unity

Sunday’s Sermon – Starry-Eyed – Galatians 3:23-29 – Scriptures and Seuss

July 28, 2019 Leave a Comment

This July, our summer sermon series pairs Scripture texts with well-known and loved books by Dr. Seuss as modern parables to deepen our exploration of faith in the world together. This week our Dr. Seuss classic is The Sneetches.

Last week for Heritage Plays, 23 of us met up at Suntrust Park to enjoy a baseball game. Matt, Andrew, and I got to the stadium just before the game began. A few steps past the gate, I began to notice fans carrying the kids giveaway for the night: a Braves backpack. They were no longer giving them away at the gate, and I wasn’t surprised, assuming we’d missed it. But, just in case, I talked Matt into letting me walk towards another gate to see if they still had any. He convinced me that was a fool’s errand, so we began to head toward our section. But I kept seeing people with these backpacks. More and more of them. I even saw one of the employees holding two of them, so I asked him if perhaps I could have one (he told me, “no” – he was holding them for some other fans in a reserved seating area). Every time I saw someone with a backpack, something poked at me inside. I wanted one. I noticed they weren’t even the totally cheap-o ones either. And everyone seemed to have them. More and more. Like they were giving them away nearby even. My internal monologue was getting a little ridiculous as I looked around. I begrudgingly followed Matt back up the stairs, and then, right by the gate where we had entered, I noticed something. Everyone had a backpack. I looked again. There were a few stacks of them, and employees giving them away. I walked over, prepared to persuade with my very cute infant. Before I could get out a sentence, one was in my hand and I was saying “Thank you!”

Now, I don’t need this backpack. In the words of my wise husband, we don’t need this backpack. Another backpack. Even if it does have an “a” on it and a place for water bottles. And he’s right. But my sense of jealousy at what others were carrying around, and my pride at having one of my own in my hands was palpable. Probably in ways beyond what it should be. All for a “free” giveaway at a ball game.

Sometimes, we get caught up in wanting what other people have, don’t we? There was a cartoon devoted to this idea, illustrated by Arthur R. “Pop” Momand, it ran in The New York World and other papers from 1913 until 1940. It featured a couple, the McGinis family, who were social climbers and struggled to “keep up” with their neighbors, unseen characters who never appeared in any comic, named “The Joneses.” This is one theory on where we get that idiomatic expression, “keeping up with the Joneses”[i]. Whether it’s out of a sense of keeping up with the Joneses (or Kardashians, or anyone else), we tend to pay attention to what others around us have. We are jealous of the newest phone or latest model of car; we wish our haircut would look half as good as hers, or that we had half the hair that he does. And we play a comparison game: we wish our haircut would look half as good as hers, or that we had half the hair that he does. And you know, we do this at church too. We notice that their cookies don’t look misshapen and burnt at the potluck; we see that they not only attend worship each week, but also go to Sunday School and volunteer at the food pantry; we stand for a hymn and realize that while we can’t carry a tune in a bucket, they are singing notes we can’t even read in beautiful harmony. It seems, no matter where we fall on some social ladder, we look at those around us and it seems they have it more together than we do, and we are jealous. And while a lot of times this becomes about material possessions, the “stuff” in our lives and our ability to get our hands on it, the root of the issue is not so much the stuff, but our obsession with who is “in” and who is “out,” and our ego’s deep need to be “in.”

The early church also struggled with this question. Following the radical whirlwind that was Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, Christ-followers and new believers set out to figure out what it meant to be the church. We see glimpses of it in the gospels, but the real meat of their predicaments (pun intended) is found in the book of Acts and the epistles. One of the central questions? What it meant to reconcile a new faith community that included both Jews and Gentiles. These were not small questions, either. Mark Douglas notes that:

How much like a Jew does a Gentile need to be in order to be a Christian? . . . is the central moral question for the early church because it is a deeply theological question. God made promises to Abraham and Abraham’s heirs. Gentiles are not natural heirs. So how do God’s promises apply? If the promises apply to Gentiles, God seemingly treats Israel in an arbitrary way. If they apply to Jews, then how does the crucified Jesus matter to Jews? . . . On the one hand, the new church could worship a God who is willing to break promises – but that will take them away from their claim that Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us. On the other hand, they can pursue a vision of the continuing faithfulness of God’s promises to Abraham – which seemingly excludes Gentiles and makes the new gospel of the crucified Lord irrelevant to Jews[ii].

