Last Sunday I preached about sabbath, but I’m not quite done yet.
Sabbath, my friends, is one of God’s great gifts to us. It’s one that people disregard too much. The ethic of work’s value in the United States is pervasive and compelling. We get praised for hard work – though I note that the hardest working people in the world don’t get much pay with the praise.
We pay the price in working tired, in bringing work concerns home to burden family, in loss of nurturing time with family and friends. We learn new skills at work, it’s true. We learn other skills in the midst of loved ones, skills we don’t learn on the sales floor or in the office. All work, no play makes Jack not a dull boy, but a man unpracticed in love. All work, no play makes Jill not a dull girl, but a woman untrained in empathy.
Sabbath time fosters physical rest, social nourishment, and the refreshment of prayer.
This seems like a good time to announce that I will be taking a three-month sabbatical from February 1, 2025, to April 30, 2025. The Church Council has approved the time and the project, and the Board of Deacons is seeking a minister to provide pastoral care while I’m gone. In accordance with my call agreement, I am committed to serve you the next three years following the sabbatical.
I’ll say more in the coming months about the plans I’ve made for the time. At this moment, I simply want to say mahalo. Mahalo for planning for pastoral renewal. Mahalo for the integrity of our lay leaders. Mahalo for your care for me.
I hope and pray that you find your times of sabbath, too.
I’m thinking about the third chapter in Mark’s Gospel (Mark 3:20-35). At this point in his account, Mark has described the beginnings of Jesus’ ministry, some of the opposition that began to develop, but especially the degree to which people were attracted to Jesus: to his teachings, and also to seek healing for their ailments and illnesses.
As this passage opens, Jesus had returned to his home in Capernaum. So many people surrounded the house, said Mark, that Jesus was not even able to eat. Some of those who were suspicious of his teachings accused him of casting out demons by the power of demons. “How can Satan cast out Satan?” Jesus replied. “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
1800 years later an American politician would quote those words, and we tend to remember them more because he said them, than because Jesus did. Nevertheless, Jesus may have been first. Jesus quoted a lot, so it’s hard to tell.
Unity is a challenging thing in the Christian Church. Unity in first century Judaism was not to be found. There were significant differences between fairly substantial and organized branches of Jewish teaching and thought: Sadducees, Pharisees, and Essenes. Jesus himself represented a particular tradition within the Pharisaic tradition. He taught an awful lot like what is recorded of Rabbi Hillel, who had spoken some 50 to 60 years before.
But although they argued, they lived together in reasonable amity — at least until the rebellion came — and that kind of unity, that ability to live with one another’s differences, that ability to appreciate one another for who they are regardless of where they may fall on particular questions: that was a characteristic that made for endurance of what were otherwise pretty challenging conditions in the first century.
Here in the 21st century we once more experience challenging conditions. We have perhaps emerged from a lengthy global pandemic (I’ve seen that there are some warnings that illness may rise once more this coming year). In the United states we are faced with significant political challenges. And the entire world faces, whether they acknowledge it or not, the realities of a changing climate and its effects upon agriculture, upon transportation, upon literally where one can build a home.
A house divided against itself cannot stand, said Jesus, and we have seen the truth of that assertion time after time after time over the centuries. How can we, how will we, live with one another and appreciate one another for who we are? How will we attempt to correct the mistaken views which some will inevitably have? How will we correct our own mistaken views when others bring new information to us?
Unity without diversity is simple tyranny. But diversity without some sense of unity, well, that leads to inevitable conflict, and conflict that can get terribly, terribly serious. A house divided against itself cannot stand. Let us not divine our home.
That’s what I’m thinking. I’m curious to hear what you’re thinking. Leave me your thoughts in the comment section below. I’d love to hear from you.
The video above will be available to stream live at 11:00 AM HAST on July 3, 2024. You may watch the recording here at any time afterward. You will need to click the Play button to view the live video.
The video above will be available to stream live at 11:00 AM HAST on June 5, 2024. You may watch the recording here at any time afterward. You will need to click the Play button to view the live video.
