This Sunday the Reverend Marie Onwubuariri will be our guest preacher.  Marie is former pastor of MarArthur Community Baptist Church in San Pablo and current Director of Admissions of American Baptist Seminary of the West.  Marie will also be the adult leader of Lakeshore’s All Church Retreat in August.  As a trained cross-cultural communications consultant and an esteemed colleague in ministry, I look forward to sharing our worship service with Marie.

The Scripture for Sunday comes from Romans 7:15-25a.  In this passage Paul wrestles with the discord between the man he is and the man he wants to be.  Marie’s sermon is Mindfulness Matters.  Being mindful of ourselves, our actions and our desires is spiritual practice that allows us to more fully develop into the people God has called us to be.

I hope to see you on Sunday!

Allison

Prayers of the Congregation

• Bette Pancoe – home from the hospital
• Dick Ice – health concerns
• Esther Hargis and Marty Olney – Esther has been diagnosed with stage 1 breast cancer
• Carol and Steve Leichter as they travel
• All who are incarcerated and all who work with and minister to them
• Pastor Jim on sabbatical – may his days be filled with rest and restoration
• Kay Baxter for Stacey and Jaime
• Jesse Lucas for the family of his ex-wife who passed away last week
• Garth Sorensen for Chuck and Ramona Shawver in Mexico
• Helen Harrison for Karen Casey
• Gloria and Phil Meads for John and Jon as they seek employment
• Thanksgiving that Mary Karne was able to be with us in worship
• Thanksgiving with Ted and Doris Evans who are celebrating 70 years of marriage

Hope your week is going well, and you able to enjoy some of the beautiful spring weather we’ve been having.  The longer days, the warmth of the sun and the flowers, plants and trees in bloom are all a resurrection reminder of God’s continual work creating new life all around us!

This Sunday we will continue exploring the imagery of fruit-bearing branches that find their nourishment in the vine they are attached to.  In John 15, branches symbolize the church that is called not only to abide in the true vine, but to abide in love by loving one another.  Loving one another is a lofty and sometimes challenging command; considering love as a spiritual practice might help us live more fully into this way of life.

I look forward to worshiping together on Sunday!

Allison

Prayers of the Congregation

• Bette Pancoe – at Summit Hospital
• Steve Leichter – recovering from a fall
• Bev Cooper – recovering from a fall
• Jerry Neale – recovering from surgery
• Mary Karne – recuperating at home
• Everett Curry – health problems
• Michael Sumrall – lost his cat last week
• Serena Ke – recovering from a bad spider bite
• Reid Albano – injured in Afghanistan
• All our college and graduate students who are finishing their coursework
• All our professors as they end another semester
• Carolyn Matthews – thanksgiving for her newest granddaughter Jaylen
• Wally Bryen – thanksgiving that his mother is doing better
• Evan, Luke and Whitley Joachim as they continue to grieve
• George Harper for George Cole who is in treatment for luekemia
• Teresako Harris for her Aunt Elaine
• Joan Patten for Peter as he mourns his father
• Gloria and Phil Meads for Sean and Jean

 Announcements

Support Flipside Burger and they will support our teens!  Have you been to Flipside, the new burger joint on Lakeshore (3401 Lakeshore)?  They not only have great burgers, fries, shakes and yummy vegetarian options to choose from, but they also want to support the community in which they do business.  Specifically, they have agreed to provide a donation in support of the Lakeshore teens headed to Washington D.C. this summer.  Simply bring in a flyer (available in the Narthex) any time during the month of May, and they will donate a portion of the proceeds of your meal to the church.  What a great way to enjoy a good meal, support a Lakeshore small business, and help our teens!

As we enter into May, we are already faced with struggles for peace and justice – both in downtown Oakland and in the homes of many threatened with foreclosure.  Join me in offering prayers for police and protesters alike – prayers for mercy, prayers for peace, prayers for justice.

On Sunday we will look at John 15:1-8.  In this passage, Jesus describes himself as the true vine and those who abide in him as branches who bear much fruit.  We will explore together the spiritual practice of worship and consider what it means to abide in the true vine.

Prayers of the Congregation

• Bette Pancoe – at Summit Hospital
• Bev Cooper – recovering from a fall
• Mary Karne – recovering from surgery
• Reid Albano – a friend of Donnie Johnson’s who was injured in Afghanistan
• Bev and Jim Jeffrey as they travel
• Maxine O’Guinn for Horace and Beatrice Lee
• Teresako Harris for her Aunt Elaine
• Paul and Johanna Wilkinson for Evan’s upcoming surgery (in July)
• Gloria and Phil Meads for Joy and Jon, and Max Powers
• George Harper for his friend George who is battling leukemia

May the joy of Easter continue to linger in our hearts and minds as we go about our daily lives.

