Happy December! Or as I have heard said around me, "where did the year go already?" month.
This Sunday is the first Sunday of Advent. We will light our first Advent candle (our first as a community of faith), signifying hope. This is a good thing, because the Old Testament and New Testament passages are more in the vain of apocalyptic literature (Is. 64:1-9 and Mark 13: 24-37). I'll be focusing on the apocalyptic material from Is. 64:1-9, which starts out with a scenario that captures the summer of '17, with hurricanes and fire in the land. The people of Israel have found themselves in a testy relationship with God--nothing new there, somewhere between the darkness and the light. But perhaps that best captures us as well today. To quote Frederick Buechner, the Presbyterian writer, maybe those are words that "best sum up the paradox of who we are and where we are...somewhere between the fact of darkness and the hope of light." Even in the darkest days of our personal lives and collective lives, we Christians are called to remember that, within the next four weeks, we will be celebrating the birth of the One who is the light of the world, and who is our hope in our days as well. So we will light the first candle, and remember that hope was born on Christmas day, and that this hope never fades away but is always present in our hearts, minds, and bodies. When someone in our group needs a reminder of that, let us be vigilant in sharing hope.
One way we are committed to sharing hope with each other and the world is through our donations to Outside In via individual gifts, as well as adopting a family at Stephen's Creek Crossing housing complex, in which we will help make possible a very Merry Christmas. Thank you, Nina, for helping organize these outreach opportunities.
In the active life of Community of Pilgrims, we want to thank you for an incredible time of pledging. Thank you for believing in the future of our gathering as a community of faith in NE Portland. With your generous pledges, we look forward to not only work on being a community of faith with one another, building honest and transparent relationships, but welcoming others as we follow Jesus, the Pilgrim God, into the world. Pledges are still coming in, so if you weren't able to bring a pledge card last week, feel free to pledge this week. Once all the pledges are in, we will share with everyone the amount that has been pledged for 2018. Please pray as we also work on the 501c3 material.
We welcome Matt Huerta with us this Sunday, who will be one of our ASL interpreters! Welcome, Matt! Amazingly enough, we are drawing close to learning all parts of the Lord's Prayer. Our next venture? Learning the song, "Blest Be The Tie That Binds" with singing and sign.
We thank Dayna Jones for ordering and bringing us our Advent wreath! Thank you, Dayna!
Our potlucks have been heavenly. Thank you! Food is community, and one of the places in which our gathering is growing as a community is through our conversations around our impromptu dinner table and family-style eating arrangement. Again, many thanks! If you have any questions about what to bring, please contact Kathy Fukuyama, whose email address is connected with this email.
On the p.r. front of our new gathering, we now have a plastic A frame sign for Community of Pilgrims! And I've started to put flyers up in the NE Hollywood area, made by our own creative graphic designer, Diana Zapata. I have also taped a future broadcast on Community of Pilgrims on KBOO radio, and have been interviewed by some neighborhood groups about Community of Pilgrims. I have also started a blogspot, which will be a way of maintaining our history as a community of faith: http://
Last week, we started our time off together sharing our prayers of gratitude. These prayers included the following:
1. Friends, whether related or not.
2. My Family and our health and well-being, and my own health and well-being.
3. A warm place to sleep and transportation.
4. The coast, a wonderful place to go to enjoy the earth.
5. My nephew who found me. I had not seen him since he was born.
6. Re-connecting with old friends.
7. My family who are my friends.
8. Sign language which feeds my soul.
9. My family, friends, and my health. Gratitude for Helena's A+ on her math test.
10. For old friends from the past such as my old pastor and an old calligraphy teacher.
11. That our country is still at peace.
12. For people who surround me and help me.
13. For friends and for my daughter who helps me with family concerns.
14. For family and the awareness that there are challenges.
15. For my health and for Ric and our 37 years together.
16. For Dayna, Obe, and Olivia. For my privileges, for Thanksgiving with friends, and for all people fighting for our nation.
17. For family, and for the opportunities that our community has shown me of how to serve.
18. For us. Last year we did not know if we would exist. For diligence, patience, and the willingness to share. You make me a better person.
Amen
We also shared our celebrations and concerns last week:
1. For Cindy Fraser who fell and broke her clavicle.
2. For Sharon Bryon's husband who died last week.
3. For Tom Miller who has shown some progress in his recovery from spinal surgery but who continues to need our prayers.
4. For everyone who hurts. We don't know everyone's stories.
5. For the people of Yemen and Syria caught in civil wars where hospitals have been bombed, children orphaned, and more money is spent on arms than humanitarian aid.
6. In celebration that we can share Thanksgiving dinner with people from around the world.
7. For the homeless as winter approaches and they sleep outside in the wet and cold.
8. For people working for a minimum wage.
9. That we can speak to one another and start conversations with people different from us.
10. Prayers for the Fukui family with the passing away of Mary Fukui at 98 years old.
Amen
Finally, as we see this year draw to a close, 2018 is going to be an exciting year for Community of Pilgrims as we both learn more about how Christ's Spirit has touched us individually as we grow in our relationships with one another, and reach out into the community of NE Portland, our "'hood'", and into the world as we follow Jesus and live the Jesus-life. Thanks be to God for the Spirit within our community that is offering us new opportunities to make a difference in the world in which we live.
Blessed Advent, all! Our pilgrimage to Christmas has begun. Let us share the light of hope this week in the ever-changing world in which we live. For Christ is our hope!
Buen Camino!
Pastor Brett & Pastor Chris
