St. Philip's UCC

St. Philip's UCC Services at 9:30 am every Sunday. St. Philip said, "Come and see!" Service begins at 9:30 am every Sunday. Come, join us!

06/02/2026

Groping for God

by Vicki Kemper | published on Jun 2, 2026

[Paul said,] “God made all peoples to inhabit the whole earth … so that they would search for God and perhaps fumble about for God and find God—though indeed God is not far from each one of us. For ‘In God we live and move and have our being.’” – Acts 17:26-28 (NRSVUE, adapted)

Who among us has not spent frantic minutes (or hours) looking for our glasses or our keys or our phone—only to discover that they were on our head or in our hand the entire time?

The apostle Paul says our search for God is like that. While we’re tearing the house apart looking for what we already have, while we’re searching for meaning as if it’s not right in front of us, the Holy One is forever lighting flares and sending us love notes, just waiting for us to notice.

God has given rise to every good thing—babies and bald eagles, bird song and gospel music, lovers and friends, asparagus and tomatoes, community and diversity, solidarity and resistance, a capacity for healing, soup kitchens and hugs and so much more—just so we can experience, enjoy, and maybe even know capital-L Love.

The good news is that God wants to be found by us—and that her heart aches for us even as we litter our lives with all that is not God.

We are too often like fish, swimming in an ocean of God’s love and not even realizing it. Perhaps we could stop our anxious paddling and roll over and just float for a while, enjoying the view.

Prayer
God who is love, may we never stop groping for you. And even when we find you, may we never consider our search complete.

06/01/2026

Illogical

by Donna Schaper | published on Jun 1, 2026

Discussion Questions

Read Proverbs 15; you can find it here. Then read the devotional below, “Illogical.”
The writer highlights some of the unjust contradictions with which we live—for example, how the horrors of war can also prompt people to drive less as gas prices skyrocket. What illogical contradictions have you been grappling with in your daily life?
Proverbs 15 highlights human foolishness that otherwise masquerades as success and strength. How is God’s wisdom illogical by human measures?
When have you chosen to give or to accept “a small serving of vegetables with love” over “a fattened calf with hatred”?
Devotional

Better a little with the fear of the Lord than great wealth with turmoil. Better a small serving of vegetables with love than a fattened calf with hatred. – Proverbs 15:16-17 (NIV)

Something interesting is happening. People are falling out of love with our cell phones. States are banning them in schools. Parents are sending their kids to tech-free summer camps. More people are taking digital vacations and turning on their “away” signs. Others are attending AI workshops, concerned that AI is going to gobble up the water and raise electric rates. Gas prices are causing more turmoil of the pocketbook. While it is likely that airline prices will never go down, it is also likely that people will fly less. The earth is smiling as carbon emissions emit less.

There is a subtle appreciation of less as we give up more. A small serving of love is better than a feast of hate. The giving up is both proverbial and passive. Much is being stolen from us. Still, there is a silver lining in less digitality and less gas. Its name is peace. As turmoil and hatred increase algorithmically, peace decreases. Won’t it be weird if the wars that kill innocent people simultaneously help the environment be decreasing gas use due to high prices?

The biblical concept of less being more is true. Long ago I enjoyed the joke that I would stop drinking vodka when it ran out in 2053. Maybe I don’t need to wait. Maybe the proverbial will become the kick in the buttinski I need to stop flying, stop driving, stop stressing, and start living. Then again, how will I get to work?

Prayer
Holy Spirit, you who promise a different kind of wealth, educate us. Before it is too late. Amen.

This morning’s shared worship with St. John United Church of Christ at Camp MoVal helped us explore God’s good creation ...
05/31/2026

This morning’s shared worship with St. John United Church of Christ at Camp MoVal helped us explore God’s good creation together!

Our families had the wonderful opportunity to spend 24 hours at camp MoVal for a retreat! They enjoyed so much of God‘s ...
05/31/2026

Our families had the wonderful opportunity to spend 24 hours at camp MoVal for a retreat! They enjoyed so much of God‘s creation and were able to celebrate it in worship this morning as well! Moval truly is a special place.

05/31/2026

One More Thing

by Rachel Hackenberg | published on May 31, 2026

Finally, siblings, farewell. Be restored; listen to my appeal; agree with one another; live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints greet you. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. – 2 Corinthians 13:11-13 (NRSVUE, adapted)

When’s the last time you departed from a friend, saying “Bye!” … and “Bye” was really the last word spoken as you left? There’s always one more thing to say, isn’t there?

