Sunday, September 13th, 2015
Rev. Ben discusses the center of Mark’s gospel — the story of Jesus asking ‘who do you say I am’ — encouraging us to see our answer to that question as a mirror to our own lives, and as a challenge to see the world differently.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Thursday, September 10th, 2015
On Wednesday, Sept 30th at 7pm, New Yorker journalist Larissa MacFarquhar will be at MPC to discuss Strangers Drowning: Grappling with Impossible Idealism, Drastic Choices, and the Overpowering Urge to Help. We hope you can join us for what is sure to be a thought-provoking, inspiring and challenging evening.
There are those of us who help and those who live to help. How far would you really go to “do unto others”? In Strangers Drowning: Grappling with Impossible Idealism, Drastic Choices, and the Overpowering Urge to Help, renowned New Yorker writer Larissa MacFarquhar digs deep into the psychological roots and existential dilemmas motivating those rare individuals practicing lives of extreme ethical commitment. MacFarquhar seeks out people who devote themselves fully to bettering the lives of strangers—even when it comes at great personal cost—and tells their deeply intimate stories: their stubborn integrity and their compromises; their bravery and their recklessness; their joys and defeats and wrenching dilemmas.
We honor such generosity and high ideals, but when we call people “do-gooders” there is skepticism in it, even hostility. Why do moral people make us uneasy? How could these do-gooders value strangers as much as their own loved ones? MacFarquhar combines these real-life stories of unimaginable selflessness along with deep meditations on the implications of these ethical acts. Throughout, she threads a lively history of the novels, philosophy, social science, and self-help that have contributed to a deep suspicion of do-gooders in Western culture.
(source: Penguin Press)
Larissa MacFarquhar has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1998. Her subjects have included John Ashbery, Barack Obama, and Noam Chomsky, among many others. Previously she was a senior editor at Lingua Franca and an advisory editor at The Paris Review. She lives in New York.
Please contact the church main office with questions. Hope to see you there!
Author photo credit: Philip Gourevitch
Thursday, September 10th, 2015
Fall Kickoff, the ‘official’ start to a new year at MPC, is Sunday, Sept 13th after celebration. The theme is The Future, and we’ll be doing all kinds of forward-looking things, including collecting items for an MPC Time Capsule. We’ll also be enjoying each other’s company — and each other’s food, since Kickoff is a potluck. If your last name starts with A-M, please bring a main dish. If your last name starts with N-Z, please bring a salad, veggies or other side dish. And when you deliver them to the Family Room on Sunday morning, please label your dishes and utensils, so that you may see them again in The Future.
For now, consider: what item do you want to leave for future generations to ponder? And what potluck item will you bring that day to share? Let’s gather, enjoy each other’s company, and picture our future together.
Questions, please contact Steve McKiernan. See you there!
Sunday, September 6th, 2015
Rev. Ben discusses Mark 7:24, a story that controversially (to some) shows Jesus changing his mind, drawing out what it teaches about our relationship to the problems of the world, and our relationship to ourselves.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Sunday, August 23rd, 2015
Just a reminderL we will resume our 10:00am Celebration services in September. Make sure to mark your calendars for 10:00 service starting Sunday, September 6th. This will be a great service — we will even have the Barrelhouse Jazz Band with us. Hope to see you there, nice and early.
Wednesday, August 12th, 2015
NEW CONTACT DEADLINE SCHEDULE: There is a schedule change for the deadline for future Contacts. It will now on Mondays at 3pm. Contact will continue to go out on Wednesdays. It will be sent out on the following dates: August 19th, September 2st, and September 16th. We will resume weekly publications on September 16th. The next deadline will now be Monday, August 17th, at 3 pm
Wednesday, August 5th, 2015
Last week I spent the better part of four days in Knoxville, Tennessee, at a national gathering of Presbyterians on the campus of the University of Tennessee. We held meetings in university classrooms, we ate in one of the university’s dining halls and we worshiped in the shadow of Neyland Stadium, home of the UT Volunteers football team, a structure impressive for its size (it’s the fourth largest stadium in the United States) if not, perhaps, for its architectural beauty.
As large institutions of higher learning go, the University of Tennessee is lovely enough, but I confess I got a little bit bored with the college and especially with its food, so I asked one of the University’s maintenance workers for suggestions about good places to eat in Knoxville, and armed with this local knowledge, I set out on foot along the banks of the Tennessee river to Market Square and Gay St. in Downtown Knoxville.
