Preached by Rev. Lou Ellen Hartley. Based on Isaiah 40: 21-31; Mark 1: 29-39.
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Worship Video – February 7, 2021 – Finding Jesus
Daily Psalm and Prayer 2/4/21
Psalm 116
1 I love the LORD, because he has heard
my voice and my supplications.
2 Because he inclined his ear to me,
therefore I will call on him as long as I live.
3 The snares of death encompassed me;
the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me;
I suffered distress and anguish.
4 Then I called on the name of the LORD:
“O LORD, I pray, save my life!”
5 Gracious is the LORD, and righteous;
our God is merciful.
6 The LORD protects the simple;
when I was brought low, he saved me.
7 Return, O my soul, to your rest,
for the LORD has dealt bountifully with you.
8 For you have delivered my soul from death,
my eyes from tears,
my feet from stumbling.
9 I walk before the LORD
in the land of the living.
10 I kept my faith, even when I said,
“I am greatly afflicted”;
11 I said in my consternation,
“Everyone is a liar.”
12 What shall I return to the LORD
for all his bounty to me?
13 I will lift up the cup of salvation
and call on the name of the LORD,
14 I will pay my vows to the LORD
in the presence of all his people.
15 Precious in the sight of the LORD
is the death of his faithful ones.
16 O LORD, I am your servant;
I am your servant, the child of your serving girl.
You have loosed my bonds.
17 I will offer to you a thanksgiving sacrifice
and call on the name of the LORD.
18 I will pay my vows to the LORD
in the presence of all his people,
19 in the courts of the house of the LORD,
in your midst, O Jerusalem.
Praise the LORD!
From The Mission Year Book
Synod School teacher: Effective interfaith engagement requires listening and being willing to be a stranger
February 4, 2021
At its roots, the Des Moines Area Religious Council is a multi-faith collaboration working to meet basic needs in its community. (Photo courtesy of DMARC)
Opportunities abound for interfaith engagement, a pastor with the Des Moines Area Religious Council recently told a virtual classroom full of the Synod of Lakes and Prairies’ Synod School students. All one must do is “step outside of what is normal for you and move into someone else’s reality.”
On second thought, it may not be quite that simple. During the hourlong online class, the Rev. Sarah Trone Garriott, DMARC’s coordinator of interfaith engagement, used stories from her own journey about working with people of other faiths to make the case that it’s potentially life-changing work.
With a history degree in her pocket, Garriott set out about 20 years ago to Gallup, New Mexico, to serve a year with the anti-poverty AmeriCorps VISTA program. As she pulled into town, she heard radio commercials in the Navajo language. As the only VISTA volunteer in town, “they had no plans for me. They ignored me,” she said.
She decided just to meet with residents and listen. She heard stories of women trying to leave violent relationships, only to be told by pastors and priests that this was their cross to bear. She spent time in the local domestic violence shelter and witnessed healing services involving sweat lodges and sand painting.
She decided to hold a conference on faith healing, inviting a pastor who’d told her previously “you don’t bring your problems to church” to join the planning team. After the conference was over, he confided in her: “I can see (domestic violence) is an important issue. No one ever told me because they didn’t trust me.”
Garriott said she’s developed a theology of interfaith work to guide the work itself. A central verse for her is John 10:16: “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.”
“I hear from a lot of Christians, ‘But what about salvation?’” she said. “It’s never been a very big question for me. For me, that verse says, ‘God has got it taken care of. We don’t know what it’s going to look like — and it’s not my job.”
The Samaritan woman at the well “is the wrong person, and I have often felt like the wrong person,” she said. “You think to do important work you have to be beyond reproach, and that’s just not the case. God uses ordinary people who aren’t perfect.”
At the end of John’s account of the woman’s encounter with Jesus, the disciples show up with food. The woman’s whole town shows up to learn more from this teacher with special insight into her life.
“I often think in interfaith work, who are the people who will show me things about God’s way?” Garriott said. “I might make assumptions about who can do the work, and I shouldn’t.”
When invited to fill a pulpit, Garriott said she likes to preach on Mark 6:6b–13, where Jesus sends his disciples out in pairs with only their staffs to lean on. He instructs them to be ready to accept hospitality from some households and the door slammed in their faces by others.
