The Weekly View

The Weekly View - October 22, 2021

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In This Issue

• Weekly Message from Rev. Joanne Whitt
• Weekly Facebook Video
• Announcements & Upcoming Events
• Outreach Opportunities & Updates

message from rev.  whitt

Dear St. Luke family:

On Tuesday evening this week, my husband and I attended an outstanding concert remembering Michael Morgan, the artistic director and conductor of the Oakland Symphony who died following kidney transplant surgery this past August.  As we stood in the long line waiting for the doors of the Paramount Theater to open, a large man, apparently unhoused, came along with a big coffee can asking loudly whether anyone would contribute to the homeless.  A security guard, another large man, came up to him and told him to quit bothering the concert patrons.  “Come on, man,” the first man said, “Don’t do that.  Leave me alone.”  He did not want to be silenced.  He did not want to be shooed away, hidden from the largely well-dressed crowd as an unpleasant reminder that life is hard for some people. 
 
How often something like that happens!  This is the story we hear this Sunday in Mark’s gospel, the story of Bartimaeus, a blind man who will not keep quiet, even when he’s shushed by the crowd surrounding Jesus.  But Jesus heals him, saying his faith has made him well.  This doesn’t mean Bartimaeus was healed because he had enough faith; that would mean he, Bartimaeus, accomplished the healing, when the healing was all Jesus’ doing.  Bartimaeus merely had the faith to receive it.
 
Almost all of us know how it feels to be silenced from speaking our truth.  And most of us have participated in silencing others, particularly where we’d just rather not see, hear, or know about someone else’s truth.  What has this looked like for you?  We’ll explore this on Sunday.
 
We’ll also try something new for St. Luke.  We’ve built this Sunday’s worship around music from the Taizé community, an ecumenical Christian community in the Burgundy region of France.  The community focuses on God’s love, reconciliation, and living simply.  Taizé has become a Christian pilgrimage site, attracting people and especially young adults from all over the world.  Taizé worship uses simple, repetitive chants to provide a meditative worship experience. The songs have simple lyrics taken from the Psalms or other Scripture.  Your worship team is discussing whether this might be a form of worship we offer one Sunday a month or once a quarter, or perhaps even as a contemplative service one evening a month.  This is your opportunity to experience it and let us know what you think.
 
Don’t forget that a week from Sunday, October 31, we’ll observe All Saints.  That day, you’re invited to bring photos of your loved ones who have died, and we will place them around the communion table.  Also, remember that two weeks from Sunday, November 7, we’ll switch from Daylight Savings Time to Standard Time – we’ll “fall back,” and get an extra hour of sleep.
 
I look forward to seeing you in church, in the sanctuary or on Zoom.
 
Grace and peace,
Joanne Whitt
Interim Pastor  

The Weekly View - October 1, 2021

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In This Issue

• Weekly Message from Rev. Joanne Whitt
• Weekly Facebook Video
• Announcements & Upcoming Events
• Outreach Opportunities & Updates

message from rev.  whitt

Dear St. Luke Family:

We’re celebrating a couple of important family dinners this weekend.  This Saturday is St. Luke’s annual fundraiser dinner.  As it’s my first time attending this dinner, I expect all of you know much more about it than I do.  I’m looking forward to what has been described to me as a festive time when the St. Luke family gathers to enjoy good food, good drink, and good company.  I’m bringing my husband, David Buechner, and our son, Pete, a college sophomore at Contra Costa Community College.  It’s been fun to watch the St. Luke community mobilize to put this together.  I’m grateful to the many people who have contributed to make this a lovely party with food, drink, music, decorations, auction items, set up, bartenders, an M.C., an auctioneer, and all the folks in the background who keep track of numbers, checks, and reservations.  Thank you!

Then this coming Sunday is World Communion Sunday, when our church family all over the world gathers around the communion table to celebrate that we are “one bread, one body.”  With over two-thirds of Christians living in the Global South, Christianity is more truly a world-wide religion than ever.  We speak many languages; we worship in cathedrals and huts and everything in between; we read the bible differently and disagree about theology; we ascribe different meanings to the sacrament we variously call the Lord’s Supper, communion, the Eucharist, or the Mass.  Nevertheless, in the breaking of the bread and the sharing of the cup, we become one with Christ and with all believers of every time and place. 

We’ll celebrate World Communion Sunday with special breads from different cultures, and with music from Christians around the world.  Erich Miller will play steel drums and percussion, and our choir is working on a couple of pieces from Jamaica and South Africa. 

We’ll hear how Jesus welcomed children even though the disciples tried to shoo them away.  Jesus isn’t saying children are special (although of course they are).  As the quotation on your bulletin covers this Sunday puts it, “There is something about children and their place in the kingdom that is simply not reducible to innocence, vulnerability, humility, lowliness, lack of prestige, simplicity, purity, nearness to God, openness to Christ, or any other attribute one may suggest.  It is all of this and more, for their place in the kingdom is by virtue of their being simply children of God.” (Cornelia B. Horn and John W. Martens)

And so is ours.  We join around the table this coming Saturday night, and this coming Sunday morning, because we have been welcomed by Christ and each other, and we are called to welcome others. 

Grace and peace,
Joanne Whitt
Interim Pastor 

The Weekly View - September 24, 2021

Click here for the full NEWSLETTER

In This Issue

• Weekly Message from Rev. Joanne Whitt
• Announcements & Upcoming Events
• Outreach Opportunities & Updates

message from rev.  whitt

Dear St. Luke family,

This Sunday we’ll look at the Book of Esther.  It’s a wonderful story, full of intrigue and humor.  It’s the basis for the late winter/early spring Jewish festival of Purim.  A curious aspect we’ll explore this Sunday is that, in the entire book, God is not mentioned once.  My sermon is entitled, “Was God Involved?”  It’s an important question: Is God involved in the events of our lives, either the small coincidences or the major turns?  If so, how do we know?  
 
So many Bible stories make God’s activity obvious.  God has actual conversations with Abraham telling him to pick up and move his family and everything else to a promised land.  God speaks to Moses through a burning bush and gives him the explicit instruction: “Go tell Pharaoh to let me people go.”  God parts the Red Sea, and then hands Moses the Law on stone tablets.  God speaks through prophets, warning of the consequences of injustice.  Through Jesus, God heals the sick and feeds the multitudes, and finally God raises Jesus from the dead to show dramatically that nothing, not human cruelty or even death, can stop God’s love.
 
Esther, on the other hand, witnesses to the power of a good story to give us hope.  Rather than succumbing to despair, Esther — like the carnival-esque festival of Purim it inspires — encourages us to meet terror with ridicule.  Imagine that: Humor as one of the tools in God’s toolbox!  Former political speech writer John Lovett writes, “If you can make someone laugh about something that your opponent or your opposition thinks, that means you’ve done a really good job of highlighting what’s wrong with their argument or their position.”  
 
Satiric storytelling is not the only response to oppression we can or should muster, but the book of Esther reminds us it is indeed a valid response, one that helps us hold fast to our conviction that the grace-filled power of God ultimately will overcome the destructive powers of this world.  
 
The best line in the book of Esther is the holy challenge Mordecai gives to all of us when he says to his niece, Esther, “Who knows?  Perhaps you are here, at this place and time, for such a time as this.”
 
Perhaps you are here, at this place and time, for such a time as this.
 
Don’t forget to register for the gala dinner on October 2.  Everyone is invited, regardless of what you can or can’t donate.  There will be both indoor and outdoor seating.  
 
See you on Sunday!

Grace and peace,
Joanne Whitt
Interim Pastor