Imagine, if you will, that the early Christians, those Jews who believed that Christ was the Messiah, were like the Sneetches with stars on their bellies. They had their rhythms and routines figured out, and stuck together. They were the chosen ones, set apart. They’re not too keen on anyone else joining what they have. Or maybe they’d be willing to accept newcomers, as long as they began to look and act just like them.

James Kemp offers:

This story is rich with social commentary about how fallen human beings search for ways to make divisions among themselves. It also makes a statement about those who have a vested interest in keeping people divided and at war because they can sell their products to both sides[iii].

If we follow Seuss’s story, it’s pretty clear that the truth of the matter is we like to be set apart and special, and don’t like when things disrupt that status quo.

But, now, how in the world will we know,” they all frowned,
“if which kind is what, or the other way round?”[iv]

We are so quick to provide those answers, aren’t we? And we’re willing to go to some pretty extraordinary, and expensive, lengths to keep things the way they are. Instead of being focused on what unites us, we too-often become “starry-eyed” and obsessed with those things that may or may not set us apart and certainly divide us.

I think that’s because, at the heart of it, we are afraid that we aren’t enough, and so we let our fear drive us to put others down so we won’t feel like we’re on the bottom. One of my favorite devotional sites, d365.org, begins with a thought-provoking “pause” each day. The theme this week was “fear less,” and began with these words, which I think challenge the “starry-eyed” parts of us:

            Our world appears to thrive and profit from our fear –
            Fear of those different from us,
            Fear of insignificance and isolation,
            Fear that our secret shames might come to light.
            Could there be another way to live?
            Is it possible to fear less?[v]

The early church was living in a time of fear, when everything in their world, religiously and secularly, were shifting in dramatic ways. For a community set up against the challenging context of the Roman Empire, the Galatians had to rethink both their theology and their politics as those from the secular world became a part of their faith, or of some new faith that was emerging. All of a sudden, the church was full of people juggling multiple, and often conflicting, identities, with different understandings about things like what to eat, and what do with their bodies (i.e. circumcision). Paul spends a lot of time sorting out what no doubt were long lists of contentious questions about how things were supposed to work, rooted in a sense of the early church wanting to remain special, starred, rather than invite everyone in.

Our text for today is the high point of Paul’s letter. You get the sense that he is at a point of exasperation, following detailed conversation about nuances of the law. It’s as if he throws his pen across the room, and grabs his hair screaming at them for their obsession with the details. “GROW UP!” he might have shouted, noting that their quest for who is “in” and who is “out” was like teenage girl cliques or childhood clubhouses. They can’t see the forest for the trees. Or, quite literally, I wonder if Paul adopted the phrase that I have started using when I get in the weeds of minutia myself in ministry, “Jesus Christ did not die for this.” So Paul comes back to the central point of the gospel: that in Christ, God was doing a new thing. A new family has been formed, one that breaks down every boundary imaginable. Social distinctions are obliterated.

Paul says that Christ alone matters: Christ our unity, Christ our focus, Christ the line of energy along which relationships run, Christ the beginning and the end, Christ the cause for which we live, Christ from which nothing can take us, not even death – especially not death[vi].

Paul writes:

Among us you are all equal. That is, we are all in a common relationship with Jesus
Christ[vii].

Dr. Seuss says:

Sneetches are Sneetches and no kind of Sneetch is the best on the beaches. That day, all the Sneetches forgot about stars and whether they had one, or not, upon thars[viii].

This is a vision for the church of the future; to truly be one in Christ Jesus.
Proclaiming and celebrating unity in the church means learning from our differences instead of allowing them to divide us. It means encouraging others and not boasting about our own accomplishments. It means courting a spirit of gratitude instead of pride. It means that we cannot separate love for God from love for one another[ix].

Living this way is not just for Christians or the church exclusively. This is the approach to community that should be our goal; to recognize that people are people, and that every. single. person. in this world is a beloved child of God. That doesn’t mean that we don’t notice our differences. Indeed, that’s also dangerous and detrimental. We don’t need to ignore the things that make us distinct. But we shouldn’t let those things that make us different be what drives us apart. Why? Because the God who created us, the Savior who died for us, and the Spirit who both scatters and gathers us together, is so much bigger than that.

