Yes! We're Open: Living Faith with Needham UCC
Rev. John MacIver Gage uses insight, humor, hard truth and amazing grace to help us make sense of our Christian faith in our daily life and vice-versa. The Congregational Church of Needham is a radically inclusive, justice-seeking Christian community, a member congregation of the United Church of Christ denominational family. Join us for worship LIVE! via Zoom Sundays @ 10am. Connection info and more at www.NeedhamUCC.org.
Episodes
101 episodes
I've Got Good News* *or Bad News, Depending (Easter Sunday, 04-05-2026)
We’re taught that Jesus’ Easter resurrection is a good thing–that, in fact, it’s the very best thing: the death of death, the springtime of souls, the divine affirmation of Jesus’ Gospel ministry of justice, peace, and compassion. But the guard...
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Season 5
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Episode 9
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22:02
Just No (March 29, 2026)
The first Palm Sunday wasn't just a parade. It was a protest. The crowds that took to the streets with Jesus were there to lift their "Just no!" against the life-stealing, death-dealing powers of imperial politics and religion. And when t...
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Season 5
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Episode 8
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16:13
Oubliette (March 22, 2026)
ou·bli·ette (ˌü-blē-ˈet) noun, a dungeon with an opening only at the top; from the French, oublier, to forget (related to oblivion)When their brother Lazarus died, it may have seemed to Mary and Martha that God didn’t care, that Jesus ...
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Season 5
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Episode 7
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30:17
A Man Born Blind and Jesus (March 15, 2026)
Jesus heals a lot of people, but the story usually called “Jesus and the Man Born Blind” is one of the longest and most detailed meditations on illness, disability, and healing. And it’s one of the few times where the experience of the disabled...
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Season 5
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Episode 6
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28:11
Choices (January 25, 2026)
In the Sunday school classic story from Matthew's Gospel, Jesus approaches Peter and Andrew, James and John along the lakeshore and offers them a choice: To follow him, or not. But there's definitely more than just a Sunday school context to th...
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Season 5
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Episode 5
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24:49
Hope: We Make the Road by Walking (October 19, 2025)
It's the end of the world... at least the end of the world as we've known it. How can we have hope with everything falling down around our ears? We can't. Because hope isn't something we have (or don't). Prophets and poets and our neighbors in ...
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Season 5
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Episode 4
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17:43
We Will Not Bow or Be Bowed (January 18, 2026)
As followers of Jesus, our ultimate allegiance is to the God Who Is Love, and we are called to manifest that love in justice and peace for our neighbors. But that commitment is being sorely tested these days with the rise of fascist ideology an...
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Season 5
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Episode 3
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30:17
4 Calling Birds Sunday: Anna & Simeon, a Guided Meditation
Enjoy a guided meditation reflecting on the story of Anna and Simeon, the elderly prophets who greeted Mary, Joseph, and the Baby Jesus in the temple in Luke 2:22-40. Remember: YOU are a child of God, gifted, and a gift. Join us for...
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Season 5
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Episode 2
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22:40
There Is God (September 7, 2025)
Somewhere along the way, Christianity become professionalized. All too often these days we look to clergy to tell us all about God--most particularly, about where and how God is allowed to show up in our lives. And those "allowed appearances" h...
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Season 5
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Episode 1
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19:19
Learn to Rest, Not to Quit (Rev. John MacIver Gage: August 17, 2025)
We're pivoting this Sunday to address what's shaped up to be a pretty stressful and painful week (in the midst of a stressful and painful season) for a lot of folks, what with the occupation of Washington, DC by federal law enforcement, a forma...
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Season 4
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Episode 42
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29:51
The Very Real Challenges of Uniting in Christ (Rev. John MacIver Gage: August 10, 2025)
"How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity," sings the Psalmist (Psalm 133:1). Sure, it can be, but it's also really hard. In fact, sometimes the closer we are with our family, the harder it can be to "live together."...
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Season 4
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Episode 41
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24:53
Just Stop It (Rev. John MacIver Gage: August 3, 2025)
The political conflict between the state of Israel and Hamas is complicated by history, religion, anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim hatred, the entangling alliances with both parties, and, not least, the special place the state of Israel holds in the...
