January 11, 2026
“A Good Song Never Dies”
Sermon for U-CC Waupun
I remember the joy I experienced when I got my first iPod. Since I was my parents’ live-in babysitter for my younger sister Emily, they thought that they should do something nice for me for my 12th birthday. For years, I had faithfully been carrying around my Sony portable CD player, so often that my dad finally had to tape the battery compartment shut so the batteries would stay in! Because that's how often I used it—music was something that was with me wherever I went, and my parents decided that having something that was more portable, but held more music would make me happier for longer when we were away from home
Of course, when I got that first iPod, I lost my mind, because I could hold something like 500 songs—which was a lot at the time—in this tiny little device that fit in my pocket. It meant I could branch out even further in my music listening. I could listen to songs in different languages, sad songs, happy songs, religious songs, non-religious songs, all sorts of songs. I didn't get the really fancy one that held 1000 songs but that was OK with me because at least I had one that held 500.
I remember that the marketing slogan when the iPod first came out was that you could have “1000 songs in your pocket’. A revolutionary technological breakthrough. But that's kind of like what the psalms are; 150 songs in your pocket. The Psalms is one of my favorite books in the Bible because it speaks to the entire arc of human experience — perhaps more completely than almost any other book of scripture. I titled this sermon A Good Song Never Dies in part because, in biblical times, the Psalms were not simply read; they were sung. Sometimes in shouts of praise or cries of anguish or whispers of uncertainty, sometimes all three at the same time. The book of Psalms does not have a singular author. There are probably many authors and each Psalm is a vignette into somebody's life. Most biblical scholars agree that the psalms can be placed into three major categories and then a couple of subcategories off of those. The first two major categories are Psalms of praise and psalms of Thanksgiving, offering either praise God for God's majesty of God's creation, or offer thanks to God for something God has done for the individual or community. That's the category we're looking at today, of course. But over a third of the psalms in the psalter are in a different category called Lament Psalms, capturing moments of desperation, sadness, loneliness, and even anger, wondering where God is and how God is present.
So today, I’m going to talk about how the Psalms—and especially Psalm 40—accompany us through both joy and grief.
No matter our political leanings, I think that we can all agree that this has been a hard week in the news, with the tragedy coming out of Minnesota this week. No matter how we feel about immigration in this country or the actions of our federal government this week, I think that we can all agree that there are few easy answers to solving the many problems in our country. Here in this congregation, I believe that we are people who do our best to seek justice for all people and to do our best to demonstrate the incredible love of God in and through our words and actions.
So it seems fitting that we are drawn to the Psalms today.
In story after story, we get vignettes of what's going on from our various news sources, each speaking their own angle of the situation, which may include some of the facts, but not all of them, or may tell some of the story, but not all of it. This particular Psalm happens to be mostly joyful.
In our focus text today, Psalm 40, the Psalmist says that they waited patiently for God's deliverance and God came through. The Psalmist continues by saying, happy are those who make the Lord their trust, who do not turn to the proud, to those who go astray after false gods. To be able to praise God that wholeheartedly and effusively, it's important to remember that we have to know pain.
We have to know the pain of being “in the desolate pit”. And there are plenty of Psalms that speak to that reality as well. I wonder what Psalm might be accompanying the hearts and minds of the people in Minnesota this week. I have a hard time believing that it would be Psalm 40, the one we're discussing today. But that's kind of the nature and the beauty of the Psalms. This book of various moments in people's lives is given to us that we might understand that living a life of faith is not easy.It's not always happy-clappy. It's not always joyful. A few verses later, after our passage stops, the psalmist turns to recognize some of the difficulties they've already faced.
The psalm continues with verses 12-14:
For evils have encompassed me
without number;
my iniquities have overtaken me
until I cannot see;
they are more than the hairs of my head,
and my heart fails me.
13
Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me;
O Lord, make haste to help me.
14
Let all those be put to shame and confusion
who seek to snatch away my life;
let those be turned back and brought to dishonor
who desire my hurt.
That part of the psalm seems to be a bit more relevant to the discord facing our country right now.
