When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. ‘Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?’ He said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.’
Matthew 22:34-40
About 70 worshippers gathered at Newton Highlands Congregational Church for the third annual all-Newton UCC service on Sunday, August 4, 2024. Participating churches included the United Parish of Auburndale, the Eliot Church of Newton, Second Church in Newton, and the Union Church in Waban.
The Reverend Alex Shea Will, Area Conference Minister, Northeast Region, Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ, used a recent interview with political scientist Robert D. Putnam, author of Bowling Alone (and fourteen other books), as a jumping off point for his meditation.
He spoke about the moral obligation expressed by Jesus to care for other people. “We can only win if we all win,” he stated. “The church has a central role to play, standing as a beacon of moral concern.”
The service included communion, and the closing hymn was “Called as Partners in Christ’s Service.”