“Talking about rejection is an important piece of the work we are called to do,” she said. “Being a person of faith is welcoming others and being rejected by some.”
Being a stranger “is a skill Jesus wants us to have as people of faith,” she said. “We are pushed out of our comfort zones, and it doesn’t always work out the way we thought it would.”
In our Christian communities, “we love to talk about welcome. But what we mean is, we will welcome you to us. We are glad you made the effort to come to us,” she said. “It’s more biblical to flip that around, to go into the community to experience welcome from others. I’ve learned a lot by going out into the community, having both positive and negative experiences — and dealing with my discomfort.”
Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Service
Daily Readings
Morning Psalms 116; 147:12-20
First Reading Isaiah 54:1-10 (11-17)
Second ReadingGalatians 5:1-15
Gospel ReadingMark 8:27-9:1
Evening Psalms 26; 130
Today’s Focus: Effective Interfaith Engagement
Let us join in prayer for:
PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Luke Choi, Office of the General Assembly
Mickie Choi, Presbyterian Investment & Loan Program
Let us pray:
Loving and compassionate God, we thank you for providing for those in need and for blessing us with the desire to bring them your justice. Amen.
Daily Psalm and Prayer 2/3/21
On this sunny morning, this psalm of praise seems appropriate. A glorious psalm for a glorious day.
Psalm 96
1 O sing to the LORD a new song;
sing to the LORD, all the earth.
2 Sing to the LORD, bless his name;
tell of his salvation from day to day.
3 Declare his glory among the nations,
his marvelous works among all the peoples.
4 For great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised;
he is to be revered above all gods.
5 For all the gods of the peoples are idols,
but the LORD made the heavens.
6 Honor and majesty are before him;
strength and beauty are in his sanctuary.
7 Ascribe to the LORD, O families of the peoples,
ascribe to the LORD glory and strength.
8 Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name;
bring an offering, and come into his courts.
9 Worship the LORD in holy splendor;
tremble before him, all the earth.
10 Say among the nations, “The LORD is king!
The world is firmly established; it shall never be moved.
He will judge the peoples with equity.”
11 Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice;
let the sea roar, and all that fills it;
12 let the field exult, and everything in it.
Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy
13 before the LORD; for he is coming,
for he is coming to judge the earth.
He will judge the world with righteousness,
and the peoples with his truth.
From The Mission Year Book
Little Rock’s Westover Hills Presbyterian Church continues literacy program virtually
February 3, 2021
Left to right, the Rev. Sally Johnson, former program student Franki Briscoe, and Kathy Rateliff. Briscoe visited Westover Presbyterian Church to share her prison experience and new life after incarceration. She dreams of opening a halfway house. (Photo contributed by Kathy Rateliff)
When a group of Presbyterian women came to the state prison where Shanon Anderson was incarcerated, she quickly learned the program they offer provides more than reading and writing. It’s all about love.
“They walk in. They don’t know you, and we don’t know them. They don’t know what you’ve done, and they don’t care,” Anderson said. “They love you no matter what, and the whole world could really take a lesson from that.”
The Presbyterian Women’s (PW) group from Westover Hills Presbyterian Church, a congregation of nearly 200 members in Little Rock, Arkansas, has touched more than 3,200 lives through its literacy programs for people who are incarcerated.
The program started in 2016 with four women inmates at the Pulaski County Jail. It now includes classes for men, along with programs at the county’s juvenile detention center and the J. Aaron Hawkins Sr. Center correctional facility in Wrightsville.
The PW group recently received a $3,000 grant from the Synod of the Sun that will expand art offerings for incarcerated youth, purchase books and materials for teaching re-entry skills and buy equipment for distance learning. The Hawkins facility has been on lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, putting those classes on hold. The women have worked with county jail officials to resume the classes online.
According to church organizer Kathy Rateliff, the ministry was inspired by a talk given by Susan McDougal, who was one of the people prosecuted and jailed in the Whitewater real estate controversy of the 1980s and ’90s. McDougal was pardoned by President Bill Clinton in 2001. She now serves as a chaplain at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock.
McDougal said she doesn’t deserve the credit for the women’s extraordinary efforts. She only shared her experience serving time in seven jails, where she repeatedly saw a need for prisoners to become better educated. Westover Hills Presbyterian Church, which has accepted the Matthew 25 invitation, took the ball and ran with it.
