First Congregational Church

Hebrew Scripture Reading—Psalm 98: 4-9

    The writer Wendell Berry once wrote, “I don’t think it is enough appreciated how much an outdoor book the Bible is.”  Berry believes that the Bible is a book “best read and understood outdoors.”  When I first read this, I assumed that Berry was referring to the many references to nature in the Bible, but Berry was instead thinking of how nature can give one a newfound appreciation for the miracles of life.  Outdoors there are miracles all around us.  There are the miracles seen in the lilies of the field and the birds of the air.  The miracles of the Bible “seem merely natural” when placed beside these miracles.  “The turning of water into wine” is a small miracle in comparison to “the greater and still continuing miracle by which water (with soil and sunlight) is turned into grapes.”
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First New Testament Reading—1 John 3: 10-18
        
Second New Testament Reading—1 John 4: 7-13    

In his book on how to raise children compassionately, the nonviolent communication teacher Marshall Rosenberg recalls a time when his son Brett was three years old.  Being a conscientious father, he was worried whether he was failing to communicate an unconditional love to his children, so he asked his son, “Brett, why does Dad love you?” 

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New Testament Reading—Matthew 13: 10-16    

Kelsey, is forty-four years old, single, and as of a little more than two weeks ago jobless.  She had been working for a firm as an accountant until she received notice that she had been laid off.  During the first couple of weeks, she had kept herself busy doing tasks she did not have time to do while working.  Her plan was to recover over the course of a few weeks until she began to search for a new job.  Initially, she told herself that it would be like a vacation. 

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