This Sunday’s Sermon will be given by Michael Mallory

Michael has brought a joyful presence to our community and he attends the GTU in Berkeley and brings a freshness to our preaching. Do come!

At 9.50am we will gather and continue our Lively Conversations (Education Forum). The theme this week will be “Hospitality.” Taking the Gospel for this Sunday John 10: 11-16 we will seeks ways in which we have been welcomed in our lives and look for ways in which Trinity might stretch into new ways of welcome in the future.

Have you considered yourself to be shepherd? A lamb? A leader, a follower? Diana Butler Bass asks: When were you offered hospitality in a way that was spiritually meaningful to you? Who are the strangers in, around, or near you? Your congregation? What would it mean to welcome these people into your life? Your church?

All are welcome!

Adult Forum Stimulates Creativity

Elizabeth Gerringer offers us this poem and image inspired by a poem inspired by the conversation in the Adult Forum last Sunday. Elizabeth is an Episcopalian who is exploring Trinity. Let’s welcome her warmly!

Thoughts

Thoughts are acknowledged in their aesthetic beauty,
And for their moral power,
Hostile traps, waiting to ensnare the unprepared
Like one pursued by a host of demons
Struggling against an encircling shelf of care, Sentimental about individual rights,
And the nature of freedom.
Pain reveals that we are loved with personal freedom
And not restraint.
Boundaries give us right ways of living in undesirable situations.
Love that will not let us go holds us unyieldingly.
Angels of God surround us, stronger than the devil.
Around us and in us, surrounding us with strength,
Strong in body and will,
Well born, well educated,
Discovered by one who is stronger still.
Love that holds us so unrelentingly that it leaves us bruised.
The adversary approaches us on velvet feet
And tries to leave us naked.

Image and poem by Elisabeth Gerringer

Last Week’s Sermon April 22nd

Today is Earth Day, the one day a year we try to think seriously about this planet we live on, and, because we are here in Church, we should probably consider our relationship with God and ourselves and this planet.

When I was in High School, I learned that water is one of the few substances that expands when it turns from a liquid into a solid. Most other things like metals contract. This is a good thing for us. Because if water contracted when it became Ice it wouldn’t float, and lakes would freeze from the bottom up – not good for the fish – but more important to us, our ice-cubes would sink to the bottom of our Iced Tea, or our beverage of choice, like single malt scotch.

Being theologically inquisitive, even back then, I imagined God sitting somewhere creating things and, when he got to water, stopped and thought: “Hmmmm. If I make water follow the rules of all the other things, my people won’t be able to enjoy their martinis or whatever then need in the summer. And, hmmm, all the fish would die. I’d better make water expand.”

There are several problems with this way of thinking. First God “sitting” anywhere. I mean, Where would God sit? We tend to picture God creating from someplace just above creation, maybe hovering, “making things”. That’s what a creator god does – create things. “I believe in one God, maker of heaven and earth”

The second problem is our tendency to think that God “made” all of this “everything”, for us. Later in the same creed we say “Who for us and for our salvation…”

But as 21st Century Christians, knowing a bit more about the universe, does that make any sense? The universe is about 13.something billion years old. The Earth is 4.5 billion years old. And life began about half a million years after that. Human-like beings didn’t start walking around until about 4-5 million years old. And we didn’t really start thinking and observing until about 10,000 ago.

I want to suggest an alternative view of God and ourselves. Rather than thinking of God as a noun – a being that does things – consider thinking of God as a verb – God is the 6
unfolding of the universe. From the Big Bang, through evolving more and more complex elements and molecules, to the beginnings of life and then and much more recently animals that could become self-aware, and then Us. From the beginning the Universe has been evolving toward being capable of experiencing itself and, more importantly, consciously make choices about how evolution goes.

In a certain sense, Human Beings are part of the goal of the whole evolutionary process – to become self-aware and make conscious decisions.

As Tielhard de Chardin said in today’s contemporary reading, we are co-creators. We are the first life form that is able to look around at the consequences of our choices and make better decisions. The Earth wasn’t created for us to “conquer” or subdue, as Genesis tells us, rather, we evolved to care for and heal the earth.

And so, as we work on ourself, seeking to become more conscious in our actions and choices, we participate in the evolution of life, we participate in God.

The point of all this is, rather than one day a year thinking about being nicer to our Mother Earth, we need to work so that we understand ourselves as being evolutionarily part of the Earth, part of the Universe, having a major role in what happens next, inching evolution along by more conscious choices to create a better future.

By Fr. David Rickey

Joint Congregational Meeting (April 22nd)

Summary notes compiled by Lynn Abendroth.

