Today's Moment for Reflection

Behind the Impossible
by Luis Espinal

Train us, Lord,
to fling ourselves
upon the impossible,
for behind the impossible
is your grace and your presence;
we cannot fall into emptiness.

The future is an enigma,
our road is covered by mist,
but we want to go on giving ourselves,
because you continue hoping
amid the night
and weeping tears
through a thousand human eyes.

Today's Moment for Reflection

Days pass and the years vanish and we walk sightless among miracles.  Lord, fill our eyes with seeing and our minds with knowing.  Let there be moments when your Presence, like lightning, illumines the darkness in which we walk.  Help us to see, wherever we gaze, that the bush burns, unconsumed.  And we, clay touched by God, will reach out for holiness and exclaim in wonder, “How filled with awe is this place and we did not know it.”

(From the Mishkan T'Filah)

Looking Toward Sunday

June 3, 2012 - First Sunday in Pentecost 

"God Loves You - Like It or Not"

This week we look at the story of Jesus' late-night discussion with Nicodemus the Pharisee. (You can read it here.) It's a rather long conversation, but we'll be focusing on only the last two verses. 

The first of those two verses is surely the most loved, most memorized, most often quoted verse in the Bible: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life." (John 3:16)  They're wonderful words that proclaim God's essential quality (love) and God's primary purpose (to save).  God demonstrated the depth of God's love for us by sending Jesus to save us.

It's a verse that should bring great comfort, but it's been used by some Christians to cause great anxiety - a means of judging and condemning those who haven't received God's gift of Jesus. Their assertion is that there are people to whom God's love does not extend. 

Is that really what Jesus meant?  What does John 3:16-17 tell us about God's motive and purpose in sending Jesus?  What does this passage suggest about the scope and reach of God's love?  And who exactly is "the world" that God so loved?  Join us as we explore those questions and reflect on the meaning of the most popular verse in scripture.

See you Sunday!

Today's Moment for Reflection

The love of God, unutterable and perfect,
      flows into a pure soul the way that light
      rushes into a transparent object.
The more love it finds, the more it gives itself; 

      so that, as we grow clear and open,
      the more complete the joy of heaven is.
And the more souls who resonate together,
      the greater the intensity of their love,
      and, mirror-like, each soul reflects the other.

Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy

Today's Moment for Reflection

Deep Embrace
by Denise Levertov

As swimmers dare
to lie face to the sky
and water bears them,
as hawks rest upon air
and air sustains them,
so would I learn to attain
freefall, and float
into Creator Spirit's deep embrace,
knowing no effort earns
that all-surrounding grace.

Looking Toward Sunday

May 13, 2012 - Sixth Sunday of Easter 

"Beautiful Feet"

This Sunday's sermon is the third in a 4-week series about "Holy Conversations". Holy conversation is simply engaging in friendly, no-pressure, give-and-take talk about our faith, about our experience of God, about why Jesus is so important to us.

Our scripture reading for the day will be Romans 10:12-15  (click here to read the passage). The apostle Paul reminds the church in Rome that the love and grace of Jesus are available to all people, without distinction. Paul promises that Jesus will be present to all who call on him.  But, he asks, how are people to call on Jesus if they've never heard of him?  And who will tell them if they've never heard?

Do you know people who need to hear?  People who are looking for what you have found in Jesus?  Perhaps someone who's struggling with a sense of emptiness or who longs to know what the purpose of life is.  Maybe someone who feels a need for inner peace. Perhaps someone who wants desperately to believe they are loved and lovable.  Those who are painfully aware of the "God-shaped hole" in their lives.   

Will you be the "beautiful feet" that bring the good news to them? 

See you on Sunday! 

(PS - Don't forget - you can drop into the "Holy Conversation" study in the parlor on Wednesday at 6 PM or on Sunday at 9:15 AM.  You can also join us for the sermon talk-back during fellowship time after the 10:30 worship service.)

Looking Toward Sunday

May 6, 2012 - Fifth Sunday of Easter 

"Table Talk"

This Sunday's sermon is the second in a 4-week series about "Holy Conversations". Holy conversations are those opportunities we have for telling our stories, sharing our faith journeys, and swapping "God talk" in a casual, friendly, conversational way. 

Our scripture reading for the day will be Acts 22:6-16 (click here to read the passage). As he has done before, the apostle Paul tells the powerful story of his conversion experience.  Even now, in the face of danger among those who oppose him, Paul is compelled to share his experience of Jesus - not his carefully constructed theology, but his own, deeply personal experience of the risen Christ.  

That's the starting point for our "holy conversations" - the sharing of our own personal stories.  Not theological treatises or intellectual arguments or biblical proofs or the "plan of salvation".  What people want to hear - the faith talk that they find most compelling - are our own personal stories of how God is real and active in our lives.   

We all have stories to tell.  And while few of them are as dramatic as Paul's conversion experience, they have just as much impact (arguably more so) on our conversation partners.  Have you thought about your own faith narrative?  What are the experiences, the occurrences, the "God moments" that you would share?  What are the stories someone is just waiting for you to tell? 

See you on Sunday! 

(PS - Don't forget - you can drop into the "Holy Conversation" study in the parlor on Wednesdays at 6 PM or on Sundays at 9:15 AM.  You can also join us for the sermon talk-back during fellowship time after the 10:30 worship service.)