Chinese Choir
Chinese Sermon
Sunday, March 26, 2017
English Ministry News and Notes 2017-3-26
*We Welcome Dr. Russell Jeung to CCUMC - Russell is a 5th generation Chinese (Hakka) American who grew up in the Bay Area and has made Oakland his home for more than 20 years. He is also a leading sociologist of Asian Americans, race, and religion. Russell currently is professor of Asian American Studies at San Francisco State University. Russell is the author of books on race and religion and most recently, the spiritual memoir we studied, At Home in Exile. You are all invited to a community talk with Russell following SOUP at 2:00 p.m. in the Annex.
*UMCOR Special Offering Sunday is Today - Your 2nd mile giving today goes to support the important work of the United Methodist Committee on Relief. To learn more about the important and impressive work of UMCOR, please visit: www.umcor.org Thank you for your generosity.
*Get Your Portrait On! Today and next Sunday are your final opportunities to get your portrait taken for our church pictorial directory. Please make sure to head upstairs to the chapel or the hall right outside the ping pong room. And don't forget your info cards! Thank you.
*SOUP Lite continues - Great thanks to our soup makers Jennie and Donna, and bread bringer, Peggy.
*Will you pitch in? Our annual children's Easter party (held Sunday, Apr. 9th, 12:00 - 2:30 p.m.) requires your presence and support. Please sign up to pitch in today.
So We May Become Blind
“I came into this world for judgment
so that those who do not see may see,
and those who do see may become blind.” —John 9.39
The ninth chapter of John tells a story hilarious with irony about Jesus healing a blind man while all those about him can't see the truth. They are not ready to see the man healed, because it contradicts what they believe. For them truly believing is seeing. They don't believe; so they are blind to the miracle in their midst.
How like us. We have things figured out. We have people pigeonholed. We have our ideas about God. We have our opinions. And of course—lucky for us—we're right. Prejudices, judgments, beliefs: delusions, all. They keep us from really seeing.
Sometimes I know the woods so well I don't have to look. I don't see them. Sometimes we see people the way we've been conditioned to see them, and in our eyes they can't change. It is not God who is absent. It is we who are blind.
Jesus told us parables to confuse us, so we would start over. “If your eyes causes you to sin, pluck it out.” When what you've seen keeps you from seeing anew, blind yourself.
Blind to our judgments, unknowing, perhaps we will really see for the first time.
Sunday, March 19, 2017
English Ministry News and Notes 2017-3-19
*Are you signed up for portraits? Today, next Sunday, and Apr. 2nd are your options! Please make sure to sign up today. Also, don't forget to return your info cards. Great thanks!
*Today is the last day to sign up for Easter lilies! Fill the sanctuary with the beauty and fragrance of lilies for $10 per plant. You are welcome to take them home following the 11:00 a.m. worship celebration.
*SOUP Lite continues today. Great thanks to our soup makers this week, Laura and Brenda, and bread provider Peggy.
*Next Sunday, Mar. 26th, we welcome Russell Jeung to CCUMC! Please extend the invite to your circles for his 2:00 p.m. talk. Flyers available in the foyer or via email.
*UMCOR Special Offering Sunday, Mar. 26th - You are invited to give generously to support the work of the United Methodist Committee on Relief, our connection arm for disaster response and relief around the world. To learn more about the important and impressive work of UMCOR, please visit: www.umcor.org
*Save the Date - Children's Easter Party, Apr. 9th, noon - 2:30 p.m.
Consider this….
“Jesus is Lord” is the most widespread early Christian affirmation. It is central for Paul and for the rest of the New Testament. Like “Kingdom of God,” it has a political meaning as well as a religious meaning.
The key to seeing its political meaning is realizing that ‘lord’ was one of the titles of the Roman emperor: Caesar was called “lord.” To say “Jesus is Lord” is to say “Caesar is not lord.” To affirm the lordship of Christ is to deny the lordship of Caesar.
Indeed, several of the “titles” of Jesus in the New Testament were also titles of Caesar. ON coins and inscriptions, Caesar was referred to not only as “lord,” but also as “son of God,” “savior,” “king of kings,” and “lord of lords.” Caesar was also spoken of as the one who had brought peace on earth. Early Christian used all of this language to refer to Jesus. Even the Christmas tory, so politically domesticated in our observance, contains the challenge to Caesar. In Luke, the angel says to the shepherds, “To you is born this day…a Savior, who is the Christ, the Lord,” who will bring peace on earth. The titles of Caesar properly belong to Jesus.
Thus the familiar affirmation “Jesus is Lord”, now almost a Christian cliché, originally challenged the lordship of the empire. It still does. To use examples from more recent times, it is like Christians in Nazi Germany saying, “Jesus is mein Führer” – and thus Hitler is not. Or in the United States, it would mean saying, “Jesus is my commander in chief” – and thus the president is not. The lordship of Christ versus the lordship of empire is the same contrast, the same opposition, that we see in the Kingdom of God versus the kingdoms of this world.
Excerpted from The Heart of Christianity, Marcus Borg, p. 135-136
Sunday, March 12, 2017
English Ministry News and Notes 2017-3-12
*Church Directory Update:
Portraits! We will be taking portraits of you for our church directory Mar. 19th, 26th, and Apr. 2nd. Please sign up for a time today! Great thanks to David and Jacinto for being our photographers.
