Tabernacle United Church - Philadelphia Progressive Presbyterian UCC
Please join us for praise and prayer in Christian Community from 10:00 am to 11:30 am Eastern on Zoom. Pastor Katie will preach “And the Word Became (Black) Flesh” from Luke 4:14-22 and Luke 4:23-30.
If you need the link you can contact us any time before 9 am Sunday.
Dear Tab Family,
Today would have been my abuela’s 87th birthday. Elisa Gomez, my maternal grandmother and last living grandparent, passed away Monday morning after many years of living with dementia. I pray that she is with God playing, as Oscar (Pastor Katie and Heather’s son) would say.
Psalm 121:5 says that God is our keeper (shamar in Hebrew); God will keep or preserve or guard our life. Pastor Katie reminded us on Sunday that in life, God is with us; in death and in dying, God is with us; and in life beyond death, God is with us. God’s keeping has to do with our worthiness and our sacredness. Shamar is a word of blessing as well as promise: We are worthy of God’s love and God will keep us in life, in death and in life beyond death.
As the people of God, we are connected through the one body of Christ. In God’s love, which includes us all, we believe we are each other’s keeper. We believe our Christian liberty is rooted in our care for our neighbors — liberty that seeks the common good (I Cor 12:7). Our Christian liberty is rooted in radical love – the extent we are able to see one another as worthy of keeping. Sin entered the Bible when Cain killed his brother Abel – when one person acted as if another person was disposable. Pastor Katie said, “sin lurks at the door in all the moments when we refuse to see the life of another as worthy of keeping…How are we doing with seeing each other, even those who we struggle to love, as worthy of keeping?”
I loved my abuela, even when she rejected my queer identity and family. She loved the Lord with all her heart, spending many years of her life sharing the good news. In 2016, in a rare visit with my family, abuela apologized to me and my spouse for any harm she had caused me. In that moment my abuela was keeping me, preserving our relationship and our connection. I am grateful to God for that moment.
Others may not always validate our worthiness, because unfortunately we live in a culture and society that treats many of us and our siblings as disposable. We can rest assured that in life, in death and in life beyond death, God is with us and keeps us. And, we belong to a church community that lives into being keepers of one another, and keepers of the earth and all living things.
Warmly,
Sana DelCorazón
UTS Seminary Student & Member of Tabernacle United
To watch Pastor Katie’s full sermon from Sunday, please go here.
Reflection Questions
Please contact me with your reflection at lanenalinda@gmail.com. I want to hear from you!
By Jobe/Carnes
The Lord bless you
And keep you
May God’s face shine upon you
And be gracious to you
May God’s face turn toward you
And give you peace
Amen, amen, amen
Amen, amen, amen
May God’s presence go before you
And behind you, and beside you
All around you, and within you
God is with you, God is with you
In the morning, in the evening
In your coming, and your going
In your weeping, and rejoicing
God is for you, God is for you
Amen, amen, amen
Amen, amen, amen.
Please join us on Zoom from 10:00 am to 11:00 am Eastern for praise, prayer, and the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. Pastor Katie will preach “Worthy of Keeping” from Psalm 121, Genesis 2:5, and Genesis 4:8-10.
You can contact us any time before 9 am Sunday if you need the link.
Dear Tab Family,
And here when I thought being a good Christian was only about the hard work of liberation and salvation, Pastor Katie reminds us that God wants us to experience and embody joy! We see this when Jesus turns gallons of water to wine. “Wine is deeply symbolic, and wine and the abundance of it in the Hebrew Scriptures has to do with joy. Wine is a symbol of joy!” In her sermon, Pastor Katie goes on to ask,
“What if the miracle of this story is the miracle of joy? The gift of joy that comes to us in times where we think there is no more, times when we think we have run out?”
I have been there, my friends, thinking my joy has run out, and not just in the winter, although winters can be particularly rough for many of us. In our neck of the woods, the snow is no longer soft; it’s packed down, dirty and frozen solid. Winter feels hard and long at this point in the season – so does the pandemic! I am not saying we need to pretend to be happy, because happiness and joy aren’t the same thing. Although hard to define, “joy has to do with gratitude in the moment, and a connection to a power greater than ourselves at work.” And like Pastor Katie, I too forebode joy and imagine all the things that can go wrong when I find myself at peace or content with life. Brené Brown tells us foreboding joy is a defense mechanism against the vulnerability of joy. As a child I wasn’t always reassured by my parents or given the tools I needed to lean into God, to experience love, joy or God’s grace.
But God has not created us to live our lives clutching empty jars of fear and dread. We may find joy in places where we thought there was none, in moments when we thought we had run out, if we allow ourselves to be open to vulnerability, grace and love. God’s love and grace are over the top, and we can start practicing this joy through gratitude. Like love and grace, joy grows the more it is shared and practiced. Pastor Katie says, “Perhaps it is time for you to ask God to fill you with joy, and to give you courage to open up to the vulnerability and gift of it, and to let go of foreboding and fear. Because you are loved with a love far more dependable than your own love. You are prized more highly than you ever imagined. When it comes to matters of love, grace and joy, God goes over the top.”