We’re not far into the Gospel of Mark, and Jesus has run into trouble. Things went so well in chapter one. Jesus’ success in healing people actually began to overwhelm him, so that he stayed out in the country where there was more room.
In chapter two, Mark began to describe the theological debates. It’s one thing to heal the body, said some critics, but how can you forgive sin? Others asked about Jesus’ habit of eating with tax collectors and sinners – he even summoned a tax collector to join him in his travels. They wanted him and his disciples to be ascetics, to leave aside even such comfort as regular meals. And they wanted him to adhere to a rigid standard of sabbath observance.
Plucking grain on the sabbath? No good. If you hadn’t taken care of it the day before, you need to wait until you get somewhere that somebody who had properly prepared can give you food. Although it’s funny: the fourth century Talmudactually includes guidance that plucking and eating grain was fine as long as you did it without a utensil.
Healing on the sabbath? Well, that’s a fuzzier question. Midwives could assist with births on the Sabbath, according to the third century collection of rabbinic wisdom called the Mishnah. You could wash an injury “in the usual way” and “if he is healed, he is healed.” In this case from Mark, Jesus didn’t do any of the things that would normally be inappropriate to the Sabbath. He didn’t put oil on the man’s hand. He didn’t touch him. He didn’t even gesture to him. Jesus didn’t do any of the things that would constitute work on the Sabbath.
But he also didn’t fit the image of some of his contemporaries in religious leadership who knew what a teacher and healer should be like.
Jesus frequently didn’t fit the image of what a teacher and healer should be like.
But he did know his Bible.
The Sabbath commandment is distinct among the Ten Commandments. Unlike most of the others, it was explained. God didn’t bother justifying the commandments against murder or theft or false witness. The Sabbath, though, got a long explanation. You just heard it read from the fifth chapter of Deuteronomy.
Just to keep you on your toes, there’s a different explanation in Exodus twenty, which also lists the Ten Commandments. There, the reason for the Sabbath is to imitate God, who rested after six days creating. Here in Deuteronomy five, the reason is to celebrate the freedom God had won for the Hebrew people from slavery in Egypt.
Slaves don’t get days off. Slaves don’t rest. Free people do.
Jesus probably drew on both these texts to inform his theology of Sabbath. He believed that the power of God was present and accessible to human beings. He believed that his followers could preach and teach and comfort and heal. He promised them the presence and guidance of the Holy Spirit when he was no longer at arm’s reach. Like God, you can do great things. Like God, you can rest.
Jesus also declared a new freedom to his followers. Though some were definitely hoping he would free them from Roman domination, he made it clear that they could also find freedom from the burdens of ritual impurity, shame, and sin. “Which is easier,” he asked people earlier in chapter two: “to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Stand up and take your mat and walk’?”
Forgiveness, he said, should be easy, both to offer and to receive.
That’s what it means for the Sabbath to be made for human beings: that in it we find the freedom to live well with God, and to bring God’s grace to those around us. D. Mark Davis writes at his blog, LeftBehindAndLovingIt, “The idea that ‘humanity was made for the Sabbath’ continues to be a wildly popular theology that God created the law and humanity needs to live up to it or else we are lost. In that theology, God is chiefly known as holy, and humans have to achieve a certain level of holiness – through following laws or practicing purity rituals – to be acceptable to God.
“The alternative theology, which Jesus poses here, is that ‘the Sabbath was made for humanity.’ In that sense, God is chiefly known as love and the laws and purity rituals are for humanity’s own good. Or, even better, they offer ways that humanity can respond to God’s grace with gratitude.”
It is tempting to take Jesus’ opponents here and have them represent all first century Pharisees, or even worse, all first century Jews, or worst of all, all Jews. They didn’t. They don’t. Jesus had good relationships with some Pharisees clear to the end of his earthly ministry. They kept inviting him to dinner.
