• For more details and for webinar registration, please go to the Facebook event page HERE.
• If you don’t use Facebook, register for Zoom event HERE.

This Sunday, I am going to talk about the Canaanite woman’s encounter with Jesus. I remember hearing it for the first time when I was a kid. In the middle of church, I wanted to turn to my parents and say, “Did Jesus just call her a dog?” I didn’t dare, of course, because silence was the order of the day for kids in my very formal faith upbringing.

Do you remember your first experience hearing this story? How do you hear it now?  How does it speak to you about change, growth, new vision, new life, love? 

Brian McLaren, in his book, the Great Spiritual Migration, describes these parables as “bottomless wells of meaning”, springing up within us, like living water, like love, like a new day. We will continue with our journey and book study after worship this Sunday.

For a new day to dawn, WE must be open to hearing and seeing new things, even when the road is long and dark, and we are so far from home.

I leave you with the comforting words and music of Enya. 

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

Last Friday we bid farewell to two Great Titans in the civil rights movement in this country: Congressman John Lewis and the Rev CT Vivian, two men who dedicated their lives to freedom, equality and basic human rights.  

Across two generations, beginning in 1960, John Lewis and the Rev. C.T. Vivian battled for justice and equality. They fought together for civil rights for 60 years and died on the same day in 2020. In honor of their memory, we must pause to remember and reflect on their resilience, their commitment to nonviolence, their understanding of the centrality of the vote, and, perhaps, just as important, their personal humility. Here’s a Smithsonian article about John Lewis.  

Walter Jones recently shared this with me:  In memory of John Lewis, I reminisce about his leadership role as Chairman of the  Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee; a key organization in the Civil Rights Movement and in the Freedom Riders, during the summer of 1961.

Walter continued,  Remembering Rev. John Lewis and his alma mater, Fisk University, last Sunday in our zoom discussion took me back to the protest period during my college years. John Lewis was a student and graduate of Fisk University, Nashville TN, and was trained by Rev James Lawson in nonviolent resistance. 

James Lawson made a critical contribution to the civil rights movement. In his 1968 speech, “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,” Martin Luther King spoke of Lawson as one of the “noble men” who had influenced the black freedom struggle: “He’s been going to jail for struggling; he’s been kicked out of Vanderbilt University for this struggling; but he’s still going on, fighting for the rights of his people”.

Fisk University, was among a number of outstanding academic institutions, complemented by rich spiritual and religious orientation, founded by agents of the American Missionary Association (the AMA), in partnership with abolitionist Congregationalists, out of which our denomination, the United Church of Christ (UCC), emerged.  The overt intentions of the religious founders were to provide African-Americans with an outstanding academic education that would be complemented by an equally rich spiritual and religious orientation. The AMA and it’s assets were given to the UCC which continued to annually fund several HBCU’s. 

Walter added, I am so proud of our small but mighty denomination, the United Church of Christ,  in supporting the education that produced such leaders as John Lewis. Walter also added, I am so proud of our little church on the hill, Skyline UCC, for our leadership in the civil rights movement that is continuing now, right here in Alameda County.  

In reflecting upon John Lewis, author John Pavolovitz writes,

After eight decades braving taunts and threats and bruises and broken bones, trying to make the world that could be out the world that was, this very good troublemaker has slipped from here to hereafter—and he has departed, he has bequeathed something to us:

He has left us America.

It is our unearned inheritance, entrusted to us to fully steward in these days that he can no longer, whether we feel capable of or qualified for or ready to.

You and I awake today with a fragile, fractured nation in our hands, and the eyes of a world upon us waiting to see what we’ll do with it.

May we be faithful servants of our better selves.

May we be steadfast in making the America that could be.

May we be worthy caretakers of the struggle.

May we be the good troublemakers now.

Blessings, thanks, and love to each one of you, f continuing our part in being good troublemakers! 

Sunday, July 26

We are thrilled to invite YOU into a virtual (via zoom) open, creative sharing about how you are considering, dreaming, engaging, and employing alternatives to policing systems when you face threats to your security and safety.

While we have been learning and building together in the Bay Area, a national Black–led movement and uprising for the abolition of white supremacist policing systems is forcing a national conversation and shift in practice about how we will invest in community, neighborhood, and personal systems of community solidarity, mutual aid, and safety – rather than relying on violent and white supremacist policing systems when we are afraid, or need help. What amazing times, and openings! Such appreciation for courageous Black youth, in particular.

This Sunday, July 19th, we are blessed to have with us my friend and colleague, Rev Davena Jones, Associate Conference Minister for the Northern California Nevada Conference of the United Church of Christ. Here’s a 44 second hello video Rev. Davena made for Skyline.

So much is being revealed to us in this great disruption, if we have the eyes to see it.

May we have the courage to see what has always been there before us, including what lies within us. Please join us on Monday July 20 as part of the Poor People’s Campaign in a nation-wide, Strike for our Lives (see info below)

The world’s sacred texts describe the journey of enlightenment as the development our capacities for seeing and hearing anew, especially those who are different from us. 

I’d like to share with you a quote from Thich Nhat Hahn,  Vietnamese Buddhist monk, who was nominated in 1967 for the Nobel peace prize by the Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr.  This quote is about to developing the capacity to see all that lies within us, entitled, “Please Call Me by My True Names”.  Here is a context for his reflection.

Please Call Me by My True Names

By Thich Nhat Hanh

Don’t say that I will depart tomorrow— even today I am still arriving.