The goals of the Westover Hills Literacy Team — made up of 12 women from the church and community — include challenging, inspiring and providing educational activities that promote self-esteem and self-worth, while teaching skills for re-entry and literacy. They also assign homework.
“It was a real learning experience with us,” Rateliff said. “Most of us had never done any work with people behind bars. We didn’t know what to expect. They are just like people everywhere. If they hadn’t had on orange jumpsuits, you wouldn’t have known.”
Anderson, 39, who was paroled from the Hawkins facility last year, said she was nine months pregnant when she met Rateliff and her co-teacher, retired Presbyterian minister the Rev. Sally Johnson.
“When I was in prison, I had no cards, no letters, no family visits. Sally and Kathy came and they gave hugs to everyone,” she said. “They teach you that you are still a lady even when you are in a prison cell, and they teach you God’s message.”
Anderson said the women continue to follow up with her, provide support and check in on how she is doing in her job. She is grateful.
“It’s all about love,” Anderson said. “People showing people that, on their darkest days, they are still loved.”
Johnson, 82, said she joined the work at Rateliff’s request about two years ago, after the death of her husband. This experience has been very different from her previous ministry contexts, she said.
“These are damaged families. They have certainly not had the educational and cultural opportunities that I grew up with,” she said. “This has given me the experience and glimpses of lives like so many others are leading and that has gotten them into trouble with the law.”
Johnson prays with inmates and makes herself available for counseling.
“I remind them that they are God’s beloved daughters, and God wants them to make better lives,” Johnson said. “Ninety-five percent of them grew up in a fundamentalist Christian environment. That’s the Christianity they have been exposed to. A lot of that Christianity is very punitive, that God is going to get you if you don’t do right. I want them to see a very different picture of God.”
Rev. Matt Curry, Special to Presbyterian News Service
Daily Readings
Morning Psalms 96; 147:1-11
First Reading Isaiah 52:13-53:12
Second ReadingGalatians 4:21-31
Gospel ReadingMark 8:11-26
Evening Psalms 132; 134
Today’s Focus: Virtual Literacy Program
Let us join in prayer for:
PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Betsie Chilton, Presbyterian Foundation
Moongil Cho, Presbyterian Mission Agency
Let us pray:
Heavenly Father, your unconditional love inspires us to be loving, welcoming and hospitable to our neighbors. Pour into our hearts your compassion and strengthen and guide us as we go forth to make your kingdom tangible. Grant us your peace and surround us with your presence. Amen.
Fired Up! Jesus Keeps Healing, So Should We
Check out this week’s Fired Up! informal worship, then join the discussion over on the Facebook Group.
Newsletter – February 2021
Psalm and Prayer of the Day February 2, 2021
Psalm 7
1 O LORD my God, in you I take refuge;
save me from all my pursuers, and deliver me,
2 or like a lion they will tear me apart;
they will drag me away, with no one to rescue.
3 O LORD my God, if I have done this,
if there is wrong in my hands,
4 if I have repaid my ally with harm
or plundered my foe without cause,
5 then let the enemy pursue and overtake me,
trample my life to the ground,
and lay my soul in the dust. Selah
6 Rise up, O LORD, in your anger;
lift yourself up against the fury of my enemies;
awake, O my God; you have appointed a judgment.
7 Let the assembly of the peoples be gathered around you,
and over it take your seat on high.
8 The LORD judges the peoples;
judge me, O LORD, according to my righteousness
and according to the integrity that is in me.
9 O let the evil of the wicked come to an end,
but establish the righteous,
you who test the minds and hearts,
O righteous God.
10 God is my shield,
who saves the upright in heart.
11 God is a righteous judge,
and a God who has indignation every day.
12 If one does not repent, God will whet his sword;
he has bent and strung his bow;
13 he has prepared his deadly weapons,
making his arrows fiery shafts.
14 See how they conceive evil,
and are pregnant with mischief,
and bring forth lies.
15 They make a pit, digging it out,
and fall into the hole that they have made.
16 Their mischief returns upon their own heads,
and on their own heads their violence descends.
17 I will give to the LORD the thanks due to his righteousness,
and sing praise to the name of the LORD, the Most High.
From The Mission Year Book
After the first day of the Vital Congregations virtual facilitator training, the Rev. Neil Ricketts spoke with elders at the church he serves.