And that keeps us from something far more important. As Debie Thomas writes at JourneyWithJesus.net, “The question this story asks is not, ‘What was wrong with 1st century Judaism?’ but rather, ‘What have we — here and now — ossified at our peril? What mortal, broken thing have we deified instead of love? Who or what have we stopped seeing because our eyes have been blinded by our own best intentions?
“‘What are we clinging to that is not God?’”
We live in a society obsessed with productivity. Later this year our ballot choices will be substantially guided by our notion of which candidate will get more accomplished while in office. Who will lower inflation? Who will increase Gross Domestic Product? Who will perform the economic gymnastic trick of getting employment, compensation levels, and interest rates just right?
The answer to that one, by the way, is nobody, because no one person in any one office can do all that.
Who will tell us, though, that outproducing other nations increases the rate at which we run through our resources? Who will tell us that more is not always better? Who will tell us that in Christ there is freedom from that productivity race as well as from sin, and death, and political oppression?
Who will tell us that if you build your nest all night with materials you can’t identify pushed into places you can’t be certain of, your nest won’t hold up?
We weren’t made to run an eternal treadmill. No were we made to follow arbitrary guidelines of what rest is, when it should be, or what it shouldn’t be. We weren’t made for the Sabbath.
The Sabbath was made for us, for our rest, for our well-being, for our freedom.
The Sabbath was made for us.
Amen.
by Eric Anderson
Watch the Recorded Sermon
Pastor Eric frequently improvises while preaching. Sometimes he does it intentionally.
Thank you for joining us for this live stream (or recording, as the case may be) of Sunday worship. May it bless you! You may need to click “Play” to launch the stream, which will be live around 9:50 AM.
We will celebrate Holy Communion during this service. If you are worshiping at home, we encourage you to prepare some bread or another staple food plus a beverage to have ready for that part of the service.
Welcome to the live stream of worship from Church of the Holy Cross for Sunday, June 2, 2024. You will find the service outline below, and you may download and print the PDF to follow more easily.
Service of Worship June 2, 2024 Second Sunday after Pentecost
Rev. Eric S. Anderson, Pastor
WE GATHER TO WORSHIP GOD
Please note that audio and video of this service are being live streamed on the Internet and will be recorded. The right rear section of the sanctuary will not be captured by any cameras. Please be aware that in other sections you may be visible at times.
Prelude: Adagio on “Allgutiger, Mein Preisgesang” Kayleen Yuda
Lighting of the Candles
Ringing of the Bell
Welcome Rev. Eric S. Anderson
* Call to Worship: (based on Psalm 81:1-10) Christian Albano
Leader: Sing aloud to God our strength; shout for joy to the God of Jacob. People: Raise a song, sound the tambourine, let music pour forth from strings.
Leader: Blow the trumpet from the new moon to the full moon, on every festival day. People: Celebration is a statute for Israel, an ordinance of the God of Jacob.
Leader: When we were in distress God answered us. People: God answered us in the secret place of thunder, and brought us to freedom and peace.
All: Let us worship God!
* Hymn #24: The God of Abraham Praise (v. 1-4)
* Invocation: (based on Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18) Christian Albano
O God, you have searched us and known us. From the time we rise until the time we rest, you know our thoughts from far away. You know the paths of our days. We praise you, O God, for we are fearfully and wonderfully made. We are among your wondrous creative works. As we worship today, we try to comprehend your thoughts, which are more than the sand. At the end of our efforts, we are still with you. Amen.
Please be seated
WE SHARE THE WORD OF GOD
Anthem: Still You Love Me Doug Howell
Time with the Children Rev. Eric S. Anderson
Scripture: Deuteronomy 5:12-15 Christian Albano Observe the Sabbath day and keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. For six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, or your son or your daughter, or your male or female slave, or your ox or your donkey, or any of your livestock, or the resident alien in your towns, so that your male and female slave may rest as well as you. Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the sabbath day.
Mark 2:23-3:6 One Sabbath he was going through the cornfields; and as they made their way his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. The Pharisees said to him, ‘Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?’ And he said to them, ‘Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need of food? He entered the house of God, when Abiathar was high priest, and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and he gave some to his companions.’ Then he said to them, ‘The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath; so the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath.’
Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there who had a withered hand. They watched him to see whether he would cure him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him. And he said to the man who had the withered hand, ‘Come forward.’ Then he said to them, ‘Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, to save life or to kill?’ But they were silent. He looked around at them with anger; he was grieved at their hardness of heart and said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately conspired with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.
Sermon: Made for Us Rev. Eric S. Anderson
WE RESPOND IN WORD AND DEED
Pastoral Prayer Rev. Eric S. Anderson
Please join me in the Lord’s Prayer Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy Name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever and ever. Amen
Call to Offering Christian Albano
In the sabbath commandment, God blessed us with structured times of rest. In many other commandments, God summoned us to bless others with what we enjoy. May our gifts today help others refresh and renew themselves. Whether you share your gift here in the church today, through a gift online, or via an envelope in the mail, let the offering now be received.
Offertory: Canzonette Kayleen Yuda
* Doxology Praise God from whom all blessings flow, Praise Him all creatures here below Praise Him above ye heavenly host Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost – Amen
* Offertory Prayer Christian Albano
Accept these gifts, O God, in thanks for your gift of refreshment and rest. May we be as generous as you are in providing opportunities for renewal to our neighbors, our families, and ourselves. Amen.
* Hymn #349: I Come with Joy (v. 1-5)
Sacrament of Holy Communion
Invitation Consecrating the Bread and Cup Sharing the Bread and Cup Prayer of Thanksgiving
* Hymn #100: All Praise Be Yours, My God, This Night (v. 1-4)
Please be seated
Announcements Rev. Eric S. Anderson
Benediction Rev. Eric S. Anderson
Postlude: The Trumpet of FaithKayleen Yuda
* Please stand if you are able.
Permissions:
Adagio on “Allgutiger, Mein Preisgesang” George P. Weimur 1734-1800 Public Domain
The God of Abraham Praise Text by Moses Maimonides, 12th cent. Trans. by Max Landsberg & Newton Mann, 1884 Tune LEONI, trad. Yigdal melody Public Domain
Still You Love Me Doug Howell Streamed by permission of the composer
Dates to Remember Today—June 2: Trustees meeting after worship
Pastor Rev. Eric S. Anderson Moderator Stefan Tanouye Lay Reader Christian Albano Choir Accompanist Kanako Okita Choir Director Doug Albertson Organist Kayleen Yuda Guest soloist Doug Howell Hand Bell Director Anna Kennedy Chapel Decorations Bob & Sue Smith Projected Imagery Sue Smith Web Master Ruth Niino-DuPonte Videographers Eric Tanouye, Eli Yamaki Ruth Niino-DuPonte, Bob Smith
We welcome you to worship this day. Church of the Holy Cross seeks to help its members, friends, and visitors follow the guidance of God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit, encouraging all people to love one another according to the teachings of Jesus. We live and teach the faith, speak good news, minister to people near and far, and work with other households of faith and helping agencies to improve our community and our world. To support our ministries, please visit our Donate Page.
The “Season of Special Sundays” has found its close. Mother’s Day, Pentecost, Graduates, Trinity Sunday, the blessing of John Narruhn’s preaching – now we enter the portion of the Church year known simply as “the Sundays after Pentecost.” It’s hardly a title to provoke enthusiasm.
Until a few years ago, it was called something different, and if anything less exciting. These Sundays between Pentecost and Advent were “Ordinary Time.”
Our altar and pulpit cloths will go to a steady, unrelieved green. We will have some important days to acknowledge, but most of those come from the secular world, not religious. Father’s Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day – even though some have deep spiritual meaning, they were not created as religious observances. All Saints Sunday is the exception.
Personally, I rather like Ordinary Time. I also like green, even if it’s not easy being green. Ordinary Time emphasizes in its quiet, unassuming way that the grace of God is extravagantly spread throughout Creation.
