Sermons from February 2021
Risking Righteous Anger
This is the second week of the season of Lent, and we continue our Worship series guided by Amy-Jill Levine’s Entering the Passion of Jesus: A Beginner’s Guide to Holy Week. The Scripture passage this week is the story of the cleansing of the Temple. This story is having a bit of a revival right now among Christians of my generation (and others!). Those of us who grew up in or around Christian traditions where the main goal of that type…
Risking Reputation
This is the first week of the season of Lent, and the first week of our new Worship series guided by Amy-Jill Levine’s Entering the Passion of Jesus: A Beginner’s Guide to Holy Week. This Sunday we begin with the first day of Holy Week, which brings the familiar scripture of Palm Sunday. The story of Jesus’ entry to the fanfare of the people is in all four of the Gospels, though each story varies slightly in its details. This…
From Dust & Death to Dust & Life
This year’s Ash Wednesday service begins the season of Lent in ongoing restrictions. As we worship online, let us continue to pray for our community as we respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. La Jolla UMC and Pacific Beach UMC offer this joint online Ash Wednesday worship service. This will be a time of prayer and song with leaders and musicians from both congregations guiding us together as we begin this season. Included in this worship service will be symbolic ways…
Practical Theology
This is the final week of our series on Reading the Bible Again, informed by Marcus Borg’s Reading the Bible Again for the First Time. As we worship online, let us continue to pray for our community as we respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. This week, we shift from how to read into how to live as we dive into the theme of practical theology. In week one, on “Epiphany & Creation,” Pastor Bob related how Marcus Borg, on whose book our series is…
Revelation & Apocalypse
This is the sixth week of our series on Reading the Bible Again, informed by Marcus Borg’s Reading the Bible Again for the First Time. As we worship online, let us continue to pray for our community as we respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. We near the end our conversation about how to read our Bibles, and this penultimate week in this series brings us to the book of Revelation. Many people of faith have a complicated relationship with these…