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Weekly Update July 24

This Sunday: The story of Jonah and the whale or big fish is very well known.  This Sunday we will think about who was saved by the whale. You are encouraged to read the brief book of Jonah. After church this Sunday, there will be Fellowship – drinks and snacks.  All are encouraged to stay and enjoy food and friends!

Lights of Liberty: The Coalition met to follow up on the July 12th Light for Liberty vigil held at Allendale UMC and to set forth an action plan to go forward.  This organizational meeting began with the introduction of the first draft of a mission statement for the Coalition. Following that discussion, action teams were formed to represent the lanes (areas) that will work toward ending immigrant detention.  Those lanes are: Direct Action, Legislative Accountability, Homestead Witnessing, Research Complicit Companies, Flores Agreement, Immigration Protection. The six action teams met briefly to discuss methods and action approaches for their groups. The take-home word was, Action! If you are interested in more information about the Coalition, please see Lucille Ruga or Patti Cooksey.  The next meeting is scheduled for August 6th.

Rocking Chair: The church would like a rocking chair for the new family friendly area of the sanctuary.  If you have one to donate, please contact the church office. 727-867-7961 or lakewooducc@gmail.com. Many thanks!

Lunch Bunch: The Lunch Bunch is going to resume going out to lunch after church on Sundays.  This is an informal gathering of whoever would like to go out to lunch together after church on Sunday.  There will be an announcement each week about the plans for that day.  Many thanks to Wally Leblanc for getting this going again!

Come Out St. Pete: This street festival and parade will be taking place Oct. 5 on Central Ave. between 22 and 31st Sts.  The church is considering have a booth at the event.  Volunteers are needed to help.  Please speak with Rev. Wells or one of the advisors if you are willing to help staff a church booth that day.  

Theological Orientation Discussions: These discussions were requested as part of reviewing the church mission statement and possibly creating a new mission statement. The next gathering will be Wednesday July 24 beginning with a potluck at 6:30 and a presentation at 7:00. Kim Wells will offer the remarks that she gave to the Religions and Faith interest group at the Academy of Senior Professionals at Eckerd College. The presentation was entitled, “Theological Challenges for Today’s Christian Churches.” There will be a variety of topics for discussion afterward. Upcoming dates for additional gatherings: August 7, 14, and 21. That will conclude the series. All are welcome to participate!

Concert and Old-Time Music Workshop Evan Kinney with Van Burchfield, Old-Time Music Workshop. As a duo, Evan and Van perform southern breakdowns, rags and novelty songs from the turn of the 20th century. The concert and workshop will be held here at Lakewood United Church of Christ August 17th. The workshop is 4-6pm and the concert at 7pm. To register for the workshop please send an email concerning your attendance to the church email, lakewooducc@gmail.com.

Children’s Ministry:  The church is working on putting a children’s ministry in place for the rest of the year.  Many thanks to Marg Radens, Patti Cooksey, Emily Bell, Olivia Gibson, and Claudia Rodriguez for working on this!

What’s Cookin’?: Get ready for another round of dinner groups!  The plan is to start in Sept.  To sign up for What’s Cookin’?, please email the church at lakewooducc@gmail.com , or add your name to the sign up sheet at church.  Please sign up by Sunday August 18.  For more information, contact Malcolm Wells at malcolm.wells14@ncf.edu

Yard Sales: Ed Kaspar’s neighborhood is having several yard sales on Saturday July 27th starting at 8 a m. The area is 61st Avenue South and 30th Street South. There will be some furniture and kitchen utensils books and a lot of other stuff. Please come and browse and buy!

July Birthdays:  Ann Quinn(7/6) Someone missing? Contact the church office with birthday information.

Circle of Concern: Sherry Santana, Carolyn Moore, Ann Quinn, Maggie Brizendine, Ann Rogers, and the loved ones of Jeff Spain.

Recent Posts:

Weekly Update: If you are involved with an activity or event that you would like to share with the LUCC family, please send the information to the church office by Tuesday since the Update usually is sent out on Wednesday.

Sermon 7/21 Walking on Water

Date: July 21, 2019

Scripture Lesson: Matthew 14:22-36

Pastor: Rev. Kim P. Wells 

Fifty years ago yesterday, a human being walked on the moon for the first time.  There has been much in the news about that memorable day. How many of you remember that day?  What do you remember about it? Where were you? Did you watch it on TV? What did you think about it?  For those who did not see it live, have you seen video of the first moonwalk? What were your impressions?                 

Impressions shared from the congregation – 

I heard a report on NPR this past week that mentioned that when the astronauts got home, they toured the world giving talks about their experience.  And apparently everywhere they went, in every country, the attitude of the people was, “We did this!” All of humanity took ownership of this milestone in human history.  It wasn’t, “Look what the Americans have done.” It was look what WE have done, we, the human family. It created a great bond among people of earth.   