Green itself is a miraculous color. It’s the color with which living things derive sustenance from sunlight. It happens every day, but the fact that it’s common doesn’t make it unextraordinary. “Look at this,” our banners will proclaim. “I’m the same color as life abundant. Isn’t that a miracle?”
The ordinary world teems with miracles, from the affection that unites individuals into couples, families, clans, communities, and nations, to the tenderness we can and do bring to complete strangers whose needs come before us. The sun streams down; the waves wash the shore, the birds sing, the flowers bloom.
Through it all God shares a love that overcomes rejection, sin, and even death.
The video above will be available to stream live at 11:00 AM HAST on May 29, 2024. You may watch the recording here at any time afterward. You will need to click the Play button to view the live video.
Jesus regarded the law as a gift of God for the benefit of human beings – which meant he interpreted it from that point of view.
Here’s a transcript:
I’m thinking about the end of the second chapter and the beginning of the third chapter of Mark’s Gospel (Mark 2:23-3:6). The stories that Mark told here described the beginning of Jesus’ conflict with some of the religious authorities of his day.
In the first story, Mark told about Jesus’ disciples gathering grain while passing near fields on the Sabbath. Plucking grain was considered doing work; work was, of course, forbidden on the Sabbath. In the second story, while in a synagogue Jesus healed a man with a withered hand. That time, those who disapproved looked on silently and condemningly. Jesus asked them if it was lawful to do good on the Sabbath, and they said nothing.
In response to that first criticism about plucking grain, Jesus said something quite fascinating. He said that the Sabbath was made for human beings, not human beings for the Sabbath. That is, the Sabbath is a gift for people.
The gift of a day off in the ancient world was not a universally held value. Not every culture said that people deserved some “down time,” but the ancient Hebrews, under the commandment of God, they did believe it. It was one of the things that distinguished them in the first century from the Greeks and Romans who surrounded them.
To violate the Sabbath was not just to commit some arcane religious kind of offense, it was also to deny one’s kinship with an occupied people. It was also to set at risk the people’s commitment to God. “Why do you do what is not lawful on the sabbath?”
But if the Sabbath was made for the benefit of humankind, said Jesus, then we need to look at what benefits humankind as we evaluate whether an action is appropriate to the Sabbath or not. And it was fairly well established in rabbinic schools of thought at the time that there were things that were work that you could do on the Sabbath. You could bring an animal to water. You could pull an animal out of a ditch. Midwives were allowed to do their work on the Sabbath because that delivery of a new child into the world — labor — that contributed to the life and well-being of the individual and of the community.
So yes, said Jesus, they need this food to sustain them, and because the Sabbath was made for them, there is no question that they can eat. There is no question that a man in pain can be healed. There is no question but that one can do good, one can preserve life, one can heal, one can love on the Sabbath.
As we evaluate our own legal structures, our own customs that are not enshrined in law, let us ask that question at every venture: Are we making these laws, are we keeping these customs, for the benefit of human beings? Or have we set them up in ways that cause people pain, hardship, even oppression, even death.
The Sabbath was made for humankind so that people could have rest and renewal. All our laws should be addressed towards human needs, so that we can have rest and renewal and a community of love.
That’s what I’m thinking. I’m curious to hear what you’re thinking. Leave me your thoughts in the comment section below; I’d love to hear from you.
Thank you for joining us for this live stream (or recording, as the case may be) of Sunday worship. May it bless you! You may need to click “Play” to launch the stream, which will be live around 9:50 AM.
Welcome to the live stream of worship from Church of the Holy Cross for Sunday, May 26, 2024. You will find the service outline below, and you may download and print the PDF to follow more easily.
Service of Worship, May 26, 2024 Trinity Sunday
Rev. Eric S. Anderson, Pastor John Narruhn, Guest Preacher
WE GATHER TO WORSHIP GOD
Please note that audio and video of this service are being live streamed on the Internet and will be recorded. The right rear section of the sanctuary will not be captured by any cameras. Please be aware that in other sections you may be visible at times.
