Dear Ones,
Nourished by our breakfast on the beach with Christ last Sunday, we are about to begin our stewardship season, which will officially kick off next Sunday, April 21st! This year we are exploring the theme of Imagining Together, which invites us to dream into being the kind of community impact we know is possible when God’s people work together in love.
But first, we need to rest. Our scripture this Sunday contains this short but powerful offer from Jesus, “Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Read on its own, this invitation seems to offer deep rest, renewal, and a reprieve from the daily toil of life. And yet, we also remember that on multiple occasions, Jesus emphasizes and even demonstrates the high cost of discipleship. Our stewardship materials point out that “when we consider the broader requirements of the Way, which involves leaving family; sacrificing self and one’s own interests; even at the risk of one’s life, would this be considered easy? Rewarding – yes. A life of service – yes. Joyful, with divine kindness and grace – yes. But rarely if at all easy.”
What are we to make of that? How can a yoke, a symbol of burden and toil be something that offers ease?
Join us on Sunday at 11am in our Sanctuary and on YouTube to imagine, learn, sing, and pray (and maybe even nap?) together.
In faith,
Amy
image credit: Holding a Tired Head, painting by Caitlin Connolly
This Lent and Easter (February 14-April 7), our worship and Church School curriculum follows A Sanctified Art’s Wandering Heart series, reflecting on the sometimes mercurial discipleship of Peter and the words of a favorite hymn, “Come, O Fount of Every Blessing.”
This Sunday wraps up our wandering journey alongside Peter as he experiences discipleship and beyond. We will be welcoming United Parish member Kate Baker-Carr as our guest preacher. Kate writes “Our text for Sunday brings us full circle. We began Lent with Jesus calling Peter, his brother Andrew, James, and John to leave their fishing nets, their livelihoods, and take up the call to discipleship. These many weeks later, we arrive at the Second Sunday in Easter with Peter jumping out of a fishing boat to greet the Risen Jesus who is cooking breakfast on the shoreline. Between the first and the last texts we encountered feasts, mysteries, healings, parables, unparalleled hope, utterly dashed dreams and miraculous new life. The beauty of a full circle is not only that it invites us to remember all that has been but also to contemplate what it all might mean in the many seasons that lie before us. As we enter more fully into the Easter season, let’s consider what the fullness of the circle means to Peter and to us.
We’ll also welcome guest liturgists Anna and Nathan Jeide-Detweiler, Mike McConnell, and Holly VandeWall to lead us in worship while Kent takes some well-deserved post-Lent vacation, and I teach confirmation class upstairs.
Join us for worship at 11am in our Sanctuary and online to pray, sing, learn, and wonder together.
In faith,
Amy
This Lent (February 14-March 30), our worship and Church School curriculum follows A Sanctified Art’s Wandering Heart series, reflecting on the sometimes mercurial discipleship of Peter and the words of a favorite hymn, “Come, O Fount of Every Blessing.”
We’ve been following stories about the disciple Peter during Lent and all the ways that he’s impulsive, impetuous, usually over-eager and often talking a bigger game than he can play.
On Maundy Thursday, he denies his beloved friend and mentor not once, but three times — fearful for his own life to be associated with him. He weeps in bitter regret afterwards (Luke 22:54-62).
And yet, when he hears the women’s account that Jesus has been raised from the dead, even though his other colleagues consider it “nonsense,” Peter runs to the tomb to see for himself (Luke 24:1-12).
How much of our faith life seems like “nonsense” to the rest of the world? How much do we need the non-sense of hope and imagination to change the world? How much non-sensical hope do we need to counter climate change, gross economic inequities, racism, a ceasefire in all wars, inadequate housing? How much non-sensical hope do we need to counter the constant narrative of division and decline in order to let new life come forth?
As always during Holy Week, we will go through the farewell meal, denial and betrayal of Maundy Thursday, and the state-sanctioned, religiously condoned torture and execution of Good Friday before we get to the empty tomb on Sunday morning. It’s important to remember these “valleys of the shadow of death” on our way to Resurrection. If you haven’t come before and you have the spiritual fortitude, I encourage you to come.
