FPC Worship Video 3.23.25

 

FPC Worship Info 3.23.25

 Greetings in the name of our Risen Lord Jesus Christ!  

Join us for worship online or in person this Sunday, March 23, at 9:30AM Pacific Time.  

Pastor Laura's sermon, Shalom: The Way to Healing,  is inspired by Luke 15:1-32.  You are invited to read and mediate on the scripture beforehand.  

For those joining us in person, we have masks available for your use if you wish to use one.

You can connect online at Online Worship to watch the service live and you can use that same link to access a recording of the worship service anytime.  

We invite you to add your name to our Virtual Guest Book to help us know who is watching, take prayer requests, and connect with you if you wish.  The link to the Guest Book is Virtual Guest Book.

Bulletin Info is FPC Worship Bulletin 3.23.25

Blessings,

Laura and Keith

________________________________________

The Frozen Chosen   will resume March 30  6:00pm. 

Per Capita for 2025 is $43.42.

Community Fellowship Night continues:  April 2nd , April 9th, and April 23rd   at 6:00 pm.

Centering Prayer meets in the parlor each Monday at noon.  For more information, please contact David Ebel.

Memorial Easter Lilies  Please contact Donna at churchofficelg@gmail.com or 541-963-5114 by 10:00 am on April 10th if you wish to include your loved ones.

No Community Fellowship Night Dinner tonight

 A reminder there will not be a dinner tonight.  Our next dinner is scheduled for April 2 at 6PM.

FPC Worship Info 3.16.25

 Greetings in the name of our Risen Lord Jesus Christ!  

Join us for worship online or in person this Sunday, March 16, at 9:30AM Pacific Time.  

Pastor Keith's sermon, Shalom: The Way to the Promise of Peace,  is inspired by Luke 13:1-9, 31-35.  You are invited to read and mediate on the scripture beforehand.  

For those joining us in person, we have masks available for your use if you wish to use one.

You can connect online at Online Worship to watch the service live and you can use that same link to access a recording of the worship service anytime.  

We invite you to add your name to our Virtual Guest Book to help us know who is watching, take prayer requests, and connect with you if you wish.  The link to the Guest Book is Virtual Guest Book.

Bulletin Info is FPC Worship Bulletin 3.16.25

Blesings,

Keith and Laura

________________________________________________

Looking ahead...

Per Capita for 2025 is $43.42.

Community Fellowship Night continues:    April 2nd , April 9th , and April 23th  at 6:00 pm.

Centering Prayer meets in the parlor each Monday at noon.  For more information, please contact David Ebel.

Memorial Easter Lillies  Please contact Donna at churchofficelg@gmail.com or 541-963-5114 by 10:00 am on April 10th if you wish to include your loved ones.sings,

Keith and Laura

________________________________________________

Looking ahead...

Per Capita for 2025 is $43.42.

Community Fellowship Night continues:    April 2nd , April 9th , and April 23th  at 6:00 pm.

Centering Prayer meets in the parlor each Monday at noon.  For more information, please contact David Ebel.

Memorial Easter Lillies  Please contact Donna at churchofficelg@gmail.com or 541-963-5114 by 10:00 am on April 10th if you wish to include your loved ones.

Vocational Calling 1.19.25 Luke 4:16-30 Sermon by Keith

It happens at the beginning of every year: There is a big push for change, or at least attempted change, in one’s life and behavior. This can include New Year’s resolutions. But if you haven’t kept the resolution or resolutions you made by this third week of January, regaining the traction and motivation can be hard that came with that January 1st, “I’m going to lose 10 pounds,” or “I’m going to call those long distance family members more.” It can be easy to say, “Next year” already if you have fallen behind. But if you have kept your resolutions thus far, awesome, keep at it!

Realistically though, resolutions are hard to keep. They require changes in habits and changing habits can be a challenge. That’s why I think we are seeing a movement away from resolutions to “personal mission statements,” or picking that one word that will guide and inspire you through the year. Overall, I think this is a good thing, this movement away from resolutions. With a personal mission statement, if written correctly, it can focus more on who you are instead of an image that may be unobtainable. They can help you grow into who you were created to be instead of the image the culture is trying to tell you to be. With a resolution, you either fail or succeed. But with a personal mission statement, change and growth can happen in light of who you are. There are even books and websites out there that can help in discerning a short, succinct personal mission statement or a word that can guide someone. There are also entire church campaigns to help church members find that word of guidance together.

