October 2026
Congratulations to Pastor Murray on his retirement! Welcome Rev. Lorraine De Armitt as our interim Pastor. Please join us. Service begins at 10:00 am.
Check out the new Beacon Light newsletter located in the navigation menu above. We are grateful to Collene Richardson who has edited our newsletter for many years. We welcome Rev. Bonnie Miller as our new editor.
Sunday School: Please call our church office at 631-727-2621 if you would like information for this year. Sunday School is held during church services at 10:00.
Bible Study: Will restart in October. Please contact the church at 631-727-2621 if you are interested in joining. All are welcome to attend.
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Rev. Lorraine De Armitt's sermon for October 4, 2026
Eighteen Sunday after Pentecost 9.27.26 FCCR Rev. De Armitt
Exod 17: 1-7; Mt. 21.23-32
Australia is home to 200 million wild rabbits. Those rabbits are everywhere. And they get hungry, and so they’ve eaten native plants and crops down to the roots. They’ve forced native animals and birds out of their own natural habitats. They’ve ruined pastures and cost local agriculture millions of dollars.
This big rabbitty mess started with one man. Thomas Austin. A long time ago, 1859, he released 24 wild rabbits on the property surrounding his hunting lodge. The rabbits had very few predators to keep them in check. And they multiplied. They had crossed the entire Australian continent in 50 years.
What was Thomas Austin thinking? Probably something along the lines of…it would be nice to have a few rabbits on the property. We humans are limited in our ability to see the future. [God has withheld that from us.] And mostly, we also seem to have difficulty anticipating the long-term effects of our actions.
I mean, how many people in Florida have reptile pets, that grew too big, or just too much, that were then released into the Everglades. What were those people thinking? The Everglades…that’s where reptiles and crawly things live, so my Burmese python should be just at home. I don’t want to go into any more detail about the trouble they’re having down there, seems too creepy for a Sunday sermon.
But I do want to establish that we human beings are prone to short-sighted thinking.
The Israelites were like that, too. Our reading has them in the wilderness. They are wandering around in the desert. A person could die in the desert, and they know it. There’s no water for them to drink, and they know without water they could lose their lives, quickly. So, they complain to Moses. That all makes sense. Bu then they take it one step further.
They say to Moses, “Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?” This is very short-sighted because just a little earlier, after the people crossed the Red Sea, they cried for water, and God provided. Already And then the people said they were hungry, and God provided manna, and quail.
The people have already had the experience of God working great wonders in their lifetime, taking them out of slavery under Pharaoh, bringing them safely through the Red Sea ahead of the Egyptian army. Did they miss that they were part of such a big story, the liberation of a people, the creation of a people out of a group of the enslaved, the movement of those people through a wild place, accompanied by the living God, moving toward the Promised Land, to become a nation? Did they miss all of that?
Think of fish, living in the ocean, surrounded by ocean, yet unaware they live their lives within that ocean. We, too, live within God’s grace, surrounded by God’s grace, often unaware we live our lives within that grace.
The Israelites. In the midst of such an important time – the Exodus – so important we are still talking about it, they lost sight of how awesome and wonderful, and trustworthy, is the Lord. The people in today’s gospel show the same tendency to short-sightedness. I think it’s part of human nature.
Jesus enters the Temple, and he starts teaching. Remember, he teaches with an authority that seems…different…to many people. People are starting to wonder who he is. And word is spreading about how he has been healing people. The blind see; the lame walk. People are asking him for healing. Some are just touching his robe to be healed. People are starting to wonder who he is. Some think he might be the Messiah. Many think he’s sent from God for their salvation.
The chief priests and elders came to him while he was teaching. They weren’t wondering if he was sent by the Lord God. They weren’t open to the possibility he might be the Messiah. Their authority, their exalted position in society would be threatened by someone sent by God to heal and to teach. Where would that leave them?
And so, they turn away from the Big Thing that’s happening right in their time, the visitation of the Lord God onto this worldly realm, the Kairos of the Divine living for a while in the Chronos of the Earthly, in the form of a single person standing right before them, and they ask, “What kind of authority do you have for doing these things? Who gave you this authority?”
They were trying to prove him a fraud. Or at least, to rein him in a little. They were distracted, trying to protect their own standing, and so they forgot to look beyond the immediate, and glimpse the presence of holiness. They were in the presence of Glory. The Kingdom of God was taking shape right before them, and they were invited to join. But they missed it, because they couldn’t let go of their concern for their position in Jerusalem society.
This congregation has just entered challenging times. [maybe for the 100th time, but for the first time for a lot of us.] Your long-time pastor has retired and left, and that creates enough change to destabilize the church a bit. I’m here, as interim pastor. I’m not here for a long time, but my task, while I am here, is to help you through this time of change.
The search process, it’s a really big task, and maybe the folks in leadership positions are already feeling pretty stressed. Those of you NOT in leadership positions may be feeling pretty stressed. Sometimes when a whole group of people are feeling stressed, anxious about the future… now maybe it’s not as bad as being in the middle of a desert, with no water available, maybe not that bad… but when you’re worried about the future of the church you love, worried you might make wrong decisions that are going to affect that future, things can get pretty tense.
I’ve always experienced the people of this church to be loving and very level-headed. But no one is immune to the effects of change. And the uncertainty of the future.
Remember, though, this church has been here for over 190 years. What does that mean? People of faith, people who put great importance in their relationship with the Lord God have put their money, their time, their love, into building this place, into programs and worship services, celebrations and funerals, classes and 12-step groups, coffee and community meals, that have woven a thick tapestry of community here.
I pray that none of you will get lost in the short-sightedness, about how uncomfortable change is, how tenuous everything here seems with just an interim pastor, the worry about finding the right called-pastor. Remember, this is the Church of Jesus Christ. You are called to this church. You are surrounded by grace, as a fish is surrounded by ocean, and you are meant to thrive. May it be so. Amen.
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