March 15, 2020: Online Worship, Sermon: Fear Not

This was the first week of Keystone UCC's Online worship, where we are learning about how to gather together even when we have to be physically apart. Keystone UCC was one of the first churches in Seattle to choose to suspend in-person worship services during the Covid-19 outbreak as we join our efforts to #flattenthecurve with others in our communities. We do this not out of fear, but out of love and solidarity with those who are most vulnerable in our communities. We have a long tradition of this in our faith, that even in the beginning, the followers of Jesus were faced with situations of great turmoil and difficult and deadly choices, and they knew that by living out the love that God had shown them with one another, and by living in ways that protected the most vulnerable, we would make it together. Our Progressive Christian practices and beliefs keep us on this path of love that conquers fear.

Scripture: Philippians 4:6-7

Sermon: March 8, 2020: Don't Look Away

Sin isn't only about individual actions or behaviors, but the collective and systemic acts -- and failures to act -- that we all participate in. Prophets like Micah understood sin as the way that the people and their leaders were failing to follow God's commandment to love our neighbors, especially our neighbors who have been made the most vulnerable by political, economic, and social forces. Liberal Christians, or Progressive Christians are usually uncomfortable with the word "sin" because of the way it's been used in Christian communities to demonize people and exclude people. But we can reclaim this prophetic practice of identifying sin as the ways that we and our political leaders are harming those among us who need our solidarity. We can follow the lead of the prophets who demand that we take care of each other and our world, using our collective and shared resources wisely and sustainably. As we're learning in our Lenten Study about climate justice, it's important that we don't turn away from the sins that are taking place in our world, so that we can act with courage to do God's justice.

Copyright/Attributions: Scripture reading: Micah 3:1-8 quotations are from New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Photo: "Greta Thunberg, Paris (France), 22 février 2019"' by stephane_p, shared under Creative Commons license CC BY-ND-NC 2.0