We will also remember in both the valley and on the peak of Easter Sunday that we are called to be Resurrection People — people who believe in hopeful things that the rest of the world considers “nonsense.”
In faith,
Kent
Image credit: “Peter and John Running to the Tomb” by Eugene Burnand
This Lent (February 14-March 30), our worship and Church School curriculum follows A Sanctified Art’s Wandering Heart series, reflecting on the sometimes mercurial discipleship of Peter and the words of a favorite hymn, “Come, O Fount of Every Blessing.”
As we begin Holy Week with Palm Sunday, we prepare for the often heart-wrenching way that we will confront our own role in Jesus’ arrest, torture, and death. It’s heavy, there’s no way around that. I also think that it is one of the regrettably few times we explicitly encounter Christ in such a visceral way, drawing such clear parallels to our own experience in our own time. In a similar vein, Pope Francis remarked in 2019 that when “‘situations of injustice and human pain’ seem to be growing around the globe, Christians are called to ‘accompany the victims, to see in their faces the face of our crucified Lord.'”
Last weekend, several of our community members answered that call by participating in CityReach, a ministry of common cathedral that brings youth together for an overnight intensive where they learn from, and offer direct service to, the unhoused community in Boston. One of our youth participants writes of her CityReach overnight, “I didn’t know what to expect from the experience but I was surprised by how much community, love, and kindness I saw. It was eye opening to be able to not just see but understand that there is so much more that people have in common that bring us together rather than pull us apart.”
Stella, Daniela, Lani, Janet, Amalia, and two CityReach staff ready to learn and serve!
Rev. Carrington Moore leading CityReach orientation and prayer
Beloved, this is how encountering Christ transforms us. Even when what we witness or learn breaks our hearts, it breaks them open. That’s how God’s love works.
This Sunday, we’ll hear of another encounter with Christ, a whirlwind of praise and hope and confusion, that simultaneously brought us closer to understanding Jesus’ mission on earth even as it brought him a step closer to his eventual torture and death. We will have the privilege of welcoming as guest preacher the Executive Minister of the UCC’s Southern New England Conference, Rev. Darrell Goodwin. Darrell will be sharing with us a message inspired by Howard Thurman’s concept of the “Sound of the Genuine,” and how recognizing this sound within ourselves calls us back to one another in beloved community.
Join us for worship at 11am in our Sanctuary and on YouTube to learn, sing, pray, and remember together!
In faith,
Amy
Holy Week Schedule
Image credit: “Then They Remembered” by Lisle Gwynn Garrity. Inspired by John 12:12-16. © a sanctified art | sanctifiedart.org
This Lent (February 14-March 30), our worship and Church School curriculum follows A Sanctified Art’s Wandering Heart series, reflecting on the sometimes mercurial discipleship of Peter and the words of a favorite hymn, “Come, O Fount of Every Blessing.”
Come on Sunday and we’ll reflect on Matthew 18:15-22, in which Jesus gives challenging instructions about how to work through conflict and forgiveness with someone who’s offended you. When Peter shows a real interest in learning more about it and asks “How many times should I forgive…as many as seven times?” Jesus responds: “Seventy times seven.”
That’s a lot of forgiveness.
In preparation, I encourage you to think about:
How easy or hard is forgiveness for you? Why?
Is there someone with whom you’ve had conflict that you need to forgive?
What would it look like if American culture practiced more forgiveness?
See you Sunday and we’ll pray, reflect and sing together.
In faith,
Kent
Image from Radiance Functional Medicine.
*Daylight Savings Time Begins this Sunday, March 10. Turn clocks ahead one hour.*
This Lent (February 14-March 30), our worship and Church School curriculum follows A Sanctified Art’s Wandering Heart series, reflecting on the sometimes mercurial discipleship of Peter and the words of a favorite hymn, “Come, O Fount of Every Blessing.”
