About 10 minutes after worship ends, we’ll gather together for Aftertalk. We hope you’ll join us! Bring your questions, stories, insights, doubts, musings, imaginings and whatever else you need . Join us for some food, fellowship, laughter and ample space for reflection and real questions to help us make the transition from worship to world. Readings for this Sunday: Zechariah 9:9-12 • Psalm 118: 1 - 2,19 - 29 • Luke 9:28 - 40 This Sunday we remember the story of Jesus arrival in Jerusalem. A dramatic scene before his arrest and execution. There is curious sentence at the end of this reading that talks about even the stones shouting out at the coming of the Lord. There is this sense that creation and creatures cannot be silent when they see the work of God - or maybe we can say goodness, rightness, real hope or that force bigger than ourselves that speaks to what we know is right and good.
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About 10 minutes after worship ends, we’ll gather together for Aftertalk. We hope you’ll join us! Bring your questions, stories, insights, doubts, musings, imaginings and whatever else you need to Aftertalk. Join us for some food, fellowship, laughter and ample space for reflection and real questions to help us make the transition from worship to world.
Readings for this Sunday: Isaiah 55:1-9 • Psalm 63:1-8 • 1 Corinthians 10:1-13 • Luke 13:1-9 This is the third Sunday of Lent. This season, we're exploring the relationship between our own self-awareness and salvation. This Sunday asks us about the sources of courage or faith that enable us to look deeply and to change.
For Reflection: Chronic remorse, as all the moralists are agreed, is a most undesirable sentiment. If you have behaved badly, repent, make what amends you can and address yourself to the task of behaving better next time. On no account brood over your wrongdoing. Rolling in the muck is not the best way of getting clean. ― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. ― C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and, above all, confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained. ― Marie Curie You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face . . . You must do the thing you think you cannot do. ― Eleanor Roosevelt It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are still alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger for them. ― George Eliot Beyond its practical aspects, gardening - be it of the soil or soul - can lead us on a philosophical and spiritual exploration that is nothing less than a journey into the depths of our own sacredness and the sacredness of all beings. ― Christopher Forrest McDowell, 20th century You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you might find, you get what you need. ― Mick Jagger You have made us for yourself, O God, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in you. ― Augustine of Hippo, Confessions, 5th century I wonder how much of the day I spend just callin' after you. ― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, 20th century About 10 minutes after worship ends, we’ll gather together for Aftertalk. We hope you’ll join us! Bring your questions, stories, insights, doubts, musings, imaginings and whatever else you need to Aftertalk. Join us for some food, fellowship, laughter and ample space for reflection and real questions to help us make the transition from worship to world.
Readings for this Sunday: Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18 • Psalm 27 • Philippians 3:17-4:1 • Luke 13:31-35 For Reflection: “The day misspent, the love misplaced, has inside it the seed of redemption. Nothing is exempt from resurrection.” ― Kay Ryan “To be saved is here, local and mortal” ― A.R. Ammons
About 10 minutes after worship ends, we’ll gather together for Aftertalk. We hope you’ll join us! Bring your questions, stories, insights, doubts, musings, imaginings and whatever else you need to Aftertalk. Join us for some food, fellowship, laughter and ample space for reflection and real questions to help us make the transition from worship to world.
Themes for this week: Temptation, Shame, Guilt, and Whole-heartedness This is the first Sunday of Lent. We've begun a new journey, of sorts, exploring the relationship between our own self-awareness and salvation. The first Sunday gets us started by examining themes around testing and temptation that invite us to a way of truthfulness that leads to life. Readings for this Sunday: Deuteronomy26:1-11 • Ps.91:1-2,9-16 • Romans 10:8b-13 • Luke 4:1-13 Quotable: Fulton J. Sheen, 20th century "Why is it that any time we speak of temptation we always speak of temptation as something that inclines us to wrong? We have more temptations to become good than we do to become bad." Henry David Thoreau, 19th century "Generally speaking, a howling wilderness does not howl: it is the imagination of the traveler that does the howling." Mother Teresa, 20th century "I know God will not give me anything I can't handle. I just wish [God] didn't trust me so much." Below are three videos drawn from an August, 2013 presentation by the social researcher Brené Brown. The first two are animated shorts that present a single idea concisely. The third is the original 20 minute video from which they were based. About 10 minutes after worship ends, we’ll gather together for Aftertalk. We hope you’ll join us! Bring your questions, stories, insights, doubts, musings, imaginings and whatever else you need to Aftertalk. Join us for some food, fellowship, laughter and ample space for reflection and real questions to help us make the transition from worship to world.