And you might be surprised that Jesus even had a personal mission statement. Here in Luke, we are presented with that statement as Jesus gives it not only to the members of his home synagogue, but to the world. Jesus presents these verses from the prophet Isaiah as a description of who he is and what he is about. Just before this scene in Nazareth, Jesus had been baptized by John in the river Jordan. The heavens were opened, God’s voice declared that Jesus is the beloved Son, and the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus like a dove. And the reason God’s Spirit came crashing down on him at his baptism was to empower him to do precisely this: bring good news to the poor, release to the captives, recovery of the sight to the blind, let the oppressed go free, and usher in the year of Jubilee, the year slaves are free and debts are forgiven, and God’s justice would reshape society.

Now, as you read the gospel of Luke, you will discover that Jesus lived into his personal mission statement. Everything that follows in his life amounts to the living out of these words he claimed as his own from the prophet Isaiah. He keeps doing these things: he heals, he frees, he proclaims God’s loving favor every chance he gets until it finally gets him killed. Some people welcome what Jesus does and proclaims, but others do not, like those listening to this first proclamation of his purpose. His words and actions upset their advantage, question their complacency, and push them to action outside of themselves. Those who disagree with him find their discomfort increasingly intolerable. The good news that Jesus proclaims and expresses to the world is at odds with the powers of the world, and Jesus’ mission leads him to a cross. But that good news he proclaims is stronger than the cross as God raised Jesus from the dead by the power of the Holy Spirit. That same Spirit that was with Jesus in his baptism, his ministry, and his resurrection is with him still today as he works in the world in and through his church.

Friends, we live in a time when it is popular to lift up the importance of knowing and clarifying one’s purpose, one’s mission, and consciously working toward fulfilling that purpose. And I think that is a good thing. Now, every couple of years I like to read the Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren. I’ll probably read it during Lent this year. It is a good book, and speaks some deep truths, but I’ve discovered that in the 100’s of Bible passages quoted in the book, Luke’s passage of Jesus giving this powerful purpose statement is never quoted. For me, an understanding of an individual Christian’s purpose for their lives, and the church’s understanding of its purpose and mission, should be informed by Jesus’ understanding of his purpose and mission. And the reason his mission informs our mission as individual Christians and as his church is because that same Spirit that was upon Jesus in his baptism came upon us in our baptisms. That same Spirit that was with him in worship that morning in Nazareth is with us as we glorify God this morning in this sanctuary in La Grande. That same Holy Spirit that was present with Christ through his life, death, and resurrection is ever present with us as we live our lives and will be present with as we await the day we are resurrected to be in the eternal presence of God in Christ. That same, ever present Spirit invites us to participate with Jesus in his life-giving, world-changing mission of love and grace.

What does it look like to participate with Jesus in his mission? Well, for every individual and church it is going to be a little different. Paul in his letters, especially Galatians and 1 Corinthians, stresses the point over and over that we are all given different gifts to make participating with Jesus happen, no exclusions based upon age, race, occupation, or income, and no gift over and above other gifts of others. Thank goodness we aren’t clones of one another. And God through the Spirit will use each and every one of us differently and collectively and our gifts to make his mission come to life in the world. We start by asking questions like: Through us, individually and as church, how do the poor gain hope, whether it is their souls or their bodies that are starved? Through us, how do the captives experience freedom, whether they are prisoners in a jail or prisoners in a mansion? Through us, how is the Holy Spirit giving sight to the blind, whether it is cataract surgery or the scales of prejudice falling off the eyes of a bigot so racial reconciliation can be known and experienced? Though us, how are our gifts being used to free the oppressed, whether oppression is by a political regime or oppression from chemical dependence. How do we, collectively and at an individual level, share the good news of God’s jubilee to a world in deep need of rest and restoration?

So my invitation to you today is to think about your personal mission statement in light of Jesus’ personal mission statement. Make sure it is filled with joy to lift you up versus a great big ‘should’ that will wear you out and bring you down. Maybe it could start with, “Because I am a beloved child of God, my mission is…” or “Because I follow Jesus, my purpose in life is…” And think about how you are or will share God’s love to the world based upon how you have been uniquely made and how you have been given distinctive gifts to share with that world. Because following this Jesus means accepting his mission, knowing that the Holy Spirit will guide us out into a world in deep need of God’s love, grace, and freedom. Jesus went forth in the power of the Spirit as an agent of God’s mercy to the world, and so do we. Amen.

Light Conversation: Sermon by Laura Hudson, 3.2.25 Luke 9:28-45 Transfiguration

Understanding anything requires attention to its context: the conditions, relationships, 

and historical circumstances surrounding it. That’s especially true for today’s scripture reading. Versions of this story appear in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and we contemplate it nearly every year on the Sunday before Ash Wednesday. It’s a moment of revelation that feels like we’ve stepped out of linear, historical time to catch a glimpse of another dimension. But taken out of the context of the entire history of Israel and, more specifically, the surrounding stories in Luke’s gospel, this story cannot be understood.

