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August 18, 2019
10:00 am
Join us in the Chapel
“I came to bring fire to the earth.” Luke 12:49-56
What on earth did Jesus mean by saying that! It does not quite reflect the “Jesus meek and mild” of Sunday School. Well, we should have known that image would not survive into adulthood. Maybe that’s why so many don’t return after Sunday School. This Sunday, let’s try to make Jesus’ acquaintance again, as if for the first time.
Mothers’ Helpers are here from 9:30 to 11:30.
What on earth did Jesus mean by saying that! It does not quite reflect the “Jesus meek and mild” of Sunday School. Well, we should have known that image would not survive into adulthood. Maybe that’s why so many don’t return after Sunday School. This Sunday, let’s try to make Jesus’ acquaintance again, as if for the first time.
Mothers’ Helpers are here from 9:30 to 11:30.
Violence in Christian America
I went to bed Saturday night ill, just ill, about the traumatic news from El Paso. I woke up Sunday morning to the same news from Dayton and felt ill all over again. Being in church that morning thankfully slaked off some of the pain.
But these traumas persist in America, the pattern repeats: bullets rip, the blood flows. Then the words flow. Thoughts and prayers. Thoughts and prayers. Why not screams and groans from our solar plexus?? A worship service anymore might best open with a keening circle!
It’s actually worse than it looks. The administration is only practicing for the future “invasions” of refugees from climate crises abroad. He is bracing us for the new America: America, the fortress.
Well, one response is, “Get used to it.”
The Christian response should be, “RESIST.” But how, there are so many ways.
I propose ours should be to resist with the Sabbath, make the Sabbath our demonstration of non-cooperation with evil. Make Sabbath so conspicuous, so resonant, so articulate of our emotions, so compelling, so joyous, so impossible to ignore that we create a wave equal and opposite to the Evangelical embrace of guns, nationalism, and xenophobia.
Before we go in to worship, suppose, might we gather on the lawn for 10 minutes singing and praying, then stand on the portico steps to offer up our confession of complicity with the conservative Christian co-optation of our faith. Then go inside to make a joyful noise in the name of Christ the champion of the vulnerable and the oppressed.
Think of SABBATH as resistance to all that makes you wake up ill in the morning.
--Rev. Rick
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474 Centre Street
Newton, MA 02458
617-244-3639
Office hours:
Monday, Tuesday, Thursday 7:30am - 2:30pm
Wednesday 7:00-5:00pm
Closed Fridays
Newton, MA 02458
617-244-3639
Office hours:
Monday, Tuesday, Thursday 7:30am - 2:30pm
Wednesday 7:00-5:00pm
Closed Fridays