The Weekly View

Sunday, October 18, 2020

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Dear St Luke Community,

I want to thank so many of you for reaching out and expressing so graciously your well wishes and your heartfelt sadness. I continue to be humbled by your continued love. 

None of this is easy. Period. Not before and not now. Worship becomes more important than ever during times like these and I do hope you will come. God’s loving community first and foremost is a reflection of the steadfast love of God. In my opinion the sermon is never as important as the ways God’s people show up for one another.  And if there is one thing you can all say with certainty, it’s that this community knows how to do just that: show up for one another.

We will look to scripture for comfort and for guidance and I believe this Sunday, like so many others, the Word of God will provide just that.

Moses is asking God to show up, searching for reassurance and guidance just as we all are these days for endless reasons. (Exodus 33:12-23) And while God will not reveal God’s face in this anthropomorphic vision of God, we do know that God shows up, as God does again and again to say, you are not, nor have you ever been alone. 

Or in the words of Howard Thurman:

God is with me. 
Always there is the persistent need for some inner assurance,
some whisper in my heart, some stirring of the spirit 
within me-that renews, recreates and steadies.
Then whatever betides of light or shadow, I can look out on life with quiet eyes.


See you Sunday,
Nicole

Posted by Nicole Trotter with

Sunday, October 11, 2020

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Dear St. Luke Community,

This Sunday we welcome Reverend Joanne Whitt to the virtual pulpit. Joanne has been a colleague, friend and mentor since I began at St. Luke over 5 years ago.

Joanne has served churches in San Francisco and the East Bay, and in 2019 retired after nearly 15 years as the pastor/head of staff of First Presbyterian Church of San Anselmo.  Currently she is a credentialed spiritual director practicing in Marin County and beyond, working with people of various faith traditions and spiritual philosophies, including people with questions and doubts or longing to sense God’s presence.  Prior to entering seminary, she was a trial lawyer for 15 years.  She has served on the Board of Trustees of San Francisco Theological Seminary and as the Moderator of the Permanent Judicial Commission of the Synod of the Pacific.  Currently she serves on the Zephyr Point Board and as co-chair of the Committee on Ministry of the Presbytery of the Redwoods. 

Joanne will be preaching on the story of the Golden Calf (Exodus 32:1-14). It seems like only yesterday that the Israelites received the commandment to make no other God’s before God, and here they are throwing Moses under the bus and asking Aaron to do help them make gods that will go before them.

What are the idols we follow today? Who and what do we place before God in the ways we focus, the things that take our energy, the time we spend? We are human beings who find ourselves wandering away from God and then back again, reassured of God’s presence when we return, and forgetful as we wander. 

During a Centering Prayer retreat with Father Thomas Keating, an attendee of the retreat complained to Father Keating that she could not stay focused but would wander away in her thoughts saying, “Oh, Father Thomas, I’m such a failure at this prayer. In twenty minutes I’ve had ten thousand thoughts!” 

“How lovely,” responded Keating, without missing a beat. “Ten thousand opportunities to return to God.”

While the spirit will lead Rev Whitt in her one direction regarding this scripture, I can say with all certainty that you are in for a meaningful, thoughtful and heartfelt sermon. 

Enjoy this Sunday,
Nicole

P.S. Michael Baranowski will be leading worship along with liturgist Lynn Callender. 

Posted by Nicole Trotter with

Sunday, October 4, 2020

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Dear St Luke Community,

Let me get right to the point. I am hoping you’ll all have a part in this week’s sermon. 

Hear me out.

On Monday I attended Rodef Shalom's online Yom Kippur worship. At one point they showed a video of different members answering a question. I don’t remember the question verbatim, but it went something like this: “What have you learned or how has your life changed in ways that you’d like to hold on to when we ‘return to normal?’” Return to normal is in quotation marks because in truth, we can’t come out of this COVID experience without being changed by it. And some of the ways we’ve experienced this change have been for the good. 

(Keep reading, assignment will become clearer at the end.)

In this Sunday’s scripture, God gives God’s people the commandments (Exodus 20: 1-4, 7-9, 12-20) The first four commandments are about how to live in relationship with God, and the last six are about how to live in relationship with one another. They are all about relationship and they are the ways we’re to live in covenant with God.

So what about how we’re to live with God and one another when we ‘“return to normal?” God is always creating something new out of the old, life out of death and doing a newthing.

How is this experience changing the way you live in relationship? And if you were to make a commandment of your own to yourself, how could you make it as a promise to God as a way to live in deeper relationship with God, self and others? In two or three sentences what would you say? That’s your part in this Sunday’s sermon: either by being called on or sharing in the chat box, you can name what new thing you’d like to take with you when we “return to normal.”

If I were to write one right now it might be as simple as:

I hope to continue to move more slowly and stop multi-tasking. I will spend five minutes every morning staring at the ceiling before getting out of bed instead of picking up my phone.  I will never again take for granted smiling at a toddler in public and having them smile back. I will continue to Zoom with my mother and sisters till death do us part.

I could go on, but hopefully you get the idea.

What will you write for Sunday? I can’t wait to hear.

See you Sunday,

Nicole

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