But it's in these moments where we can remember that God can still come to us, even in spite of the horrible things happening we hear on the news. It's important to remember in these times that we are not alone in our grief or anger over the state of the world.
The psalm finally ends by saying:
17
As for me, I am poor and needy,
but the Lord takes thought for me.
You are my help and my deliverer;
do not delay, O my God.
So lest we think that the beginning of Psalm 40 suggests an easy, uncomplicated psalm of thanksgiving and deliverance, the rest of the psalm reminds us that’s not true. And I’m reminded that most of the music we hear on our iPods or on the radio isn’t surface-level either. These songs help us name what’s heavy and trust that God is carrying us through the times we’re living in.
So as you go into this week, this is a question that I'm hoping you'll consider: can you remember a moment where God brought you out of struggle, where God gave you a new song to sing in your heart?
Even in a world of so much despair, even when the state of our country keeps us up at night, even when politics continue to divide us—despite all of the pain in the world—may you rejoice that you know the deliverance of God. And once you've had the opportunity to thank God for way, God has delivered you, may you do the same for someone else through way as big and small. There are so many wonderful ways that our congregation is already helping the community. Just this week I had the opportunity to assist multiple families that need through our family support fund, and both of them expressed incredible gratitude for even the small gift that they had been given.
No matter if you give money, share food, or simply offer a compassionate word or smile…you are doing real ministry. You are offering others the opportunity to sing a psalm of Thanksgiving in their hearts. For that, I say thanks be to God. Amen.
January 4, 2026
“Waking Up”
Sermon for U-CC Waupun
Most of you know that I'm not a morning person.
At all.
On my earliest wake up days, which so happen to be Sundays, before I have my morning coffee, I'm often pretty grumpy and don't know where I am half the time. I curse the clock and wonder to myself why on earth I decided to pastor a church whose services always begin before 10:00. I've even tried to talk to the diaconate over the years about changing the service times, and…let's just say that didn't go over so well.
It's even harder for me to get up in the morning when it's cold and snowy outside, when icy roads are difficult for me as someone who can’t drive right now, and is liable to fall more often because of my disability. I already have an anxiety disorder, and the idea of slipping and falling certainly doesn't help matters at all.
But when I found this sermon series, I decided that it might be helpful to me and to a lot of us. During Epiphany, we are embarking on a new sermon series called Spiritual Affective Disorder, recognizing that this is a hard time of year for a lot of people because the weather is cold, the roads and sidewalks are icy, and sometimes that means that most of us feel a bit “blah”. In the midst of this series, the author Dr. Marcia McFee wants to help pastors and their churches have spiritual practices for resilience in this time. The series gives us not just spiritual practices that we can apply once during an already chaotic day or week, but instead gives us examples of how things we already do to take care of ourselves are already helping us maintain our resilience and spirituality through this really difficult time. This week we're talking about waking up in the morning and how that empowers us to do the work of love and justice.
All of this was planned well before the military action in Venezuela this week. It’s alarming, and many fear what the consequences may be. I'm well aware that some of us come to church to get away from the politics of the day and remind us of how God cares for us and loves us and calls us to be better people. I'm also mindful that others of us come to church with the difficulties of the world very much on our minds. We want to imagine how the news we hear interacts with God's hope for the world. Additionally, we reflect on how we might be called to respond with justice, love, hopefulness, and joy—whether at Union-Congregational Church in Waupun, within the wider United Church of Christ, or throughout the rest of the world. So I'm not going to get too political here, but I'm going to try to share something with you that is mindful of all of these realities, and most importantly, mindful to the scripture which has been set before us.
Because no matter the context in which we read scripture today, we have to remember that Jesus did not come into a simple world. Jesus did not come into a happy world. Jesus came into a world that was badly in need of turning around. Kind of like many of us feel about the world we live in today So today we are going to continue with our regular epiphany observances, understanding that the light of Christ shines even in seemingly hopeless and uncomfortable times.
If you get one thing from this sermon today, I want it to be this: Jesus still comes to us even when the world may seem difficult, and causes us to be people of faith who are dedicated to the work of justice in the world. His light shines through us and around us and everything we are and everything we do.
