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SPSA member Hannah Reasoner is currently in Colombia as a UM Global Mission Fellow. Each month, we will post her Newsletter update. NOVEMBER NEWSLETTER Hola,  On October 15, after packing and repacking my bags, receiving a negative covid test, hugging my parents, and five or six hours in the air, I was welcomed back to […]

Gratitude Thanksgiving Sunday Today’s Reading: Deuteronomy 8:7-18 Do not say to yourself, ‘My power and the might of my own hand have gained me this wealth.’ Deuteronomy 8:17 On this Thanksgiving Sunday, we want to consider one of the most important of all Christian virtues, gratitude. And we are doing that with the help of […]

No Time for the Timid Twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost Today’s Reading: Matthew 25:14-30 “The landowner said, ‘Well done, you good and trustworthy worker; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; come, share my joy!’”  Matthew 25:21 The Parable of the Talents, the lectionary text for […]

Holy Worry Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost Today’s Reading: Matthew 6: 25-33 “Therefore, do not worry…”  Matthew 6:25 During this stressful time, I continue to spend time with the Sermon on the Mount, the looong collection of Jesus’ sayings that covers three chapters of Matthew’s Gospel. And there, right in the middle, is the passage where Jesus tells […]

Dear Community, So much is unsettled and uncertain right now. We are all exhausted. There is no better time to come together and pray. At 5pm today (Wednesday, November 4), we will do just that with our siblings and neighbors from houses of worship on the Upper West Side. By connecting with our community and […]

For All Our Saints All-Saints Sunday / Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost Today’s Reading: Isaiah 61: 1-4, 7-11 “Blessed are the poor in spirit… blessed are those who mourn.” Matthew 5:3-4 This week I have gotten in touch with the huge sense of loss that comes from thinking about the staggering loss of life of the […]

In It For the Long Haul Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost Today’s Reading: Deuteronomy 34:1-12 “God said to Moses, ‘This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, ‘I will give it to your descendants’; I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not cross […]

Monumental Errors Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost Today’s Reading: Exodus 32: 7-14; Matthew 6: 19-21, 33 “So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron.  He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool.”  – Exodus 32 Jesus said, “Where […]

Reclaiming Covenant Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost Today’s Reading: Exodus 20: 1-4, 7-9, 12-20 Our wilderness wandering continues this week. We find ourselves, like the Israelites, desperate for a destination and not knowing how to summon it. We don’t want to walk in circles, looking back because we only fear what is ahead. But we keep […]