January 15, 2013
This coming Sunday is Martin Luther King Jr. Sunday. Karen Okusu will be our preacher. As part of our worship there will be a service of dedication for Henrique Angelo Gibbs, son of Geoffrey Taylor Gibbs and Cristina Angelo Gibbs and grandson of James and Jewelle Taylor Gibbs. Sunday evening at 6:00 there will be a Service of Prayer for the Peace of the Kachin People. I will be speaking at this bilingual service to which leaders of the Burmese congregations from the entire Bay Area have been invited. I trust our services will be fitting commemoration of the life and significance of history’s most well known Baptist preacher.
A Prayer for MLK Sunday:
Holy God, may we hear your voice
In the stillness of night, in clatter of day.
You call us, and we respond,
Here I am!
May we follow you and
May we love as you love.
Holy One, through trials and turbulence
Make us steady, your hands
Holding strong the fragile and weak
May we love as you love.
Gracious God, may the fruits of our lives
be food for the hungry, bread
clothing, shelter, fire, water, Word
May we love as you love.
God of justice, remove the barriers
Of our lives that keep us from
One another, barriers we construct
Based on skin color, religion, or gender
May we hear, and follow, graciously.
May we love as you love.
Loving God, take this day our fears, our
Worries, distractions, and all
Turn them into grace and mercy,
And, following the example of Martin Luther King, Jr.
and all your Saints,
May we love as you love.
Amen.
Some words from Dr. King:
“This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one’s tribe, race, class and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all men. This often misunderstood and misinterpreted concept has now become an absolute necessity for the survival of man. When I speak of love, I am speaking of that force which all the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality.”
Prayers of the Congregation
- Bette Pancoe – Summit Hospital
- Leona Sims – Summit Hospital
- Jesus Portillo
- Darnell Sims on the death of a close friend
- Harrison Williams – Vasano Creek Health Facility, Los Gatos
- All who are grieving
- All who traveling
- All who are looking for work
- The elected leaders of our church
- Gloria and Phil Meads for their son
- Steve and Katy Reimer for Greg’s continued recuperation
- The peace of Oakland
- The Kachin people of Burma
- Leilia Sarratt after a flood in her home
- Sandra Dunn for her father
- Steve and Carol Leichter
- Ted and Doris Evans for their family
- Warren and Camille Parker
- Katrina Lau for a friend’s son
- Rowena Jackson for her family
- Karen Hopkins for E as he begins a new semester and for a friend facing surgery
- Kay Baxter for Jamie, Stacey and Abbott Harris
- Al Johnson and Roy Browner
- Robert Stapp and Harold Sutherland for Harold’s mom and for their church in a time of transition