Withstanding Hard Times
Sometimes the news seems too hard to hear. A challenging medical diagnosis. The end of a relationship. A job layoff. A debilitating accident. A financial setback.
We’d rather turn the other way. We’d do anything to change it. Our response might be “No, no, no!” To put our head under the covers or to run away. Or to channel all of our energy to stave off the inevitable.
Peter had a moment like that (Matthew 16:21-23). Jesus candidly let his disciples know that he would undergo some rough treatment in the days ahead, suffering under the authorities and being executed and then raised on the third day. Shocked and devastated, Peter took hold of him, said “God forbid, Lord! This won’t happen to you,” and wanted to do all he could to prevent it.
Jesus responds pretty harshly, saying “Get behind me, Satan!” After having just called Peter “the rock” on which he would build the church, he now calls him “a stone” that could make him stumble.
Sometimes we have trouble facing the inevitable, accepting those things we cannot change. Sometimes God’s ways, Life’s ways are not our ways. Sometimes we need the wisdom to know this. And in those moments we need the spiritual tools, the deepened faith, the community of faithful friends to withstand what is hard in life.
On Sunday, we’ll lean into this reality together, in person and on YouTube, reflecting on what we can do on a regular basis to strengthen ourselves for hard times.
In faith,
Kent
Image from God’s Blueprint.
This Lent (February 14-March 30) our worship and Church School curriculum follows A Sanctified Art’s Wandering Heart series, reflecting on the sometimes mercurial discipleship of Peter and the words of a favorite hymn, “Come, O Fount of Every Blessing.”
On Sunday, we’ll be continuing our Lenten journey with Simon as Jesus bestows a new name upon him and cements him forevermore in our narrative as Peter. This nickname, Petros (or Kephas, in Aramaic), might best be appreciated by English speakers as “Rocky” (or maybe “the Rock,” if you’re a Fast & Furious fan).
And what an exultant moment for Rocky this is. Blurting out his answer to his teacher’s question, Peter reveals the depth of his understanding of Jesus’ identity and purpose on earth, and in response Jesus reveals that he believes so much in Simons capacity to be solid and dependable that not only is he is going to call him Simon “the Rock” from now on, but also that he is entrusting the legacy of his movement to Peter, that Peter is the rock on which Jesus will build his church.
What must that have felt like for Peter? A burden? An affirmation? A poignant mixture of both? Undoubtedly Peter was aware of his own foibles and limitations, what would it feel like for someone who frequently misplaces their belongings to be given the nickname John “the memory” Doe?
Did this memory become a touchstone for Peter, after Jesus’ death, as he devoted himself to the foundation and maintenance of this fledgling movement? Did he remind himself of Jesus’ affirmation whenever he felt he wasn’t up to the task?
We may never know for sure, but join us for worship on Sunday in person or on youtube to pray, sing, and ponder together.
In faith,
Amy
Image credit: “Who Do You Say That I Am?” by Lauren Wright Pittman, Inspired by Matthew 16:13-20.
Digital Painting. © a sanctified art | sanctifiedart.org
This Lent (February 14-March 30) our worship and Church School curriculum follows A Sanctified Art’s Wandering Heart series, reflecting on the sometimes mercurial discipleship of Peter and the words of a favorite hymn, “Come, O Fount of Every Blessing.”
On Sunday, we’ll be continuing our Lenten journey with Peter (still named Simon at this point in the narrative), back out onto his boat in the middle of a stormy sea of Galilee.
In those days, before aquariums and marine biology and underwater cameras, the ocean’s depths were a foreboding mystery that still very much inhabited the cultural zeitgeist as the realm of scary demons and spiritual chaos, far from today’s Baby Shark and Finding Nemo. It’s easy to imagine, then, why even these experienced fishermen were terrified when they saw a figure atop the water headed towards them (spoiler alert: it’s Jesus). What follows next is an interaction between Peter and Jesus where we witness Peter rapidly cycle from fear to confidence, back to fear, over to hope, and finally landing at devotion. No one can accuse Peter of not living “in the now”- in fact, sometimes I think that’s the only place Peter lives! I have deep affection for Peter- I think something in my ADHD brain and soul finds companionship in his impulsivity, eagerness, hyperfocus, distractibility, and earnest desire to get it right and get in tune with God, even when he lands on a discordant note.