When we think about the story that we heard this morning about walking on the water, we think of Jesus overcoming the elements, calming the stormy sea.  We hear Jesus’ command Peter to step out of the boat. There is obedience and trust until fear leads to foundering and Peter is saved by Jesus. Fear, the great enemy of faith.  

But in addition to all of these messages and teachings from this story, there is more.  At the beginning of the story, Jesus sends the disciples across the sea of Galilee in a boat.  This is the first time they are sent on without Jesus. Obviously, Jesus has faith in them. He would not send them out if he was concerned for their safety.  He has confidence in them. Yes, there will be threats. The sea represents the forces of chaos in scripture. There are threatening forces. But Jesus has faith in the disciples.  He feels they have all the power they need. The presence of God is with them and within them. It seems he has more faith in them than they have in themselves. . . What if we take from this story that we have been sent out into the world together as a community with everything we need to live with love, compassion, peace, and justice? 

Also, we want to notice that the image of the boat is a common symbolic image for the church.  So in this story, we see Jesus’ faith in the church. The disciples are together in the boat. They have each other for community and solidarity and support.  Sure, they will be buffeted and there will be conflict and threat, but they have each other, they have the community, they have the presence of God in the faith community.  So Jesus has faith in their strength and solidarity. But again, they waffle. And Peter wants to get out of the boat, exposing himself to more peril and danger. He does not feel secure in the boat.  But when he gets out, he realizes that the situation is worse. What if we recognized and trusted that we need the faith community for our fundamental well-being?

The disciples seem to want some kind of magical display, some kind of spectacle to engender enough faith; to give them enough reason to trust.  But Jesus seems to be showing them, by sending them out together, that they have what they need in one another and in their solidarity, to face the challenges of life – accidents, disease, aging, difficult circumstances, conflicting values.  Jesus believes that in their community, they have the resources they need to live everyday life imbued with divinity, with a sense of the sacred, as part of a transcendent reality beyond them and within them and among them. In Jesus’ eyes, they have been given what they need to face the challenges of life.  So, if Peter, if the disciples, had enough faith, they would have believed from the boat and trusted that all would eventually be well. They wouldn’t have needed a test, a spectacle. The walking on water. Jesus had faith in them, in the boat, as a group, as a faith community – you are enough, you are what you need, God is with you.  There is nothing to fear. What if we truly had faith in what we have been given; no otherworldly spectacles and signs and wonders needed?

In this story, we see that Jesus came to equip and empower his followers to be agents of peace and love in the world.  He gave them all that they needed for this mission. He sent them. They were in the boat. They were fine. Yes, there were the stormy seas but they were safe.  They had been given what they needed. But because of fear, panic, anxiety, and doubt, they did not trust. They wanted to be rescued. And they wanted some kind of spectacle to engender their trust.  So, Jesus does it their way. He rescues. He gives them a spectacle in hopes that they will learn to trust the power of the love within them and among them each and every day.

In the book. Living Buddha, Living Christ, Buddhist teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh offers a reflection on this story of walking on water:  “When I was a young monk in Vietnam, each village temple had a big bell, like those in Christian churches in Europe and America.  Whenever the bell was invited to sound (in Buddhist circles, we never say ‘hit’ or ‘strike’ a bell), all the villagers would stop what they were doing and pause for a few moments to breathe in and out in mindfulness.  At Plum Village [a Buddhist community], every time we hear the bell, we do the same. We go back to ourselves and enjoy our breathing. Breathing in, we say, silently, ‘Listen, listen,’ and breathing out, we say, ‘This wonderful sound brings me back to my true home.’

“Our true home is in the present moment.  The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on the green earth in the present moment.  Peace is all around us – in the world and in nature – and within us – in our bodies and our spirits. Once we learn to touch this peace, we will be healed and transformed.  It is not a matter of faith; it is a matter of practice. We need only to bring our body and mind into the present moment, and we will touch what is refreshing, healing, and wondrous.”  [Quoted in Resources for Preaching and Worship: Year A, compiled by Hannah Ward and Jennifer Wild, p. 216]

Fifty years ago, a human stood on the moon; touched the moon.  It was not some kind of magical miracle wrought by otherworldly forces.  It was an accomplishment based on the application of knowledge and scientific achievement, trial and error, creativity and ingenuity, money and luck.  And from that experience, we got a new image of the earth, the picture taken from space considered the most recognized visual image in human history. From this endeavor to go to the moon, we learned about the earth.  We saw that this earth is a precious, tiny blue green marble floating in a vast ocean of space. And we are together, on this earth, our boat, in the sea of the cosmos. What we see is our need to band together as a human community, as a planet, to survive and to thrive.   

