Luke 16: 1-13
Rev. Bryan Travis Hooper

The gospel of Luke does not make it easy for us. In the passages we have been reading the last few Sundays, Jesus has been making it clear to us that the life of discipleship is hard. It requires of us great sacrifice, and demands of us nothing less than everything we have to offer. (more…)

Thanks to Bob Howard, we now have new, energy efficient light bulbs in our church parlor.  You may have already noticed the bulbs during coffee fellowship after worship. The bulbs are considerably more efficient than the old ones, and they actually provide brighter light as well… Bob is now exploring additional ways to make our church building more energy efficient, and has begun the ambitious task of installing new bulbs in the sanctuary as well. Be sure to tell him thanks the next time you see him.

Luke 15: 1-10
Rev. Bryan Travis Hooper

I have heard it said that one of the distinctive things about Christians is that we take sin seriously. Sin for us is a painful reality, that requires of God a most heroic effort to reach us and that requires of us humility and repentance. We Christians are reluctant to rationalize sin away, to turn all sin into disease or psychological trauma or simple errors in judgement. For us, evil is real. And we have to deal with the fact that all of us sin – all of us fall into the trap that evil sets for us.
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Do you own any stocks which have appreciated significantly?  Will you owe a big capital gains tax when you sell them?  You could avoid that tax, as several members did last year, by contributing stock directly to the church, either to pay your “estimate of giving” or to donate to any other church program or mission.  To learn how, talk to Peter Antos, Trustees Treasurer.

Luke 14:25 -33
Rev. Bryan Travis Hooper
When we worship, the scripture selections are chosen for us by a special calendar of readings called the lectionary. The lectionary is a three-year cycle of readings, usually including a selection from the Old Testament, a Psalm, something from one of Paul’s epistles, and, of course, a reading from the Gospels. The lectionary is more or less agreed upon by most mainline churches, so in many other churches, these passages that you hear today are also being read.
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Luke 14: 1-14
Rev. Bryan Travis Hooper

My father tells me that when he was a young person, his mother, my grandmother, was very concerned about table manners. She kept a spoon handy, and if one of her children placed their elbows on the table, she quickly wacked their elbows with the spoon. A few wacks with that spoon and they got the point. Elbows did not go on tables during dinner. My mother was not quite as strict as my grandmother, but I was sent at a young age to some sort of a manner school that taught me when to use which spoon and how to drink and eat bread and basically behave at the table. There is something about the rituals we have around eating that is important, powerful, meaningful. And the way we behave around the table says something about who we are and what kind of community we belong to.
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