This Wednesday: Modern Worship Collective @ 7 pm (Dinner @ 6 pm)

Dear Kris,

It’s been over three months since I have written a note to you about worship. There’s so much for me to tell you about my journey and what I learned during my sabbatical time. All the travel I experienced, the conversations I got to have, the communities and stories I encountered… it was such a gift and I am so grateful to you all – members and staff – for giving me the time and freedom for it. I will be sharing more with you about all of this in the weeks and months to come.

At the same time I know you have been busy at Sunnyvale Pres. You’ve continued to be in community and to care for each other. You’ve kept worshipping, learning, connecting, and serving others in the world. I look forward to hearing about the ways that God has continued to lead you all by the Spirit here at home.

Reconnecting and sharing our stories is happening deep in the midst of Advent. Somehow that seems right to me as well, because this is a season when we remember how God’s story came crashing right into the busyness and messiness of the world’s story too.

I hope you’ll join me in worship this Sunday as we get together to share our stories and to receive again God’s story of hope, peace, joy, and love coming again into our world.

Gratefully,

Hardy

Please join us immediately following the Sunday service for our Coffee Hour

(in-person in Trinity Court or online via Zoom).

bit.ly/SVPCCoffeeHour

Theme for Sunday

“…the oppressed rely totally on this God who is the God of justice and peace…. In short, faith in a God who walks with them, confronting the empire and ending wars, and who delivers ultimate justice, forms the root of their spirituality. The peace that they envisage is not metaphysical or merely personal and spiritual, but political. Inner peace and outer peace are not dichotomized.”

Dr. Jude Lal Fernando, Faith in the Face of Militarization

• Who are the people (individuals or groups) that help you define who you are?

• How did you decide that these folks are the ones that matter the most to you, or who get to have that power over your identity? Have there been times when the people who are on that list changed?

Ruth 1

In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land, and a certain man of Bethlehem in Judah went to live in the country of Moab, he and his wife and two sons. The name of the man was Elimelech and the name of his wife Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion; they were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah. They went into the country of Moab and remained there. But Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died, and she was left with her two sons. These took Moabite wives; the name of the one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth. When they had lived there about ten years, both Mahlon and Chilion also died, so that the woman was left without her two sons and her husband.

Then she started to return with her daughters-in-law from the country of Moab, for she had heard in the country of Moab that the Lord had considered his people and given them food. So she set out from the place where she had been living, she and her two daughters-in-law, and they went on their way to go back to the land of Judah. But Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go back each of you to your mother’s house. May the Lord deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with me. The Lord grant that you may find security, each of you in the house of your husband.” Then she kissed them, and they wept aloud. They said to her, “No, we will return with you to your people.” But Naomi said, “Turn back, my daughters. Why will you go with me? Do I still have sons in my womb that they may become your husbands? Turn back, my daughters, go your way, for I am too old to have a husband. Even if I thought there was hope for me, even if I should have a husband tonight and bear sons, would you then wait until they were grown? Would you then refrain from marrying? No, my daughters, it has been far more bitter for me than for you, because the hand of the Lord has turned against me.” Then they wept aloud again. Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye, but Ruth clung to her.

So she said, “Look, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods; return after your sister-in-law.” But Ruth said,

“Do not press me to leave you,

to turn back from following you!

Where you go, I will go;

where you lodge, I will lodge;

your people shall be my people

and your God my God.

Where you die, I will die,

and there will I be buried.

May the Lord do thus to me,

and more as well,

if even death parts me from you!”

When Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more to her.

So the two of them went on until they came to Bethlehem. When they came to Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them, and the women said, “Is this Naomi?” She said to them,

“Call me no longer Naomi;

call me Mara,

for the Almighty has dealt bitterly with me.

I went away full,

but the Lord has brought me back empty;

why call me Naomi

when the Lord has dealt harshly with me

and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me?”

So Naomi returned together with Ruth the Moabite, her daughter-in-law, who came back with her from the country of Moab. They came to Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.