Resources

Prayer Ministry

If you have a prayer request, please send it to pastordelawareheadwatersparish@gmail.com. We will be happy to add it to our prayers during Sunday service. If you have a request/need for private counseling or a time of prayer with Pastor Dawn or Pastor Peg about a personal matter, please contact the office or either Pastor.

SERMONS:

Pastor Peg posts her two most recent sermons on this page. If you are interested in reading more of her sermons you can go to pastorpeg.wordpress.com. For the next three weeks we are preaching about The Rested Soul. How do we stay rested and with God during the hectic times in our lives? Enjoy.

Give it to God

November 9, 2025 22^nd Sunday of Pentecost

Psalm 16:5-9 Matthew 11:28-30

Charge Conferenced is over. Thank you so much for your efforts while we figured out the new system. Thank you so much for filling out all those forms – we are now officially able to continue to be a non-profit religious organization according to the laws of New York state and our federal government.

But now we have to start to think about Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years. And don’t get me wrong – I love all those holidays. But when I think of those holidays, they fit into this visualization that I have of the whole year as a series of hills that you climb up.

I always feel that after the holidays, that January is like a flat plain that I’m walking across. Maybe that’s because here in the Northeast it’s cold and dark, and we know that we can’t plan for much because of the weather, so we all kind of hibernate a bit. That doesn’t mean we don’t do things; it’s just that I never feel that my schedule is crammed. I can even get extra stuff done, like clean out closets.

And then Lent starts, we begin to have Bible study, soup’s on, and other church and community events, and I start to walk up the hill towards Easter. Then I get to Holy Week and Easter and I’m on the top of the hill. And I’m looking ahead and I start to walk up another hill to Pentecost. Some more Bible study, and more church and community events. And then on the top of the Pentecost hill I see the next hill, which is the end of the school year and summer stuff. And then after the summer the school year begins, and I start to climb the charge-conference-hill.

Now the last two years the charge-conference-hill has been in September and then I start climbing the hill to Halloween. This year I did the Halloween hill before the charge-conference-hill. And here I am now on top of the highest hill, and I don’t know why, but I’m not looking up. I’m looking down this really tall hill, at a plateau which is Thanksgiving, and then the hill goes down again until it ends up, at the bottom, at Christmas and New Years.

And I don’t know why – maybe because I used to ski when I was a kid – but there’s so many things that I have to do between now and the end of the year that it looks like a slalom course. And it’s probably going to start out okay, but it’s going to pick up speed as I go down, and I just hope I don’t knock over any of those flags and poles while I’m making my way to the bottom.

How many of you are exhausted after Christmas? It’s understandable. You know one year I had so much to do I forgot my birthday, which is on December 19. Literally! My mother had to remind me on the day that it was my birthday. One year I was so busy that, five days before Christmas, I looked over at Michael and I asked him, “Honey, would you mind if we didn’t have a tree this year?” He looked back and said, “Fine.” That’s how busy he was.

Some years are like that. You just can’t do everything all the time. And you know, it’s okay to let some things go when life gets a little crazy. The year without the Christmas tree I had wonderful celebrations in my churches; Michael and I still had presents; we still had a delicious Christmas dinner and watched football.

Now my vision of marching up hills is an illustration of how I view a typical year. But not all years are typical. Some years have a lot more hills than others, and some of those hills can be pretty steep. And those years are also framed inside eras or periods of time. And some of those eras are calmer or more stressful than others.

The last several years have been stressful both socially, because of the disruption of COVID, and politically because of contention. And I don’t care where you are on the political spectrum, it’s just been stressful, and I think it’s added stress to all of us.

A friend of mine used to say: Peggy, there’s good stress and bad stress. And unfortunately, I think that our society has been experiencing an insidious bad stress creep that can lead us all to feel weary and burdened in heart, mind and soul. And I really do believe that all of that does affect our physical bodies. We can feel like we don’t have a lot of energy; and we get tired and discouraged more easily.

We heard today that with Jesus we will find rest for our souls. Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. God promises rest for the weary soul—but what does that look like in our daily lives? It doesn’t mean that Christians are exempt from hardship or that life will always be easy. I’m still going to have to climb those hills. But it does mean that God will be with us through it all.

Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

I’ve had problems over the years with the yoke image. A yoke is what you put on a steer to control it so that it will go the direction you want it to. And that image might feel uncomfortable because there’s a feeling of dominance about it. So, I looked at this idea of being yoked and I realized that historically Jesus was offering an alternative to a religious outlook and system that had become very burdensome.

Hebrew law, which the Pharisees promoted, was so strict that often poor people couldn’t follow it. So they would feel that they were living in perpetual sin. And to be in a state of sin meant that you could not be loved by God; that you weren’t worthy to be loved by God. Can you imagine how crushing that would be to someone’s spirit and psyche? Can you imagine feeling that every day of your life and not seeing a way to get to God’s love? How destroying.

And here comes Jesus who says: That is not true. You don’t have to earn God’s love. You start out in God’s love; you are loved by God. Yes, we do things that God does not approve of. We make mistakes. But if we are willing to be humble, admit that we messed-up; if we are willing to repent and make things right, and we ask for forgiveness, then God will forgive us. We will continue to be loved by God. We forget how to love God, but God never stops loving us.

Wow! That yoke is a lot lighter than the other one. Yes, God is still guiding us, but it’s not through domination, it’s with the assistance of Jesus and the Holy Spirit. The scriptures promise that God walks with us, and that God gives us an easy yoke to bear because we are loved and we can give our burdens to God.

How do we turn over to God all those things that burdened us? A big step is to ask for help.

I’m a great believer in lists. I make lists and I love to cross things off my list when I’m done with it. But when I make my list – and when things get crazy, I do forget to do this – what I should do is take some time, close my eyes, take a breath and pray each one of those items. Give it to God.

Now you’re not asking God to do it for you. You’re asking God to be with you and to give you the strength, or the time, or the wisdom, to do the job.

So right now, we’re going to do an exercise. I want everyone to think of one thing that you want to do this afternoon, or sometime during the week. We’re going to close our eyes and hold that in our thought. Then we’re going to take a deep breath and let it out but while we do that, we’re going to ask God to help us with whatever our project is. Maybe you’re going to put away your Halloween decorations; maybe you’re going to send a birthday card to someone; it doesn’t matter. We’re simply going to ask God, or Jesus, or the Holy Spirit – whoever you feel needs to be on the job – to help us get the job done.

Are you ready? Close your eyes; hold your project in your thoughts: Breath in and breath our with your prayer.

How did that feel? When life gets hectic, we need to connect with God and just ask for His help. Why not? Do you think God can’t handle it? He wants to be in contact with you. He wants to help you slalom that course, so you don’t hit the flags and the poles. He wants you to be in connection with Him in love and to be with him in a state of peace.

And when we take that step and invite Him into those hectic and stressful moments in our lives, our hearts will be glad, and our souls will rejoice, and our bodies will also rests secure in our Divine Parent, our Brother Jesus, and our beloved Sister the Holy Spirit.

Flawed Saints

November 2, 2025 All Saint’s Day

Jonah 4:1-11 Colossians 3:12-17

Today we come to the end of the book of Jonah. I wasn't here to preach on the 3rd chapter, but I am sure that Janine did a really good job and gave you some interesting things to think about.

So, let's recap and all come to the end of the book together. Jonah starts out by being told by God to go and preach to the people of Nineveh, the largest, wealthiest, and most ruthless state in the Middle East. Jonah, from the small nation of Israel, is overwhelmed by this command and quickly makes tracks to the ocean, boards the ship for Spain, ends up in a storm, gets thrown overboard and swallowed by a whale. While he's in the whale he prays to God, and comes to the conclusion that, there's no way to get away from God so he might as well this bite the bullet and go and preach to Nineveh. The whale vomits him up onto the shore and Jonah makes his way to the great city. Once he gets to Ninevah he declares that God is going to destroy the city in 40 days. Surprisingly, the people take him seriously and they decide to repent. They fast, put on sackcloth and sit in the dirt to show that they’re serious, as they pray to God to spare them. And God relents and decides that he is going to spare this town and its people.

But Jonah is not very happy about this turn of events.

I don't know about you, but I would have some feelings if I went to a place like Nineveh, and told people that the wrath of God was going to descend on them in 40 days; and they were all going to perish unless they repented, and then they DID repent. First, I might think: Wow I'm a pretty good preacher. These people took me seriously. They're fasting and praying, and they're really scared that God is going to destroy them. I really must have gotten the message across. Yay for me. (Don't we all give ourselves a pat on the back when things go really well in our jobs?)