The congregations of Trinity and St. Peter’s held a joint congregational meeting last Sunday. The focus was perspectives on mission and service, sharing what each congregation has done historically and what we might do together going forward.

St. Peter’s history of service includes a nursery school, a
homeless shelter, then following the 1989 earthquake the focus
became developmentally delayed adults. At that point, they decided that it was more important to serve the greater community rather than build a church. This led to the building of St. Peter’s Place.

Trinity’s history includes outreach to the hungry, especially seniors and the homeless, though both independent initiatives and collaboration with other community services. These initiatives were suspended pending determination of the viability of the physical plant. If we are to launch a capital campaign, we will have to be clearer about our vision for the space and which communities we are called to serve now.

Fr.David Rickey noted that while It’s fine to meet the needs of a community, like feeding the hungry, we also need to look for ways to eliminate the need. We need to teach people a skill to move them forward. The CHEFS program does this by educating individuals in food service, training them and helping them find employment.

Fr. Evan encouraged our looking to the national church for inspiration. We are part of a huge movement. Check out “Vital Practices” as an ongoing resources and source of inspiration: www.ecfvp.org.

Central themes from the discussion included:

• Serving others in ways that empowers them
• Outreach and skill building services to the homeless, the ill, the aging the marginalized. Shelter Programs, CHEFS program etc.
• Engagement of youth and younger adults, considering that their needs in terms of worship and ministry may be different from ours.Possibility for an after work or Sunday evening service and or discussion group. Possibility to elders as mentors for youth with the advantage of youth also being able to teach them things about the rapidly evolving world, eg how to text, use of social media etc.
• Outreach to people in the arts. One strategy would be to learn from model used by the Little Church Around the Corner in New York City (www.littlechurch.org) and the Episcopal Actors Guild (www.actorsguild.org)
• Use of Music as Ministry: Youth Chorus, Taize , Grace Cathedral Jail Ministry, Trinity as concert venue etc.
• Incorporate collaboration with existing community service agencies as much as possible,eg Night Ministry. Meals on Wheels.
• We need to get to know our neighborhood and community first. What are the needs and how can we plug in?
• We need to use multiple media to publicize our services and needs.
•It’s important to continue to learn from each other and form relationships. Continue joint working and social gatherings.

In closing Steve Roger gave a brief update on our seismic report and noted that we expect some preliminary financial figures in May. He thanked everyone for their participation.

David Forbes offered a closing prayer.

Joint Congregational Meeting: April 22nd

On Sunday, April 22, the congregations of St. Peterʼs and Trinity will be holding a Joint Congregational Meeting following the 11 oʼclock service. The subject of the discussion that day will be “Given That Money is No Object, What are Our Dreams for a St. Peter’s/Trinity Mission of Service to the Community?”

Please give the subject some careful thought before joining us on the 22nd.

Think About:

• What kind of service(s) have we provided in the past? Do we want to provide these services in the future? What new service(s) could we be providing? What community(ies) do we want to serve?
• Where should we provide these services? If not at Trinity or St. Peter’s, what facilities might be available for service programs? Are the congregations of St. Peter’s and Trinity prepared to commit to going forward together in undertaking community service projects?

While we do not anticipate any final decisions to be made on the 22nd, we hope that we can gather enough information for the Vestry/Bishop’s Committee and Joint Steering Committee to begin to develop concrete proposals and options for the future. Please plan to stay for this important meeting.

Last Week’s Sermon April 15th

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my Strength and my Redeemer. Amen.

I am truly grateful to Fr. Evan and Fr. David for the privilege of being able to speak to you today.  As some of you may know, I attended and graduated from the Episcopal School for Deacons several years ago. In that time I was tremendously inspired by the possibilities for service as a Permanent Deacon, and yet at the same time I was truly challenged by the requirement to preach. I thought that preaching was an apostolic duty, and that if I were meant to preach, I would’ve been called to be a Priest rather than a Permanent Deacon. Being a Deacon, I thought, was about feeding the hungry; caring for the sick, the poor and the helpless; pursuing Social Justice Issues, and as the Dean of our school put it, becoming a bridge between the works of the Church and the needs of the world. But quite recently, in reading the Rule of Life of a certain monastic order, I was starkly reminded of my duty, indeed my responsibility, to preach. I was reminded that the exchange of the living word among us, in combination with the written word, is a very powerful expression of the Holy Spirit. Through preaching, we share with one another the fruits of prayer, study and life experience, in order to build up our common life (a).

Essentially, I was reminded that people [everywhere] are hungry for [the] good news that life is full of meaning when lived in union with God (b). And as a community baptized into the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, our primary calling, whether lay or clergy, is to be witnesses and messengers of that Good News(c).

