Where charity and love are, God is there. Emmanuel’s stewardship theme this year is “Love your neighbor”. Over the past few weeks, we’ve heard about different ways that we can think of our neighbor. A few weeks ago Karen King highlighted several places where the command to love our neighbor is found in the Bible. She shared one of her favorites, Jesus telling in the Gospel of Luke the parable of the Good Samaritan. Our neighbors can be those who were strangers but made neighbors thanks to compassion and mercy. Building on this the following week, Carolyn Roosevelt reminded us that the Samaritan made a pledge to the innkeeper to pay for his neighbor’s care. Last week Mary Blocher spoke to us about how Emmanuel ensures that there is room at the inn by keeping the doors open, the programs running, the staff paid, the lights on, and the hospitality flowing. Continue reading
Monthly Archives: October 2022
Group Play
Playing is an essential part of everyone’s life. Children learn and develop their skills from playing; they play almost all the time. As adults, we sometimes forget the simple joy we play with. In my culture, if an adult is still playing, it somehow means that person is not mature enough. However, after leading this week’s art project, I think we can still learn something from playing and enjoy our simple joy in the community.
Bringing Myself into the Community
It is the fifth week since I joined Emmanuel Church. Time passes so fast, especially this season! Bringing art projects to Common Art and Cafe Emmanuel groups, I focused on art in nature. When I noticed all the color changes on the street, the idea of creating art with nature just leaped to my mind . So I brought some origami plants to Common Art on Wednesday.
Go together!
God, help us love our neighbor, or at least help us to act like we do, and let acting those acts of love continue to transform and sustain us. Amen.
If pulpit pitches were a competitive sport, no entirely sane person would agree to follow Karen King and Carolyn Roosevelt. Not unless they were willing to do a swan dive off the pulpit as a finale, to up the game. Fortunately for me and for you and any EMT’s here today, this is not competitive. We are in this together, in lock-step, to call on you to commit what you can to support Emmanuel’s continued well-being, its mission of radical hospitality, and its acts of Love. Continue reading
Inn on the Road to Jericho
Good morning! Last week we heard Karen King commend to us the story of the Good Samaritan. We heard how two people–separated by birth, geography, and circumstance–became neighbors because one of them saw the other in need and showed him Love by binding his wounds and transporting him to a safe place. Maybe the merciful Samaritan knew in his heart that the robbers might have set upon him, if the coin-flip of fortune had turned up differently. Maybe his very status as a traveller, and (from Jesus’ point of view) a foreigner, kept that possibility alive in his mind.
Good Samaritans
Good morning! I am so glad to be here and to be with you on this beautiful day. I started coming to Emmanuel during the Pandemic, so I am just getting to know many of you who have been here much longer, as well as those of you who are relatively new like me. I initially came in large part simply because Emmanuel was open; worship was in person, and I needed that. I stayed because the love of God is taught, preached, sung, and practiced here.
Our theme this year is “Love our neighbor.” Versions of this command occur, of course, in many places in the Bible: in Leviticus (19:18), in the Gospels, in Paul’s letters. My favorite is in the Gospel of Luke, when a religious expert asks Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” Continue reading