This Weekend

This weekend we have a split schedule. By that, I mean our worship services on Saturday and Sunday will be quite different, with me preaching on Saturday and a guest preacher, Diane Moffett, preaching on Sunday. I am going to offer a brief overview of what you can expect this weekend in worship, because this may a great time for you to attend both Saturday and Sunday without it being redundant. 

Tomorrow we will be reading Paul’s sermon in Athens, from Acts 17, which is an intriguing text because of the theology that we see presented there. One could make the case that it is more Luke’s theology (presuming that Luke wrote the book of Acts) than Paul’s – which is often the case when someone is retelling another person’s story. Still, it is an amazing chapter, which I believe has been mistranslated and misinterpreted for many years because it challenges our customary way of thinking. I will not go on and on about the translation issues now or during the sermon, but if you are interested in hearing more, here’s an opportunity. In some ways I see this sermon as an extension of the sermon I preached two weeks ago on John 14. Our Saturdays @ 5 services are followed by a fellowship reception in the Bonhoeffer Room that we call, “Life Together.” If anyone wants to look at the translation issues behind Acts 17, I will be happy to walk through some of them during that time. 

On Sunday, we will host the Rev. Dr. Diane Moffett as our guest preacher in worship and Dr. Moffett will offer a presentation in the Fellowship Hall following worship. Since 2018, Dr. Moffett has been the President and Executive Director of the Presbyterian Mission Agency (PMA), which is the mission arm of the PC(USA). Under her leadership, the PMA is inviting congregations, presbyteries, and synods to become “The Matthew 25 Church,” which has three foci: Building Congregational Vitality; Dismantling Structural Racism; and Eradicating Systemic Poverty. Dr. Moffett will be preaching in our 9:30AM service on Sunday, then offering a presentation on being a Matthew 25 church in the Fellowship Hall at 11:00AM. The vision of the Matthew 25 initiative is very much in keeping with how God has led St. Mark over the years, so we will benefit from hearing Dr. Moffett’s presentation in how that vision is shaping the larger Presbyterian Church. What I find refreshing and instructive is how the Matthew 25 initiative connects the work of systemic justice to the exercise of compassion in everyday life. Too often those two approaches to faithfulness are posited as an either/or, when in reality they are two levels of the same work. I am looking forward to Dr. Moffett’s presentation and I hope you will make an effort to be there for them. 

Next weekend, May 26-27, is Pentecost Weekend. So, here’s a heads up: Wear Red! We’ll talk more about that next week. 

Until then I am humbled and grateful to call myself, 

Mark of St. Mark