And because we are brought together in the one who is indeed that big, we need not be afraid of anything; not those things that make us different from each other, not those forces in the world that are pushing against us, not the thing that keeps us up at night, or is that we can’t even bring ourselves to say, not even death itself. So maybe, just maybe, we can be as smart as the Sneetches, and recognize that there are McBean’s all around us, seeking to divide us and make money off of our fear, but that, in the end, it doesn’t matter if we have stars on our bellies or not. Realizing that is realizing God’s overwhelming grace. A grace so powerful that it allows us to step out of the relentless lines going in and out, and instead embrace a new reality and identity as children of God. Together. For in Christ Jesus, we are indeed one. May we be smart enough to realize this is the truth, and go and live like it. Amen.

~sermon preached by Rev. Elizabeth Lovell Milford, July 28, 2019

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[i] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keeping_up_with_the_Joneses
[ii] Mark Douglas, “Theological Perspective: Galatians 3:23-29,” Feasting on the Word, Year C, Volume 3, David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, editors, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010).
[iii] James W. Kemp, The Gospel According to Dr. Seuss, (Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 2004)
[iv] Seuss.
[v] “Pause,” www.d365.org, week of July 22-28, 2019, written by Joshua Hays
[vi] Carol E. Holtz-Martin, “Homiletical Perspective: Galatians 3:23-29,” Feasting on the Word, Year C, Volume 3, David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, editors, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010).
[vii] Galatians 3:28, The Message
[viii] Dr. Seuss, The Sneetches and Other Stories, (New York: Random House, 1961).
[ix] Kemp.

Sunday’s Sermon – Homeroom Lessons: Make Good Choices – Ephesians 4:1-16

August 5, 2018 Leave a Comment

A fun and engaging way to get to know others, whether in a large group or passing time on a long road trip, is to ask each other a series of questions beginning with the phrase “Would you rather?,” giving two choices and inviting the responder to share why they picked one over the other. Let’s try it for a few rounds. I’ll let you point to the designated side of the sanctuary, and make a short comment to your pew-mate after each pairing. Ready?

Would you rather . . . go on vacation to the mountains or the beach?

Would you rather . . . be completely invisible for one day, or be able to fly for one day?

Would you rather . . . give up watching tv or movies or give up going out to eat for a year?

Would you rather . . . always be 10 minutes late, or always be 20 minutes early?

Would you rather . . . know all the mysteries of the universe or know every outcome of each decision you make? [i]

Every day, we are faced with an almost endless number of choices to make. What to wear, what to do, how to respond to any given situation. Our choices might be easy and quick, or require more information or deliberation. Some of these choices give us more options than others. Sometimes we are choosing between two things and neither of them is particularly appealing. And, of course, different choices carry different levels of meaning or importance in our lives. That is sometimes, but not always, reflected in the time we take to make them. I might, for example, only take a few moments to select which shoes to wear, but take longer to decide that I want to spend the rest of my life married to another person. Ultimately, what we choose can say a lot about us, whether it is simply a preference for an activity or lifestyle, or a reflection of a deeply-seated belief.

This morning, our text from Ephesians prompts us to reflect on the choices we make as we think about how we are “living our lives,” and whether or not they are in line with the “calling” we have as God’s people. This letter is often believed to be a kind of circular letter written by an associate or student of Paul’s, and includes exposition on the centrality of Christ, including a grand vision of what God has done and what is given to and through the church. Then, in this passage, the writer turns from the big picture to answering the “so what?” question of how this new reality might play out in the everyday life of the church, with discussion of the unity of the church and the ongoing sanctification of believers. That is, the ways in which our lives reflect God’s holiness. Ephesians, like many of the epistles, takes on a moral character and instruction for life. Not because it is what wins us God’s favor, that much is made clear in earlier verses, but because it matters how we respond to God’s grace. In essence, much of the letter, including these verses, shout that message we may have heard from a parent as we climbed onto the schoolbus or got out of the drop-off line, or shared by a homeroom teacher as we began our day: “Make Good Choices!” Our lives as Christians should be those that reflect the good news we believe. The large theological catchphrase for this is “embodiment” – which simply means that the beliefs we hold and witness we give can and should be reflected in our words and actions. The smaller acronymn that fits on a bracelet is something like WWJD – What Would Jesus Do? – implying that before we say or do something, we’ve put some thought into whether or not it is in line with the teachings of the one we claim to follow. It’s tough work, even for the most faithful, who seem to clearly be called for God’s purpose.

