Each Sabbath prepares us for eternity with God. Just as on the seventh day, God gave the world a soul, Sunday serves as a reminder that our souls belong to him forevermore. A passage from “The Sabbath” explains this metaphor.
Read More
It’s a human thing to struggle with love for those we do not know or like. In scripture, we often lose sight of the fact that Jesus is not only fully divine, he is also fully human. And as fully human, He would have had the human proclivity to see the world in terms of insiders and outsiders, friends and enemies. But Jesus didn’t just teach this love of neighbor, he lived it, concretely, healing and breaking bread with those he met, even those considered outsiders and enemies.
Read More
Jesus, in his attempt to bring love into the world, sat down with people who the world hated – the roman soldier, the tax collector, the prostitute, the leaper and the daemon possessed. Jesus broke down the walls of hate by bringing others with him so they too could help uproot and kill the plants of hatred from within. We can break down the roots of hatred, too. It starts with hearing the story of those whom we hate.
Read More
What if Jesus was Philando Castile or George Floyd? What if Jesus was Breonna Taylor or Ahmaud Aubery? Jesus tells us in Matthew that ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ Jesus tells us that we are to see His face in the face of others, especially those who are suffering. It’s our responsibility as a society to help remove masks of inequality.
Read More
Transfiguration Sunday was also Valentine’s Day and served as a reminder of love in all its forms, including love for yourself. It starts with an assessment of your inner voice. This inner voice is the coach that will be with you for your entire life. Your coach speaks to you about everything, and the more you hear it the more it shapes you. What do you want your coach to say?
Read More
One of the most wonderful aspects of scripture is its ability to speak meaningfully to our lives today, no matter what is happening around us. It could be a single word that triggers a reaction like never before. The word from this week’s reading has to be “fever.” The fact that we can’t go to appointments, some stores, or other venues without getting our temperature taken makes us pause and consider how being sick changes life’s daily activities and what effect it had on communities in scripture as well as today.
Read More
In the life of Jesus, we saw how God enters into our world and meets those who are marginalized, suffering, oppressed, and rejected. He doesn’t disregard them as impure or unworthy, even though that is what his culture says about those who have diseases, are possessed by evil, or who are Gentiles. In story after story, we see Jesus breaking boundaries, confronting evil, and showing God’s love is stronger than anything sin and death can muster in our world.
Read More
In English, we use the word “time” to mean several aspects of time. In the original Greek of the New Testament, there are two different words. The first word for time is “Chronos” as in chronological time. This is the word used for linear time, like today, tomorrow, next month, or next year. Think of the days and weeks on a calendar, moving in one direction. The other word used for time is “Kairos.” The word Kairos is reserved for very special moments in time. This is one of those moments.
Read More
The evidence of our sacred stories and God’s presence in relationship is already being made manifest in our community. Just this past Tuesday during our weekly check-ins and conversation there were stories of how this pandemic, and the need to be in our homes with the same people for an extended period of time, has changed our relationships for the better. Just like Jesus said, where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there. The examples of rival siblings becoming friends, spouses finding renewed depths of their relationships and love, and parents finding new bonds with children show that time together grows love and trust. Our prophetic call, as Christians coming into a very different world is to be on the front lines of relationship building, especially with those who are different from us.
Read More
As we look forward into a new year with hope and excitement, we are blessed to welcome a new interim pastor for children, youth, and family ministry. Many of you met Pastor Heidi during our weekly meetings. For those who didn’t, she will make her debut as presiding minister this Sunday, January 10th. She will go forward with our children’s messages in 2021 and look for ways to expand our virtual opportunities for children, youth, and family fellowship.
Read More
Throughout the past several weeks, posts about Advent and Christmas planning have begun to appear on social media forums for worship leaders. Like conversations about Holy Week and Easter during the pandemic’s onset, these prompts and discussions ask important questions like: What will these seasons look or sound like this year? Chad Fothergill, author of Sing with All the People of God: A Handbook for Church Musicians, discusses.
Read More
Pastor Daniel Rinehart relates his favorite Bible verse from Isaiah to his recent struggles and rehabilitation from alcoholism. He reflects on how we should delight in the rich foods of God rather than those that do not truly nourish nor satisfy. But even when we have consumed other worldly foods, God continues to speak love into our lives, that we who are dead in sin might rise again to new life.
Read More
Holy Trinity was recently recognized in an article in Falls Church News Press as part of the Falls Church Community Service Council (FCS). FCS, built on the vision of Holy Trinity members 50 years ago, is one of the pillars of the Falls Church community through programs like Meals on Wheels and the emergency food assistance food pantry at Knox Presbyterian Church.
Read More
As we approach the six month threshold of the coronavirus, there seems to be some optimism about a vaccine in our relatively near future. With that said there is also some conversation about who the pandemic has changed our lives and our behavior. This may be a moment for us to consider what we want to keep in terms of healthy practices and what are the elements of life worth leaving in the past. One element of life definitely worth holding on to is our improved skill of listening.
Read More
How much is actually sustainable in all of this — COVID-19, hurricanes, wildfires, racial injustice, shootings, school starting, work, home responsibilities, caring for family members and then living out our calling to love God and love our neighbors? What do we do? We look to scripture and the example of Peter for our answer.
Read More
There is a general perception about forgiveness that suggests when one is wronged to forgive also means to forget what happened and move on. This type of forgiveness is not what Paul describes in his letter to the Corinthians. Paul is the one who was hurt and pained and he does not simply forget it happened. For Paul, forgiveness requires a bringing to light of what happened. In order for true forgiveness to take place, there needs to be an element of confession of what has happened so all parties can move forward together.
Read More
Affliction is real, especially right now in ways that are seen and unseen. But it is our God’s work of love and consolation that offers rays of resurrection hope about what tomorrow could look like with God’s help. We may feel that comfort today, but we can never forget we are bound to our neighbor’s affliction. And until such a time when affliction is gone, we are all in this suffering together.
Read More
Right now, it may feel like the world is upside down. It would be good for us to take some time and consider what is God up to in all of this. The question is not only for our own discernment about what God is doing in the world, but also for us as a community of faith. This is an extraordinary time and an opportunity to prayerfully consider how God is calling us to use our natural gifts and be moved into places that are unconformable and challenging.
Read More
[In 1 Corinthians 15] we get a taste of the lawyer side of Paul. His legalistic tendencies come out, as he makes a case for the people of Corinth to believe in not just Jesus’s own death and resurrection, but also their own resurrection. Like so many people before them, and people after them, the Corinthians are unsure about just what happens when perhaps the one common human experience finds us—death… But believing in their own resurrection—that one was harder to hold on to.
Read More
Our buildings may have been shuttered to combat an invisible enemy, but we must live into the reality that the church is not closed. Our church is not a building, an organization or a worship service. According to the New Testament Greek, the church is the ekklésia, the called-out people of God.
Read More