“I told them that we — our church — and denomination are in good hands,” he said. “How we had heard from God and were implementing a plan for a healthy vital church.”
Ricketts, pastor at St. Andrews Presbyterian Church in Apopka, Florida, was one of more than 40 people being trained to help facilitate the two-year Vital Congregations Initiative in their respective presbyteries.
The initiative helps congregations build authentic relationships of faith as they work together on Seven Marks of Congregational Vitality. As congregations assess both their strengths and areas that need work, they begin to discern what God’s Spirit is calling them to do — and faithfully join Christ in the new thing, or change, that’s taking place.
Ricketts said the seven marks are core values for healthy congregations. As he heard more about how Vital Congregations is tied to the PC(USA)’s Matthew 25 invitation for churches to strengthen congregational vitality and reduce racism and poverty, he got even more hopeful about the future of the PC(USA).
“We can address these issues that are troubling the world and our country. We’ve studied the Word and heard from the Spirit,” he said. “God loves justice.”
The Rev. Carla Jones Brown, pastor and head of staff at Arch Street Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, was impressed with how well the facilitator training went. She especially liked getting into small groups — and doing a case study of a church around one of the seven marks.
“It made you feel like you weren’t lost on the screen all day,” she said. “It was so practical and nice to have different geographical perspectives on how one might lead them — and what questions they’d ask.”
The Rev. Tamara Leonard Lara of Nuevo Camino at Beth-El in the Presbytery of Tampa Bay appreciated that the facilitator training lifted up voices traditionally not listened to and recognized the diversity of gifts in a faithful community. Nuevo Camino, a new worshiping community in Wimauma, Florida, is made up of migrant agricultural workers and immigrants who have a deep need to access materials in Spanish and English to support leadership training for all church members.
“The VC process is providing me helpful tools to use,” she said. “I am hopeful about leaders within my presbytery meeting together to share what we are learning within our own congregations and ministry sites.”
The Rev. Kymberley Clemons-Jones, pastor of Valley Stream Presbyterian Church in Valley Stream, New York, said she feels better equipped after the two-day training to engage congregations in taking a deep look at themselves as the church, discerning God’s plan for their lives as a community of faith.
Hearing what it takes to engage the adult learner from Dr. Phyllis Sanders was extremely helpful for Clemons-Jones — Especially when the Vital Congregations coordinator for Trinity Presbytery said that “adult learners want to use what they hear.”
“That was eye-opening for me,” Clemons-Jones said. “In all my years of teaching I never learned specifically how to teach adults.”
She too finds herself hopeful of what the VC process will help churches accomplish. She said the many resources and the supportive staff leave her feeling like she can work at her best.
As Brown participated in Zoom worship during the training, she said she realized how much she missed worshiping — without having to lead it. As she facilitates VC training in her presbytery, she plans to provide pastors with the same opportunity that she received — to be in worship together without the responsibilities of leadership.
“We didn’t do this over the two days of training, but I just love that Vital Congregations sends out coloring books around the seven marks,” she said. “To just play with different colors helps my brain out — to be open, to let the Spirit in and try to not control.”
Ricketts said that Vital Congregations is addressing the denomination’s membership decline by getting back to the values of the early church: discipleship, evangelism and outreach, and the raising up of Christ-centered disciples.
“I can’t think of anything more valuable to give my life to,” he said.
Paul Seebeck, Communications Strategist, Presbyterian Mission Agency
Daily Readings
Morning Psalms 12; 146
First Reading Isaiah 52:1-12
Second Reading Galatians 4:12-20
Gospel Reading Mark 8:1-10
Evening Psalms 36; 7
Today’s Focus: Vital Congregations
Let us join in prayer for:
PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Omar Chan, Office of the General Assembly
Cathy Chang and Juan Lopez, Presbyterian Mission Agency
Let us pray:
Christ, we thank you for being the Word made Flesh. As you ministered to those around you through touch, sight and sound, teach us to make use of our whole selves — body, mind and spirit — to do your work. Give us the courage to take action and the grace to welcome all with a loving spirit. Amen.
Daily Psalm and Prayer February 1, 2021
Psalm 9
1 I will give thanks to the LORD with my whole heart;
I will tell of all your wonderful deeds.