Ask David. His story is one marked from the beginning as being chosen by God, shepherded in unlikely ways to become king. But by 2 Samuel, the story takes a turn. To say David does not make good choices is a vast understatement. Chapter 11, just before what we read this morning, reveals more than just a series of bad choices. It is a devastating story of as repugnant a series of events as perhaps may be imagined, from his rooftop voyeurism and sexual exploitation of Bathsheba to his deception and attempts to cover it up by manipulating her husband Uriah to his savage final resolution of not only arranging for Uriah’s death, but the death of all who serve under his command. His actions are reprehensible and beyond excuse. They are difficult to stomach, and almost impossible to preach, because as tempting as it is to skip ahead to the ways in which the narrative redeems David, these verses are atrocious. So why attend to these chapters today, or in the 3 year cycle of the lectionary at all? One commentator notes:

This lection is one of the greatest passages in the entire Bible, for it not only makes a devastating statement about the moral priorities of God, but it also abandons sentimentality and romanticism to portray the human condition as it actually is[ii].

God’s response to David, if you keep reading into chapter 12, is to hold David accountable for these decisions, sending the prophet Nathan to condemn him and call him out for the choices he has made, prompting a confession and cleansing. In fact, it is believed that Psalm 51, which we often read on Ash Wednesday and which inspired our Prayer of Confession today, was David’s repentance and plea to God following his visit with Nathan. And it should be noted, since we will not continue to read this part of the text in the coming weeks, that while David goes on in continued service to God, his life is not all magically rosy. It is still fraught with pain and difficulty, related in part to his poor decisions. From this overall context, we learn that in the midst of grace and forgiveness, David’s choices still have real consequences. Life is lived in between these two truths.

The prophet Nathan exposes that David’s behavior is driven by self-interest and impulse, rather than a focus on God. He did not engage in some sort of discernment for how his faith and trust in God might guide him; he simply did what looked and felt good for his own gain. Such decision making methodology is often short-lived, and certainly falls short of the calling God has placed on God’s people. David’s story reminds us that “making good choices” is about much more than just selecting things that make us the happiest. They involve an attentiveness to something bigger than us. That is what the writer of Ephesians is getting at, too. As a people of faith:

We confess that there is a purpose other than our own that is being worked through our life. Our growth is to become more responsive and attentive to, and congenial with, that larger purpose on which we do not get to vote[iii].

This larger purpose connects us to others. David missed this mark, to say the least. To frame it in light of of Ephesians:

he is not “worthy,” because he did not yield his gifts to his community. He refused to live by God’s gifts, trying to seize a peculiar destiny for himself[iv].

It is no coincidence that the writer of Ephesians uses the word “one” seven times in just two verses in chapter 4. This passage drives home the idea that our decision-making happens not just on an individual level in isolation, but in community with others with whom we are supposed to live in unity. The writer continues to talk more about what this unity looks like, and presents a few core aspects to help readers understand unity, which hopefully inspires us to make choices that seek to build others up into this unity that comes in the body of Christ. G. Porter Turner notes that:

The tools for this body are humility, gentleness, and patience. Humility keeps us grounded in the reality of who we are as creatures formed from the dust by God. Gentleness reminds us of our corporate identity . . . Finally, we are patient because we live in time. [with an awareness that] the kingdom of God is a gift from God, not a work achieved by humans[v].

These tools, among the others that are revealed throughout the letter to the Ephesians, all point to a unity that binds God’s people together in love through Jesus Christ. This is the high calling of those who follow Christ, and the decisions that we make should always be oriented around this purpose. It is not some accidental phenomenon; it requires ongoing, active work to make it happen. Remember those choices? They’re going to come each and every day. Ephesians serves as that homeroom reminder of the importance of attending to them, not just cruising through life without thought. People of faith are called to live with the intention of building each other up in love and charged with the extraordinarily difficult task of being knit together as one.

The good news is, we have been prepared for this task, because of the one who unites us – Jesus Christ:

“Christ’s body” is that place at the intersection of divine and human life where sovereignty, brokenness, and communion are held together in God’s grace[vi].

That is the unity we celebrate with the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, gathering around this table not as individuals, but as the body of Christ, made one through the bread and the cup. Here, at this table, we come to proclaim that we are one, and declare our intention to follow Christ, making decisions that might contribute to that unity, until he comes again. So may we celebrate this feast together in unity, asking God to fill us once again and equip us for the lives to which we have been called, going from here to live and serve in Christ’s name, with choices that match. Amen.

