Newsletter: December 19, 2021: Who Is God?

Who Is God?

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Dear Friends,

Last Week

Thanks to all who attended our service last week where we discussed what is faith? My sermon addressed that many Christians believe that faith means saying the correct things and believing certain theological teachings. Faith, as we discussed last week in my sermon and discussion, is believing in God, seeking wisdom, and acting on it.

There's no faith without action. People who are loving and kind without a theological framework are following God. People who are cruel and hateful who claim to believe, do not have faith. During our discussion many offered their ideas on how to engage people who believe Christianity is faith without action.

I never know where a sermon will land and was surprised at the number of you who wrote me after the service saying that sermon was important to you and our church needs to get that message out more. I look forward to thinking through how we do that.

Thanks to all who joined. It was great to see India Ingram with us, mother to our fearless building manager, Shalonda.

This Week

During the discussion, Terrie pointed out that following up on faith, it would be good to have a sermon on "Who is God?" Annabel made the point that the teaching of God that posits him as an old man with a beard in heaven actually keeps some people from believing.

So, this week I'll take the challenge to see if I can answer "Who is God?" in twelve minutes. Be there or be square.

You can hear my sermon here.

We will be meeting online only this week.

Online Worship this Sunday

COVID UPATE

I mentioned last week that Skyler was hit with COVID and now Niki and Alysha have it. This new variant is hitting younger people. I appears more like a bad flu.

I share this as a suggestion to get the booster and be aware that this variant is much easier to get than the last one.

See you soon on zoom this Sunday at 5 PM EST,

Rev. Rich Tafel

SUNDAY SERVICES

December 19 th at 5 pm EST

Sunday Services begin again on September 12th at 5 PM EST. Please mark your calendars. Here's the Zoom sign-on to be used every week.

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87156235899?pwd=d3ZCNnk5aEFUcFR4RmYyb3k0a0UwQT09

Meeting ID: 871 5623 5899

Passcode: 301750

One tap mobile

+13017158592,,87156235899# US (Washington DC)

PAST SERMONS

You can see past sermons HERE

You can watch past sermons HERE.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0eIuRvg7zOeXcXwsMct29w

Fun photos of a Hipster Christmas here and below.

Join Us

for

Christmas Eve Service

Lessons and Carols

December 24th, 2021 at 5 PM EST

Please let Rev. Tafel know

if you would be willing to read a lesson.

NO SERVICE Sunday DECEMBER 26th

Dr. Oz is in PA Senate Race

Some of you may remember when Dr. Oz stopped by our Sunday service with is wife Lisa a few years ago. Lisa's mom, Rev. Emily Jane Lemole, is a minister in our denomination. I've had the chance to become friends with Lisa and Mehmet the last few years. Regardless of your politics, this is may be of interest.

Check out the article below that makes the point that if Mehmet one in his senate race he'd be the first Muslim and the first Swedenborgian influenced US Senator.

You can read more in Religion News Service by clicking the link.

Celebrity surgeon Dr. Oz seeks to be first Muslim elected to the US Senate

Church of the Holy City Launches New Online Giving Platform

for 2022 Pledges

--we have $980/month in pledges

We are almost half way to achieving our monthly pledge goal for 2022.

We hope to achieve $2000 in monthly giving, and we are $980/month in pledges so far.

Thanks to Sheri, Tony, Niki, Kateryna, Rich and Annabel for signing up with a monthly pledge.

Here's the link:

https://kindest.com/844644-holy-city-donations

Sunday Service Order

Light a Candle

Open the Word

Greetings and Check-In

Take a Deep Breath

Invocation

Loving God, thank you that you promise us that where two or three are gathered you are there in the midst. Lord we welcome You amongst us today and celebrate the gift of life that you have lavished upon each of us. We ask that You would open our ears so that we may hear your voice. Open our minds so that we may receive Your eternal wisdom. Open our spirits so that we may know Your leading and guidance. And open our hearts so that we may receive Your wonderful love. Amen.

Confession

O Holy One, we have strayed from Your ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have offended against Your holy laws. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have done. Holy One, have mercy upon us and forgive our sins. Amen

Scripture Readings

Exodus 3

Moses and the Burning Bush

3 Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. 3 So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.”

4 When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!”

And Moses said, “Here I am.”

5 “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” 6 Then he said, “I am the God of your father,[a] the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.

7 The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. 8 So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. 9 And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. 10 So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”

11 But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”

12 And God said, “I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you[b] will worship God on this mountain.”

13 Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?”

14 God said to Moses, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’”

John 1

The Word Became Flesh

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome[a] it.

6 There was a man sent from God whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. 8 He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.

9 The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

15 (John testified concerning him. He cried out, saying, “This is the one I spoke about when I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’”) 16 Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and[b] is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.

Swedenborg Insights

Since God alone is “I Am” and being, or “Jehovah,” therefore nothing exists in the created universe that does not derive its underlying reality from him. . . . This is why God is here called the Alpha and the Omega, meaning that on every level of existence he is the one and only entity, the source of all things. (True Christianity §19)

When we know how to raise our minds above images of thought derived from space and time, we pass from darkness into light and taste things spiritual and divine.[23]

People think to themselves, “How can a human God wander from place to place through the universe creating things?” . . . But the God who is visible as a sun far above the spiritual world, who cannot be given any appearance of space, is not to be thought of in spatial terms.

In that case, we can understand that the universe was not created out of nothing but out of God, and that God’s human body is not to be thought of as large or small or of some particular height because these are matters of space. This means that God is the same from first to last, in the largest and smallest things. It means also that this Person is at the heart of everything created, beyond our limited views of time and space. (Divine Love and Wisdom §285)

SERMON

Offering

Please give generously to our ministry HERE

Community Prayer with Lord's Prayer

(congregation responds, "Lord hear our prayer.")

Benediction

Now may the peace that passes all understanding be with you all this day and forevermore.

AMEN

Discussion with Q&A

What Do You Say to the Sufferer?

Great column by David Brooks on suffering this past week. In case you missed it. Check it out:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/09/opinion/sufferer-stranger-pain.html

Next Gen Christmas

Lovely Advent Poem

by Malcolm Guite

O come, O come, and be our God-with-us

O long-sought With-ness for a world without,

O secret seed, O hidden spring of light.

Come to us Wisdom, come unspoken Name

Come Root, and Key, and King, and holy Flame,

O quickened little wick so tightly curled,

Be folded with us into time and place,

Unfold for us the mystery of grace

And make a womb of all this wounded world.

O heart of heaven beating in the earth,

O tiny hope within our hopelessness

Come to be born, to bear us to our birth,

To touch a dying world with new-made hands

And make these rags of time our swaddling bands.

Trinity Forum

This was presented at the Trinity Forum. I encourage you to check out the speakers they have each week. My friend Cherie Harder does a great job getting speakers. You might want to get there newsletter.

https://www.ttf.org/portfolios/online-conversation-malcolm-guite/