Sunnyvale Presbyterian
Church
May 16, 2021
“In the world, not of this world...”
Rev. Hardy H. Kim, preaching
Greetings!

I have been having good conversations with leaders (at our church, community, and even denominational level) over the past couple of weeks about how to plan for this summer and into the fall. These have been good conversations because there is a lot of hope, based on the good advances in vaccinations for our communities. They have also been hard conversations because so much is uncertain. 

We want to make sure that we are still being careful about the health of our neighbors—especially the most vulnerable among us. We also want to hang on to some of the good developments and meaningful connections we have made using technology during the pandemic. And there is so much excitement about the possibility of doing things in person again!

As we sort through these things as individuals, families, and as communities of faith, I am occasionally struck that we are having intentional conversations about things that we very often take for granted or that we don’t usually examine very closely. Everything from who belongs in worship, what barriers there might be for participation, and whether someone even needs to live in our state to be a “part of our community” has come up. 

I suspect that you have encountered some of these questions for your own life as well. And I want to take some time in worship this upcoming Sunday to share with you some ideas, possibilities, and hopes that have come up for me. Please come join in our worship and share in these reflections!

Peace, 
Hardy
Join us immediately following worship this Sunday for

Coffee Hour

After the service is over, log on to our Zoom coffee time at:
Theme for Sunday
“There’s so much to look forward to in a post-pandemic world: hugs, unmasked faces, gathering in churches and classrooms again. But our worries about how to reenter the world of classrooms and offices are reminders that the post-pandemic world also looms up as a challenge. As the world reopens, how will we find our way in it? We have an opportunity to do more than go back to the way things were—a chance, even a responsibility, to do better. How can we rise to it?”
 —Dr. Stephanie Paulsell
 Harvard Divinity School, Interim Minister of Harvard Memorial Church
Questions for Reflection
  • What has been a great loss for you during the pandemic?
  • Is there something that has felt like a great gain?
  • What is one thing that has “changed” that you hope doesn’t change back after we are past the immediate health crisis?
John 17:6-19
“I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them.

And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one. While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world.

Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.”