Church News (Page 14)
Unity Build with Habitat for Humanity
La Jolla UMC has an opportunity to serve. San Diego Habitat for Humanity is building six homes in National City. A Unity Build event will be held from February 4th through February 6th to help complete this project. There will be more information provided later this month. Volunteers do not need to have any special skills or prior experience, and your commitment could just be for one of the days. You can find some information on this webpage: https://www.sandiegohabitat.org/get-involved/events/unity-build/ There…
Notes on “Well Pleased”
This Sunday we begin a new series called The Body of Christ: Learning & Re-Learning How to Be a Christian. This is also the time in the Christian year that we conclude Christmastide and Epiphany and begin Ordinary Time (sometimes called “season after Epiphany”). But this time is anything but ordinary! As we made the difficult decision to return to online-only Worship, there’s nothing “ordinary” about this! Perhaps we are all filled with expectation, even if our expectations aren’t working…
Notes on “The Light of Home”
This Sunday is the last Sunday of Christmastide, and January 6th will be Epiphany of the Lord. Our Scripture this week comes from John 1:10-18. It is the second half of the prologue to John’s Gospel, at least that is what many commentators believed about John 1:1-18. The prologue contains poetic verses that likened Jesus to the Word and light along with the concepts of incarnation, glory, grace, and truth. These concepts are illumined when we interpret them through Jesus. …
Notes on “Lost at Home”
In a couple of days, we’ll have our Christmas Eve Programs at 5 PM and 7 PM. Christmas Eve’s celebration is, as I recall from personal experience, normally bigger than Christmas itself in terms of congregational celebration. Unless Christmas falls on a Sunday, church folks normally celebrate Christmas Eve at church, but we celebrate Christmas at home. This Sunday, we’ll be done with Christmas, but we’re still in Christmastide, at least until the evening of January 5th, 2022. The Scripture…
Notes on “The Blessing of Home”
As we move toward the fourth and final Sunday of Advent, we continue our series that focuses on coming home for Christmas. We’ve explored some of the baggage we carry when we return home, and addressed how this can be a fearful experience for some. And last week we talked about that childlike and unadulterated joy that we might lean into as we celebrate Emmanuel—God with us. It is my hope that the joy of Emmanuel is lasting. I say…
Notes on “The Joy of Home”
As of this writing, we are just a few days from the Third Sunday of Advent, and we are continuing our series that focuses on coming home for Christmas. Our first Sunday, the apocalyptic text helped us to examine the challenges of returning home. Our second Sunday brought a chance to further this examination by understanding that going home can bring anxiety and fear. This week we hold these things in our hearts alongside the reminder that returning home can…
Notes on “The Fear of Home”
This week we come to the Second Sunday of Advent, finally reading and hearing the familiar text of anticipation for Christmas. Finally we’re getting ready! Finally we’re hearing the voice in the wilderness! So why does the sermon title talk about fear? Perhaps home is a comfortable place for you and therefore unassociated with fear. And perhaps we might acknowledge that it’s not that way for everyone. The Irish rock band U2 includes a lyric in the song “Walk On”…
Notes on “Time to Go Home”
This Sunday is the first Sunday of Advent. Many of us are expecting to go to church to watch family members, friends, or congregants light an Advent candle and hear a heart-warming message related to events leading to the birth of baby Jesus. To our surprise, we are given an apocalyptic text with signs from the heavenly bodies and chaos on earth together with dismay and confusion. Some of us might ask ourselves, what do apocalyptic events and the warning…
Notes on “Everyone Who Belongs”
This is the conclusion of the Christian year. Our friends in the Jewish tradition end the High Holy Days with Yom Kippur or the Day of Atonement. It is a time to look back on the previous year and to atone for or “clean up” (kippurim literally means cleansing) our wrongdoings from the past. As we approach the end of our Christian year with Reign of Christ Sunday (sometimes called Christ the King), we might consider where we place Christ…
Notes on “Not One Stone”
Our lectionary text this week is the penultimate in our Christian year. It’s interesting that we face an apocalyptic text when we will also do so the first Sunday in Advent. Is this something we should be actively worried about? Is this imminent? Should we be watching the skies for an asteroid or for the opening of the heavens? If we ask these questions, we may be echoing the disciples. When Jesus says the temple will fall, the disciples ask…
Notes on “Everything She Had”
Through our recent series on parables, there were several times when Jesus would teach the phrase we now hold familiar: the first shall be last and the last shall be first. The text this Sunday may offer a parallel illustration, and as a clergy person I find it kind of unsettling! The phrase that is translated here as “legal experts” could easily be applied to clergy, and I wonder if our legal professionals in the congregation share the same unease…
Notes on “The Rich Man & Lazarus”
This Sunday we conclude our sermon series on the parables of Jesus, guided by the book Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi by Amy-Jill Levine. To watch or listen to any/all of the services or sermons from this series, visit this page. This parable is likely another familiar story, and in this case the original audience may have guessed the same about each character as we do today. Very often those who are exceedingly wealthy in Jesus’ parables are…