Words of Welcome

  Vision of the Sermon (Jacob Wrestling with the Angel) by Paul Gauguin Genesis 32:22-31 When I was a kid, my mother decided I needed to learn how to defend myself. So, she signed me up for wrestling camp. Now, I would have rather spent my Saturday mornings at basketball camp, but I ended up spending six Saturdays supposedly learning to wrestle. I think I tried my best, but I never became a very proficient wrestler. The camp ended with a tournament and much to my relief I got pinned in the first round. That was the end of my wrestling career. I don’t know if Jacob went to wrestling camp, but according to our reading from Genesis, he was a very competitive wrestler. He even might have been Olympic caliber! At this point in Jacob’s story, he’s reached the Jabbok River. His brother Esau lived on the other side of the river. Jacob and Esau were twin brothers and rivals. This relationship carried a lot of baggage that goes back to the womb.  Years before Jacob fled his homeland fo

  Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7 While I once lived in a small town when I was a child, I’ve lived most of my adult life in cities. I started life in Los Angeles and lived briefly in San Francisco, but my first true memories are connected to my childhood in the small town of Mount Shasta. Although I tasted small-town life before I ever experienced city life, I know what it means to be a city boy, if you count the suburbs as the city! So, what responsibility do we have as suburbanites for the welfare of the city? That’s our question for today! We’ve heard a word from the prophet Jeremiah, who wrote a letter to Jewish exiles living in Babylon. These exiles included the elders, priests, prophets, and everyone else whom Nebuchadnezzar sent to Babylon in the first wave of exiles who accompanied King Jeconiah and his mother. This was before the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple a decade later. At that point, the exiles still hoped they could return to their homes in Jerusalem. Nevertheless, Je