~Rev. Elizabeth Lovell Milford
August 5, 2018

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[i] Questions taken from https://conversationstartersworld.com/would-you-rather-questions/, accessed 8/4/2018.
[ii] Walter Brueggemann, Charles B. Cousar, Beverly R. Gaventa, James D. Newsome, Texts for Preaching: A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV – Year B, (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993).
[iii] Ibid.
[iv] Ibid.
[v] G. Porter Taylor, “Theological Perspective: Ephesians 4:1-16,” Feasting on the Word, Year B, Volume 3, David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, editors, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009).
[vi] Richard E. Ward, “Homiletical Perspective: Ephesians 4:1-16,” Feasting on the Word, Year B, Volume 3, David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, editors, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009).

Sunday’s Sermon – Every Tongue Confess – Philippians 2:1-13, World Communion Sunday

October 1, 2017 Leave a Comment

Believe it or not, good things can come out of Stewardship seasons. In 1934, Dr. Hugh Thomson Kerr, a pastor who had recently been the moderator of the General Assembly in 1930, had an idea that churches should be brought together in a service of Christian unity, so that everyone might receive both inspiration and information, and above all, know the importance of the church of Jesus Christ and remember that each congregation is interconnected with one another. He took this thought to the Stewardship Division at Shadyside Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1934, and they began to celebrate with such a service on the first Sunday of October. Two years later, World Communion Sunday was adopted by the US Presbyterian Church, and then it began to spread to other denominations and was endorsed by the Federal Council of Churches (now the National Council of Churches) in 1940. The pastor’s son, Rev. Donald Kerr, was a teenager at the time, but later noted:

The concept spread very slowly at the start. People did not give it a whole lot of
thought. It was during the Second World War that the spirit caught hold, because
we were trying to hold the world together. World Wide Communion symbolized
the effort to hold things together, in a spiritual sense. It emphasized that we are
one in the Spirit and the Gospel of Jesus Christ[i].

This morning, almost 100 years later, we join with brothers and sisters in Christ in different congregations, denominations, and countries to celebrate our unity. We can see glimpses of that truth here at Heritage. Last week, we welcomed several new members from different places, including Hilda Snyders, who comes to us from the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa. During the week, we met school children and adults who were evacuees from St. Croix and opened our facilities to them so they could have a makeshift school and activity time for their children and teenagers as they worked on what would come next for their families. Today at 11:00, we will be joined in worship by our brothers and sisters from Marietta Presbyterian Church, the Korean speaking congregation who meets in our original church building up the hill. In just a week’s time, we have several new examples of the wideness of God’s family.

World Communion Sunday is a wonderful witness to the entire body of Christ, and is a time for us to renew our energies and be inspired by the great cloud of witnesses that surround us, and have even gone before us. In a time where our society and world is full of division and argument, when threats of war lurk not just in the shadows, but in our news cycles, we need to know that we are not as disconnected and alone as it may seem. World Communion Sunday is an affirmation that we are united by something far bigger than anything that could threaten to divide us. Today is a reminder and a celebration of the faith and friendship we share through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Paul’s letter to the Philippians is the perfect text to help focus us on this important point. It is written to a Christian community in eastern Macedonia with whom Paul had great affection. Throughout the letter, his encouragement and commentary are signs of a friendship and love with this group of believers in a way that is more affectionate than almost any of his other letters. In addition to this theme of love and care for each other, Paul continually encourages them to seek unity. Writer Monya Stubbs suggests that:

Paul lays out three levels of unity into which he hopes the Philippian community will grow stronger: (1) a unity of purpose or mission in living and proclaiming the gospel, (2) a unity around the principle of “other interestedness,” and (3) a unity of perspective where people understand themselves as mutually indebted to one another[ii].

For Paul, unity is related to actions and is a lived-out reality of our beliefs. In writing to the Philippians, he hopes that they will learn a pattern of thinking and living that is humble. He knows that this is a difficult thing to do. In fact, it can only be accomplished with the help of Jesus Christ himself.

Paul includes a beautiful hymn in verses 6 through 11 of our passage, one that was likely familiar to this congregation in Philippi, and helps illustrate the core elements of his message with a beautiful description of who Jesus is as an example and inspiration to believers. Marcus Borg notes that, in Jesus:

Rather than being an article of belief, God becomes an experiential reality. . . .
God can be known in that direct and intimate way, not merely believed in[iii].

