Dear Beloved,
Our Easter was pretty amazing, eh? Through Holy Week’s Palm Sunday’s parade and cantata, our daily morning prayers, Rest and Bread on Holy Wednesday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday; and our fabulous Easter service last week, we got to be together a lot, to walk that hard road in community. We survived the tragedy and found ourselves gloriously alive!
So what do you do after the ecstasy?
You bring a child of the congregation to the baptismal font, entrust her to the care of the congregation, dedicate her to God through the act of baptism, and seal her as Christ’s own forever. Tomorrow, the second Sunday of Easter, we will welcome and baptize Nora Joy Davenny. Our service of worship and baptism begins at 10 AM. I’ll preach, Ian will be the liturgist, the choir will sing, Thom will lead the congregation in singing, Joe will play, Molly will read scripture and pray with us. We pray you’ll join us.
Just after the service, the children’s choir will rehearse and Casa San Jose Pilgrims will meet.
See you tomorrow!
Love,
Laura Ruth
Beloved,
It feels like Easter came early, yesterday, all the sauntering in the sunshine, at least for the secular. A goodly number of us kept watch and prayed in the sanctuary throughout the day, with Jesus on the cross thanks to Ian’s marvellous tech know-how.
Today is the quiet day. Our conscious minds know that dead is dead, but our palms tingle with another kind of knowledge. There is a giddiness in the belly. The bells are itching to come out of their black velvet tomb. The choir is starting scales early. Mariah goes to buy scads, hordes, whole crops of lilies and tulips, that witness to lives that have touched yours.
Tomorrow: the day of Resurrection! Earth tell it out abroad! Choir will sing Handel’s Messiah like you’ve never heard it; Sue Donnelly brings her story of resurrection before us and God; Laura Ruth offers a time for our children. I will preach on becoming stronger at the broken places, from Luke’s Gospel. There is a rumor of a sweet little newborn lamb making an appearance. We will share communion, fresh bread, a common cup, love made visible.
After church we have Easter gifts, free gifts, a pale imitation of God’s grace, but faithfully offered: secret-message eggs, and our brand spankin’ new First Church Somerville grocery bags! Not to mention: fabulous coffee hour inside and OUTside in the sunshine! And an egg hunt in the sanctuary for our children!
You might want to get to church early, get the orchestra seats up front–choir will be in the choir loft the whole time, to make way for the throngs. Please choose seats toward the front–church will likely be FULL tomorrow so let’s save newcomers/latecomers embarrassment by leaving them easy-to-slip-into seats in the back.
Bring friends! Bring family! Bring strangers off the street! Who doesn’t need new life?
Christlove
Molly
Beloved Community,
Some of you grew up in non-liturgical traditions, or in no church at all, and wonder, what the heck is this Holy Week thing? Tonight is Maundy Thursday. There are various ways of ‘celebrating’ it–mostly, it’s to remember what Jesus was doing just before he was arrested. Sometimes he was washing feet. Sometimes, celebrating the last supper. Sometimes, in the garden, weeping, alone.
That’s why I put ‘celebrate’ in quotes–because how do we celebrate the fact of God going to God’s death? Some people shy away from this part of Holy Week. It’s bleak. It’s barren. It’s mournful. But I ask you: when, in our relentlessly cheerful, risk-averse, deathly-afraid-of-death culture, do we get to mourn? I love, love, love Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, because they help me to feel all of my feelings, and make Easter shine like the sun after long rain. Kahlil Gibran said, “As much as sorrow has carved out your being, that’s how much joy you can contain.” What sorrow is carving out your being? Let it have its way with you. It’s safe, in God’s keeping, today and tomorrow.
What to expect:
Tonight: 6:30p, Gather in the sanctuary to become informal disciples of Jesus around the Last Supper feast table. We’ll eat grape leaves, feta, dates, apricots, pita. We’ll drink wine and pomegranate juice. Then we’ll pile up the broken pieces, and, at 7p, hear wonderful music from Tara, Elke, Joe, Thom. We’ll hear 12 readings from the last 24 hours of the life of Jesus. We’ll hear modern poems, chosen by Sarah Green, to punctuate the readings and break them open for us. We’ll sing, and pray, and leave in silence.
