“Finally, brothers and sisters, farewell. Put things in order, 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 all of you.”

— 2 Corinthians 13:11-13

For every Sunday of the year, the lectionary provides four Scripture readings. My process of worship planning involves working through those readings and discovering one or two which speaks to me. These passages aren’t the ones I “like;” most often they challenge me. They start a great many thoughts, and I may feel the Spirit leading me in several directions. The process of sermon preparation, then, becomes a matter of editing down to a core all that I feel compelled to say. Then I seek ways of illustrating those points.

Much, then falls to the “cutting room floor” – though I am certain there are times you feel that more could have been cut!

In our new Lectionary Lunch – Noon, Wednesdays, on Zoom – I gain even more insight and wisdom, as the Spirit speaks through the participants. This week the focus of the Scripture readings is on the triune nature of God: Genesis 1:1-2:4, Psalm 8, Matthew 28:16-20 and 2 Corinthians 13:11-13.

Here are some tidbits from our gathering which will not likely make it into the sermon, but are worthy of consideration:

– In the Trinity,
​God the Creator makes us good.
​God the Savior restores us to the good.
​God the Holy Spirit moves in us to do good.

– The Holy Spirit is compared to wind and flame. Neither of these are static. Wind and flame cause movement and transformation. There is no wind when it is not moving. So the Holy Spirit is God-In-Action. Through us.

– In our current unsettled time, we seek peace. But you will note Saint Paul acknowledges that peace only comes after our right relationship with each other has been restored. Order is not the imposition of will, but seeing each other and treating each other, individually and systemically, as children of God, made in God’s image.

– (and Sorry, Paul, right now we won’t be greeting one another with a literal holy kiss. But there are plenty of ways we can signal our affection, appreciation, and unity.)  

I invite you to allow the Spirit to move you as you dwell on the Word.

Holy Spirit, move in us. Open us to hearing the Word in new ways. Silence our pride and fear that we might actively listen to those who are hurting. Guide us to act in love. This we pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Pastor George

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” Fred Rogers

As I scroll though my Facebook feed it is so easy to just be angry, depressed and just want to give up.  We have been practicing social distancing for what seems to be forever, and we are now seeing the injustices of our racial biased culture come to a head, again.  We are tired, weary, anxious, angry and we wonder what can I do to help? How can I make a difference when I am stuck inside?  We have been hearing that staying home makes a difference, so we do that, but we want to do more.  What else can we do? We can listen.  We can listen to the ones that our culture has harmed for so long, we can listen to their pain.  We can offer our support, our solidarity and ask for their forgiveness.  We have also seen amazing pictures and reports of police listening to protestors, putting down their shields and showing solidarity with those who have been harmed for so long.  These pictures give me hope. How do we help? We listen without judgement, without interrupting and making our excuses, without saying but that is not what I think nor how I believe.  We need to listen to the pain that our society has inflected and let it sit with us and that is humbling and hard to do.

I participated in an interfaith book group that read The Book of Forgiveness by Bishop Desmond Tutu and Mpho Tutu.  It is a book of hope and can help us find a new way to be in relationship with ourselves, family, and whole groups of society who we need forgiveness from.  It can help us become helpers and live out our faith in a more complete way.  I believe that this is one of the ways we can move forward in our country. In this book Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize winner, Chair of The Elders, and Chair of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, along with his daughter, the Reverend Mpho Tutu, offer a manual on the art of forgiveness—helping us to realize that we are all capable of healing and transformation.

Tutu’s role as the Chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission taught him much about forgiveness. If you asked anyone what they thought was going to happen to South Africa after apartheid, almost universally it was predicted that the country would be devastated by a comprehensive bloodbath. Yet, instead of revenge and retribution, this new nation chose to tread the difficult path of confession, forgiveness, and reconciliation.

Each of us has a deep need to forgive and to be forgiven. After much reflection on the process of forgiveness, Tutu has seen that there are four important steps to healing: Admitting the wrong and acknowledging the harm; Telling one’s story and witnessing the anguish; Asking for forgiveness and granting forgiveness; and renewing or releasing the relationship. Forgiveness is hard work. Sometimes it even feels like an impossible task. But it is only through walking this fourfold path that Tutu says we can free ourselves of the endless and unyielding cycle of pain and retribution. The Book of Forgiving is both a touchstone and a tool, offering Tutu’s wise advice and showing the way to experience forgiveness. Ultimately, forgiving is the only means we have to heal ourselves and our aching world.

We have a lot of kingdom work to do and it will be difficult; however, I have hope.  We are all God’s children and all the red, yellow, black, and white children are all precious in His sight.  We need to live into that and act like we really do believe that.  When we help others, we show God’s love and for better or worse that is how God tends to work in this world of our, through our actions. 

Gracious and Loving God, create in us a heart that will listen to pain, pain of injustice, pain of depression, pain of loneliness, fear and change.  Help us to humble ourselves and accept the pain that we have caused.  Help us to be the hope in this world, help us to bring peace. Help us to work together and create a nation that more closely reflects what you call us to be.
Amen

Blessings, Suzanne

Hungry, I come to you, for I know you satisfy. I am empty, but I know your love does not run dry.
So I wait for you. So I wait for you. I’m falling on my knees, offering all of me.  
Jesus, you’re all I’m living for.                                                                                                                          
Broken, I come to you, for your arms are open wide; I am weary, but I know your touch restore my life. 
So I wait for you. So I wait for you. I’m falling on my knees, offering all of me.  
Jesus, you’re all I’m living for. 

By Kathryn Scott

I have been singing these words since service on Sunday. I can’t get them out of my head, I don’t think I want to get them out of my head, my mind, my heart and my Spirit have become weary.  

