Sunnyvale Presbyterian Church
Worship Focus for October 13
Rev. Hardy H. Kim, preaching
Greetings!

One of the things that is causing so many of us pain in these days is the sense that divisions between citizens of our country have deepened, that we don’t know our neighbors and we can’t seem to bridge the gap. We seem to have lost the ways we once knew, of moving past disagreements about social or political beliefs to build relationships that were still good.

It might be that you recognize the tensions in the world around you, but that you can still live your life just fine. You avoid talking to strangers more than you used to; or you back away from really digging into a conversation with your friend or cousin because it’s better to skim the surface than to offend someone.

Is this the kind of life that God intends for us? One full of polite pleasantries but sparse in deep and layered relationships? It may be that, by the voices of prophets old and new, God might be calling us to invest more in the people around us.

Your friend,
Hardy

Image: Newgrange, Ireland
Theme for Sunday

“No one can be reconciled alone. Reconciliation presupposes the conscious commitment of all the parties that have been in conflict. This is what makes it so difficult, for it involves those who suffered and those who cause their suffering, the victims and the perpetrators.”
—Geneviève Jacques, Beyond Impunity
Questions for Reflection
  • What are some of the topics you avoid talking about with others? Or who are some of the people with whom you are afraid to enter conversations about personal or political matters?
  • •   Have there ever been moments when you took a risk to say what you really thought to someone, even when you weren’t sure what they would think? What happened? Were you surprised in any way?
Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7

These are the words of the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the remaining elders among the exiles, and to the priests, the prophets, and all the people, whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.