Where can you go this Sunday morning for…
Great gospel music
Homemade hot cross buns (available in traditional, vegan, allergen-free, gross-candied-citron-free, extra-frosting and Unitarian versions)
Afro DZ Ak on trumpet
Original spoken-word poetry by Sarah Green and Pete Shungu
Jesus the social justice activist and original City Kid, in effigy
Palm-fronds-waving
Children laughing
Old ones humming
More young adults than maybe you’ve ever seen in church
Marching Band
Deep prayer for your thirsty spirit
New friends
Ancient stories
A place to praise God and give thanks, no matter WHAT is happening in your life?
First Church Somerville UCC. We are building the Beloved Community. Won’t you come be-loved?
Is something nudging you to deeper resonance with spring? Is it not enough to eat Cadbury crème eggs and watch the crocuses bloom on your daily commute?
Bloom with us. Join us for Holy Week worship at First Church Somerville. For kids, young adults, men and women Of A Certain Age, elders; for singles, marrieds; spiritual-but-not-religious and committed disciples of Jesus Christ, alike.
Sunday March 28:
Multichurch, Family-friendly Donkey Walk, 9a: We march, chanting 1st century slogans along with our marching band, from Powderhouse to Davis. We sing and wave greenery. We pray for the city. We pet donkeys and watch Jesus, in effigy, rise higher than Mayor Joe, Deval Patrick, Obama, high above College Ave. Starting from Powderhouse Park, College Ave and Broadway.
Gospel Palm Sunday Cantata, 10a: Under the direction of the amazing Thom Whittemore, a blowout that will take us from praising Jesus as king to the edge of the cross, the place where all looks dark, but from which we can still choose whether or not we will praise God for all that is. Homemade hot-cross buns follow at coffee hour!
Wednesday March 31:
Rest and Bread, worship service of communion and reflection, 6:30p in our chapel, with music for meditation at 6:15p.
Holy Thursday, April 1:
Beloved Disciples Last Supper, 6:30p: We’ll gather round the feast-table in the sanctuary, to eat middle eastern finger foods and feel in our bones the fellowship, joy, confusion and edge of fear that other long-ago disciples felt on the eve of their friend’s death.
Falls the Shadow Service of Worship, 7p: Immediately following supper, we’ll hear readings from the last 24 hours of the life of Jesus, we’ll sing songs, we’ll keep watch, and pray.
Good Friday, April 2:
Lenten Morning Prayer, 7a: The last of our everyday Lenten Morning Prayer services starts us off at 7a in the chapel.
Good Friday Vigil, 7:30a-6p: The Sanctuary will open for meditation, healing prayer with our deacons and ministers, and interactive prayer stations as we sit vigil with our dying God. At 2:15p, we will listen to the haunting Macmillan’s Seven Last Words from the Cross. At 3p, we will commemorate the death-moment of Jesus, our brother and the one who saves us every day.
Easter Sunday, April 4:
Multichurch Sunrise Service, 6a: We’ll meet on the peak of Powderhouse Park as the shadows shorten, as the sun rises, and we feel the truth: God has conquered death itself, and Jesus is risen! Children most welcome. Dress warmly!!
Easter Soul Sunday Celebration, 10a: A standing-room-only worship service for all! Home-grown brass and percussion, bells, electric guitar, Handel’s Messiah as you’ve never heard it. Nursery care will be available for young ones ages 0-3. Easter egg hunt to follow worship. Rumor has it there may even be a petting zoo—touch that new life! Wear frilly bonnets, or come as you are, and receive new life in the form of Beloved Community.
Beloved,
Some of you were still slogging today, through the aftermath of the storm. Sun may follow rain but mold follows flood, regardless. Still, I hope between bailings you got to put your face in the sun. What a sun it was.
I had lunch with an Episcopal priest friend today. She introduced me to a new bit of Lenten lore: that this week, in Lent, is a ‘lightening’ week. A lighten-ing up of the Lenten fast (not a lightning strike if you break it). Maybe you’re going good on the home stretch; or maybe you want to take this opportunity to–mindfully–re-introduce the previously verboten, to enter into healthy relationship with it, so Easter doesn’t become a free-for-all binge.
