March 29, 2018

It is likely that you are reading this in the days just before Easter 2018. I trust that you are connecting with the symbols, stories and significance of the season. I trust that in some important ways you are not only hearing the words “He is Risen” but experiencing an uprising of hope.
If you are reading this on Maundy Thursday or early on Good Friday, I invite you to join us in the Good Friday Prayer Procession which will begin at noon on March 30. Here is the plan for the procession.

Good Friday Prayer Procession

Corinthian Baptist Church to visit homeless encampments
March 30, 2018
12:00 -1:15
12:00 – Corinthian Baptist Church (920 Castro St.): Welcome From Pastor Mathews, Prayer, Depart for Lafayette Square Park, the park is approximately ¼ mile from the church, carry food and care items to distribute at park
12:15 – Lafayette Square Park (9th and MLK): Deliver Care Packages, Food, Pray with people living in park, Depart for Tuff Shed Encampment at 6th and Castro approximately ¼ mile from the park
12:45 – Encampment at 6th and Castro): Deliver Care Packages, Food, Pray with people living in encampment
1:00 – Return to Corinthian Baptist, the church is approximately ¼ mile from Encampment
* The route is ¾ mile, flat and wheel chair accessible. Please bring a new pair of socks, toiletries, or ready-to-eat food to share.
While I am looking forward to Easter, I am also looking forward to the Sundays after Easter and a sermon series I am planning based on the book, Everything Happens For A Reason: And Other Lies I Have Loved, by Professor Kate Bowler of Duke Divinity School. The dust cover of the book offers this description. “Kate Bowler…specializes in the study of the prosperity gospel, a creed that sees fortune as a blessing from God and misfortune as a mark of God’s disapproval. At thirty-five, everything in her life seems to point toward ‘blessing.’ She is thriving in her job, married to her high-school sweetheart, and loves life with her newborn son…Then she is diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer. The prospect of her own mortality forces Kate to realize that she has been tacitly subscribing to the prosperity gospel, living with the conviction that she can control the shape of her life with ‘a surge of determination.’ Even as this type of Christianity celebrates the American can-do spirit, it implies that if you ‘can’t do’ and succumb to illness or misfortune, you are a failure. What does it mean to die, she wonders in a society that insists that everything happens for a reason? Kate is stripped of this certainty only to discover that without it, life is hard but beautiful in a way that it never has been before.”
My sermons will be:
April 8: “The Lie of Control”
April 15: “The Gift of Uncertainty”
April 22: “The Blessing of Gentle Words”
Peace,
Jim H.