The Scripture for Sunday comes from I John 3:11-24.  Having firmly established our identity as God’s Beloved Children, John goes on to explain some of the implications of this identity.  As God’s Beloved, we are to love one another.  John is clear though, that our loving others is not a precondition of God’s love, but a response to being loved.  On Sunday we will discuss what it means to Live as God’s Children.

Prayers of the Congregation

• Mary Karne – recovering from surgery
• Bette Pancoe – recuperating at home
• Bev Cooper – recovering from a fall
• Geetha Thaker – mourning the loss of a friend
• The Dickerson-Dees family for peace amidst difficult times
• Larry Sims for Wilber Sims, Renee Muckeroy, grandkids and family
• Kay Baxter for Jaime and celebrating the powerful sermon Stacey preached on Sunday
• Wally Bryen for his mom
• Joan Patten for Peter’s father battling bone cancer
• Karen and Robin Newton – mourning the loss of their sister
• Helen Harrison for Mike and Karen Casey (Karen battling cancer)
• B’Joe Morris for Geneva Keith
• Joyce Bass for her brothers
• The Grand Lake Gardens community
• All who work for better educational opportunities for students
• All who are struggling to make difficult choices in hard economic times
• All who come to the church seeking assistance

Yes, I know Easter was 11 days ago, but as William Sloan Coffin points out, “Easter is a season, not a day.”  (The Easter season culminates with Pentecost.)  May the celebration and joy of Easter abide, amidst the struggles and challenges of our lives.

The Scripture for this Sunday comes from 1 John 3:1-3.  John reminds the worshipping community that they are Children of God.  Although what they will become as a community has yet to be revealed, their identity as God’s Beloved children is certain.  Looking forward to celebrating our identity as Children of God together on Sunday.

Peace,

Allison

Prayers of the Congregation

• Bette Pancoe – recovering at home
• Aaron Hopkins – recovering from knee surgery last Friday
• Mary Karne – preparing for surgery on April 24
• Sylvia Lee
• The Joachim family as they continue to mourn
• Michael Sumrall - continued better health
• Ashley Ash and colleagues in Germany
• Thanksgiving with Michael Simpson for his parents’ 69th Anniversary
• Thanksgiving with Karen Hopkins that her Aunt Shirley received good medical news
• Sandra Dunn for her father
• Alice Butler for Karen Newton
• Larry Sims for Roberta and Wilbur Lee Sims
• Helen Harrison for Christine Buckingham
• Joan Patten for Peter’s father suffering from lung cancer
• Gloria and Phil Meads for May and Spencer, Max and Caroleen, Phil and Sarah

I trust that the hope of Easter lingers even as we move past Easter Sunday and encounter all the stones of  our existence, stones that both block  our way consistently and appear unexpectedly, that are still waiting to be rolled away.

It was almost ten years ago that I began writing the Midweek Message.  My intent was to stay in touch with the congregation, to lift up a thought about the Scripture for the the coming Sunday and to encourage prayer for one another and for our world.  Though the form and style have changed a bit, these three goals remain. Because these are worthy goals I, as I begin my sabbatical leave, am entrusting the writing of the Midweek Message to Pastor Tanner. It is her intent to continue to send it on a weekly basis.

Michael Sumrall will be our preacher this Sunday (I have much appreciated his presence at Lakeshore. He will be completing his Minister in Training program in mid-May with the promise of staying at LABC to assist the pastoral staff thru mid-July.)  Michael will be preaching from 2 Corinthians 5:16-17, one of the earliest statements by the followers of Jesus on the significance of the Resurrection. In this text Paul asserts that by the power of the Resurrection “everything has become new.” Of course Paul is clear, we carry this “newness” in the fragile containers, the earthen vessels, that are our selves, that is our community.

A portion of a prayer by Frederick Buechner speaks to this understanding. “O Thou who didst rise again, Thou Holy Spirit of Christ, arise and live within us now, that we may be they body, that we may be thy feet to walk into the world’s pain, they hands to heal, thy heart to break, if need must be, for the love of the world. Thou risen Christ, make Christs of us all. Amen

See you Sunday,

Jim H.