“Bye, take care! Love you! Great to be with you! Feel better! Give my love to your mom! Have a great vacation! See you again next Tuesday!”

I have a theory: It’s not politeness that keeps us from leaving with only a “goodbye,” as if we find goodbyes to be rudely abrupt, but rather it’s love that keeps us still talking and adding one more thing to our farewell.

“Farewell,” Paul ends his letter to the Corinthians … and then he adds one (or three or eight) more things: “I believe y’all will be able to find your community spirit again! Just keep focusing on love. Find the peace of patience. Be generous in coming together—don’t stay at arm’s length just because you have disagreements. Be satisfied by the holy gifts of grace and love and fellowship. God be with you! Christ be with you! Spirit be with you!”

Extended farewells prove the exception to “less is more.” There’s always “more” where love is concerned. More to say. More to do. More to remember. More to grow.

Not in an obligatory way, but in a cup-runneth-over way. In an endless-wellspring way. In an unmeasured, unselfish way.

In a Holy Trinity way, with no shortage of expressions and permutations to convey, “I love you.” In fire and spirit. In mercy and flesh. In creation and mystery.

Prayer
Just one more thing, God…

05/30/2026

Q&A at the Shrine of the Black Madonna

by Lillian Daniel | published on May 30, 2026

If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. – James 1:5 (NIV)

I recently visited the Shrine of the Black Madonna, a vibrant UCC church in Detroit featured in The Black Utopians, a book by Aaron Richardson that has been a lifeline for me this past year. It is one of those remarkable historical works of nonfiction that is written with the storytelling gifts one might find in a novel. Trust me, it’s a page-turner, and in these tough times for churches, it was a hopeful story from the past that gives me hope for the future.

That Sunday at the Shrine, I recall there had been bad news the preceding week in the nation and the world, but the preacher, Rev. Kenda Milton, didn’t feel obligated to recount current events. In a deft introduction, he simply assured us that he watched the news too.

From that point on, the sermon’s focus was on the call of Jesus to put the community before the individual. By worshipping something other than ourselves, in community, suddenly we all stop investigating scripture and allow the scripture to investigate us instead.

As good preaching always does, the sermon asked more questions than it answered, and that was the gift I received from attending church that day: the comfort of knowing I was not the first generation to ask the questions I thought were simply about today, connecting me to the history of the mighty cloud of witnesses, some of whom were at church that Sunday at the Shrine.

Prayer
Still speaking God, open our minds to your answers and our hearts to the questions that are more important than the ones we have already thought of asking you. Amen.

05/29/2026

We All Have Our Moments

by Kenneth L. Samuel | published on May 29, 2026

God’s anger is but for a moment; God’s favor is for life. – Psalm 30:5 (adapted)

I totally understand the push to live in the moment. To totally show up in real time is always needful. But we’ve all been consumed by moments of anger, regret, sorrow and anguish. And sometimes these moments last for weeks, months, even years.

Life is more than the accumulation of the good and bad moments we experience. Life is also the hope that defies current desperation. Life is also the love that is still greater than our present animosities. Life is also the faith that keeps us moving forward even after we think we’ve experienced the best there is.

When I was a little boy, my mother made cakes from scratch. She would begin by placing all her ingredients for the cake on the table. Since her cakes were so delicious and her cake batter was so good (my siblings and I licked the bowl), I assumed that everything she used to make the cake had to be good.

One day after she’d set all her ingredients out and left the kitchen, I decided to taste each ingredient.

The eggs were slimy and unpleasant, the flour was dry and distasteful, the butter was repulsive, the buttermilk was bitter, and even the sugar was too sweet.

When she returned, I asked her how she could make such good cakes out of such nasty ingredients. She said, “Well, you just let Momma work with all this.”

We all have our moments. But God works with all of them and blends them together just right to make our lives better than we ever thought possible.

Prayer
God please don’t let bitter moments cause me to miss my life. Amen.

05/28/2026

A Third Testament

by Molly Baskette | published on May 28, 2026

Every word of God proves true; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him. Do not add to his words, lest he rebuke you, and you be found a liar. – Proverbs 30:5-6 (NRSV)

Bishop Yvette Flunder, founding pastor of City of Refuge UCC and The Fellowship of Affirming Ministries, is taking heat from all manner of preachers.

The reason? Her recent assertion that the Bible needs a third testament. They call her a heretic for wanting to add to the complete, inerrant word of God.