Prelude: Kayleen Yuda
Lighting of the Candles
Ringing of the Bell
Welcome John Narruhn
* Please stand and join me in the Call to Worship: (based on Psalm 29) Peter Braun
Leader: With the heavenly beings, O people, declare: The LORD has glory and strength. People: We declare the glory of the name of the LORD. We worship the LORD in holy splendor.
Leader: The voice of the LORD is over the waters. The voice of God thunders over the sea. People: The voice of the LORD is powerful. The voice of the LORD is full of majesty.
Leader: Let all who gather in the sanctuary of the LORD cry, “Glory!” People: Glory be to the name of the LORD! May God bless all people with peace!
All: Let us worship God!
* Hymn #248: Such Perfect Love My Shepherd Shows (v. 1-6)
* Please join me in the Invocation (based on Isaiah 6:1-8) Peter Braun
We do not ask for visions of seraphs or other heavenly creatures, O God. We do not ask to see the full extent of your glory. We ask that we find our place in your heart, your mind, and your plan. We ask that you take away our sins, and that you call us to your service, so that we can say with joy, “Here am I. Send me.” Amen.
Please be seated
WE SHARE THE WORD OF GOD
Anthem:
Time with the Children
Scripture: Psalm 23 Peter Braun The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul. He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake.
Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff— they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surelygoodness and mercyshall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long.
John 10:1-14 ‘Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.’ Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.
So again Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.
‘I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away—and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me
Sermon: The Lord is My Shepherd John Narruhn
WE RESPOND IN WORD AND DEED
Pastoral Prayer John Narruhn
Please join me in the Lord’s Prayer Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy Name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever and ever. Amen
* Hymn #237: I Come to the Garden Alone (v. 1-3)
Call to Offering Peter Braun
God is our shepherd, our constant companion, our guide and protector. God asks us, in turn, to care for others of the flock, and to welcome them into the fold. In part, we do that through our offerings. Whether you share your gift here in the church today, through a gift online, or via an envelope in the mail, let the offering now be received.
Offertory: Kayleen Yuda
* Doxology Praise God from whom all blessings flow, Praise Him all creatures here below Praise Him above ye heavenly host Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost – Amen
* Please join me in the Offertory Prayer Peter Braun
Bless you, Good Shepherd, for your care for us. Bless you, Good Shepherd, for your care for all the world. Bless you, Good Shepherd, that you have made us a part of your work. Bless our gifts to your service. Amen.
* Hymn #277: Holy, Holy, Holy (v. 1-4)
Announcements John Narruhn
Benediction John Narruhn
Postlude: Kayleen Yuda
* Please stand if you are able.
Permissions
Such Perfect Love My Shepherd Shows Text by Henry W. Baker, 1868 Public Domain Tune DOMINUS REGIT ME by John B. Dykes, 1868 Public Domain
I Come to the Garden Alone Text by C. Austin Miles, 1912 Public Domain Tune GARDEN by C. Austin Miles, 1912 Public Domain
Holy, Holy, Holy Text by Reginald Heber, 1826 Public Domain Tune NICAEA by John B. Dykes, 1861 Public Domain
Dates to Remember Today—May 26: J’s Mini Mart
Pastor Rev. Eric S. Anderson Guest Preacher John Narruhn Moderator Stefan Tanouye Lay Reader Peter Braun Choir Accompanist Kanako Okita Choir Director Doug Albertson Organist Kayleen Yuda Hand Bell Director Anna Kennedy Chapel Decorations Eileen Shiraishi Projected Imagery Sue Smith Web Master Ruth Niino-DuPonte Videographers Eric Tanouye, Eli Yamaki Ruth Niino-DuPonte, Bob Smith
We welcome you to worship this day. Church of the Holy Cross seeks to help its members, friends, and visitors follow the guidance of God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit, encouraging all people to love one another according to the teachings of Jesus. We live and teach the faith, speak good news, minister to people near and far, and work with other households of faith and helping agencies to improve our community and our world. To support our ministries, please visit our Donate Page.