“O how good and pleasant it is when brethren live together in unity!” our psalm today begins. Unity is a scarce item in today’s world. One of every three marriages in the U.S. ends in divorce. The Republican candidates in this year’s nomination process have been hotly divided and extremely rude to each other, and even to our President, as can hardly be believed. Just this morning, former Vice President Dick Cheney called President Obama an “unmitigated disaster”. I’d consider this a divisive statement! Even our own beloved worldwide Anglican Communion teeters on the brink of schism – which, admittedly, it has done several times before. But you can tell by the tone of longing and wistfulness in this first line from the psalms, that even then, thousands of years ago, unity was an ideal, not a commonality.

Where does unity begin, then? It starts on the ground floor. Unity begins here, in this place, with an eclectic, unique group of spiritual seekers from all different backgrounds and life experiences, united in our search for a life of meaning, a union with God, and thus profoundly enough, with one another.

We’ve been told, and many of us truly believe, that Jesus set an example for living which is a right, good and joyful thing – a life of unity with God and one another – and not just for a brief lifespan of 70 or 80 years, but for all of eternity. When I look around, I see brothers and sisters, a family of believers, all of us flawed but still getting up after we occasionally fall down, sometimes bickering amongst ourselves, but eventually coming to a consensus of sorts. We truly are a family, united by Christ, in this life together, forever. I look around and think – really, I’m spending eternity with you guys?!? We’ll have plenty of time to get to know each other, won’t we!?! We are struggling toward unity, for eternity – and that is truly a part of the Good News.

Having looked at our own community, let’s return to the very first Christian community, as described in the book of Acts. “The whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common. With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold.”

We are asked here to observe how a newly created but rapidly growing group, led by the very apostles who followed and were taught by Jesus, lived out the principles of love, compassion and forgiveness. You know the first word to come to mind when I read this passage? Socialists!! They were a bunch of Socialists!!

For me personally, having read about and experienced modern European socialism in Scandinavia and France, socialism is not a difficult word. Studies have shown that the happiest countries in the world, and the countries with the finest health care systems, are frequently socialist democracies!  But for many Americans, particularly senior citizens who remember the cruel authoritarianism of the Nazi party or the failed communes of the former USSR, socialism is a very difficult word, a path toward destruction not to be taken by America. Many Americans see their own panic buttons pushed when President Obama proposes changes of all sorts: health care reform, higher taxes for the wealthy and stimulus plans for employment and manufacturing. Wealth redistribution, assisting the poor (whether they deserve it or not), higher wages for workers, less profits for shareholders –these can be very difficult concepts for the wealthy elite, the so-called 1% . But if these are difficult words to you, recall the early Church as described in today’s reading. Recall especially that all that we possess is given to us by God, through God’s blessing upon us. If not for the grace of God, there we would be also —jobless, on the street, in the homeless shelters, in the emergency room without insurance – there we would be also, and possibly some among us are already there. Without compassion, there is no civilization. Without a sharing of resources, since all resources are ultimately limited, others will continue to suffer. This was God’s mandate to the early Church – to share with one another so that no one has any need. This is reflection of Love Itself which we in the Church are still mandated to carry out today, albeit in a more complex, expensive, and anxiety producing modern world.

Finally, our Gospel Reading from John. Thomas is absent for some reason from the first post-resurrection appearance of Jesus to his disciples, so Thomas believes his associates have probably been hallucinating due to their deep grief. Jesus alive? In person? You’ve got to be kidding. But a week later, Jesus appears to his group of disciples once again. This time Thomas is present. Jesus literally requires Thomas to touch the wounds on Jesus’ hands (or palms) and the decidedly fatal wound on his side. Thomas falls to his knees and cries out, “My Lord and my God!”

Now, in addition to his disciples, more than 500 people were reported to have seen Jesus alive after his resurrection. Faith, or fairy tale? Work of God, or wishful thinking? Let’s remember this – for God, anything is possible. And God loves us so much, that God granted us the ultimate freedom – that of free will. Isn’t love freely given and returned far more meaningful than conditional. or worse, manipulated love? Of course it is – so we have been given free will. We can seek God and pursue unity, love, compassion and peace, or we can walk away and look for something else. Honor, pleasure, wealth and power are the usual substitutes. But in the end, all we are really looking for is one another – sweethearts, friends, family…relationships that make us laugh, or cry or hug each other a lot.