Info Cards - we are passing out info cards today. The information collected will help update membership/shepherding records and be used for the directory. Please review the instructions carefully and return them by Apr. 2nd!
*Easter Lilies - You are invited to contribute Easter lilies to the sanctuary for our Easter Celebration on Apr. 16th. You can do so by contributing $10 between now and Mar. 19th.
*Invite a Friend...to come hear Dr. Russell Jeung together! Mar. 26th at 2:00 p.m.
*Let's Do This Together! The Kumi Benefit Walk/Ride takes place on Saturday, Apr. 29th. Why not join your pastors on the walk? Or hop on a bike with Becky, Kendrick, and Ben o? Or celebrate with all the participants at the end, or volunteer along the way? Register online at www.ycvm.org. Don't forget - there's an enormous matching grant that ends on Apr. 1st!
*Annual Easter Children's Party, Apr. 9th - Mark your calendars now to pitch in!
The World, Melissa Bane Sevier
For God so loved the world that God gave the only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. [from John 3]
God loves the world.
Κοσμος (cosmos) is the Greek word we translate here as “world” (not the nifty little drinks with cranberry juice and a twist of lime). I did a quick online search of how various people have interpreted “world” in John’s gospel. One site said that while “cosmos” can sometimes mean the whole world, here in John 3 it is limited to God’s chosen.
???
There’s no rationale behind such a statement. No, God loves the world. That’s the whole world. And while that world was pretty big in John’s day—including Roman soldiers, “sinners,” pagans, Pharisees, people who went to the temple regularly and those who weren’t allowed in the temple, lepers and other “unclean” folk—today our world is even bigger.
Today we can turn on the television or listen to the radio or read the newspaper and find stories—with real people in them—from all over God’s world. And when we’re really lucky, we either get to travel and meet some of those people, or we find they come closer to us.
Syrian refugees resettling in our cities
Latino immigrants – documented and undocumented - in our schools
People of faith in other religions
Secular people
People of races different from yours/mine
Speakers of other languages
Openly LGBTQ persons
Trump lovers
Obama lovers
God loves the world. The whole world. So much that God gave. God gave everything.
So must we give.
Love the Κοσμος.
Love the world.
It’s God’s world.
Sunday, March 5, 2017
English Ministry News and Notes 2017-3-5
*Welcome to Lent! Following worship we will have SOUP Lite, a time of nourishing conversation over hearty homemade soup. Please gather in the social hall for a time of informal but intentional conversation with those at your table. Great thanks to today's soup makers: Becky and Arlene.
*How Will You Mark Lent? You are invited to deeply consider how you can return to God and neighbor and be reconciled. What practices might you take on or give up?
*Portraits! We will be taking portraits of you for our church directory Mar. 19th, 26th, and Apr. 2nd. Please sign up for a time today! Great thanks to David and Jacinto for being our photographers.
*Easter Lilies - You are invited to contribute Easter lilies to the sanctuary for our Easter Celebration on Apr. 16th. You can do so by contributing $10 between now and Mar. 19th.
*Extend the Invite! Please sign up today to be at Russell Jeung's book talk on Mar. 26th at 1:30 p.m. and commit to inviting friends, family, and community!
Lent: Living Our Baptismal Calling
I confess that my baptism draws somewhat of a blank in my memory bank. I couldn’t tell you much about the ritual other than that water was sprinkled on my head at some point, and I definitely couldn’t name the professions and commitments I made on that day. And I’m someone who takes words seriously!
How about you? Do you remember the 3 professions of faith you made when you were baptized (if you were baptized in a United Methodist Church)? Could you name all that you committed to with the various “I do’s” and “I will’s”? My guess is that what likely stands out with the most clarity is our membership vows to presence, prayers, gifts, service, and witness and everything else is rather fuzzy.
I hope we might change that through this season of Lent.
This year, we are pairing our baptismal vows with the Lenten lectionary gospel reading. It is my prayer that in doing so we might bring those vows to life and impact how we are living into and growing in our discipleship.
Here are the themes for the 5 upcoming Sundays of Lent (excluding Palm Sunday):
March 5th – Renounce: We walk the way of temptation with Jesus and learn from him what it means to continue to renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, reject the evil powers of this world, and repent of our sin.
March 12th – Accept: Through the powerful image of new birth and the biblical story of the serpent in the wilderness, Jesus shows Nicodemus and us what it takes for us to accept the freedom and power God gives us to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves.
March 19th – Confess: In an encounter with a woman at a well in Samaria, Jesus confesses he is the Messiah, and she not only embraces this, but leads others to make the same confession.
March 26th – Nurture: The response of the crowds to Jesus’ healing of a man born blind says much about how our congregation can actively “nurture one another in the Christian faith and life, and include these persons now before you in your care,” or fail to do so.
Apr. 2nd – Believe!: The faith we confess, and the faith that transforms us, is more than intellectual assent to a theological construct. It is to stake our lives on the Triune God, and so join Martha’s confession, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into this world.”
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