Join us for worship on Transfiguration Sunday!

We continue to keep our financial commitments to our mission partners and staff. If you are not yet able to join us, thank you for remembering to send in your financial pledges and offerings or donating here. ​

Do not judge lest ye be judged.
Love your enemies.
 
Did you grow up hearing these verses from John?
And as we have had to expand our idea of “neighbors” maybe we should also spend some time on these enemies we are to love.
 
Could these people we are inclined to judge be our enemies? Possibly. Especially if we spend much time doing the judging. An exercise could be to keep track of moments of judging throughout a day. The little ones and the big ones.  And the big ones include judging entire groups of people that could turn them into enemies, at least in our own eyes. White supremacy is all about judging people of color as “less than” and not worthy of respect or love.
 
These are hard things. Not judging folks who we would like to be judged by others and punished.
It is hard to see enemies and know that we are to love them. Love them!
 
Talk about soul work. These two things require such deep work to “change our hearts.”

​Enter into worship.

We continue to keep our financial commitments to our mission partners and staff. If you are not yet able to join us, thank you for remembering to send in your financial pledges and offerings or donating here. ​

“Blessed are you who are poor..., you who are hungry now..., you who weep but woe to you who are rich..., who are full now..., who are laughing now.”
​~Luke 6:20-21, 24-25

​Last week, Jesus invited his first disciples to follow him and to fish for people. So here they are this week “in the boat” with Jesus – these first four fisherman and some others – as Jesus paints for them a picture of their destination and as he starts to show them how to sail. He confirms the rumors, the messages already delivered, about the mission they are on. Yes, they are to be about holy reversals: God’s jubilee and the desire of God for the flourishing of all. It’s a message that’s already been delivered in Luke’s gospel by Jesus’ mother Mary, John the Baptist, and Jesus himself in the synagogue a few chapter before. Jesus affirms this mission again in his beatitudes and then he shows them the way they will go. And the way they will go is the way of Love.

Enter into worship.

We continue to keep our financial commitments to our mission partners and staff. If you are not yet able to join us, thank you for remembering to send in your financial pledges and offerings or donating here. ​

​Simon answered, “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.”
—Luke 5:5
 
The waters of faith are deep. We know this, even as it takes time and courage to recognize the extent of these unknown waters, much less to explore them. This claim is echoed in baptism. We say it is a one time event that takes a lifetime to complete. And we affirm at the funeral the “completion” of the departed’s baptism.
 
Simon (who will become a very sinkable Peter “the Rock”) serves as a stand-in for this journey of walking wet into the depths of the Holy all around us, and in us, and in the soundings of these faith stories that meet us on any given Sunday. They’ve been skunked all day when the fish should be biting. But here comes this carpenter whose on-land construction techniques are sound—witness the healing of Simon’s mother, among others—but have demonstrated no transferable skill-set to Simon’s wet world. Yet, he trusts. And so do the others who turn out to be there. And they go deep. They go deeper than expected, deeper than imagined. And what they realize is both overwhelming and unsettling—the power of this thing they have witnessed. And now comes the real need for courage. Will we trust the One who knows and invites us into these kinds of depths? Will we follow?

Enter into worship.

We continue to keep our financial commitments to our mission partners and staff. If you are not yet able to join us, thank you for remembering to send in your financial pledges and offerings or donating here. ​