We are the people who have walked on the moon and in so doing gotten a clearer view of our reality here on earth.  Every moment is a gift. Reality is infused with divinity. Life and creation are sacred. Humanity is a community.  And like the disciples in the boat, we have been given everything that we need. We are capable of amazing things! We must not cave in to fear.  We must trust and work together for good, for peace, in the midst of the chaotic forces around us – even though sometimes this seems as impossible as walking on water.   Amen.

A reasonable effort has been made to appropriately cite materials referenced in this sermon. For additional information, please contact Lakewood United Church of Christ.

UCC folks help vigils shine light on border ‘concentration camps’

This post from the national UCC website features some of our members

United Church of Christ clergy and congregations took leadership, served as hosts, lit candles and planned follow-up actions during many of the hundreds of “Lights for Liberty” vigils held Friday evening, July 12. The events around the country protested the treatment of migrants and asylum seekers detained at the southern U.S. border, in what national vigil organizers refer to as concentration camps.

And UCC leaders are among those speaking out against a coming U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement campaign to arrest undocumented persons, announced July 12 by President Donald Trump.

Testimony from a chain-link chancel

Lakewood UCC members, Lights for Liberty, 7/12/19

At Lights for Liberty in St. Petersburg, Fla., a chain-link fence stretched in front of the altar of Allendale United Methodist Church. Behind it, 20 representatives of area faith and justice communities – some wearing foil blankets like those issued in detention centers – read aloud from interviews with detainees. One reader was the Rev. Susan Sherwood, a retired UCC minister who belongs to Lakewood UCC, St. Petersburg.

“This was a powerful evening of committed people and organizations, willing to move out of their comfort zone to make a difference,” Sherwood said. “I read the testimony of a sick baby who was denied medical care. As we read, the hundreds gathered lit candles throughout the sanctuary. During the vigil, people wrote words of hope and promise for the children on ribbons of commitment that were then tied to the fence.”

After presentations from the Florida Immigration Coalition, Dream Defenders and the American Civil Liberties Union, participants divided into groups to learn what they could do: visit Homestead, a 3,200-bed “temporary shelter” for unaccompanied children, work for legislation and immigration protection, pressure complicit corporations, and support enforcement of a 1997 U.S. Supreme Court case, Reno v. Flores, that resulted in a settlement between immigration activists and the government.

‘No kids in cages’

In front of Altadena (Calif.) Community Church, UCC, more than 300 Lights for Liberty participants chanted “keep families together” and “no kids in cages” and heard readings of detainees’ words. Some 40 people in the crowd were ACC church members, but most were others from the community, said the Rev. Jerod Yates, a UCC minister and hospital chaplain who is a member of Altadena Community Church and who organized the vigil.

“It’s amazing how the still-speaking voice of the Spirit can lead one to say, ‘Hey, perhaps we can lead a Lights for Liberty Vigil for our community and see how the Spirit catches wind of that and spreads it throughout our church and community,'” Yates said.

California had 92 Lights for Liberty vigils, the most of any state. Lights for Liberty organizers said by Twitter on July 15 that 817 vigils had been held. Among the countries with sites were Australia, Austria, Canada, Costa Rica, France, Germany, Haiti, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Senegal, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and two “virtual” international vigils online.

‘Insane policy of cruelty’

Pullman,, Wash., Lights for Liberty vigil, 7/12/19

In Pullman, Wash., near the Idaho border, most of the 250 who turned out were not church-affiliated, said the Rev. Steve Van Kuiken, pastor of Community Congregational United Church of Christ, who organized the vigil. It was natural for that church to co-sponsor it, he said, having recently taken a delegation of 15, ages 8 to 85, to Arizona and Nogales, Mexico, to talk to migrants and activists and see memorials to migrants who had died in the desert.

Community Congregational and a local Unitarian Universalist congregation each had about 20 people at the vigil on Pine Street Plaza, but it mostly drew others from the vicinity of Pullman and nearby Moscow, Idaho, “who are compassionate and who want to stop this insane policy of cruelty,” Van Kuiken said. The event’s co-sponsor was Palouse ProActive, a nonpartisan community-action group devoted to democracy and civil rights. Speakers included representatives of a legal clinic that works with immigrants and a support group for undocumented Latinx students at Washington State University. Attendees received cards with QR codes, which, when scanned with a smart phone, led to websites where people can volunteer or take action on immigration-related issues.

