Hello Beloved,
Anyone remember that story recorded in 3 of the 4 gospels–the story of the man who hadn’t walked in years? He was paralyzed. He had friends who had heard of Jesus, heard of the things Jesus could do. They knew this man’s paralysis was beyond their power to heal, but they had enough moxie to carry him to the house where Jesus was staying, to drag him up to the roof when nobody made way for them to the door, and to cut a hole in the roof to let him down at Jesus’ feet. They were the rooftop people: not healers, but ones who paved the way for it.
We’ve built a small group out of this story: for anyone in a caregiving profession [health care, therapy, social work, teaching, ministry, et alia] who knows when they’re out of their depth–and knows, too, perhaps all they can do is heave and ho, not alone but with others, to bring those in need of healing into a space where healing happens, into the presence of One who can heal. Our small group, Rooftop People, comes back together this Sunday after hiatus: meeting after worship, 11:30, in the Chapel, for thelogical reflection and prayer, and every first Sunday of the month thereafter. If you need us, won’t you join us?
Deep seekers and lovers of God and archetype, a brochure for a brief conference at BU just came across my desk. I’m going, and I’d love you to join me if you’re interested: “Exploring Spirituality in Self and Others Through (Jungian) Psychological Type,” on Wednesday October 28, in the afternoon. Those of you who became fascinated with type after the church retreats we did on Myers-Briggs and Enneagram might find this a useful time. The link is:
www.bu.edu/danielsen/spirithealth
Finally, we don’t need to wait for a conference to tell us how to do it: we work on spirit-health every day, in our prayers alone, in our talk together. Want to talk or pray with me? I’ll be keeping a booth warm at the Diesel, tomorrow morning, Wednesday, 8-10a.
blessings,
Molly
Dear Beloved,
Well, we’ve made it back home, all of us! The summer is over, our new school year has begun, we lived through the first two weeks! Praise be to God!
We will linger together twice this Sunday – Sunday Service and Block Party.
Our service on Sunday at 10AM includes welcoming five new members, Mariah Hout, Chris Levins, Jackie Kerstner, April Evans and David Douglas.
Where is your Bible? Can you find? Dust it off? Open it without six holy cards and a four leafed clover falling out? Will you bring your Bible, please on Sunday? Molly and I are starting a sermon series, five glorious weeks on the Bible – what is it, how did we get it, what are we supposed to do with it, how to use it. I begin tomorrow with a sermon, “The ABC and 123 of the B.I.B.L.E.” There will be no Bible banging.
Our first time liturgist is the lovely Michael Molla, please will you pray for him as he prepares? Our choir will sing – you can join the choir by showing up at 8:55 on Sunday in the chapel for rehearsal. Molly will pray and welcome our new members. Ian will do the sound system. Liz Danner is the greeter. In the nursery is Jeff Banks and Emily Deckenback. Hugh Gallaher is the shepherd. Erin Iwanusa will teach the little ones. Missy Sturveyant will teach the 7-11 year olds – they’ve named themselves the Flyer Hedgehogs. Welcome Missy!
Our Block Party is also on Sunday, 4-6. Please bring a covered dish to share with our neighbors. Pete and Ben will play with other musicians sitting in. The Marching Band will begin at 3:45 – up Francesca and back. We need children to march with us. And we march rain or shine.
If it rains, we’ll have the block party inside.
Between on Sunday, we have the Music Committee and Compassionate Caregivers at 11:30, and from 12:30-2, the New Old Fashioned Bible Study led by Althea, on the book of Romans. Althea does a wonderful job, and no kidding, makes the study of Romans fascinating.
Tomorrow, on Saturday, a bunch of us are going first to the Duhamel Educational Initiative Fund Raising Dinner at church, 6-8 PM. Mayor Curtone and the Somerville Board of Aldermen (sic) are cooking! Proceeds go to Somerville Public Schools to help keep kids excited about learning and being in school.
After that at 8PM, we’re going to see John Olson (as Clergyman and one of the Very Merry Men), and hear the music of Thom Whittemore and Joe Turbessi at the Somerville Theatre in the production “Never After.” (Never After is the story of Princess Lesley Ann, destined by a conniving fairy to be a lesbian. Ill-suited to her role as a fairytale princess, Les leaves the kingdom of Generica to search for adventure. Along the way, she makes friends in unlikely places, fights dragons, finds her true love, and discovers her own indomitable strength. from the website: http://www.theatreatfirst.org/shows/never_after/never_after.shtml)
Whew, lastly, First Church Twitters. Go to www.twitter.com, make an account for yourself. Then in the search field on the right hand side of the home page, search for FCSomerville – and voila, you are twittering.
