Saint Paul’s Pod

The first followers of Jesus received His gift of the Holy Spirit on the first Pentecost. How do we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit today? You may feel an urge to stay restful in safety inside the church. But the Holy Spirit drives us out into the world. The messy, needy world.
As the body of Christ, we must burst out into the streets to bring the good news to those in need. The good news that your value is not based on power. It is based only on God’s love for you, and it is infinite.  There is hope deeper than the grave. God help us, through us to share that hope.
Bonus Content: Reading of Caedmon by Denise Levertov

Throughout the Bible we ready stories of God’s unmatched love and power. No struggle, sin or hurt is a match for God. What challenge are you facing today? It is no match for the Matchless King.

Late in the Easter season, we look forward to the coming of the Holy Spirit. Our mission in the new age when Jesus is not physically here, we/the church becomes the hands and feet of Jesus.
Jesus told his disciples, “Peace I leave with you. My own peace I give to you...”
What does it mean to have and share the peace of Jesus? It is not calm or indifferent peace. It is peace that sustains us in the face of trauma and fear.
Peace is what results from the promise that God makes a home with us. God will abide with us always through love.

The book of Revelations depicts a new heaven and earth full of the grandeur of God. How can we keep hope as we exist in the meantime? We sustain our hope through Jesus’ commandment to love one another. We live toward the new world by loving one another and keeping an eye out for the good that breaks down barriers of evil and shines through into the present world.
Fun fact: This week’s sermon was inspired by the Gerard Hopkins poem, “God’s Grandeur”.
God's Grandeur
Gerard Manley Hopkins
1844 – 1889
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
   It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
   It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
   And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
   And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
 
And for all this, nature is never spent;
   There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
   Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs--
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
   World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
 

We celebrated Senior Sunday with our graduating seniors. One of our high school seniors, Campbell Harison, preached the sermon. She shared reflections on the book of Romans acknowledging we need the power of grace, the gift we receive through faith in Jesus. Campell is an amazing testament to the community at Saint Paul’s where all are empowered to know and share the love of God as we walk through the world. 
Faith into action, grace into gratitude and belief becomes a way of life.

This week we welcomed the Secretary General of the Anglican Communion, Rt Revd Anthony Poggo. Based in London, we were honored to have him visit us from across the pond to share in prayer and encourage our ministries. He talked about strengthening relationships and the power of serving one another, feeding each other’s minds, bodies and souls with God’s bounty, grace and love.

Mother Kimberly leads us during the second Sunday of Easter. We discuss how Jesus is the reason for the season. We cherish the mystery of the Passion. Jesus’ death, resurrection and ascension helps us reconcile humanity with God. God is everywhere and only a prayer away for all of us.  

We journey through the resurrection story from John. The God we serve is the God who raised Jesus from the dead. Jesus conquers death, hypocrisy, power, cruelty and pain. The divine's response? Light and never-ending life.
Christ is risen.

On this Good Friday, we look to the gospel according to John.
It is in a way a miracle we keep the custom of narrating the death of our God. But we tell the stories during Holy Week that make us who we are including the story of Jesus’s arrest and execution.

"Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!" Luke Chapter 19
As we celebrate Palm Sunday, we learn of Jesus healing a servant's severed ear. This highlights Jesus' power as a healer and His refusal to respond to violence with violence, demonstrating the power of peace.
We invite you to join us throughout Holy Week and on Easter Sunday as we join together in the liturgies that shape our faith and community.