In order for us to understand that, let's set the scene a little bit. Our scripture is from the book of Isaiah, in the Old Testament, far before Jesus was even conceived by the Holy Spirit, but the prophecy of his coming is a big part of why the book of Isaiah is important to modern-day Christians. Several commentators remind us that when this poem was written, Jerusalem was a defeated and nearly forgotten city on the margins of the Persian Empire. Into that reality, the prophet dares to speak hope: “Arise, shine, for your light has come.” God invites Jerusalem to see itself not as abandoned or insignificant, but as radiant with God’s own glory—a light so strong that even nations once lost in hopelessness are drawn toward it, bringing their people and their gifts. This is why this text is often paired with other scriptures commonly used for Epiphany, including the visitation of the newborn Jesus by the magi. Epiphany Sunday typically recognizes the Sunday where the so called three kings show up and bring gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. There was one thing the people in Isaiah’s time and Jesus’ time had in common: though the people were weak and under the oppressive rule of others, there was something special about them—something so captivating that nations and kings were drawn to them, eager to explore the mysterious light shining from a faraway place. It’s a sort of hoping; as Collective Soul asks in their song, “Shine”, which ew’ve just heard—will love be there?
Marcia McFee talks a lot about the gift of waking up in the morning, and how waking up is not just something we do as a biological necessity, but something that empowers us for the work that is set out for us that day. She writes, “This spiritual practice of arising is so important not only because it invites us to an awareness of the potential of God's abundance each day, but also because it is a way we can be grateful, even when depression can make that feeling of gratitude hard to recognize or even feel.”
In other words, in times of hopelessness and despair, God will arise upon us and God's glory appears around us. Every day, God gives us new possibilities for a world which is not here yet That's kind of a strange thing to think about, when all around us it seems that there is so much sadness and brokenness and pain and conflict. But this is exactly the world that Jesus came into, and this is the world that Jesus still comes into today.
In the Isaiah passage, camels are the main long‑distance carriers of treasure and goods in the ancient Near East, so they represent incoming wealth and tribute from far‑off lands. That coming wealth gave a scared people a sense of hope.
Jesus may not come to bring us immense wealth, but he does bring a loving presence in spite of all the difficulties.
As much as all of us desire a world where war and conflict are not part of the news cycle, whether at home or abroad, we don't live in that kind of world, at least not right now. So today we remember that Christ the Savior is born—in us and among us and around us and through us, and that we are the hands and feet of Christ to do what is ours to do to care for the vulnerable, work for peace, and build a world of hope.
It's a nice thought, but how are we going to do that?
I don't know how our political social or ideological conflicts are going to shake out in the months and years ahead. But I think there's a very simple and yet revolutionary thing that we must do together here in this small town.
In smaller communities, it is so much easier for our discourse to divide us. We simply don't have access to broader communities of support to get us through the hardest times that we face. So I want to remind you that words matter and that how we treat each other as people matters. We as people are much bigger than what divides us. We may have intense political disagreements over the weeks and months and years to come because of the moment that our country is facing. But every day I'm reminded that we worship a God who comes to us in spite of all that, who comes to us hoping that we will treat one another as people in need of God's grace just as much as we are, and people who genuinely want to build a better community. I think I can speak confidently about this church that that's something we want to do.
So we find little ways to work for justice. We do our best to care for the vulnerable. We take care of our neighbors without fear or favor. We remind ourselves that each day we have a new start, and that we don't have to let Yesterday’s problems dictate how we are going to live today and tomorrow.
God's light lives in you and cannot be extinguished by any kind of darkness. You are wonderful people who can provide hope to a hurting world through what you do. This week, I challenge you to do one small act of kindness for someone in your life, or maybe even a stranger. When you wake up, instead of feeling grumpy, find one small way to let in some grace. Why does that work with my sermon today? Because doing an act of kindness are ways that we can provide hope and light to a world in need of it. No matter what kind of scary things are going on in the world, no matter the uncertainty we feel, may you be a reminder to somebody else that Jesus still comes for them. Christ keeps showing up with the hope of a new start. For that I say thanks be to God. Amen.