Prayers of the Congregation

• The Joachim family as they grieve Susan’s death (A memorial service will be held at LABC on Saturday, June 16)
• The grieving families of those slain at Oikos University on April 2
• The peace of Oakland
• Thanksgiving for all who made Holy Week at Lakeshore a most meaningful and spirited week (The April 8 Chronicle had a wonderful story about our Easter Parade and Party. One thing the article didn’t make entirely clear was that it was jointly sponsored by the church and the Lakeshore Business Improvement District.)
• The war torn lands of our world represented by Syria, Myanmar, and Sudan
• Edna Dorenzo
• Richard Ice
• The children and youth of our church and our community
• All who are facing medical and financial emergencies
• Carol Leichter for Steve and for George and Janet White as they move into retirement
• Theresako Harris for her aunt
• Phil Meads for Gloria who was not feeling well on Sunday
• Kay Baxter for Stacey and Jamie and herself as she honors the 4th anniversary of Larry’s passing
• Judy Hayes and family as they remember the 1st anniversary of John’s death
• For all who were in worship on Sunday, may the spirit of Easter abide
• Karen Hopkins for her aunt Shirley
• For our work as part of OCO and PICO California in support of quality public education for all communities
• Homer and Zondra Martin
• Sandra Dunn for her father
• Pastor Hopkins as he begins his sabbatical
• Bjoe Morris for Geneva Kiedu
• Teufa Gemechu as he seeks employment
• All those who are home-bound and those who bringing them lilies
• Marie Johnson for Donny as he begins officer training at Fort Benning, Georgia
• Declan and Sheila Brown for Gahiji on the death of his mother
• Sarah Hogan (Pastor Jim’s sister) and family for Jim Golf
• Larry Sims for his family

Here is a link to a Washington Post report from Burma regarding the plight of the Kachin people.

The news is just coming in regarding the shooting at Oikos University, located in a business park not far from the airport, in which at least seven people were killed and several others injured by a gunman reputed to be a disgruntled former student.  Every time another bullet is fired in Oakland I am reminded of the great chasm between the way things are in our city and they way we pray they will be.  Lord, have mercy on this city, on the grieving families, the injured survivors and the troubled perpetrator of these crimes.

I had hoped than my main purpose in writing today would be to make sure you are aware of, and encouraged to participate in, these Holy Week programs:

• Finger Food Potluck and Study, Tuesday Evening at 6:00 in the Family Room.  We will be studying the Scriptures related to the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah.
• Good Friday Worship, Prelude at 12:00 and Service at 12:15.  Service will conclude at 12:50 so you can get back to work if you need to. (LABC Sanctuary)
• Easter Saturday Community Parade and Party (Volunteers Needed) Gather in front of the church at 11:00
• Easter Worship (Including a Service of Baptism), April 8, 10:00, Easter Egg Hunt  will follow

A former member of Lakeshore, Elizabeth Patrick, sent this post-Palm Sunday Prayer.  I found it to be meaningful and trust that you will as well.

A Bruised Reed

When we bruise
like a reed in the wind
JESUS TEND US

When we wane
like a flickering lamp
JESUS SHIELD US

When we lose courage
and walk without hope
JESUS CHEER US

from Ruth Burgess of IONA Community

Prayers of the Congregation

• Susan Joachim (Summit Hospital) and Family
• Thanksgiving that Shirley Jones was in worship on Palm Sunday
• Theresako Harris for her aunt
• Georgia Upshaw for Ginny
• Carol Leichter for Steve (Six weeks without a fall!)
• Jim McAllister for his brother in law
• Karen Hopkins for her aunt Shirley
• Larry Sims for his family
• Thanksgiving with Charlene and Jerry Wolf on their 10th Anniversary
• Thanksgiving with Irene Jennings on her 90th birthday (April 1)
• Mary Alice and Abe Cirimele as they mourn the death of a friend
• All our students, teachers and school employees and their families
• The peace of our city
• Sandra Dunn for her father
• Al Johnson and Roy Browner
• Phil and Gloria Meads for Jon, Karl, Nichole and Brandy
• Declan and Sheila Brown for David and Deidre and for Gahiji as his mother enters hospice
• Ann Fields for her family
• Doris and Ted Evans for their family
• Homer and Zondra Martin
• Thanksgiving with Brenda McCarthy of her family, friends and LABC
• Thanksgiving with Aaron Hopkins and Teresa Gill as they look forward to June
• Thanksgiving that our youth and their leaders had a great retreat at the Jefferey’s cabin near Lake Tahoe
• All those who turn to the church for assistance
• All those looking for work
• Edna Dorenzo (home) and those who care for her
• Tess Benin and her ministry of caring
• David Robinson the ministry of Correctional Institutions Chaplaincy
• Steve Reimer and the ministry of the Samaritan Neighborhood Center
• LeAnn Snow and the ministry of the American Baptist Seminary of the West
• Pam Claassen and the ministry of the American Baptist Homes of the West

Announcements

Karen and I join with Aaron, Teresa and her parents (Tom and Karen) for the wonderful wedding shower this past Sunday afternoon.  Your kindness and concern carry us always.

