This Wednesday: Evensong @ 7 pm

Dear Jennifer,

Last week I drove from Nashville, TN to California with my family and we did a lot of listening along the way — audiobooks (mostly thrillers), podcasts, and music. The texts for this Sunday remind me that there is so much to listen to and understand. What is said, or not said, in the words and actions of others? Listening can be a challenge, whether it’s struggling to understand the cultural cues, or being in an uncomfortable conversation.

The disciples are often the object of jokes by preachers, as they are portrayed as missing the obvious point. I think we might not be giving them enough credit: they had to listen to confusing and maybe difficult messages. After all, it is hard for me to listen to things I don’t want to hear, and I’ve had the benefit of therapy! I hope we all lean into listening; the world may be better for it.

Peace,

Laura

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

In order to know what is just in a person-to-person encounter, love listens. It is its first task to listen. No human relation, especially no intimate one, is possible without mutual listening.

Paul Tillich from Love, Power, and Justice (1954)

Isaiah 50:4-9a

The Lord God has given me

a trained tongue,

that I may know how to sustain

the weary with a word.

Morning by morning he wakens,

wakens my ear

to listen as those who are taught.

The Lord God has opened my ear,

and I was not rebellious;

I did not turn backward.

I gave my back to those who struck me

and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard;

I did not hide my face

from insult and spitting.

The Lord God helps me;

therefore I have not been disgraced;

therefore I have set my face like flint,

and I know that I shall not be put to shame;

he who vindicates me is near.

Who will contend with me?

Let us stand in court together.

Who are my adversaries?

Let them confront me.

It is the Lord God who helps me;

who will declare me guilty?

All of them will wear out like a garment;

the moth will eat them up.

Mark 8:27-38

Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi, and on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” And they answered him, “John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.” He asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Messiah.” And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.

Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes and be killed and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

He called the crowd with his disciples and said to them, “If any wish to come after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”