September 6, 2026

“Nearer To Is Now?”

“Nearer To Us Now?” A sermon based on Ezekiel 33:7-11; Romans 13:8-14 and Matthew 18:15-20 delivered on September 6, 2026 at the First Congregational UCC of Onekama, MI by the Rev. Alison Dutton Jacobs.

Paul was an optimist or, I suppose a pessimist, depending on how you look at a prophecy that anticipates the coming of the “end times” to be imminent; to be coming soon. In the 50’s—and here I am talking about 50 CE (aka AD)–not the Elvis Presley 50’s—Christians believed that Christ was coming back to save them very soon. “Soon and Very Soon” as the wonderfully memorable lyrics of the modern spiritual by Andrae Crouch says.  And, as it is so clear in the Gospel of Mark’s theology from about the same time.  In point of fact, the word “immediately” appears some twenty-seven times in what is the earliest and the shortest of the Gospel accounts.

For Paul, this most literally meant that “the night is gone and the day is near” . . .