If you can help provide the Joachim family with prepared meals please contact Paige Bence.

1. The constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act which is being argued before the Supreme Court this week,
2. The irreparable damage that people acting badly with guns cause in our world.
3. The suprising durability of the argument that war can somehow make the world a better place for our children and grandchildren.

To the first theme my response is that I do not know how the Supreme Court will rule.  The Court can decide that the Affordable Care Act is essentially a tax and thus cannot legally make a decision about it until it takes affect. This would delay any decision until 2015. It can decide that the mandate that every person must purchase medical insurance is a constitutional or unconstitutional use of legislative power and apply its decision to the entire Act. It can decide to rule on only certain portions of the Act.  Beyond the legal disputes there a growing number of voices bearing witness to this benefits of the Act.  These include young adults who would have been previously been taken off their parents policies at age 21, people that would have been denied insurance because of pre-existing conditions and people whose cost of care would have exceeded previously existing caps.  I hope these voices will not get lost in tumultuous debate.

To the second theme my response it that if Jesus would have told the parable of the Great Banquet in 2012  he would have added to the voices of those making excuses for not participating in this Feast of the Common Good (I have purchased land. I have purchased oxen.  I have gotten married.) a voice saying “I have purchased an arsenal.  I must go train to use my weapons.” The gun lobby in this country has masterfully used its scare tactics to spread a profound misunderstanding of the Second Amendment and sell a truly frightening number of guns to a very jittery American public.

Allow me to quote New York Times  columnist Tom Friedman in response to the third theme. “What ails the Arab world is a deficit of freedom, a deficit of modern education and a defict of women’s empowerment. Afghan men need to be trained to fight? They defeated the British and the Soviets! Where people don’t share our values, we should insulate ourselves by reducing our dependence on oil.  But we must stop wanting good government more than they do, looking the other way at bad behavior, telling ourselves that next year will be different, sticking with a bad war for fear of being called wimps and selling more more tanks to people who can’t read.” Schools and hospitals remain very underrated tools of national security.

I trust that these concerns will remain in our prayers even as we prepare to commemorate Palm Sunday.  I hope you are planning to join your congregation in worship as we gather on the church steps and process into the Sanctuary to the soaring music of “All Glory, Laud and Honor.”

Jim H.

Prayers of the Congregation

• Jerry and Charlene Wolf on the death of Jerry’s sister
• Leanette Flentroy on the death of her mother
• Geetha Thaker on the death of her uncle and cousin (In India)
• Sandra Dunn for her father
• George and Sylvia Lee
• Larry Hutchings for his mom
• The family of Trayvon Martin and the our nation as we struggle to learn from his death
• The families of the students killed by a gunman at a Jewish School in Toulouse, France
• Sierra LaMar and her family, Sierra is the Morgan Hill teenager who is still missing
• Natalie Washington for her family
• Susan Joachim
• Shirley Jones
• Joan Thatcher for improved health
• Zondra and Homer Martin
• Mary Karne for her neighbor as she continues to grieve
• Doris and Ted Evans for their extended family
• Ann Fields for her family
• The people of Syria, Afghanistan, Burma and other war-torn lands
• Larry Sims for his family
• Brenda McCarthy for her husband as he moves into retirement
• Phil and Gloria Meads for John Parente, Max Powers, Spencer
• Pastor Hopkins as he travels to Los Angeles on Thursday with an OCO team meeting with leaders there in regard to educational reform
• Carol Glann for parents who just lost their 4-month-old child
• All our youth and leaders as they travel to the snow

Here is an excerpt from my sermon for this coming Sunday. The title is “The Banquet Table of Opportunity: A Parable.” Frederick Buechner defines a parable as a small story with a large point.

The Parable of the Great Banquet found in Luke 14: 15-24 is among the most well known and the most beloved of Jesus’ parables. In this parable an unidentified host prepared a great banquet.  When the time for the feast arrived the invited guests, using a great host of excuses, started sending their regrets. These excuses are well known. “I have purchased land.” “I have purchased oxen.” “I have gotten married.” Undaunted by flood of excuses, the host simply expanded, radically expanded, the circle of invitees.  To his great banquet he specifically invited those who were often specifically uninvited to the grand feasts of the day.  Our text identifies these as, “the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.”

