this week at First Church!
Greetings Beloved,
Can you feel the thaw, not only on your skin but in your bones? I knew it when I didn’t automatically reach for the warmest thing in my closet, yesterday. I knew spring was coming.
This is the strange time of year for Christians. There is more and more evidence of the light–it hits the kitchen table at a different angle when you’re eating your toast–and yet, we have one more long drink of the darkness, during Lent. It’s not a dark-night-of-the-soul darkness, more the dimness of just-before-dawn, the little light by which you can see the soft shapes of things, the sharp insight that comes in the liminal space between sleep and waking. This is Lent: the gaze goes soft, and yet crisp; we look inward, not to be narcissistic, but to see what we can drag out to the curb and leave there for trash, what we can re-use, recycle, recast. It’s about new life. It’s time to head down to the spiritual basement, out to the curb, basement, curb, basement, curb.
This weekend in worship:
I’ll be kicking off our Lenten sermon series on “Making the Faith Our Own in This Generation.” What’s it mean to be a Christian in the 21st century? How are we called to re-cast the church, to remake ourselves? What stays, what goes–in orthodoxy, theology, creeds, culture, our own hearts and bodies? What cherished sins must we relinquish, what renewal of the mind embrace?
Owen Robinson is our liturgist. Choir sings! and we with them–the Psalms return to our liturgy. We’ll share Communion; the Deacons invite you to light candles for the path, and to receive healing prayer from their hands, at the back of the sanctuary.
We will receive one of our five annual wider UCC offerings: One Great Hour of Sharing fights poverty globally and comforts our most comfortless brothers and sisters. Come prepared to share generously.
Laura Ruth is on loan for Sunday to First Church UCC in Natick, where she will be teaching drumming for the day. Natick returns the favor at the end of the month, when they will be in our worship teaching us about the Montessori children’s ministry Godly Play!
Church ladies, both male and female, are invited to Duhamel Hall before worship to fold the bulletin (extra inserts this week!), read the Sunday paper, drink good coffee in community. Yogis or just people with tight spirits and hamstrings are invited to easy yoga and meditation with Lisa Cawley in the Parlor before worship, 9:15-9:45a. Finance also meets before worship. Rooftop People, come lay your burdens down together after worship in the Chapel.
Have a beautiful, beautiful day people. It’s coming.
Molly