Here’s what I found: downtown Knoxville is vibrant. Gay street, the main thoroughfare in the entertainment district (almost certainly named without irony in a pre-stonewall era by rather straight-laced denizens of a Dixie defined by riverboats and hoop-skirts) boasts a lovely collection of restaurants, pubs, music venues and theaters; one block south there is market square, a car-less open space surrounded on four sides by retail and places for food and/or libation. I walked down to Knoxville’s Market Square twice, and both times a troupe of actors was performing Shakespeare to a multigenerational crowd of at least 250 folks sitting on lawn chairs. Competing for attention on the square were crazy evangelists and buskers playing bluegrass and blues; one guy was playing “I left my heart in San Francisco” on a sawblade. As far as I could tell, every shop had customers, every bar was crowded, and every restaurant had a line of people waiting for tables.
And here’s why I think Knoxville’s entertainment district is vibrant: it uses concepts of urban design that have made cities vibrant for thousands of years: streets with business that open to pedestrian traffic and open spaces where people can gather, do business and entertain one another in the heart of a city. At some point Californian city planners decided to organize cities and town around automobiles instead of people. As a result we ended up with strip malls and cities like Sunnyvale and Cupertino, which have excellent schools but about which no one (and you can quote me on this) ever will write great poetry.
I cannot help but think there is some religious analogy to the urban planning that brings us downtown Knoxville (on the one hand) and the Californian suburb (on the other). We live in an era during which there is a rush to do away with ancient religious forms. Many Evangelical Christians are doing away with ancient liturgies that have sustained the Church for centuries; Progressive Christians tend to do something similar with theological propositions, and certainly a measure of ecclesiastical house-cleaning is in order (and sometimes the need is urgent), but it’s also worth asking what ideas and forms and practices should be preserved among us so that our congregations remain vibrant and welcoming and full of life not the church version of a car-centric suburb.
I hope you’ll join me in thinking about these things.
Ben
Wednesday, August 5th, 2015
It’s visitor season at MPC! Thanks in large part to our friendly outreach booth at the farmer’s market, and also to all the friends who say “my church does this fun thing in the summer… you should come…” our August Sundays are a major draw for new visitors. Come to think of it, maybe it’s also that we worship at 5 PM, meaning that those who wish to can STILL worship at the church of sleeping-in-late and make it there on time. Or maybe it’s the tasty BBQ and incredible potluck dishes. Well because of all these reasons and more, we see a lot of visitors in August.
Now a few reminders are in order. The first is to remind all of you “old-timers” what it feels like to walk into a new place for the first time. I recently had that experience on my vacation, in a cafe in Tacoma WA. It was a small place where everyone knew each other, and I couldn’t tell who was staff and who were customers. I freaked out silently for a few minutes until they welcomed me and dispelled the confusion.
Most people enter a new place subconsciously assuming they don’t belong, and any small question can seem huge. Where is the nursery, for example? Can I drink from my water bottle in the sanctuary or is that rude? Who are those three people at the front of the church? Am I going to have to shake everyone’s hands? Am I going to have to kneel and stand up at the right times? Do Presbyterians give communion to ex-Catholics? What if I get something wrong? Did I park in an OK spot? All of these are normal feelings when you’re in a new place. So this is why we always have a “welcome” at the beginning of the service, orienting everyone to people, places, lavender cards, and what direction to go for coffee. It’s also why we include short stage directions throughout the service, like “please stand,” “the next hymn is number 525,” and “let’s say the Charge, which is printed in your bulletin.” These are important ways to welcome people who may feel disoriented. In this line, if you are giving an Invitation, please make sure to give enough information. What is your name? What does PCUSA mean? What is the General Assembly, the Friday Night Walks, or CIPL? Assume nothing! (And still fit it in one minute – I know, it’s hard).
The second reminder is that people need to learn names. We usually don’t feel bad if you say “I don’t think I have met you before.” I swear this is true, even IF you have actually met and forgot it. We might see someone whose face looks familiar, but we think “I should remember them, I can’t believe I’ve forgotten who that is,” and instead of speaking we pass them by, feeling embarrassed, and nobody is happy. So don’t do that! Go ahead and say “I don’t think we’ve met,” or even, “I know we’ve met, but I’m so sorry, I’ve forgotten your name.” I promise the embarrassment won’t last long, but the impact of your honesty will. In this line, also, you can wear name tags! They are so, so helpful.
