Month: April 2022

Scripture: Psalm 145, Luke 24:13-35 (NIV)

This is my favorite Sunday of the year, because the Sunday after Easter is the day ‘Alleluia, He is Risen!’ stops being a worship response and starts determining how we LIVE.

Because we believe that Jesus is risen, we make different choices–we live differently, work differently, form community differently.  Because Jesus is risen, we fight different battles in different ways, we celebrate different victories, and we find ourselves in a different family.  Because Jesus is risen–we think differently, see differently, love differently. For us, everything changes.  Because Jesus is risen–everything is new.  And while the scope of the change is cosmic, the way we change is deceptively simple.

Love becomes the way we measure everything.  And when love is the measure–everything is made new.

I hope you’ll join me as we look at a beautiful story in a new and transformative way.

Peace,

Pastor Kate

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Scripture: Matthew 28:1-10

Dear Church,

On Good Friday, we gathered at 7 to watch and pray.  On Holy Saturday, as we waited, we walked the stations of the cross in our Labyrinth.

But friends–we know the end of the story.  We did not watch or wait as those without hope.  Sunday is coming–resurrection is coming.  I hope you’ll join us and add your hallelujah to the celebration.  We’ll be flowering the cross, so bring a bloom. (Don’t worry if you forget, we’ll have lots of extras!)

Peace,

Pastor Kate

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Scripture: Matthew 21:1-17

As he left Jericho and began his very last journey to Jerusalem, Jesus passed two blind men on the side of the road.  Hearing he was coming, the men cried out, ‘Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us!’  The crowd tried to shut them up and push them aside, but Jesus heard their voices and he stopped.  He asked them, ‘what do you want me to do for you?’

‘Lord, we want our sight.’  They called his name; they knew who he was–but they couldn’t see him.

And so–Jesus gave it to them and immediately they could see and began to follow him.  

On his way to Jerusalem, Jesus opened their eyes so they could see.  And once they could see, they began to follow.

And now we are entering into Holy Week.  Like those men on the side of the road–we also know who Jesus is, but there is still so much we can’t see.  We too need our eyes opened.  

Peace,

Pastor Kate

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Dear Church,

Sometimes the good news sounds like bad news at first.  As we move deeper into the shadows of Lent, this is one of those times.

This Sunday we gather around the communion table and consider the words Jesus gave us when he gave us this sacrament: ‘This is my body, which is for you: do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way after supper he took the cup saying, ‘this cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ (1 Corinthians 11:23-25).

What if this is more than a ritual?  What if Jesus is showing us, in word and deed, a new way to live in a violent and broken world?   At the communion table we first see that there are treasures buried in grief and loss, church.

Most of us are completely uninterested in that revelation because we still desperately believe that Jesus is never going to allow anything unbearable to happen to us.  I wonder how we got that idea from a savior who taught us that life and salvation are found in his broken body and spilled blood?

God brings meaning, salvation, goodness, and life out of pain, injustice, violence and suffering.  This is bad news if you believe right living and believing is going to protect you from pain. 

But if you are grieving right now, if you are suffering the loss of a loved one, the loss of a dream, the loss of a future, the loss of security or hope — if you are wondering why, if God loves you and you love God, why, why, why did you end up here — then the news that God’s glory manifests most powerfully and tenderly and transformatively in the midst of suffering and in the face of death — that is good news indeed.

Peace,

Pastor Kate

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