Jesus, our brother, kind and good,
Was humbly born in a stable rude,
And the friendly beasts around him stood;
Jesus, our brother, kind and good.

When the second week of Advent comes around each year and we speak once more of John the Baptist’s admonition to prepare the way, I remember our neighbor Devon.

Building bridges between our divisions,
I reach out to you, will you reach out to me?
With all of our voices and all of our visions,
friends, we could make such sweet harmony.

175 voices sang in the round: building bridges – I reach out to you – between our divisions – will you reach out to me? Huddled between the bike path and decommissioned railroad tracks, our interfaith group stood under the shadow of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement building on Wednesday afternoon. The building was fortified with plywood covering its windows. Those gathered were fortified with a guitar, speaker, microphone, and song lyrics.

As a Christian people, we give thanks all the time for the sharing of Creation’s abundance. This week, the rest of the country joins us!

Despite being pros at gratitude, in some seasons the “thanks” can be hard to give. Sometimes it is simply that we have gotten ourselves so wound up in timetables, tasks, and travel details that there is little possibility of unwinding enough to give that exhale of gratitude. Other times it’s not the frenzy at all, but instead the slow loneliness that has crept into our lives like a fog obscuring our gratitude. Still others it’s the weight of the world that feels like it’s gone past resting on anyone’s shoulders and instead has become heavy weights around our ankles, making the pivot toward gratitude take more effort than ever.

“As trans people, we know the love of God. We feel it in our bones, in the very skin that lines our bodies, in the very nature of who we are.”

For over 25 years, this day has marked the Trans Day of Remembrance (TDOR), a day in which we honor our trans siblings who have died by anti-transgender violence. They did not sign up to fight, did not commit themselves to any war, but were a casualty of it anyway.

This evening at 6pm we will host the 2025 Trans Day of Remembrance Interfaith Vigil, where our Sanctuary will be moved by the holy ritual of remembering and honoring.

“Everyone is good- no exceptions. We belong to each other- no exceptions.” 

We were at Casa Fina in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles, hanging on to every pearl of wisdom opened to us by Father Gregory Boyle (called Father G, or simply “G” for short). We’d reached the end of a 5-year learning cohort and sought to learn from those like Father G in our last 10-day gathering that concluded today.

The leaves are turning. The leaves are falling. Pumpkin spice is in all of the coffee shops and bakeries. Sweater season is in full swing. The fruits and vegetables have ripened and been harvested and put away for the winter. The constitutional amendments have been ratified. 
 
It is a time for us to tend to the matters at hand and lean into the cozy feeling of belonging. It’s one of the underlying values we hold here at First Church. When community, justice, worship, inclusion, and service come together, at their best, we create belonging for all of God’s children. What a beautiful thing! 

In August, I shared about the experience of running into my Grandma Luz while volunteering at the foodbank. She’s on my mind again as we expect two things this weekend: the celebration of All Saints Sunday and the lapse of SNAP benefits.

We continue to search for the right Director of Children, Youth, and Family Ministries to partner with First Church. We have hope for a great fit amongst our current candidates and look forward to updating everyone as soon as we are able! In the meantime, Pastor Rachel and I have been coordinating our family discipleship with the support of about 20 incredible volunteers.

We have gotten to share time with our young folks each Sunday morning and night, pondering trust, relationships, death, and how many kinds of UNO we have collectively played (there are apparently 700+ UNO versions and spinoffs). Reaching back to my Youth Director and intergenerational discipleship era has been a joy and a stretch!

As United Methodist clergy in full connection, Pastor Rachel is ordained into the Order of the Deacon and I am ordained into the Order of the Elder. There is a whole lot behind these Very Official Words, but practically they mean that Pastor Rachel and I are connected to our fellow clergy by covenant. Not just that we share a profession or serve in the same area or report to the same adjudicatory bodies, but a covenant of call, identity, and accountability.

When was the last time you heard a story that was just too good not to share?  

There are plenty of stories that are too incredulous, sorrowful, or angering not to share, but I have in mind the ones that are chock full of good.  