 What this parable originally meant is that the host of the banquet, God, regarded the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame, as well as their needs, as holy.  The first hearers understood it as a teaching that when the reign of God was fully known the forgotten and excluded of the world would know what it was like to have enough, what it was like to feel like they belonged. It was originally a parable of justice, of a world set right by being turned upside down.

 Over the centuries of the Christian faith the parable has been spiritualized.  For many of us it has come to mean that it is the invitation of the Great Host that gets us into the Banquet of Heaven rather than our moral standing, our spiritual prowess, or our theological insight.  It has come to be interpreted as a parable of grace through faith, a parable of unmerited favor as the sole guarantee of our eternal well-being.

While not refuting the worth and significance of these historic interpretations allow me to suggest an interpretation of the parable for our community this morning.  It is an allegorical interpretation of this well-known story. It is an interpretation with economic and political ramifications. . . (Please come Sunday for the rest of the story.)

Prayers of the Congregation

• Jessie Guiton for her sister in law Teola
• Ann Fields for Leslie
• Kay Baxter for Stacey, Jamie and Virginia
• Phil and Gloria Meads for Max Poers and John Parente
• Homer and Zondra Martin
• Karen Okusu for her mom
• Georgia Upshaw for Ginny
• Marc and Helen Harrison for Marc’s dad
• Thanksgiving for all our children and youth – May God bless and lead them all
• Marie Johnson for Donnie as he prepares for officer training at Fort Benning, Georgia
• Larry Sims for his family
• All our teachers, students and school employees
• Shirley Jones
• Susan Joachim
• Edna Dorenzo
• Richard Ice
• Fannye Leary
• Steve and Carol Leichter
• All who are looking for work
• The people of Syria
• The people of Burma
• All who face depression
• Joshua Ross
• All who put themselves in harms way on the behalf of others
• Al Johnson and Roy Browner as they get settled in Garden Grove
• Thanksgiving for all the new members of our church
• Natalie Washington for her son Jermaine

Announcements

I urge everyone who shares my interest in the future of theological education to join me on Wednesday for the Baptists Lunching Together program at Grand Lake Gardens (12:00 lunch, 1:00 program, cost $8.00) to hear Dr. James Donahue, President of the Graduate Theological Union, speak. Call Joan Thatcher 510-350-7008 by Tuesday noon for reservations.

Thanks to all who helped make Sunday’s Hunger Task Force Lunch and Bake Sale such a success!  I have provisions for the week.

As we consider this amazing assertion it would be well for us to remember that statements of belief come from experience. Frederick Buechner reminds us that “No matter  how fancy and metaphysical a doctrine sounds, it was a human experience first.”  He goes on to say, “The doctrine of the divinity of Christ, for instance. The place it began was not the word processor of some fourth-century Greek theologian but the experience of basically untheological people who had known Jesus of Nazareth and found something happening to their lives which had never happened before.”

People experienced God in the way Jesus lived, in the way he died and the way he was resurrected. Further, they came to understand that their lives would be better if they could somehow take the God who had come to live in a human home back to their own homes, their own families, their own communities.

This then is the invitation that awaits us as we consider the incarnation, to take the one who came to live with us into our own homes, our own lives, our own communities.

Prayers of the Congregation

• The people of Afghanistan and the people of the United States – a just end to a long war
• Zondra and Homer Martin facing a week of medical procedures
• Sandra Dunn for her father
• Helen and Marc Harrison for Chris Rynders and family, Ty Whitehead and Marc’s dad
• Carol and Steve Leichter for Steve and for Baby Geema
• Georgia Upshaw for Ginny
• Dick Ice – recuperating at home
• Edna Dorenzo-Kaiser Post-Acute Hospital, San Leandro
• Susan Joachim
• The people of Syria
• The people of Myanmar
• Al Johnson and Roy Browner as they move to So Cal this week
• Ann Fields for Bertha Miller
• Joshua Ross, recuperating from a concussion
• Ruth Smith
• Fannye Leary
• Shirley Jones
• Dwight Dickerson for his family
• Rae Rita Thompson for her Dad
• All our college students
• Our Youth and their leaders as they go on their Snow Retreat (safety and joy)
• The ministry of our Hunger Task Force
• Tyrone Mack for his mother in law
• Arnold Anderson (hospitalized but now home)
• Gloria Meads for Max Powers, Art and Lura Ferguson, Caroleen Neal

Announcements

The Hunger Task Force invites everyone to stay for their annual Bake Sale and Lunch after church this Sunday. This is one of the HTF’s major fund raising events.