This Sunday: Modern Worship Collective @ 5 pm

Greetings!

This week, we turn our hearts to a profound and deeply personal struggle: the challenge of loving ourselves as God loves us. In a world that often makes us feel inadequate, it can be difficult to see our own worth. We find a powerful echo of this feeling in the story of Hagar (Genesis 16:1-16). Cast aside and alone in the wilderness, she believed she was worthless and unseen. Yet, in her deepest moment of despair, God met her there. God saw her, valued her, and spoke a future of promise over her life. Her story reminds us that self-love is not a selfish act, but a sacred one worth the pursuit of recognizing the inherent value we have simply because we exist.

Whether you're new to faith, been here "forever," questioning, or seeking a spiritual home that celebrates the humanity of all kinds of people and God's good creation, this is a congregation that welcomes you as you are. So come as you are! Bring your in-between hopes, doubts, and dreams as we journey further into this ordinary time sermon series together.

Yours, 

Pastor Annanda 

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

“It took many years of vomiting up all the filth I’d been taught about myself, and half-believed, before I was able to walk on the earth as though I had a right to be here.”

James Baldwin, Collected Essays: Notes of a Native Son / Nobody Knows My Name / The Fire Next Time / No Name in the Street / The Devil Finds Work / Other Essays

Questions for Reflection

• Hagar felt unseen and abandoned by those around her, leading her to flee. When have you felt overlooked or devalued, and how did that impact how you viewed yourself?

• Why do you think it can be so difficult for us to extend ourselves the same grace and compassion we so freely offered others?

• God meets Hagar in her wilderness and calls her by name. What might your personal wilderness be; a place of loneliness, failure, shame, or insecurity, and how can you open yourself to God's presence there?

Genesis 16:1-16

Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, bore him no children. She had an Egyptian slave whose name was Hagar, and Sarai said to Abram, “You see that the Lord has prevented me from bearing children; go in to my slave; it may be that I shall obtain children by her.” And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. So, after Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her slave, and gave her to her husband Abram as a wife. He went in to Hagar, and she conceived, and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked with contempt on her mistress. Then Sarai said to Abram, “May the wrong done to me be on you! I gave my slave to your embrace, and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked on me with contempt. May the Lord judge between you and me!” But Abram said to Sarai, “Your slave is in your power; do to her as you please.” Then Sarai dealt harshly with her, and she ran away from her.

The angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the way to Shur. And he said, “Hagar, slave of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?” She said, “I am running away from my mistress Sarai.” The angel of the Lord said to her, “Return to your mistress, and submit to her.” The angel of the Lord also said to her, “I will so greatly multiply your offspring that they cannot be counted for multitude.” And the angel of the Lord said to her,

“Now you have conceived and shall bear a son;

you shall call him Ishmael,

for the Lord has given heed to your affliction.

He shall be a wild ass of a man,

with his hand against everyone,

and everyone’s hand against him,

and he shall live at odds with all his kin.”

So she named the Lord who spoke to her, “You are El-roi,” for she said, “Have I really seen God and remained alive after seeing him?” Therefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi; it lies between Kadesh and Bered.

Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram named his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael. Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore him Ishmael.