But Bishop says, “We need a third testament because the Bible has become problematic. ‘Slaves obey your masters.’ ‘Let the women keep silent in churches.’ We need to pull those pages out! People say, ‘But that’s the word of God!’ No. It’s not the word of God. I spoke to God this morning. Those are words about God.”

And some of those words, she continues, are words that diminish women, people of color, Creation, and so much more that we know God holds dear. They are words that for the umpteenth time are being weaponized by divine ventriloquists who use scripture to justify dastardly deeds and the reckless march to war.

The fact is, Proverbs is not 100% accurate. God may be “a shield to those who take refuge in him,” but God is also a deadly weapon in the wrong hands as well as the refuge of scoundrels. And those lies Proverbs speaks of? Some of them got sealed inside the Book.

Nearly 1,600 years have passed since men debated what texts belonged in the so-called New Testament. And 2,200 years since the canon of Hebrew scriptures closed. God has kept speaking all this time since those debaters shut the book on the Bible and declared it complete. Mightn’t She want new words enshrined?

Let’s wrestle, and opine, and debate our way to fresh holy wisdom worthy of binding. Let’s task thousands with writing that third testament, because the Holy Spirit refines truth best through a multitude of imaginations and lived experiences.

Time will test whether these words are good and true.

Prayer
God, keep speaking. We have pen in hand. Amen.

05/27/2026

So Brave

by Jennifer Ruth Lynn Garrison | published on May 27, 2026

What are humans that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor. – Psalm 8:4-5 (NRSV)

Over the winter, not late but already dusk, I took my six-year-old grandson to the river near our house. He does not love the dark, but he does love to throw rocks into the water, so he chose the joy of the activity over the fear of the night.

As he flung one after another, he congratulated himself. “Good one!” he said. “You’re so brave!” Finally, the stars started to blink to life, our sign that it really was truly dark, and we held hands on the way back to our car.

Several months later, I had the honor of baptizing a lively three-year-old. We blessed the water together, then I put three small handfuls of water on his head.

“In the name of the Father,” I said. “Oh!” he reacted.

“And the Son,” I said. “It’s wet!” he said.


“And the Holy Spirit,” I said. “So brave!” he declared, before holding my hand down the aisle and doling out high fives all around.

We give up saying it aloud, don’t we grownups?

But listen. It really does help. Say it next time you are trying to throw joy into the dark, or are surprised by the unexpected. Say it out right now and see how it changes whatever you are doing next.

After all, you are practically almost an angel. You just need to be reminded, sometimes by your own sweet, small voice. And then, holding hands, you are ready to head back out into the world.

Prayer
I am brave. So brave. So very very very brave. Amen.

05/26/2026

Abba Poemen’s Lap

by Mary Luti | published on May 26, 2026

[Jesus said,] “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye but do not notice the log in your own? Hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s.” – Matthew 7:1-5 abridged (NRSV)

Abba Poemen (340-450 CE) was a desert monk renowned for his wisdom. In a famous story about him, some older monks approach him for advice. How should they treat the rookie monks who doze off during community prayer?

They wanted those novices to learn the discipline necessary for a life of prayer, step one of which is being conscious. Their inclination was to give them a hard poke in the ribs, to startle and embarrass them into wakefulness. What does Abba think?

“When I see a brother dozing,” Poemen replies, “I put his head on my knees and let him rest.” The old man had acquired what his concerned brothers, for all their years of observant rigor, had not: a visceral tenderness that cannot bear to judge the frailty of another.

The judgmentalism Jesus calls out in his saying about the speck and the log is not simply a matter of self-righteousness. It’s a failure of sympathetic imagination, the inability to feel someone else’s frailty as your own and to muster the tenderness our one frail heart requires.

In the Gospels, some of Jesus’s harshest words are reserved for those who have no patience with the weaknesses of others. Every sin is forgivable eventually, but the sin of judgment makes the divine mercy work overtime.

Prayer
Put my head on your knees and let me sleep, Holy One. My neighbor’s, too. Better to snooze in mercy than judge and be judged.

Address

10708 Lavinia Drive
St. Louis, MO
63123

Opening Hours

Monday 8:30am - 12:30pm
Tuesday 8:30am - 12:30pm
Wednesday 8:30am - 12:30pm
Thursday 8:30am - 12:30pm
Friday 8:30am - 12:30pm
Sunday 9am - 11:30am

Telephone

(314) 843-5100

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