In his remarks, Van Kuiken noted the overcrowding of detention facilities and the harsh conditions there, well documented by media reports. “It is important to know that detention is not a legal requirement,” Van Kuiken said. “This is all unnecessary. The Department of Homeland Security has the discretion simply to process and release asylum seekers. And so we call upon Border Patrol to release anyone who is not a public safety threat and to stop detaining people in inhumane conditions.

“We need to stop punishing people whose only crime it that they are begging for mercy. Mistreating them will not solve the problem and stop them from coming. These inhumane policies and this cruel treatment of these children, women and men who are desperately seeking safety are an ugly stain on the fabric of this nation. And we must do better. …

“In my religious tradition it says, ‘You shall love the immigrant, for you were immigrants yourselves. You shall not exploit or oppress the immigrants. Rather you shall remember that you, too, were immigrants.'”

He read out the names of each of the seven children who have died recently in border custody. Each name was followed by silence.

Motorcyclist tries to drown them out

At Pioneer Park in Casper, Wyo., Lights for Liberty’s opening moment of silence was disrupted by a motorcyclist parked nearby. He deliberately revved his loud engine for a long time, preventing silence and speeches, until three police officers showed up and ticketed him for excessive noise.

“It was one of those moments where you say, ‘OK, that’s part of why we’re here,'” said the Rev. Dee Lundberg, pastor of Casper UCC and one of Wyoming vigil’s organizers. “There’s a lot of meanness out there. I suppose there was an element of making us more in solidarity. Most of us know each other at some level. The more progressive crowd is a community within the community, so we tend to work together and support each other’s causes.”

Casper, Wyo., Lights for Liberty vigil, 7/12/19

Casper’s vigil focused on “talking about the issues, what we could do, what was worth our time,” Lundberg said. Among those, she said, is “continuing to work harder to build relationships in the community, finding ways to get to know people as human beings versus ‘them versus us.'” She said this can make a difference across liberal-conservative lines in a “red state” where many migrants work in restaurants and hotels, as roofers and construction workers.

“There was a friend of mine who got deported back to Mexico, who has two kids in high school,” Lundberg said. “That’s how long he had been here. Of all the people who wrote letters to support him, to try to prevent his deportation, every one of them was a Republican, and they did it because they knew the guy. That’s how it’s going to work here.”

Of the 40 people at the vigil, eight were from Casper UCC, which will continue its work with immigrants, Lundberg said. This includes hosting Know Your Rights workshops, raising money for legal fees, and helping to keep the free-coat closet stocked at the University of Wyoming’s Family Practice Clinic, where people in need can find medical help.

National UCC leaders speak out, too

Protecting immigrants and asylum-seekers has support from the UCC’s General Synod as well. Delegates meeting in Milwaukee June 21-25 called on the U.S. government to protect, and stop separating, immigrant families, drew attention to the global migration crisis, and rallied by the hundreds outside an ICE office.

“I think [ICE raids] are a form of emotional, psychological violence,” the Rev. Tracy Howe Wispelwey, the UCC’s national minister of congregational and community engagement, told Time Magazine for an article published July 12 at Time.com. “This threat, anyone who is undocumented has to live with this.” She noted the ever-increasing number of congregations, including those in the UCC, that offer their buildings to house and protect immigrants in the sanctuary movement. It’s an encouraging sign, she said, “that the community is stepping up and putting their property and bodies and resources on the line.”

ICE’s own “sensitive locations” memo says enforcement should not be carried out in houses of worship, schools or hospitals, the Rev. Noel Anderson, a UCC minister, said in a July 13 CNN interview. He is based in Washington, D.C., as grassroots coordinator for immigrant rights with Church World Service. “I think most advocates would agree that people should have a legal process in which to come through ports of entry, and in fact asylum seekers are part of that legal process,” Anderson said. “…People say, ‘Get in the back of the line,’ but there is no line, especially for [people performing] low-skilled labor, like construction jobs, restaurant jobs.” Many of them have not had the chance to go to court because they didn’t receive a notice to appear, and many lack access to legal services. “More than 90 percent of the people who have a lawyer are showing up in court,” Anderson said. “We need to support that due process.”

Immigrants, he said, “are part of our community, they’re part of our economy, they’re part of our congregations, and they deserve to stay and live here in dignity and respect and with fair treatment. Our congregations and our faith leaders are stepping up to say, ‘These are our values.'”

Scapegoat Sunday

In remembrance of Sunday June 30, 2019 when the topic for the day was the scapegoat. The scripture lesson was Leviticus 16:1-34. The sermon was entitled “Declaring Independence” (Sermon 6/30 Declaring Independence).The service involved people coming forward, holding the goat, and sharing their experiences related to scapegoating. Those who were present will long remember the goat and the words that were shared by the congregation.