Themes for this week: Undeserved Love, Refuge and Shelter, Being a Voice, Eucatastrophe As we continue through the Epiphany season, the holidays are behind us and the cold of Winter is in full force as we wait for Spring. This Sunday we will focus on what keep us going through harder, colder times.
Reflection: Parker Palmer, 20th century "[T]he mission of the church is not to enlarge its membership, not to bring outsiders to accept its terms, but simply to love the world in every possible way - to love the world as God did and does.…If we are able to love the world, that will be the best demonstration of the truth which the church has been given." Marilynne Robinson, When I Was a Child I Read Books, 21st century "I experience religious dread whenever I find myself thinking that I know the limits of God’s grace, since I am utterly certain it exceeds any imagination a human being might have of it. God does, after all, so love the world." Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., 20th century "We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now." Henri Nouwen, 20th century "Knowing the heart of Jesus and loving him are the same thing….The mystery of ministry is that we have been chosen to make our own limited and very conditional love the gateway for the unlimited and unconditional love of God." Ralph Waldo Emerson, 19th century "Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them." Shane Claiborne, The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical, 21st century "Protesters are still on the fringes like satellites, revolving around the system. But prophets and poets lead us into a new world, beyond simply yelling at the old one." Julie Polter, 20th century "This is the big lie the world tells us: that the universe is connected by trade agreements, electronic banking, computer networks, shipping lanes, and the seeking of profit — nothing else. Whereas this is the truth of God: all creation is one holy web of relationships, and gifts meant for all; that creation vibrates with the pain of all its parts, because its true destiny is joy." Julian of Norwich, 14th century "If there is anywhere on earth a lover of God who is always kept safe, I know nothing of it, for it was not shown to me. But this was shown: that in falling and rising again we are always kept in that same precious love." Readings for this Sunday: Jeremiah 1:4-10 • Ps. 71:1-6 • 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 • Luke 4:21-30
About 10 minutes after worship ends, we’ll gather together for Aftertalk. We hope you’ll join us! Bring your questions, stories, insights, doubts, musings, imaginings and whatever else you need to Aftertalk. Join us for some food, fellowship, laughter and ample space for reflection and real questions to help us make the transition from worship to world.
Scripture Lessons: Third Sunday after the Epiphany (Ordinary 3) Themes for this week: Story, Abundance, Gifts, Difference, Beloved Community The season that takes us from Christmas to Lent is Epiphany--a season, for us in the northern hemisphere, of light in the midst of dark days and cold days.
Reflection: Walter Brueggemann, 21st century: "What a stunning vocation for the church, to stand free and hope-filled in a world gone fearful – and to think, imagine, dream, vision a future that God will yet enact." Maggie Kuhn, founder of the Gray Panthers, 20th century "Speak your mind, even if your voice shakes." James Baldwin, 20th century (about the March on Washington 1963) "That day, for a moment, it almost seemed that we stood on a height, and could see our inheritance; perhaps we could make the kingdom real, perhaps the beloved community would not forever remain that dream one dreamed in agony." William Sloane Coffin, 20th century "The lack of material well-being among the poor reflects a lack of spiritual well-being among the rest." Khaled Hosseini, "The Kite Runner," 21st century "...there is a God, there always has been. I see [God] here, in the eyes of the people in this [hospital] corridor of desperation. This is the real house of God, this is where those who have lost God will find [God]...." Alice Walker, 21st century ...when she introduced her southern relatives who had moved to the north to a book about the Southern life that they had left behind: "They sat around, reading the book themselves, listening to me read the book, and a kind of paradise was regained." Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: "The danger of a single story" "When we reject the single story, when we realize that there is never a single story about any place, we regain a kind of paradise." About 10 minutes after worship ends, we’ll gather together for Aftertalk. We hope you’ll join us! Bring your questions, stories, insights, musings, imaginings and whatever else you need to Aftertalk. Join us for some food, fellowship, laughter and ample space for reflection and real questions to help us make the transition from worship to world.