We’re looking for God through our relationships: with one another, and with Christ our brother and Lord. And if you really do love your neighbor, your best friend, your family members – the folks in your life who seem to live in the shadow of sadness or anxiety most of the time – bring them to church. Let them see what eternity could be like. Let them experience the compassion, love and forgiveness which we’re all seeking, right here at Trinity.

I have an assignment for each one of you, to be completed before next Sunday. Raise your hand (LOL, trust me!) and then answer, “I will”. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is this simple: pick out a Trinity member or visitor whom you haven’t seen or talked with in a while, and call them up. Chat for a bit, let them know that you’ve been thinking about them. Find out what’s going on in their life, what’s important to them. Will you do it? I will!

It is always a challenge for me personally (being a bit of an introvert of late) to reach out this way, but just remember – as Christians, we are family for eternity. “O how good and pleasant it is, when brethren live together in unity!” Amen.

 

Judy Hedin

Save the Date – April 22nd!

Joint Congregational Meeting: April 22nd

On Sunday, April 22, the congregations of St. Peter!s and Trinity will be holding a Joint Congregational Meeting following the 11 O!Clock service. The subject of the discussion that day will be “Given That Money is No Object, What are Our Dreams for a St. Peter’s/Trinity Mission of Service to the Community?” Please give the subject some careful thought before the 22nd.

Think About:

• What kind of service(s) have we provided in the past? Do we want to provide these services in the future? What new service(s) could we be providing? What community(ies) do we want to serve?
• Where should we provide services? If not at Trinity or St. Peter’s, what facilities might be available for service programs? Are the congregations of St. Peter’s and Trinity prepared to commit to going forward together in undertaking community service projects?

While we do not anticipate any final decisions to be made on the 22nd, we hope that we can gather enough information for the Vestry/Bishop’s Committee and Joint Steering Committee to begin to develop concrete proposals and options for the future. Please plan to stay for this important meeting.

Easter Sermon by David Forbes

EASTER SERMON at Trinity Church, April 8, 2012 by Fr. David Forbes

Central as the stories of the Empty Tomb are to Easter, my own favorite Resurrection account is that from St. Luke’s Gospel where we encounter two disciples on their way home after Jesus death. They are dispirited, confused and hugely disappointed. A stranger appears and walks beside them. When he inquires about their being so down-cast, they express surprise that he does not know of what has happened. When they tell him, he in turn expresses surprise that they do not understand! So, the story goes, he reminds them of all those past events enshrined in the Scriptures and concludes that Jesus’ death and the empty tomb have brought all their people’s hopes to a new fruition and fulfillment. He stays on at their invitation for dinner and, as the story goes, in the breaking of bread they recognize him as Jesus, himself.

So for us as well, Easter can only be fully understood within its historical context! In fact it must remain an act of sentimental nostalgia unless if we discover how its rooting in history gives meaning for our own lives.

The roots of the Easter experience are as embedded in the human experience as the annual coming of Spring, itself. Ancient religions even spoke of Winter as the death of the gods and Spring as the time of their rebirth. For the ancient Hebrew people this rhythm of death and rebirth had its reflection in the great events of their history. Exile and slavery in Egypt and later in Babylonia, spoke of a death to pride and self-determination; Exodus through the deserts of the Sinai to the Promised Land and, later, the restoration of their life in Jerusalem meant liberation and a new life. At Sabbath evening meals, the account of their slavery and deliverance were recounted as reminders of God’s faithfulness as well as his righteousness. So, said Jesus to the disciples, it should not be a surprise that the death on the Cross was the prelude to new life for the Risen Christ. Slavery in their time had been to a religious and political slavery where the upholding of human dignity, health and welfare had been lost. Jesus had preached constantly and showed in his actions what this meant. And for that he had been rejected as a subversive and a heretic.

For us, then, what can Easter mean? First, that God is faithful to his very nature as Love. Second, that Love will triumph over whatever deaths face us. It is that faith which, in Alan Jones’ words, allows us “To live in the light while staring death in the face”. Third, that as those two disciples first recognized Jesus in the breaking of bread, so when we meet in Eucharist such as today’s we meet knowing that his real presence is here, sacramentally in blessed brad and wine, incarnationally in ourselves as the risen body of Christ. It is for us to ask of ourselves, is the tomb of our own fear, self-absorption and lack of regard for the world around us empty or do we still lie there? After this Easter morning, will we walk out, confused, and still disappointed that God has not rescued us? He HAS, you know…it is for us to make that a living reality. Never fear – God IS at work among us and throughout the world. The Risen Christ walks among God’s people wherever Love is seen at work. It is for us to name that amazing reality for what it is and name Love for who he is, God Himself.

Holy Week Schedule

Spring is in the Air – Evening of Music