So let’s briefly catch up to where we are now in the story. Between last week’s Ch. 7 story and this one, Luke tells of Jesus’ deeds of power, raising Jairus' daughter, casting a legion of demons into pigs, stilling the storm, and feeding the 5000. Everyone, including Herod, was asking, “Who is this?” 

So, Jesus and the disciples had a very important conversation. Jesus asked them, “Who do you say I am?” and when Peter answered, “You are the Messiah,” Jesus began to teach how his Messiahship would defy their expectations. He would be rejected, suffer, die, and be raised on the third day, and their discipleship called them to deny themselves, take up their cross daily, and follow him. Eight days later, those words lingered in the air as the disciples headed up the mountain with Jesus. Let us hear the Word of the Lord from Luke 9: read scripture.

Let us notice that this story begins with prayer. Prayer is always a good place to begin—or begin again–on the way of discipleship. Jesus often stepped away to pray and spend time with God. This time, he invited Peter, James, and John to go with him. 

Now, they were tired; the crowds Jesus attracted demanded much of their energy. So after hiking up that mountain, they struggled to pray. They tried to hear God’s voice, but their minds kept wandering. However hard they listened, they couldn’t be certain they'd heard anything. And with all the needy people out there, with all the ministry to be done, perhaps prayer seemed like a waste of time. 

As Jesus prayed on the mountain, I imagine Peter, James, and John gamely tried to participate, but their minds were all over the place. They wondered what they should say to God, or how to say it. They wondered what Jesus was praying. Maybe they wondered, what does prayer do, anyway?

The text doesn’t say how long Jesus prayed. Eventually the disciples were “weighed down with sleep,” until suddenly something extraordinary woke them up. Luke doesn’t use the word “transfigured,” but he emphasizes that Jesus was praying when his face changed and his clothes flared up like lightning. 

In an instant, the disciples were transported to the pinnacle of Jewish religious experience. This mountain became THE mountain, the holy place where Moses spoke with God face to face, where Elijah heard God in the still small silence. In the glow of astonishing light, those great ones, Moses and Elijah, the embodiment of the Law and the Prophets, consulted with the Messiah. 

“Now this is glory,” Peter must have thought. “Does it get any better than this?” Overcome by awe in the mystery of this revelation, he wanted to hold onto this moment, to freeze time and somehow make this fleeting encounter permanent. So instead of listening, he spoke out, suggesting three tents for the holy heroes, three shrines to grab and guard this glory. 

The text lets us know that Peter didn’t know what he was saying. Truth be told, Peter didn’t really know what he was seeing. In the distraction of trying to make the moment last, he stopped paying attention to its continued unfolding. 

Here Peter represents a deeply human struggle. As we seek God in a life of prayer, sometimes we are given a holy moment. Maybe it happens when we are gazing into the eyes of a beloved or into the vastness of a snowy mountain. Impulsively, in our yearning to make it permanent, we try to separate this experience from its unfolding context So we build a monument or we snap a photo and post it on Facebook. 

But so often when we attempt to control divine revelations and encounters or we try to thingify the ineffable, we make assumptions and take premature action. We don’t take the time to understand the complexity, interrelationships, and nuances of the issues we want to solve. We rush to post an instantaneous response instead of making further time and space to watch, listen, remember, and learn. 

Peter’s problem and ours is that we think we know glory when we see it. Easily distracted by shiny objects and impatient for results, too often we mistake human glamour for God’s glory.

The word glamour initially referred to a kind of magical spell that deceives the eye and obscures the true character of someone or something. In fairy tales, glamoured beings seem beautiful and kind but are ultimately exposed as ugly and intent on harming others. 

Strangely for people in an age of science and skepticism, we are taken in again and again by glamour. Whether it is the shine of money, worldly power, magnetic personality, or celebrity beauty, so often we put our confidence in the illusion of success rather than the apparent plainness of faithfulness! 

Glory, in comparison, to glamour, is the beauty and splendor of truth. It is the glow which illuminates that which is truly praiseworthy, that which is truly honorable, that which inspires gratitude, that which reveals the image of God. 

God’s glory doesn’t always look shiny to us. In Jesus, God’s glory is revealed, not in strength or wealth or success as the world defines it, but in vulnerability, humility, and loss. God’s anointed one, the Messiah, comes not to conquer his enemies but to forgive them from a cross. 