Peace to you folks.
Love,
Laura Ruth
–
Rev. Laura Ruth Jarrett
Minister of Outreach
First Congregational Church of Somerville, UCC
An Open and Affirming Congregation
W. 12-9, Th. 2-8, Su. 8:30-2
Follow us at FCSomerville
Don’t Twitter yet? It’s easy. First, go to www.twitter.com. Then create an account for yourself by clicking on “Sign Up Now.” Then subscribe to ‘FCSomerville’ to receive our “tweets.” Try it!
Beloved,
It happens all the time that I preach a sermon, and in the process of trying to articulate what I want to say, I often find I have at least a whole ‘nother sermon to preach by the time I’ve filled my 5-7 double spaced pages. What to do with all the extra material?
Sometimes what I find doesn’t get into the sermon is the “how-to” part that goes with whatever I’m preaching about. Now, maybe you don’t need your preachers to tell you how-to. Maybe you ran away from church originally for just that reason: altogether too much telling you what to do. But maybe, maybe, you would like some advice–that you can take, tweak, or ignore–some homework, as it were.
Couple days ago I preached sermon on Sabbath, and the use, and abuse, of time. The sermon that got left out, the how-to, is something like this: there are two ways to handle our abuse of time. We can essentially approach it the way newbies to Weight Watchers approach food, or Debtors Anonymous adherents approach money: the fearless reckoning of calories, or dollars and cents. See where all that time is GOING, then set priorities, make decisions, cut down on the fat.
This is certainly redeeming, and effective, and probably necessary for most of us, as a starting point. But if we are going to stay sabbathly-fit, if we are not going to revert to our old habits of squandering and dissipating, we can’t stay on a time-diet forever. We have to learn to live in time in a way that we love, for its own sake–not because it’s ‘good for us.’
This, I’ve been discovering, is not so much about what we do with days or hours, but with minutes. Micro-calories of time, if you will. For me, it comes down to the art of lingering. I’ve gotten so much joy over the last couple months from not-rushing, which has made me, paradoxically, on time much more of the time. Lingering also means I get to notice a lot more beauty, pay attention to strangers in a way that makes me more compassionate and prayerful toward all humans. I get to hear what my kids are actually saying, because I am listening, and I laugh a lot more than I did before. So: can I invite you to linger? To buffer your time between here and there, between this phone call and that errand and the other appointment, with some pointless, beautiful lingering? All that will seep in around those edges, is God-given.
I’ll be lingering at the Diesel, tomorrow morning from 8 to 10a. Hope you’ll linger with me.
Christlove,
Molly
Join First Church members, friends, family, and neighbors for our annual block party on Sunday, September 27th from 4 to 6pm. We’ll have burgers and hotdogs (veggie ones too) and side dishes galore! We’ll also have a bouncy house, face painting, and other fun stuff! So stop by and say hello! Check inside for us if it’s raining out!
Greetings Beloved!
I’ve had, I imagine, a week much like yours: booting up the brain, tuning back into tasks, finding the appropriate gear for this hill or that straightaway, holding a little sprig of summer still inside of us, to mix a metaphor or three.
Last week, I sat on a bench in front of the Charles with Deacon Sue Donnelly, and told her I was trying to have sabbath mind = all the time. I liked the euphony of the phrase as it came out of my mouth (thank you, God! all my best lines are yours), and she picked up on it too. It’s an infectious idea, isn’t it? But how can we do it? How can we do it, and also do all the other things required of us in our personal lives, AND do all the things that following Jesus ALSO requires of us?
I had a pretty big epiphany this summer: I want to share it with you this Sunday in worship. It has something to do with the democracy of time, the reality of free will, and the necessity to take responsibility for both the justice demands of God, and what the ancient Jewish Friday night shabbat prayer calls “the inheritance of the sabbath.”
but before that: tonight is the second of three Sabbath Dinners this fall, a chance to tell you in less formal conversation what I learned and noticed on my sabbatical journey, and to hear about your own journeys. Last night was full up, and the third and final dinner is also fully booked–but we have three spaces open tonight! Dinner’s at 7p at the Parsonage–a Mediterranean feast. Would you like to come?