2 I will be glad and exult in you;
I will sing praise to your name, O Most High.
3 When my enemies turned back,
they stumbled and perished before you.
4 For you have maintained my just cause;
you have sat on the throne giving righteous judgment.
5 You have rebuked the nations, you have destroyed the wicked;
you have blotted out their name forever and ever.
6 The enemies have vanished in everlasting ruins;
their cities you have rooted out;
the very memory of them has perished.
7 But the LORD sits enthroned forever,
he has established his throne for judgment.
8 He judges the world with righteousness;
he judges the peoples with equity.
9 The LORD is a stronghold for the oppressed,
a stronghold in times of trouble.
10 And those who know your name put their trust in you,
for you, O LORD, have not forsaken those who seek you.
11 Sing praises to the LORD, who dwells in Zion.
Declare his deeds among the peoples.
12 For he who avenges blood is mindful of them;
he does not forget the cry of the afflicted.
13 Be gracious to me, O LORD.
See what I suffer from those who hate me;
you are the one who lifts me up from the gates of death,
14 so that I may recount all your praises,
and, in the gates of daughter Zion,
rejoice in your deliverance.
15 The nations have sunk in the pit that they made;
in the net that they hid has their own foot been caught.
16 The LORD has made himself known, he has executed judgment;
the wicked are snared in the work of their own hands. Higgaion. Selah
17 The wicked shall depart to Sheol,
all the nations that forget God.
18 For the needy shall not always be forgotten,
nor the hope of the poor perish forever.
19 Rise up, O LORD! Do not let mortals prevail;
let the nations be judged before you.
20 Put them in fear, O LORD;
let the nations know that they are only human. Selah
Interfaith peace-building perseveres
February 1, 2021
“Starting the conversation — who am I? Who are you? What are our common
concerns? Steps on the journey toward discovering our common humanity.”
From October 2019 through the beginning of 2021 and for the foreseeable future, Lebanon continues to navigate its way through four simultaneous crises that compound the challenges faced by all who live here: political corruption; economic collapse; COVID-19 and the resulting health-care crisis; and recovering from the Beirut Port blast of Aug. 4, 2020. These crises have left young adults in Lebanon without hope for their future. No employment possibilities mean no capacity to marry and start a family. In this context, it has been easy to withdraw into one’s own community and to blame others, whoever they may be.
Into this chaotic mix, Michele Daccache, on staff with PC(USA) partner Forum for Development, Culture and Dialogue (FDCD), experienced a spark of hope. He and fellow colleagues from FDCD had invited 19 young women and men from the religiously conservative Christian and Muslim rural communities in northeast Lebanon to participate in a social cohesion workshop during November 2020. Many of these young adults between the ages of 18–22 had never been outside of the Bekaa Valley before, and some not even out of their towns. Their understanding of others different from themselves had been developed based on their parents’ and grandparents’ biases — compounded by current events. When the workshop started, he said, many of these young adults were barely able to be in the same room with each other — that is how deep their prejudices ran.
Over the course of a week, participants were invited to consider their identity, beliefs and values as citizens of Lebanon. They listened to each other share their stories and discovered common ground and a recognition of their common humanity. They explored the different perspectives each brought to the workshop. And then they traveled to the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli to hear from two ex-fighters — each of whom led local militias engaged in bitter, violent battles for several years in the city. As they heard the testimony of how these fighters ended up pursuing peace between their respective constituencies, they were inspired to pursue similar peace-building work in their own communities. Teams made up of members from communities once opposed to each other are developing those projects now — focused on economic development projects — to spark hope for a sustainable future.
Rev. Elmarie E.R. Parker, PC(USA) Regional Liaison to Iraq, Syria, Lebanon
Today’s Focus: World Interfaith Harmony week
Let us join in prayer for:
PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Stephanie Caudill, Presbyterian Mission Agency
Judy Chan, Presbyterian Mission Agency
Let us pray:
Holy God who calls us to love kindness, do justice and walk humbly with you, please fill these young people with your own courage to build just-peace in their communities. Inspire our imaginations to pursue such work in our own communities. Amen.
Sermon Podcast – January 31, 2021 – Love Builds Up
Preached by Rev. Lou Ellen Hartley. Based on 1 Corinthians 8:1-13, Mark 1:21-28.
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