Finally, be friendly. Don’t assume someone else will come and do the welcoming. It’s up to all of us. And it can be as simple as a smile. Twice this past week, when I was at the MPC farmer’s market booth, I gave someone a big smile… and they smiled back, walked on, and halfway down the block did a U-turn to come back and ask something about our church. The power of a smile, a kind “hello,” or even a hug, can take someone from stranger to one of the family.
Jesus comes to us often in the face of the poor, the little children, and the stranger. Let’s make sure that if he comes to church this Sunday, he won’t go away without a warm welcome and a plate of delicious food.
Every Blessing,
Talitha
Wednesday, August 5th, 2015
Montclair Presbyterian Church invites you to join our joyful worship at 5 p.m. followed by a tasty BBQ, each Sunday in August. First, we’ll celebrate, contemplate, and sing (loudly!), then dig into delectable savories and sweets cooked by our church family. Children K-7 are invited upstairs to a “Godly Play” Montessori-style classroom, or they may stay in the service and enjoy our kids’ pew with books, coloring, and toys. Nursery care is available for little ones. We are a socially progressive, spiritually active, rainbow welcoming, non-proselytizing congregation that would love to have you and your family be our guests.
Do you have an abundance of fruit or veggies from your home garden or trees? Getting sick of the zucchini that never stops coming? Lemonade-d out? BRING your squash, beans, lemons, cucumbers, and more to church any Sunday in August (at 5PM). During the BBQ in the courtyard we will have a table for people to give or take produce. Please help us get all the good food eaten. We are also collecting on Fridays August 8th, 15th, and 29th, to bring fresh produce to the Food Bank at Fruitvale Presbyterian.
Tuesday, July 28th, 2015
This morning my phone “pinged” at me with news from Twitter. Twitter is not my favorite social media platform, but it has its uses. I began using Twitter to participate in conversations at General Assemblies of the Presbyterian Church (hence my first twitter handle, the cute “@presbybug”). It’s a way to converse with strangers who are in the same giant room as you, and keep people easily updated with how the votes are going. I do still use it in that way at presbytery meetings, but less often. These days, when my phone twits at me, it’s much more likely to be a fast-breaking news story from some of the activists I follow. By tailoring my feed to focus on activists, I get to hear the voices of those we miss on mainstream media. And I try to bring a progressive Christian faith response to the news – hence my new handle @faithresponding (follow me to see more!)
My phone lit up this morning. All sorts of people were tweeting and re-tweeting the news that a police dashboard camera video, from the case of Sandra Bland, was released and that it contained some glaring errors – loops, repeats, cars disappearing in the middle of the road, and no timestamps to be seen anywhere. This of course wasn’t a total surprise, since Sandra Bland’s case has been surrounded by scrutiny following her unexplained death in police custody on July 13th. With all the fear and grief and controversy, people are right to be suspicious that we may not have been told the truth.
While I am not an investigator and we clearly don’t have the full story yet, our faith needs to respond.
The Old Testament Prophets helpfully offer some outrage, roaring with indignation whenever the rights of the innocent are denied. When a failure-to-signal warning becomes a death in a holding cell, the prophet Amos calls out,
“For three transgressions of [America], and for four, I will not revoke the punishment, because they trample the head of the poor [people of color] into the dust of the earth, and push the afflicted out of the way.” Amos 2:6-7
When CNN commentators say Sandra Bland wouldn’t be dead if she hadn’t had a problem with an “arrogant attitude” – as if that were worthy of the death penalty – the prophet Hosea rails against those who “feed on the sin of my people,” who are “greedy for iniquity.” Hosea 4:8
When trusted officers betray their standards and vows with deceit and cover-ups, Isaiah thunders
“The Lord expected justice
but saw bloodshed,
righteousness,
but heard a cry.” Isaiah 5:7
We are people of the Word, and these words are powerful. No, we don’t believe in a God who stands idly by while injustice occurs. We believe that all people must be held accountable for their actions, and we believe all that is hidden must come to light. With prayer we await the results of this investigation, and we mourn with those who are feeling sad, angry, and terrified in the wake of Sandra Bland’s death.
Every Blessing,
Talitha