Sunday morning in worship, I’ll be preaching from Matthew 26, “The Spirit is Willing, But the Flesh is Busy.” Laura Ruth will offer prayers, and we will baptize both baby Nathaniel and his father, David Douglas! Toni Snow is our poetic liturgist. Choir sings!
And save some appetite for even more spiritual nourishment: Sunday evening at 7p launches our inaugural cutting-edge worship service, re/New, which you’ve heard about from Jeff von Wald. Juicy, sensory, flexible, funky, relevant, deep, wide. A work in progress, and church made new in this generation! Get in on the ground floor, connect with the ground of your being.
Happy day. Light a candle this evening at sundown, remember the sabbath, keep it holy.
Christlove,
Molly
Beloved! Beloved! Beloved!
How good it feels to say that again. How good it feels to be seeing you, hugging you, patting your baby bellies, hearing your tales of woe and triumph and moving house, seeing you tan and relaxed, seeing you working hard on your stuff, hearing about the fullness of your lives, praying with you in coffee shops and at church meetings, again.
I was a wanderer, a stranger, a homeless Christian for the summer. It was an incredibly poignant and valuable experience, and I can’t wait to share it with you, in bits and pieces, over the next many moons. And how glad I am to be spiritually homeless no more! To be back among my brothers and sisters!
This Sunday I’ll see you in worship, and you get a chance to see each other, on this Great Gathering Sunday. Some of us started school this week. Some of us got serious with job searches, or new internships. I hear a lot of new leaves turning over, all at once. All that busy-ness with which we are busy means we need even more that hour of prayer, of holy hugs, of grounding in our callings and a chance to remember that we belong somewhere, that we belong to Someone and a lot of little someones.
At the beginning of the summer, just as I left for sabbatical, you got to take home a puzzle piece. If you can find it (!) bring it with you this Sunday, when we put all the pieces back together.
In worship, Laura Ruth and I will be preaching from 2 Timothy 4; a letter Paul wrote to one of his church leaders, maybe on his deathbed. He says, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” We are in a holy relay race in our faith community; we have work we need to do, wonderful work, and you are absolutely necessary to making it happen.
Sabbatical team will join us in a litany of Christian elemental symbols to remember what we did this summer, while we were together and while we were apart. It is Jubilee Worship and the kids will be with us! If your child would like to help present the elements to be placed on our communion table, please come a little early to practice. We will celebrate communion! I know we just did it last week, but can you really have too much communion?
Choirs sings after long hiatus! Hallelujah! And we’ll have a fabulous coffee hour, before Althea begins a new chapter of NOFBS, focusing on Romans, one of my favorite books of the Bible.
Christlove,
Molly
Dear Beloved,
We are on the cusp of summer and fall, vacation and the return to work and school, and the end of sabbatical. Our Sundays are evermore the point of the cusp, and we hope our service this week will provide the space, means, and love necessary to return to God and our sacred work. We pray you come and worship with us this Communion Sunday.
Our service this week is inspired by some of Melissa Hines’ former students who were 9-11 years old. Melissa gave her students an assignment: to write about one thing they would do to make the world a better place to live. Our confession, sermon, and prayers will be centered on their responses, “Building a World our Children Envision.”
Melissa Hines is the liturgist and we will preach together. Pete Shungu will open the sacred space of poetry and present a word of “Hope.” Another new quartet, Elizabeth Fields, Rae King, Melissa Hines and I, will sing Sweet Honey on the Rock’s arrangement of Khalil Gibran’s “On Children.”
During the service, we will honor and commission teachers who are just beginning their year, and those who work with children.
Ian Tosh is our welcomer, and is also on the sound system. Cindy Stewart is our greeter, Rebecca Horne is our shepherd. Erin Iwanusa will teach our young ones.Chet Britt and Kelly Champion will provide nosh for coffee hour.
Looking ahead to next week, Molly will return to work from sabbatical this coming Tuesday! Please pray for Molly as she begins to enter our congregation again. Please pray for our community as we open space and turn our faces to behold and embrace her. Molly and our Sabbatical Team will preach next Sunday.
Please reminder to bring your puzzle pieces next Sunday.
Peace, dear ones, this beautiful weekend. You who are traveling, traveling mercies. Come home safely.
Love,
Laura Ruth
–
Rev. Laura Ruth Jarrett
Minister of Outreach
First Congregational Church of Somerville, UCC
An Open and Affirming Congregation
W. 10-9, Th. 2-8, F. 10-3, Su. 8:30-1