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Season 4
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Episode 40
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18:59
We're All Sodomites Now* *Just Not the Way You Think (Rev. John MacIver Gage: July 27, 2025)
The ancient city of Sodom has been synonymous with sin and the consequences of sin for thousands of years. These days it’s sexual sin they’re most associated with and infamous for, specifically homosexuality. But that’s a modern development and...
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Season 4
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Episode 39
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23:57
Power-Over vs Power-With
Since at least the time of the ancient psalmists, God has been described as a king... and kings described as gods... and the rest of humanity (and, let's be real: men) as "a little lower than God," and called by God to exercise dominion--power ...
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Season 4
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Episode 38
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19:17
Honeybees and Hallelujahs (Earth Sunday)
This Earth Sunday, we celebrate not God’s gift of the earth to us, but God’s gift to us of our interconnected relationship with the earth, God’s wider, deeper, higher, and altogether “very good” creation of which we are a part...
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Season 4
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Episode 37
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26:13
Resurrection is for Everyone
At last we arrive at Easter Sunday. But oddly enough, Matthew's version of the story of the resurrection begins on Good Friday, with what sounds at first like a ghost story about tombs being opened and the dead walking. But it's a reminder that...
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Season 4
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Episode 36
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29:10
Step by Step: Holy Saturday, The Last Step
Our purpose in this Lenten series has been to slow down and spend significant time reflecting on each step of the story of Jesus’ last days during what we call Holy Week. But he dies on Good Friday. So what happens, if anything, on Holy Saturda...
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Season 4
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Episode 35
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22:49
Step by Step: Prepared (Holy Wednesday)
A guided meditation: Did you know that before there was a Last Supper, there was a First Supper, when Jesus was prepared to endure the terrible events of the rest of Holy Week by the love of his friends. In particular, one woman anointed ...
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Season 3
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Episode 34
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29:17
Step by Step: Controversies ("Holy Tuesday")
Jesus continues to wear out his welcome in Jerusalem. The various power blocs within the religious leadership of the day pepper him with questions, often trick questions, hoping to discredit him and his disciples in the eyes of the faithful wit...
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Season 3
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Episode 33
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30:21
Hope: We Make the Road by Walking (Faith, Hope, & Love Abide, 2/3)
In the wake of this election's seismic shift, we’re spending time grounding ourselves once more in the core message of 1 Corinthians 13:13—“Now faith, hope, and love abide, these three”—in ways that speak to our current situation, beginning wit...
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Season 3
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Episode 32
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24:52
Stitched Together
*With apologies for the poorer than usual audio quality. A subtitled video is available at https://youtu.be/QOpgyCGCVf8In Mark 10:17-31, an insider--the rich young ruler--and an outsider--Simon Peter--both ask Jesus essentially...
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Season 3
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Episode 31
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20:03
You Are Light
“God’s love and kindness will shine upon us like the sun that rises in the sky” (Luke 1:78-9, CEV). A celebration more than a decade in the making! Come join us for a special worship service dedicating the new solar panel array on our sanctuary...
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Season 3
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Episode 30
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15:13
My Body is Not a Prayer Request
The gospels are full of miraculous stories of Jesus healing people, but they’re never told from the point of view of the people he heals. The (temporarily) able-bodied Church today is only beginning to understand how problematic that real...
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Season 3
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Episode 32
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20:02
Faith: Trust & Truth (Faith, Hope, & Love Abide 1/3)
In the wake of this election week’s seismic shift, we’re going to spend the next three Sundays looking to ground ourselves once more in 1 Corinthians 13:13—“Now faith, hope, and love abide, these three”—in ways that speak to our current situati...
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Season 3
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Episode 33
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31:08
Be Careful Which God You Do or Don't Believe In
Shalom Auslander’s book, Beware of God, is full of cautionary tales about faith, including the short story “Waiting for Joe,” in which two hamsters from very different theological viewpoints try to cope with the absence of their owner....
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Season 3
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Episode 29
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27:31