Maybe it was in a newspaper that you clipped for a friend, or a post too perfect to keep to yourself. My household often swaps stories about urban issues, wider church happenings, and household cats.  

Elliot Stein is a reporter with the BBC who hosted a feature that ran for several episodes describing rapidly disappearing and obscure skills, the people who are the last in a long line of artisans who attained those skills, what their loss will mean.

Some days, we put on our blinders. Other times we are blinded by the grief and gravity of the world’s injustices. But occasionally, when our efforts align, we see the reality around us and the hope that exists anyway.

For me, this week is one of the latter. Even as we are focusing on the violence against Gazans, the Sumud Flotilla seeking to provide humanitarian aid, and the National Guard being mobilized in our own city, there has also been hope! I want to share some of those stories of hope with you, as well as practical reminders for how you can be hope for others in this moment.

Wednesday afternoon I walked down the road to the Freddy’s pharmacy and rolled up my sleeve to be vaccinated. Contracting COVID has become an unfortunate annual tradition for me since we left lockdown. Fortunately, each year’s booster has kept my illness manageable.

A new book, Why Religion Went Obsolete: The Demise of Traditional Faith in America by Christian Smith,  has recently been added to the library collection and is ready for checkout! It is also currently being discussed by the Christianity in a Changing World class on Sunday mornings. Read on for a review by First Church member Phyllis Leonard.

On Sunday afternoon a note appeared in my inbox from some dear colleagues. Included in their note were the words of a Hopi Elders’ prophecy. Primed by our pondering of Mordecai and Esther’s plight as it relates to the plight of the modern age, their words struck me, providing both challenge and encouragement. A bright splash on an otherwise grey and soggy day! I offer them to you in the same spirit. Ponder them as you go about your day, engage your relationships, and examine your interior in the quiet times:

You have been telling people that this is the Eleventh Hour, now you must go back and tell the people that this is the Hour. And there are things to be considered…

“When Mordecai learned what had been done, he tore his clothes, dressed in mourning clothes, and put ashes on his head. Then he went out into the heart of the city and cried out loudly and bitterly. […] a very great sadness came over the Jews. They gave up eating and spent whole days weeping and crying out loudly in pain. Many Jews lay on the ground in mourning clothes and ashes. When Esther’s female servants and eunuchs came and told her about Mordecai, the queen’s whole body showed how upset she was. She sent everyday clothes for Mordecai to wear instead of mourning clothes, but he rejected them.” Esther 4:1, 3b-4 (CEB)

On Sunday we met Mordecai from the book of Esther. When Mordecai learns of planned violence of genocide against his people, he is overtaken by grief. Grief over such callousness and disregard for human life, grief over such comfort with violence, grief over those who were to be harmed.

Two dozen women sat in a neat circle together, mostly strangers. At the head of the circle (if there can be such a thing), four facilitators convened. Well, more beamed at the group who had come from all corners of the country and the UK.

These joyful hearted facilitators held many professional titles between them: spiritual directors, professional coaches, clergy, seminary professor, former dean of Duke Divinity School, organizational developer, healer, yoga instructor, non-profit founder, abbess at a monastic community, and more.

School just started and already there is a holiday on the horizon. 
 
Labor Day began as a day recognized by labor activists and individual states and is rooted during a time when labor activists pushed for a federal holiday to recognize the many contributions workers made to the country. In June 1894 president Grover Cleveland signed a law making the first Monday in September of each year a national holiday. (You can learn more about the origins of the holiday here.) 

We are coming to the end of the summer season and gearing up for fall. The leaves will change, the rains will return, the air will smell sweet, the animals will begin eagerly gathering all they need for the winter months. In this liminal time it’s important to remember who we are and who we were created to be. 

I’ve been reading blessings written by Meta Herrick Carlson. She offers the following blessing for rest. 

The Northwest Harvest on Cherry Street had me hooked.

Every Monday afternoon a gaggle of students would pile (and pile) into too-full cars to go from the school parking lot just a few miles west to Seattle’s Capitol Hill. If we couldn’t press drivers into service, we’d squeeze into the 550 Express bus, schlepping our school bags up the steep hill until we reached the food bank’s metal gates.