Through Jesus, humanity has a relationship with God that is defined by love. In this way, Jesus is the manifestation of the heart of God[iv]. Such a revelation, such a love, is meant to evoke a response in the Philippians, and in us. It should call us to worship. The very name of Jesus should stir in us something deep and profound, touching the places of deepest longing and sincerest hope. It should bring us to the place where we, too, bow down and worship, confessing with our loudest voice that Jesus Christ is Lord!

I love the phrase in verse 11 from this ancient hymn “every tongue confess,” because it reminds me that Christians have a variety of ways of professing our faith, which I imagine sounds like a beautiful symphony to God. We profess our faith in literal different tongues, using different languages to proclaim the same good news. Today, we hear words of Scripture, prayer, and praise in English and Korean, and join our voices in these and the other languages of our hearts to offer our worship to God. We also use different kinds of words and phrases to articulate and explain our faith. While the profession of Jesus Christ as Lord is what makes us distinctly Christian, we have many ways of explaining what that means. Leanne Van Dyk describes some of them in this way:

One person might say, “It means that Jesus is my personal Lord and Savior and, if I believe in him, I will have eternal life.” Someone else might say, “It means that Jesus is on the side of the poor and oppressed and we are called to join in the struggle for justice.” Yet another person might declare, “Jesus is the King of the world. We must follow Jesus and obey him.” Someone else might answer, “Yes, Jesus is King. But his rule is best seen in the suffering of the cross. We must turn upside down all our notions of power because of Jesus.[v]”

What would you say? How would you confess that Jesus Christ is Lord? Chances are, there would be as many different answers in this room as there are people. And I think that is almost always a good thing, because it means that Jesus Christ isn’t just some historical figure about whom we learn a biography or facts and figures. It means that Jesus is alive and well in our lives today, and has impacted us in ways that are deeply personal and unique. That is the power of God’s love, a God who is at work in each of us, even now.

The many ways we confess who Jesus is also means that we need each other in community to fully get a picture of God. Together with the stories of our scriptures, we can better understand the many dimensions and aspects of God that make our great mystery of faith. Through these understandings, we might hope to get a glimpse of Christ himself.

When I was a child at church summer camp, I remember learning a song whose chorus asks:

Have you seen Jesus my Lord? He’s here in plain view.
Take a look, open your eyes, he’ll show it to you[vi].

I sang it constantly, because I fell in love with the soprano descant, but also because it was a reminder of the ways we experience God in the midst of our lives. The verses speak of God in the sunset, and the ocean, and on the cross. By my favorite is the final verse:

Have you ever stood in the family with the Lord there in your midst?
Seen the face of Christ on each other? Then I say . . . you’ve seen Jesus my Lord[vii].

Today, on this World Communion Sunday, we stand in the family of God, and the Lord is here in our midst. We proclaim the good news that Jesus Christ is Lord to each other, as we join in prayer, lift our voices in song, and share in bread and cup. Look around you, brothers and sisters in Christ. The Lord is in our midst. May we see Jesus Christ on the face of each other, may we feel his presence, may we hear his name and bend a knee to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Amen.

~Rev. Elizabeth Lovell Milford
October 1, 2017, 8:30 am service (11:00 am was abridged from this manuscript to allow for interpretation in Korean by Rev. Paul Lee of Marietta Presbyterian Church)
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[i] John A. Dalles, “Presbyterian Origins: World Wide Communion Sunday,” Originally printed in the October 7, 2002 issue of Presbyterian Outlook, http://www.wekivapresbyterian.org/articles/presbyterian_origins.htm, accessed 9/28/2017.
[ii] Monya A. Stubbs, “Philippians,” True to Our Native Land: An African American New Testament Commentary, Brian K. Blount, General Editor, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007).
[iii] Marcus J. Borg, Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time: The Historical Jesus and the Heart of Contemporary Faith, (New York: HarperOne, 1994).
[iv] Leanne Van Dyk, Believing in Jesus Christ, (Louisville, KY: Geneva Press, 2002).
[v] Leanne Van Dyk.
[vi] “Jesus My Lord” by John Fischer, copyright 1970 by Songs and Creations, Inc., as printed in Songs, compiled by Yohann Anderson (San Anselmo, CA: Songs and Creations, Inc. , 1982).
[vii] Ibid.

Sunday’s Sermon – Starry-Eyed – Galatians 3:23-29 – Scriptures and Seuss

Sunday’s Sermon – Homeroom Lessons: Make Good Choices – Ephesians 4:1-16

Sunday’s Sermon – Every Tongue Confess – Philippians 2:1-13, World Communion Sunday

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