Congregational Meeting this Sunday @ 11 am

Greetings!

As we think about mutual aid in community, I wonder if we sometimes come to the topic with the right understanding. What I mean is— how are we supposed to think about our needs and how we are supposed to meet them? Is it like a big communal ledger, with needs on one side and resources on the other? Is a good community of mutual aid one where everything balances out and there is nothing in red ink at the end?

Or, if our faith community is meant to be different from the rest of the world, then maybe a community of mutual aid isn’t like a marketplace where problems get matched up with solutions. Maybe there’s a different kind of connection that happens when we all come together as we honestly are.

This Sunday, we’ll look at a story about when Jesus met a family that was in a moment of crisis. We’ll think about how he connected with them, and we’ll think about what that might mean for how we should be in community with each other. I hope you’ll make time to join us, in person or online!

Faithfully,

Hardy

Please note, there is no online Coffee Hour this Sunday, please come to the Congregational Meeting immediately after worship (on Zoom)

 bit.ly/CongregationalMeeting

Theme for Sunday

“When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.”

-Henri Nouwen, Out of Solitude

• Has there ever been a time when you faced a crisis or a need that you knew couldn’t be addressed by anything that anyone had? What was that situation like?

• Even though no worldly thing could change the situation, do you remember anyone that was there for you? What did they do? What difference did they make?

John 11:1-3, 17-37

A certain man, Lazarus, was ill. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. (This was the Mary who anointed the Lord with fragrant oil and wiped his feet with her hair. Her brother Lazarus was ill.) So the sisters sent word to Jesus, saying, “Lord, the one whom you love is ill.”

[verses 17-37]

When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Bethany was a little less than two miles from Jerusalem. Many Jews had come to comfort Martha and Mary after their brother’s death. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him, while Mary remained in the house. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother wouldn’t have died. Even now I know that whatever you ask God, God will give you.”

Jesus told her, “Your brother will rise again.”

Martha replied, “I know that he will rise in the resurrection on the last day.”

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me will live, even though they die. Everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

She replied, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, God’s Son, the one who is coming into the world.”

After she said this, she went and spoke privately to her sister Mary, “The teacher is here and he’s calling for you.” When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to Jesus. He hadn’t entered the village but was still in the place where Martha had met him. When the Jews who were comforting Mary in the house saw her get up quickly and leave, they followed her. They assumed she was going to mourn at the tomb.

When Mary arrived where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother wouldn’t have died.”

When Jesus saw her crying and the Jews who had come with her crying also, he was deeply disturbed and troubled. He asked, “Where have you laid him?”

They replied, “Lord, come and see.”

Jesus began to cry. The Jews said, “See how much he loved him!” But some of them said, “He healed the eyes of the man born blind. Couldn’t he have kept Lazarus from dying?”