Maybe what this story reminds us is how, as our curriculum points out, too often “we grapple with what has made us sink without realizing that Jesus focuses on how much he loves us.”
Join us for worship on Sunday in the Sanctuary and on YouTube to sing, pray, sink, and swim together in God’s grace.
In faith,
Amy
Image credit: “Lift Off” by Nicolette Peñaranda, Inspired by Matthew 14:22-23.
Acrylic, ink, paper collage, and mixed media on canvas. © a sanctified art | sanctifiedart.org
This Lent (February 14-March 30) our worship and Church School curriculum follows A Sanctified Art’s Wandering Heart series, reflecting on the sometimes mercurial discipleship of Peter and the words of a favorite hymn, “Come, O Fount of Every Blessing.”
Jesus’ first disciples were everyday people: minding their own business, mending their nets, supporting their families, worrying about expenses, paying their taxes, fretting about the future. First and foremost among them was Peter. He’s a compelling guy, often impulsive, leaping before he looks, getting it wrong at least as much as he gets it right, making promises he can’t keep.
Much like you and me and lots of people we know.
And Jesus loved him. And despite, or perhaps because of Peter’s “perfect imperfections,” Jesus trusted him. He called Peter “the rock” on which he would build his church, the early Jesus’ movement. Roman Catholics consider him the first pope, the “bishop of Rome.”
This Lent, we are inviting Peter into the Sanctuary with us, noticing what about his life and impulses match our own. We’ll notice where our story meets his. And through it all, we’ll interweave the old hymn “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing” as we consider our own wandering hearts and what it means to bring them more in tune with God this season.
For this First Sunday in Lent, we’ll remember the confessional words of Psalm 25 and an account of when Jesus first called Peter and his brother Andrew to follow him (Luke 5:1-11), promising these well-worn fishermen that soon they’d be fishing for people. We’ll stoke our imaginations about how Jesus and God are seeking us out of our everyday lives to be disciples in this day and age.
In faith,
Kent
Image credit: “River of Grace” by Lisle Gwynn Garrity. Inspired by Luke 5:1-11. Acrylic painting on canvas with digital drawing. © a sanctified art | sanctifiedart.org
This Lent (February 14-March 30) our worship and Church School curriculum follows A Sanctified Art’s Wandering Heart series, following the sometimes mercurial discipleship of Peter and the words of a favorite hymn, “Come, O Fount of Every Blessing.”
This is the last Sunday before we launch once again into the season of Lent, those 40 days when we commemorate Jesus’ days in the wilderness and seek to deepen in our own faith and spiritual practices. This Sunday, we’ll offer a prelude to Lent, as we lean into the Wandering Heart series described above (check out the link).
Often, before the prayer of confession, you’ll hear me invite us to re-tune and re-calibrate our hearts and souls to God’s melody, God’s rhythm, God’s way of being. This is how I often think of God: like a great cosmic grounding tone in the universe that we have to keep returning back to, in order to get our own individual melodies on track.
On Sunday, we’re going to deepen into that idea of re-tuning, just like the old hymn says, “tune my heart to sing thy grace.” We’ll look at Psalm 51 and Matthew 4. When and how do you get out of tune with God? What does it mean to re-tune your soul? What are some ways this Lenten season that you could try that out?
Come Sunday and we will lean into these questions together.
In faith,
Kent
Image from Truth is Crying blog.
Other Lenten Opportunities
Ash Wednesday worship, February 14, 7pm, Chapel. Learn more
Lenten Discernment Class, Sundays, February 18-March 24, Parlor. Learn more.
Dinner Church, Thursdays, February 22-March 21, Parlor. Learn more.