“This is my Son, my Chosen: Listen to him!” What does it mean “to listen”? It is more than the process of sound entering our ears. In the context of this passage, listening includes not only waiting to hear the full word spoken, but also taking the time for further prayer to discern what actions God would have us take.

If Peter had been listening, he might have heard what Jesus, Moses, and Elijah were saying. Luke’s gospel is the only one that describes the content of their conversation, which centers on the Greek word “exodus”--translated into English as “departure”--which is soon to be “accomplished” by Jesus in Jerusalem.

Looking at Moses, we recall the first exodus, God’s deliverance of Israel from slavery in Egypt. The trouble was, once the people were free from Pharaoh’s tyranny, they were still enslaved to sin and fear of death.“Whenever they got too brave and eloquent in the face of death,” writes Barbara Brown Taylor, “all someone had to do was threaten them and they would go back to being good slaves again, minding their own business and forgetting who they were.” 

Now, in Jesus the Christ, God was preparing to lead God’s people again to freedom, but this time the passage through the deathly Red Sea will be made by Jesus at Jerusalem through his body on the Cross.  

Elijah’s presence is the promised confirmation that Jesus’ impending departure is the fulfillment of God’s covenant with God’s people. It’s the affirmation of what Jesus had taught eight days earlier.Jesus would not be a military Messiah, defeating the Romans in a glamour of violence. He would carry a cross, he would give his own life, and he called his disciples to pick up their own, daily, to lose their life so they might save it.  

But for many of us, this exodus of Jesus Christ still seems like an impenetrable mystery. And we are afraid, like the disciples in the story, when the lightning radiance is followed by the shadowy cloud. 

In the midst of that darkness, the Word of God is a clarion call: “This is my Son, my Chosen: Listen to him!” Friends, these words highlight our trouble, but they also speak God’s grace. In light or in darkness, God teaches us to discern between glamour and glory, as we stop, turn, and listen to Jesus, God’s Son and Chosen One. 

In Jesus’ words and actions, in the pattern of his life, death, and resurrection, God reveals what is good, beautiful, and true. When we look to Jesus, when we listen to him, there is God’s glory. 

So how do we practice listening to Jesus? How do we learn to recognize God’s voice and to be guided by the Holy Spirit to join God’s work in our world? 

The story began with prayer, and now we come back to it. Jesus prays for us and empowers us to pray. There are many ways to pray, but foundationally, prayer is opening ourselves to listen. We begin by slowing down and showing up. 

We show up in this sanctuary on Sunday morning. Here–like the disciples on the mountain–prayer brings us to a place apart. We step away from the self-absorbed individualism promoted by our culture, we are restored to the whole context of creation, redemption, and transformation, and we remember our inextricable connection with God and one another in the Body of Christ.

From there, we pray that we may listen with yet greater compassion to the pain of God’s world. We pray that we may respond with courage to Christ’s call to pick up our cross daily and follow him. We wait and we watch and we trust that God will speak through scripture and through the Living Word within and among us. We pray to receive the Spirit’s guidance so that we may act in God’s purpose, presence, and power. 

Prayer is not easy, and its workings remain a mystery. The challenges the disciples faced are ours, too. But let this story with its luminous listening and dazzling darkness be our assurance that our prayers matter, that God is transforming us in the freedom of Christ’s exodus, that God has made us to witness the truth of Christ’s glory. 

Richard Rohr writes, “Following Jesus is actually a vocation to share the fate of God for the life of the world. Jesus invited people to “follow” him in bearing the mystery of human death and resurrection. It is not a requirement in order that we can go to heaven later, it is an invitation so that we can live an entirely full life now.”

Friends, as we pray, we are immersed in Christ’s fullness. Even as the disciples go back down the mountain with Jesus and enter the valley where demons still harm children, where the world yearns for transfiguration. Even as we leave this sanctuary and face the concerns of our daily lives, the struggles of our neighbors, the turmoil of our nation. 

Whatever our context, praying with and for us, Christ empowers us

to show up in prayer with and for each other, letting go of our fears and trusting God

to pray in and through us for the whole world. Alleluia and Amen.

Community Fellowship Night and Ecumenical Ash Wednesday Service

 A reminder that Community Fellowship Night starts back up tomorrow, March 5th at 6PM in the Friendship Center.  Chef Merlyn will be making pancakes and sausage to help us kick off the beginning of Lent.  Instead of Shrove Tuesday, we are having Shrove Wednesday!

Then about 6:45PM we will gather in the sanctuary to music to prepare us for our Ecumenical Ash Wednesday service.  Join our sisters and brothers in Christ to remember God's love and our mortality as we begin our Lenten journey to Easter and our hope in the resurrection.