Tomorrow: Our Good Friday vigil starts at 7a with morning prayer in the chapel, and moves upstairs at 7:30a, where we’ll have prayer stations set up, and someone available at all times to pray with you, if you like. You may come and go throughout the day. Every hour on the hour, we’ll chant, hear a collect, a reading. At 2:15p, you can come listen to Macmillan’s Seven Last Words from the Cross–haunting, awful, awe-full. At 3p, the hour when Jesus died, a short service with song and prayer. Vigil continues through 6p. You can come put prayers in our wailing wall, made by Michael S., you can kneel before the cross, write confessions in water on a board and watch them evaporate, pray in the Garden of Gethsemane, by running water. Don’t forget Easter. It’s coming. Invite friends into the mystery and joy of it, even if they haven’t tasted the sorrow! You have a friend or family member who wants to come, who needs to come, whom you haven’t asked yet. Trust me.
blessings
Molly
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
Beloved,
It’s a cold week here in Winterville. Your warm reception to us weary Mexico Missioners last Sunday gave way quickly to the dull damp chill of Febrmarch. Just 6 days ago, we sat in a quiet, grassy, sun-dappled courtyard in Guadalajara, kindled with the desire to alleviate suffering among the children of the Casa going forward, kindled with a passion to keep our newfound connections alive, on fire with an awareness of God that seemed deeper, stronger, realer to us than She has been for years, perhaps ever.
Then, Febrmarch. Throughout our lives, we come close to the fire, feel our joints melting, our flesh thawing, the heat on our faces. Inevitably, warmed, we fall asleep near the fire, and when we wake, most of the time, the fire’s gone out. How do we keep the fire alive? How do we maintain our connection to God, our passion and commitment for the poor, when all along our own needs and normativity call us back into sameness and self-absorption? How do we keep moving forward on this journey, so we don’t die of cold in the wilderness? It was a real question for the Israelites in Exodus, from whom we draw wisdom this Sabbath (Exodus 13:17-22). It is a real question for us.
14 of the 17 missioners will lead worship this Sunday. Keisa waves from Kentucky; Jen and Matthew will skype in by sound from his mom’s home in Alabama. The rest of us will be present to try to communicate, using words if necessary, what happened last week at the Casa San Jose orphanage, how you were a part of it, how you can be a part of it, what it might mean for your life and faith. Our liturgist is Liz, our preachers are Pete, Jamie, Becca. Melissa. will take the offering. Erica and Rafe will offer a time for children. Owen, Sophia, Jen , Andrea and Gary will read. Pete, Steve H. and I will reprise our Casa pickup band of trumpet, recorder and uke.
You will taste and see, something of what we tasted and saw. We hope you will take credit for it, you who made it possible, you Body of Christ. We pray you will catch fire and not rest until you have gone for yourselves, until you too have felt those warm, small arms around you, and known the touch of God.
After church: a lunch for those discerning the future of re/New, begins at 11:45; Cantata rehearsal at 12:30, and mission team redux at 2:15p to keep the fire alive.
Christlove
Molly
Dear Beloved,
Last Sunday morning, Christy Z. preached a great sermon about moving from indebtedness to becoming debt-free. She gave some wonderful simple shift tips to help.
“Here are some other tips you may have heard but are definitely worth repeating:
• If you have debt, pay off the highest interest rate first.
• Call periodically to try to get your rates lowered.
• Pay cash.
• Freeze your assets (put your cc in water and freeze it in the freezer. If it is worth buying, it is worth waiting for the card to melt).
• Always pay your bills on time.
• Consider becoming a one-car household or a no-car household – We became a 1 car household and saved not only in car payment, insurance & gas, but on all the things that we DIDN’T buy because we didn’t have the 2nd car.
• Contribute to your 401k or pension plan (Especially if you employer matches) Do this EVEN IF YOU HAVE DEBT otherwise you will be leaving money on the table.
• If you receive an unexpected monetary gift, put some toward your debt and some to your savings.
• Give back – try % based giving, even if you are in debt.
• Practice an attitude of gratitude.
• Open a high-interest savings account.
• Pay more on your mortgage each month to shave off years.
• Track your spending (write everything down for a week/month/during Lent).
• If you have a CC, get a dividend card that gives cash back and always pay the balance in full.
• Go one day without spending any money.
• Go one week without using your credit card.
• Go one month without eating out.
• Create a 6-month savings reserve.
• Set a SMART goal around money (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely).
• Remember, you didn’t get in debt over night, so don’t expect to get out of debt overnight either – simple shifts.
• Find a buddy in church to help you keep you accountable.
• Think before you do.”