Themes for this week: Intention, Integrity, Imagination The Advent season is filled with symbols: angels, prophets, journey, doubt, and hope.
Reflection: Black Elk, 20th century "The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize at the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit, and that its center is really everywhere, it is within each of us." Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams, 20th century "The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof." Thích Nhat Hanh, 21st century "The present moment is filled with joy and happiness. If you are attentive, you will see it." Marilynne Robinson, Gilead "Now that I look back, it seems to me that in all that deep darkness a miracle was preparing. So I am right to remember it as a blessed time, and myself as waiting in confidence, even if I had no idea what I was waiting for." and "There is a reality in blessing....It doesn't enhance sacredness, but it acknowledges it, and there is a power in that." Lectionary Texts: Malachi 3:1-4 | Luke 1:68-79 | Philippians 1:3-11 | Luke 3:1-6 About 10 minutes after worship ends, we’ll gather together for Aftertalk. We hope you’ll join us! Bring your questions, stories, insights, musings, imaginings and whatever else you need to Aftertalk. Join us for some food, fellowship, laughter and ample space for reflection and real questions to help us make the transition from worship to world.
Themes for this week: Hope, Honesty, Honor/Shame
Reflection: Edward Hays, A Pilgrim's Almanac, 20th century "Advent is a winter training camp for those who desire peace." Jürgen Moltmann, 20th century "I tried to present the Christian hope no longer as such an 'opium of the beyond' but rather as the divine power that makes us alive in this world." Martin Luther King, Jr., 20th century "Only in the darkness can you see the stars." Aeschylus, 5th century B.C.E. "He who learns must suffer; and even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom by the awful grace of God." J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King, 20th century "For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach." Frederick Buechner, 20th century "Go where your best prayers take you." Lectionary Texts: Jeremiah 33:14-16; Psalm 25:1-10; 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13; Luke 21:25-36 About 10 minutes after worship ends, we’ll gather together for Aftertalk. We hope you’ll join us! Bring your questions, stories, insights, musings, imaginings and whatever else you need to Aftertalk. Join us for some food, fellowship, laughter and ample space for reflection and real questions to help us make the transition from worship to world. Themes for this week: Pilate, Power, On Earth as in Heaven
"We thought, because we had power, we had wisdom." - Stephen Vincent Benét "We look forward to the time when the Power of Love will replace the Love of Power. Then will ourworld know the blessings of peace." - William E. Gladstone "You see what power is—holding someone else's fear in your hand and showing it to them!" - Amy Tan "He's not safe, but he's good." - CS Lewis, referring to Aslan from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe Lectionary Texts: Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14 | Psalm 93 | Revelation 1:4b-8 | John 18:33-37 Resources: U.S. No Longer a Democracy... About 10 minutes after worship ends, we’ll gather together for Aftertalk. We hope you’ll join us! Bring your questions, stories, insights, musings, imaginings and whatever else you need to Aftertalk. Join us for some food, fellowship, laughter and ample space for reflection and real questions to help us make the transition from worship to world.
Themes for this week: Prayer, Prophecy, Provision, and aPocalyspe
Reflection: "Groanings which cannot be uttered are often prayers which cannot be refused." Charles H. Spurgeon "'O God - please give him back! I shall keep asking You.'" John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany "Prayer is not asking. Prayer is putting oneself in the hands of God, at [God's] disposition, and listening to [God's] voice in the depth of our hearts." Mother Teresa "For me, prayer is a surge of the heart; it is a simple look turned toward heaven, it is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial and joy." Thérèse de Lisieux Lectionary Texts: Daniel 12:1-3 | Ps. 16 | Hebrews 10:11-14 | Mark 13:1-8 |