I’ll be at Diesel tomorrow morning, 8:30-10:30. Come and sit in the light with me a spell. Tomorrow night: Jamie hosts our second-to-last Lenten House Church at Church, leading us in a discussion of the Simple Shift from Self-Absorption to Solidarity. Join us for prayer, communion, soup, community.
Christlove
Molly
Beloved,
With the health-care debate in Congress slow as molasses and without any of its sweetness, it’s time to talk about a Christian spirituality of health care and wellness. I’ve been thinking and reading about it all week: about faith healing, about the mind-body connection, about the role of prayer in making people physically well, about whether or not we believe God intervenes (interferes?) in human suffering, about just what Jesus did do, and just what Jesus might do, to help heal people with chronic conditions. And I’ll be honest. The more I think and pray about it, the less clear I am.
But we need to talk about it in church. Our physical bodies, and the state they’re in, govern so much of our life on this plane of reality. How the people we love are doing–from our little girl’s stomach bug to our mom’s massive chemo marathon–so dominates our consciousness, that so often, it’s hard to think about anything else *but* healing. It’s the biggest, bottomest rung on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, for a reason.
In the story we’ll peer into this Sabbath, Jesus heals a woman who had been crippled with back pain for 18 years (Luke 13:10-17). No biggie for him. But then why did she have to wait 18 years! Was it because no HMO would accept her, with her preexisting condition? Was it her own stubborn clinging to her condition? Was God playing dice, biding time until the right moment to use her as An Example? Was it something else yet, a mystery, beyond our ken?
This Sunday, with Kelly as our able liturgist, with choir singing, with Lent at our backs, we’ll think and pray about movement, a simple shift, from bent-over to standing-up-straight, from illness to wellness. We might be surprised at the answers God writes on our hearts.
bless you, brothers and sisters,
Molly
Beloved,
The sun will come out tomorrow!
Sorry. When I saw the forecast: sun, sun, 50 degrees, all weekend long, I couldn’t restrain myself. Amazing how one firy orb has the power to penetrate our grim, gray, unrepentant focus on war, recession, earthquake, earthquake, chagrin, cynicism, despair at the world; has the power to make us giddy, like children, receiving the Kingdom of God. It’s no wonder people since the beginning of time have thought that this Kingdom originated from above, with a sun like ours.
This Sunday (that’s right, they even gave it a DAY), we’ll be putting our faces into the light. We’re not yet halfway through Lent, but there’s talk of Easter already. There’s a**eluia-talk, and Messiah-talk, and community-garden-talk, and tulip-talk, and egg-hunt talk. We’re keeping it on the down low for now, but we all know it’s coming. We all know it’s inevitable, that death will give way to new life. We, like sunflowers, can’t help but turn toward the light.
This week’s Lenten simple shift brings to the fore: How We Eat Can Change the World. I’ll be preaching on it, Gianna will liturgize. An ancient religious cult like ours, whose most important ritual event is a meal, must have something to teach us about a thing we do with such frequency: putting food into our bodies. Scripture tells us that our bodies are Temples of the Holy Spirit, and God dwells in us–it also says that we are not are own, but we were bought with a price; therefore we must glorify God in our bodies. (I Corinthians) Whew! Think about THAT before lunch today.
The choir will sing, Bobby McFerrin’s arrangement of the 23rd Psalm; Laura Ruth is back with us, and prays with us, to music. We’ll share communion together: homemade bread, local hard cider, and fresh-squeezed juice. After church: deacons meet, Cantata rehearsal, Rooftoppers gather to share one another’s burdens. And we’ll have our Recession-Proof Clothing Swap! We’ll also keep worship lean this week so we can get outside for sun-worship after our Son-worship. It all belongs to the Lord!
heaps of Friday blessings,
Molly
