One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and
began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice—
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles…
~ Mary Oliver, “The Journey”
Ash Wednesday - Pain and Healing - February 26, 2020
Click Image Above to View Worship Guide
O Lord, who hast mercy upon all, take away from me my sins, and mercifully kindle in me the fire of thy Holy Spirit. Take away from me the heart of stone, and give me a heart of flesh, a heart to love and adore Thee, a heart to delight in Thee, to follow and enjoy Thee, for Christ's sake, Amen
~ St. Ambrose of Milan (AD 339-397)
Get Up and Do Not Be Afraid - February 23, 2020
Even with us something like that happens once in a while. The face of a man walking his child in the park, of a woman picking peas in the garden, of sometimes even the unlikeliest person listening to a concert, say, or standing barefoot in the sand watching the waves roll in, or just having a beer at a Saturday baseball game in July. Every once and so often, something so touching, so incandescent, so alive transfigures the human face that it's almost beyond bearing.
Click Image Above to View Worship Guide
~ Frederich Beuchner
Good News: God Isn’t Fair - February 16, 2020
Click Image Above to View Worship Guide
Gracious God,
In your loving heart there
is room for everyone—
without exception.
Give us courage to be so
at home in you that we
dare make room for others.
Let your world be a place
of delight and homecoming
for all creation.
~ Congregational prayer, Grace Cathedral, San Francisco
Going Public - February 9, 2020
Click Image Above to View Worship Guide
“Do not think you must speak the truth to a Christian but can lie to a ‘pagan.’ You are speaking to your brother or sister, born like you from Adam and Eve: realize all the people you meet are your neighbors even before they are Christians; you have no idea how God sees them. The ones you mock for worshiping stones … may worship God more fervently than you who laughed at them…You cannot see into the future, so let every one be your neighbor.”
~ Augustine of Hippo (354-430)
The Crazy Farmer - February 2, 2020
Click Image Above to View Worship Guide
“Many churches sing the hymn, ‘There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy,’ but the church is not always generous in dispensing it. God does not dole out mercy like cookies only for good, repentant children. God’s mercy is not conditioned by our response. God is mercy. So, wide is wider than we guess.”
~ David Buttrick
Half-Baked - January 26, 2020
Click Image Above to View Worship Guide
“Every time you close another door—be it the door of immediate satisfaction, the door of distracting entertainment, the door of busyness, the door of guilt and worry, or the door of self-rejection—you commit yourself to go deeper into your heart and thus deeper into the heart of God. This is a movement toward full incarnation. It leads you to become what you already are—a child of God; it lets you embody more and more the truth of your being; it makes you claim the God within you.”
~ Henri J. M. Nouwen (1932-1996)
One in Christ Jesus - January 19, 2020
Bruce Salmon
Click Image Above to View Worship Guide
“Let us move now from the practical how to the theoretical why: Why should we love our enemies? The first reason is fairly obvious. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction. So when Jesus says, ‘love your enemies,’ he is setting forth a profound and ultimately inescapable admonition. Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies—or else? The chain reaction of evil—hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars—must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.”
~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Loving Your Enemies” sermon, 12/25/57
God’s Gentle Justice - January 12, 2020
Click Image Above to View Worship Guide
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.
~ Denise Levertov
“The Avowal”
The Beginning - January 5, 2020
Click Image Above to View Worship Guide
“God did not just start talking to us with the Bible or the church or the prophets…The radiance of the Divine Presence has been glowing and expanding since the beginning of time, before there were any human eyes to see or know about it.”
~ Richard Rohr
The Messiah Standing in Solidarity - December 29, 2019
Click Image Above to View Worship Guide
A Season of Promises: A Promise in Plain Wrapping - December 24, 2019
Click Image Above to View Worship Guide
“In his teaching and preaching, Jesus was forever calling our attention to the seemingly trivial, the small, and the insignificant—like lost children, lost coins, lost sheep, a mustard seed. The kingdom involves the ability to see God within those people and experiences that the world regards as little and of no account, ordinary.”
~ Stanley Hauerwas & William Willimon
A Season of Promises: The Promise of Kindness - December 22, 2019
Click Image Above to View Worship Guide
“I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round, as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.”
~ Charles Dickens (1812-1870) A Christmas Carol
A Season of Promises: The Promise of Justice - December 15, 2019
Click Image Above to View Worship Guide
"Whenever we look to Mary, we come to believe once again in the revolutionary nature of love and tenderness. In her we see that humility and tenderness are not virtues of the weak but of the strong who need not treat others poorly in order to feel important themselves." ~ Pope Francis
A Season of Promises: The Promise of Presence - December 8, 2019
Forever at his door
I gave my heart and soul.
My fortune, too.
I’ve no flock anymore,
No other work in view.
My occupation: Love. It’s all I do.
~ St. John of the Cross (1542-1591)
Click Image Above to View Worship Guide
A Season of Promises: The Promise of Home - December 1, 2019
A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes...and is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the outside, is not a bad picture of Advent.
Click Image Above to View Worship Guide
~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906 - 1945)
Flawed and Faithful: The Life of David - Giving Genuine Gifts - November 24, 2019
If the only prayer
you ever say in your entire life is
Thank You,
it will be enough.
~ Meister Eckhart
Click Image Above to View Worship Guide
Flawed and Faithful: The Life of David - Leaving Unfinished Dreams - November 17, 2019
Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime;
therefore, we must be saved by hope.
Nothing true or beautiful makes complete sense
in any immediate context of history;
therefore, we must be saved by faith.
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone;
therefore, we are saved by love.
Click Image Above to View Worship Guide
~ Reinhold Niebuhr
Flawed and Faithful: The Life of David - Lamenting the Unthinkable - November 10, 2019
O God, teach me to see You,
and reveal Yourself to me
when I seek you,
For I cannot seek You
unless You first teach me,
Nor find You
unless You first reveal Yourself to me.
Let me seek You in longing,
and long for You in seeking.
Let me find You in love,
and love You in finding.
~ Ambrose of Milan
Click Image Above to View Worship Guide
Flawed and Faithful: The Life of David - Navigating Betrayal - November 3, 2019
For those who walked with us,
this is a prayer.
For those who have gone ahead,
this is a blessing.
For those who touched and tended us,
who lingered with us
while they lived,
Click Image Above to View Worship Guide
this is a thanksgiving.
For those who journey still with us
in the shadows of awareness,
in the crevices of memory,
in the landscape of our dreams,
this is a benediction.
~ Jan Richardson, “For Those Who Walked With Us”