For a couple of months we have been witnesses to so much illness, pain and death, from the Covid-19 virus to the surmounting injustice. All I can say is that we are a broken and hurting people. When I find myself wondering what can be done to change this or any situation, I believe I must first ask God to show me where the brokenness is within myself, calling it, naming it, and allowing God to begin the healing process within me. I believe in times like this we all are called to ask God where in our lives we need to be changed. Is it our words, thoughts, actions or the lack there of? If we are not open for God to show us what needs to be done and willing to do the hard work then our faith, our words, our actions become stagnate and mean nothing. 

Spiritual work is not easy, it’s a journey, it’s often painful. Confronting our standard ways, catching and stopping ourselves and or our family and friends, putting yourself out there to say “that’s unacceptable” and stand for the marginalized within our circle of influence is what we are called to do and who we are called to be. For what has the Lord required of us? To do justice, to love mercy and to walk humbly with God. (Micah 6:8) We all have influence somewhere, it may not be huge or mighty. You may think you are not powerful enough to make any difference,but God’s strength is made perfect in our weaknesses (2 Cor. 12:9).

So may I ask of all of you if you will join with me, to go before God and offer ourselves, to lay down what needs to be changed within us at Jesus feet so that we may be renewed as a people of God so we may go forth into a hurting world and be the change we believe there should be. Lord in your mercy…

Creator, open our hearts to peace and healing between all people. Creator, open our hearts to provide and protect all children of the earth. Creator, open our hearts to respect for the earth, and all the gifts of the earth. Creator, open our hearts to end exclusion, violence, and fear among all. Thank you for the gifts of each day. Amen.
A Native American prayer

Blessings,

Brenda

I have 2 brothers and 3 sisters.  We are scattered all over the country.  My two oldest sisters live in Hawaii where my mom also resides.  Another sister lives in Rhode Island and I have a brother in Washington State and another brother who lives a couple of blocks from me in Huntington Beach. Even though we live apart from each other we have always kept in contact through our group chat that we have named 6 kids and a mom.  My 91-year-old mom chimes in occasionally but most of the activity comes from the siblings. I have always enjoyed the conversations that pop up. 

As we all started hunkering down in our homes the conversations have increased. My brother Phillip one day sent us a quote that meant something to him.  He gave us the initials and we had to guess who had spoken those words. His original plan was to share 7 quotes one a day. But we were all enjoying the connection with each other and he continued the next day and the next each day sharing a new quote.  The guessing continued and conversations were sparked about the relevance or what the quote meant to us. There has been some fun with it as well as he throws in a quote here and there from our family history.  These quotes have given us much laughter.  Some of his quotes have stumped us and my brother in law resorted to Google.  He was dubbed a “cheater” and was disqualified from guessing the next day.  

The meaning of the quotes has been valuable but what the real benefit has been for me through all of this has been the connection I have felt with my family who are spread out across the states and the hope that has come from these conversations. Our morning text is something that we all now look forward too each morning.  

I’ll end with this morning’s quote as it was just what I needed to hear today.  

Even the darkest night will end, and the sun will rise.  V.H.  

No googling.

Dear God, Thank you for the gift of siblings and friends and the history that we share with them that keeps us grounded, help us to learn and grow in new ways. We give thanks for all the people who use their voices throughout history who inspire us to be better give us hope, courage and remind us that we are all your children and loved by you.  Amen

Marty

Do not remember the former things,
   or consider the things of old. 
I am about to do a new thing;
   now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
— Isaiah 43:18-19

Did you watch the launch on Saturday? Did you see the docking on Sunday morning? It was hard to watch and not think back to what has been. I remember the long shots of the Saturn V slowly lifting from the pad. I remember pictures from Mission Control in Houston, full of tubes and wires. I remember the grainy black & white images from the capsule with row after row of switches and dials. This looked so different, so sharp, so close, so clear. Honestly, it looked to me like an Apple Store was being launched, controlled from… an Apple Store. While the suits look a little retro, the overall impression is, “this is new!”

There was tension, too. Of course for me there has been tension ever since Challenger. I hold my breath  every time I hear “go at throttle up.”  I shade my eyes, like I do when I watch a horror movie, and peer through the cracks in my fingers. I felt like I couldn’t cheer until Doug and Bob were connected to the ISS.

Whenever we encounter something new, we try to place it into the framework of our experience.  We will say, “this is like the time…” or “this tastes like chicken…” As we have faced the novel coronavirus (novel, of course, meaning “new” and previously unknown) both scientists and laypeople have attempted to address it from the perspective of what we have previously experienced. This is useful, because if something has worked before against something similar, then it might work on this! When we have faced similar pandemics, we know what can help stop the spread.

Often, however, comparisons might not apply. No, this isn’t just like the Flu. Our previous experience might get in the way. Worse, we often get stuck repeating the mistakes of the past, or the emotions and judgements of our previous experiences prevent us from being open to the new. This is the basis of pre-judging. We make up in our minds about the new before we can even experience them – so we never really comprehend them!

I am convinced that God is doing a new thing in this moment. I don’t mean that God wills, wants, or intends for these hundreds of thousands to die, nor of the millions to suffer. But we might allow ourselves, in this time of crisis, to discover what is truly important to us – what is essential – and to change our lives to better reflect those priorities. 

We learn from the past. We build on the foundation of the past. And God is doing a new thing.
Can you see it?

Open us, O God to the new things you are doing. Move in us to calm our fears and strengthen our confidence. For you are our Rock and our Refuge. Help us to honor the past, to learn from our victories and mistakes, and then to cleanse our hearts and minds in preparation for the new opportunities you bring. Fill us with your love and sense of purpose, that we may boldly go into your new creation. We pray this in the name of Jesus, our companion and guide. Amen.

Pastor George