Reflection Questions
Please feel free to email me at lanenalinda@gmail.com with your reflections. I would love to hear from you.
Warmly,
Sana DelCorazón
UTS Seminary Student & Member of Tabernacle United
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in faith so that you overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Romans 15:13
In case you need to listen to Pastor Katie’s sermon again, here it is: https://youtu.be/RPusD0OQ-Us?t=1892
Prayer from Bukie*
“More like, moved like”
God who leads us
God who made us
You shape us still
In this moment and before
You have heard our joys
You have heard our gratitude
And you’ve listened to our lamentations
Divine Spirit, Christ Jesus who intercedes for us
We ask that you answer our prayers and petitions
That you have mercy on us —
Have mercy on us
Give us freedom from pain
from suffering
from shame
from anger
Give us freedom from the silence that perpetuates injustice —
Have mercy on us
Help us to be more like Mary —
open to your will
Help us to be like our elders and ancestors, challenging hate
Like Jesus, challenging hate and
sowing seeds of love
Help us to be like them —
striving for peace,
compassion,
justice,
kinship
Help us to be the church,
practicing radical love
May we move like Jesus
May we move like our elders and ancestors
Who have changed lives in ordinary ways
God, Have mercy on us.
by Olubukola Adekoje
*shared during Tuesday morning prayer gather
Please join us for praise and prayer in Christian Community on Zoom from 10:00 am to 11:30 am Eastern. Pastor Katie will preach “A Bit Over the Top” from Isaiah 62:1-5 and John 2:1-11.
You can contact us any time before 9 am Sunday if you need the link.
Dear Tab family,
No one loved Pastor Katie’s soccer team metaphor more than my spouse Gina, who is currently obsessed with US women’s soccer (and college women’s basketball). For some of us who aren’t on team sports, we have the opportunity and privilege to practice the skills of being on a team at Tab. This past Sunday Pastor Katie said this,
“Church is a training field where we as teammates come to practice the gospel. And the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, is about embodied love and justice and liberation…The goal of being the church is not perfection, the goal is not to fully embody the kingdom of God, because we can never do that fully until Christ comes again in glory! The goal is to show up for practice. You’re not expected to get it all right in church, in fact mistakes are welcomed here, because we’re encouraged to be brave enough to try out new loving practices that are part of this gospel game…. There is no church without a team.
I like the idea of church being a school for love, a place where love is practiced and taught. Living through a pandemic, we have learned that church isn’t the building; we are the church and it is through our practice of love in the playing field that we act like the church. As we show up to practice, to think, speak and act in the ways of God, when we get on the field together, knowing that we are flawed and mistakes are welcomed, we can learn from and about each other and develop trust, because we know we are playing the same game – the practice of love and justice.
This is an invitation for you to become a minister of the gospel. As Pastor Katie preached, “When we become a part of a church we are becoming a part of a team, we are choosing to leave our small world and our small family, to join with a larger family. You are joining a team that you would never dream of handpicking. It’s a team that is formed in Jesus. That’s the church, a team that is formed in the life and ministry of Jesus. There is never a day when you are not wanted to play on that team. In the family of Jesus, there are no paid professionals to carry out the ministry of the gospel. There are only people who show up for practice.”
As the leader of the newly renamed “Welcome and Engagement” Team, our hope and prayer is that you choose to become a part of Jesus’ team and show up to practice in our school of love, and that we as the church continue to increase opportunities for connection, engagement and service to one another and to the broader community.
Reflection Questions
Please feel free to email me at lanenalinda@gmail.com with your reflections. I would love to hear from you.
Sana DelCorazón
UTS Seminary Student & Member of Tabernacle United
“Let’s stop talking about it and do a little doing, with love.” Taylor Silvestri
Please join us on Zoom for praise and prayer in Christian Community from 10:00 am to 11:30 am Eastern. Pastor Katie will preach “You Think You Are a Minister?” from Luke 22:24-27 and Mark 1:29-31.
You can contact us any time before 9 am Sunday if you need the link.
Please join us on Zoom for praise and prayer in Christian Community from 10:00 am to 11:30 am Eastern. Rev. Dick Fernandez will preach “Who Was This Man King?” from Amos 5:21-24 and Romans 12:1-3.
You can contact us before 9 am Sunday if you need the link.
Please join us for praise and prayer in Christian Community on Zoom from 10:00 am to 11:30 am Eastern. Pastor Katie will preach “I’m still learning” from Psalm 36: 5-10 and Luke 2:41-51.
We are back on Zoom through February 13. You can contact us before 9 am Sunday if you need the link.
We are returning to Zoom only Sunday services through February 13. We will provide 2 weeks notice of any change in plan.