Look deeply: every second I am arriving to be a bud on a Spring branch, to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings, learning to sing in my new nest, to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower, to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry, to fear and to hope. The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death of all that is alive.

I am a mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river. And I am the bird that swoops down to swallow the mayfly.

I am a frog swimming happily in the clear water of a pond. And I am the grass-snake that silently feeds itself on the frog.

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones, my legs as thin as bamboo sticks. And I am the arms merchant, selling deadly weapons to Uganda.

I am the twelve-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat, who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea pirate.

And I am also the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and loving.

I am a member of the politburo, with plenty of power in my hands. And I am the man who has to pay his “debt of blood” to my people dying slowly in a forced-labor camp.

My joy is like Spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth. My pain is like a river of tears, so vast it fills the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names, so I can hear all my cries and laughter at once, so I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names, so I can wake up and the door of my heart could be left open, the door of compassion.

This gives me endless hope. Together, we help each other see our way through to a better, more beautiful world.

with love, Pastor Laurie 

On Monday evening, the POTUS stood before our grieving country. Viruses are killing us (COVID, racism, militarism, materialism, environmental degradation), people are demanding justice, and grief is wracking us. What he gave us was a blustering speech on “law and order” and a blasphemous photoshoot where he held a bible upside down, without even a prayer, or a word of hope. Moments earlier he had ordered security officers to deploy teargas on peaceful protestors to clear them away.

If this is the image of Christianity that we worship, then I am not a Christian.

While we have made meaningful progress in our past toward freedom and equality

for all, we have taken that progress for granted and are losing ground.

Pastor and activist, Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis reminded us recently that since lots of white people seem eager to invoke Dr. King’s legacy to condemn ongoing protests, it’s worth revisiting what he actually said in his speech called “The Other America” given on April 4, 1967:

It is as necessary for me to be as vigorous in condemning the conditions which cause persons to feel that they must engage in riotous activities as it is for me to condemn riots. I think America must see that riots do not develop out of thin air. Certain conditions continue to exist in our society which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality, and humanity. And so in a real sense our nation’s summers of riots are caused by our nation’s winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again. Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention. 

We have much work to do to embody the beloved community that Dr. King spoke of. Today we repeat a cycle of pain and grief that we’ve known before and must learn once more. White supremacy is a sin that will not stand.

We have no “status quo” or middle ground here: you are either anti-racist, or you are racist. You are either actively working against racism, or you are complicit in upholding it. Being polite or “not political” is not an option. Either you believe we were all made in God’s image, beloved by our Creator, and meant to see God in the face of one another (Genesis 1:27), or you believe whiteness is better than the rest. Remember,  that Jesus was a brown-skinned, Middle Eastern Jew.

Thank you to so many of you, for sharing resources about how we can transform the system of police violence, learn more about our own implicit bias as “white people”, support young protestors of color, through prayer vigils, learn more about the poor people’s campaign, support Nueva Esperanza and Iglesia de Presbyteria with badly needed food, and support the efforts of the NAACP to ensure that people, particularly people of color,  are not arbitrarily removed from voting rolls in swing states.

   With love, and see you on Sunday! Pastor Laurie

Prayer:

Wake me up, Lord, so that the evil of racism finds no home within me. Keep watch over my heart, Lord, and remove from me any barriers that may oppress and offend my fellow humans. Fill my spirit, Lord, so that I may build your kin-dom of justice and peace. Clear my mind, Lord, and use it for your glory. Remind me, Lord, that you said, “blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.” Amen.   ~ adapted from a prayer in For the Love of One Another

These next two weeks, our talented music director, Gabrielle Lochard,  is taking a few weeks of well deserved rest. We are blessed to have with us, our member Ken Medema, leading us in music.

Update Zoom Before Sunday! 

If you’re not running the latest version of Zoom, you won’t be able to come to worship on Pentecost this Sunday. There are three ways to update the Zoom app on your computer. This one-minute video  shows those three ways. If they can show you all three ways in one minute, you know it’s going to be simple.

Also, here are written instructions adapted from the zoom website.  You must do this update before Sunday.  It may look detailed but there are only 4 simple steps.

Zoom Desktop Client (PC, Mac, or Linux)

Zoom provides a pop-up notification when there is a new mandatory or optional update within 24 hours of logging in.

You can also manually download the latest version by:

1. Go to the zoom website at https://zoom.us/download.  If that link doesn’t work, try – https://zoom.us, 
   1st Photo below shows what zoom.us/download website looks like.
2. Under Zoom Client for Meetings click on the blue Download button and the zoominstaller will be downloaded to your computer. – see the 1st photo below to see the download button.
3. At the bottom of your screen in the lower left you’ll get a little grey box with zoominstaller.exe written in it.  (it’s shown in the 1st photo below, but a little hard to see).  Click on it.  
4. A popup (see second photo below) asking permission comes up.  Click on the button labeled Run.   The installation will begin.When complete (less than 30 seconds usually) you’ll get a little blue zoom camera icon in your bar that shows your running applications.

That’s all!

This is the website to go to to  find the new zoom. 
It also shows the zoominstaller.exe button in the lower left.

This is the box that opens when you click on the zoominstaller.exe button. Choose Run!

If you already have the Zoom desktop client installed, you can check for updates:

1. Sign in to Zoom desktop client.
2. Click your profile picture then click Check for Updates and the new version will be installed if you don’t already have it..

See you Sunday morning!  If you need some help, contact Nancy  during office hours Thursday and Friday between 9 AM and 3:30 PM – office@skylineucc.org,  510-531-8212.