November 17, 2015
Dear Lakeshore,
I began my sermon on November 15 with this account. “Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel used to tell the story that when God, the Holy One, gets up in the morning, God gathers the angels of heaven around and asks the simple question: ‘Where does my creation need mending today?’ And then Rabbi Heschel would continue, ‘Theology consists of worrying about what God worries about when God gets up in the morning’.”
Then, as I moved down the center aisle, I asked for you to say where the world needs mending today. Your answers were astute and moving. Your concern for neighbors known and unknown was inspiring. Let us continue to pray for those places and persons(Paris, Beirut, Kenya, Oakland, Iraq, and our own heads and hearts among them) where creation needs mending and let us continue our commitment to join in God’s healing work.
This Sunday my sermon, taken from Revelation 22:1-7, will be “Beyond the Shadow of Drought.” My theme will be that even in drought stricken California there are rivers that still flow, rivers that remind us of the life giving river that flows eternally from the Throne of Grace in the City of God.
As part of my sermon I will use this story from history:
In 1636, amid the darkness of the Thirty Years’ War, a German pastor, Martin Rinkart, is said to have buried five thousand of his parishioners in one year, an average of fifteen a day. His parish was ravaged by war, death, and economic disaster. In the heart of that darkness, with the cries of fear outside his window, he sat down and wrote a table grace for his children, which became the words to the great hymn “Now Thank We All Our God.”
“Now thank we all our God, with heart and hands and voices;
Who wondrous things had done, in whom His world rejoices.
Who, from our mother’s arms, hath led us on our way
with countless gifts of love and still is ours today”.
I look forward to being together in our Thanksgiving Sunday worship.
Jim H.
Prayers of the Congregation
- All who are grieving
- Ruben Artery and Cecil White for Ruben’s brother Robert
- Sydney Webster for her daughter Gigi and her friend Tatiana
- Edie Parrott (Bancroft Convalescent Hospital)
- Carol and Steve Leichter (Steve is now home while Carol’s mom is hospitalized in Minnesota)
- Charlene and Jerry Wolf as they go to care for Charlene’s mom
- Ann Fields for her family
- Marian Scire for her sister-in-law Edith
- Michele Austin for her dad, Argee Hodge
- Marie Johnson for Dahlia, Dilcie, Cameron, Shari, Matthew, Jamani and family
- Helen Harrison for Mike Casey
- Alice Butler for the world in a time of great unsettledness and for her children
- Myra Saxton for her mom and her mom’s caregivers
- Virginia McClow for the leaders of Oakland
- Katrina Lau for her family and herself
- Rowena Jackson for the employees and residents of Grand Lake Gardens
- Sandra Dunn (health concerns)
- Alodia Corpuz for her friend Manuel
- Joan Thatcher (health concerns)
- Sandra Lee as she mourns Buddy the Cat
- Larry Sims for his family
- Frances Graham, Edna Dorenzo, Virginia Damretzky, Irene Jennings and Peg Shaw
- Camille and Warren Parker
- Doris and Ted Evans
- Joan Patten for Peter and Paula
- Alice and Dale Edmondson for their neighbor who is in hospice care
- Paul Keener as he considers a ministry opportunity
- Nedra Hathaway (health concerns)
- All the travelers of our community (Sean, Michael, Doris, Norman, Dianne) as the winter comes
- All our teachers, students, school employees and their families
- The Thanksgiving and Christmas Ministries of our Hunger Task Force
- Kay Baxter for Stacey, Jamie and herself
- Roy Browner and Al Johnson for Roy’s sister who is ill
- The people of Haiti in the wake of some post-election violence (American Baptist International Ministries has issued a call to prayer for Haiti)
- Thanksgiving for the family-serving ministry of our Lakeshore Children’s Center
- Thanksgiving four the courage of the University of Missouri students in standing for justice
- Thanksgiving for the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference which will be held in Paris, November 30-December 11
- Thanksgiving with our Kachin Congregation for the good reports of a relatively free and fair election in Burma
- Thanksgiving for the work of Jubilee USA in lobbying for international debt relief in order to create a global economy that works for all people
- Thanksgiving with Rick McKillop on his dad’s release from the hospital
- Thanksgiving for the work of ABSW Dean LeAnn Flesher. She is delivering responses to several papers at the Society of Biblical Literature meetings this weekend
- Thanksgiving for the ministry of Robert Wilkins at Faith Presbyterian Church
- Thanksgiving with the Picou-Broadnax family for good news
Announcements
Tyrone and I thank you for the very happy birthday party after worship this past Sunday. We look forward to doing it again!!!
Please join us after worship this Sunday to fill the Thanksgiving Bags for members of our community.