCOur Peculiar IdolatryIdolatry is such an old-fashioned word. But what else can we call it when we value some thing, some possession, profit, or principle more than the lives of actual people? In our United States, guns are one of our peculiar idols, and the sacrifices just keep piling up. (Luke 3:1-6) Rev. John MacIver Gage, preaching.---The Congregational Church of Needham strives to be a radically inclusive, justice-seeking, peace- making, love-affirming congregation of the United Church of Christ in Needham, MA. Join us for hybrid worship on-site and online LIVE! via Zoom, Sundays @ 10am ET...
2022-05-3033 min
Yes! We're Open: Living Faith with Needham UCCDear EarthIn our faith tradition, God calls us to be stewards of creation, to “take care of it and look after it” (Genesis 2:15). But as Buddhist teacher, activist, and poet Thich Nhat Hanh reminds us in his book Love Letters to the Earth, that “it” is us. We are the earth and the earth is us. And we care for the earth not out of external obligation but from an intimate place of love. Now, when creation is suffering so, it’s a good time to remember that… and to say it, out loud, maybe even write it down to remember. Re...
2022-04-2524 min
Yes! We're Open: Living Faith with Needham UCCWhile It Was Still Dark1am. 2am 3am. Technically, these are early morning hours, but as anyone who’s woken up then knows, it is still quite dark. Sometimes only the clock tells you it’s the morning and not midnight. The Gospel According to John is clear that, just as a new day is born in the dark, whatever resurrection is, it’s something that begins while it is still dark. And doubt is one of the Easter dark's greatest gifts. (John 20:1-18) The Rev. John MacIver Gage, preaching---The Congregational Church of Needham strives to be a radica...
2022-04-1726 min
Yes! We're Open: Living Faith with Needham UCCThe Scent of HolinessAs his coming conflict with the authorities looms large, a woman spends the time and the money to anoint Jesus with precious oil in an act of pure devotion. Yet one of the disciples—let’s call him J.I.—objects on the grounds that her money should have been spent on something more productive. But sometimes the very best we can do is stop and smell the holiness. (John 12:1-8) Rev. John MacIver Gage, preacher.The Congregational Church of Needham strives to be a radically inclusive, justice-seeking, peace- making, love-affirming congregation of the United Church of Christ...
2022-04-0420 min
Yes! We're Open: Living Faith with Needham UCCThe Ones + The ManyIt’s said that charity is pulling drowning people out of the river, while justice is walking upstream to stop whoever’s throwing them in. The trick, of course, is to do both, to help individuals and change systems; to do just one or the other leaves too many people open to harm. But how, Jesus, how? (Luke 13:31=5) The Rev. John MacIver Gage, preacher.The Congregational Church of Needham strives to be a radically inclusive, justice-seeking, peace- making, love-affirming congregation of the United Church of Christ in Needham, MA. Join us for hybrid worship on-site and online LIVE...
2022-03-1421 min
Yes! We're Open: Living Faith with Needham UCCA Prayer of Queer ThanksgivingFor this LGBTQ+ Pride Sunday: "A Prayer of Queer Thanksgiving." A chance encounter on Pride parade day calls forth a rainbow revelation, a great cloud of witnesses--and martyrs, and a vision of chosen family in the kin-dom of God. Rev. John MacIver Gage shares a poem-slash-prayer originally offered by Rev. Micah Bucey.Here are all the names mentioned in the poem. Give yourself a little Pride Week homework and look up all the ones you don't know: Marsha P. Johnson; Sylvia Rivera; Christine Jorgensen; Marlene Dietrich; Sylvester; David Bowie; Billy Tipton; Langston Hughes; Lorraine Hansberry; James Baldwin...
2021-06-2711 min
Yes! We're Open: Living Faith with Needham UCCTrinityAt first glance, the doctrine of the Trinity may seem like some kind of mathematical joke at best, a dangerous irrationality at worst.. How can 1 really be 3 or 3 be 1? But maybe the point isn’t knowing God with our heads but with our hearts? Kind of like people. It’s not that logic and reason aren’t important; they’re just so limited and limiting. A reflection on John 3:1-10, Rev. John MacIver Gage, preaching.Join us for LIVE! Zoom worship Sundays @ 10am EDT. Connection info at www.NeedhamUCC.orgThe Congregational Church of Needham strives...
2021-05-3025 min
Yes! We're Open: Living Faith with Needham UCCWhisperPentecost Sunday we celebrate the transforming power of the Holy Spirit in our lives, the same Spirit who turned frightened disciples into bold messengers of good news “with the sound of a violent wind.” But something doesn’t have to be loud to be important or powerful. Sometimes a whisper changes the world, and you along with it. Romans 8:22-27 (Rev. John MacIver Gage, preacher)Join us for LIVE! Zoom worship Sundays @ 10am EDT. Connection info at www.NeedhamUCC.orgThe Congregational Church of Needham strives to be a radically Inclusive, justice-seeking, peace- making, love-affirming congrega...
2021-05-2320 min