Christmas Day service with the Rev. Miranda Cully.
Christmas Eve service with the Rev. Scott Walters.
This is the message from the dream, from the angel of the Lord: that in a treacherous world, we do better to stay together, reaching out and taking someone’s hand for the journey ahead.
To turn completely around and to see oneself as nothing but a stone raised up by God, to see God’s favor not as a birthright but as a gift, one that can transform us and transform our world … to see ourselves like that is to have our lives lit up by grace. And it is to see the grace that is present in and extended by a loving God to every last soul we meet, whether they’ve come to know it, or believe it, or trust it or not.
What can we do to stop the violence around us? What we can do is cultivate hearts of gentleness, tenderness, and compassion toward those around us, toward our world, and toward ourselves. We can awaken and orient our minds toward the coming Jesus, who seeks to turn us away from actions, economic choices, words, and thoughts that are destructive, hurtful, and violent. He comes to convert every ounce of our beings into instruments of peace, tools for cultivating peace gardens that germinate in our hearts and minds, and then spread life-giving seeds to our city, nation, and world.