The other thing I would think is: Boy-oh-boy, my God really has a powerful reputation beyond just the little country and people of Israel. The Ninevah people are really afraid of the power of God. Maybe they've heard about how He led my ancestors out of Egypt. Maybe they've heard about how the walls of Jericho came crashing down. Maybe they've heard about the conquests of the promised land and how God stood with us and let us to victory against so many enemies. Maybe they realize that the God of Israel is the God of all gods; the God of all glory; the awesome God and the everlasting power of the universe. Yeah for God!

I would have been really happy that I had done my job and that I was working for the most awesome employer ever.

But Jonah doesn’t take the win. Instead, he throws a temper tantrum. GOD! I knew it—when I was back home, I knew this was going to happen! That’s why I ran off to Tarshish! I knew you were sheer grace and mercy, not easily angered, rich in love, and ready at the drop of a hat to turn your plans of punishment into a program of forgiveness! So, GOD, if you won’t kill them, kill me! I’m better off dead!

Drama Queen much? Yes. But – let’s try to look at it from Jonah’s point of view for a minute.

Ninevah was the capital of the Assyrian empire, the greatest empire of its time, and the people didn’t get to that pinnacle by being nice. They got there by inventing new weapons and ways of fighting that no one had seen before, and running over nations in war. They trounced countries, destroyed cities, and subjugated and enslaved people without mercy. And they were proud of their ruthlessness. Jonah had probably lived in fear of these people all his life. He probably really wanted to see them destroyed, because then his country and people would be safe. And although he didn’t want to preach to them about their demise, he would have been happy watching that whole city crumble in an earthquake and burn down in the fires that followed.

All of us have experienced difficult people we don’t like and who we’ve been in conflict with. We’ve been put into situations we don’t like; many of us have had jobs that were unbelievably messed up. And all of us have wanted the earthquake and total destruction to happen.

Jonah was going to dance on the ruins. And he thought that God was going to follow through and give him that.

But God is the god of sheer grace and mercy, not easily angered, rich in love, and ready at the drop of a hat to turn His plans of punishment into a program of forgiveness! And even though Jonah knows this, he’s still resentful of God’s gracious love. So, he goes out of the city, puts together a shelter and sits in the shade and sulks. Like a three-year-old whose pouting in the corner for ice-cream and waiting to see if mummy will relent, he’s waiting to see if God will grant his wish and destroy the city.

All of us have times when we don’t get our way and we sulk. There’s nothing wrong with a good sulk. It gets the emotion out of you and is a chance to face our disappointments, evaluate our situation, and figure out where we go from here. Just don’t get trapped in your sulks. Jonah wasn’t evaluating or figuring out. He was just feeling sorry for himself because God wouldn’t do what he wanted.

The interesting thing is that God tried to get him out of his sulk by growing a tree for him to keep him comfortable. And it did help. Jonah started to be happy again, but he still wasn’t moving from that tree, and he was still waiting for God to destroy the city. I really think the reason why God kills the tree, sends the wind, and makes Jonah uncomfortable is because he’s trapped in feeling sorry for himself, and he’s now living in a very negative attitude. God finally confronts his attitude and offers us a very good question: Why shouldn’t God spare all those people and other life forms if they are truly repentant?

Getting caught up in the question of why God’s wrath doesn’t descend on people or situation that we think should have God’s wrath, is one that we need to put down and just walk away from. The working of God’s mind and purpose is so giant that we just can’t see it. And while I believe that individually, and in our communities, we always need to work for justice, fairness, integrity and dignity in our lives, I cannot be responsible for 120,000 other people. I have to do the best I can, and leave the rest up to God.

And I think that this is one of the elements that makes a saint. A saint knows that they are not perfect, or that other people are not perfect, or that the world is not perfect. (God knows this crazy world IS NOT PERFECT!) What they do know is that they can be the best person they can be by working for justice, being kind to others, and living with precepts of God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

A saint is someone who tries to keep that faith and integrity, even when they know that they’re going stumble sometimes. But they will learn from their mistakes and try to do better next time.