This week, we'll look just a bit at more classic understandings of what the close of earth's history might look like, and examine the text for good news. My thought is, Jesus is more than sufficient. God wins!

Welcome to Hollywood! Tomorrow marks the official beginning of Summer. Schools are letting out, vacations are beginning, the warmth of longer days is inviting people to more outdoor activity. And we’re going into summer mode. 

Over the next two weeks, I'll be teaching/preaching on Adventist apocalypticism, focused on what we've said, what we're saying, and why none of this can be about fear.

Revelation is written like no other book. The words are Greek. The grammar, the syntax, the construction of the book are all Hebrew. Guest speaker Catherine Taylor, LCSW, will help us begin to understand what John thought we would take for granted.

Seasonally, we're getting into Pentecost. I have spoken of the Spirit in the context of both fire and air over the past few weeks. We need the discerning the Spirit brings now more than ever! Not to mention the fruits of the Spirit. These fruits have almost been vilified as the cult of the masculine and sovereign Lord rises to support cults of supremacy and violence. We live in interesting times.

Twenty-four years back or so, the United Church of Christ (UCC) launched a “God is Still Speaking” campaign to highlight the adopted motto, a Gracie Allen quote: “Never place a period where God has placed a comma.” The idea being, of course, that God still speaks in our contemporary context, in our modern world. I don't think the brokenness of our world changes this reality. There are points of light all over despite the darkness, and I believe that our congregation is one of them.

Our local world is once again on fire. The Sandy, Foothill, Burro, Santa Rosa Island, Bain and River Fires are contributing to the destruction of tens of thousands of acres. This land includes habitat for plants and animals, insects, and myriad other forms of life now consumed by fire. Soils will be vulnerable to washout with big rains. The life under the soil and in the air will be limited as the char heals and seeds spring to new life. It’s the new normal.

As I think of our commitments vis à vis Adventist Peace Fellowship, particularly the one on “Care for Creation,” I’m humbled once again at the opportunities AND obstacles to making this meaningful in our context.

This Sabbath brings a baptism and a teaching on God's primordial waters. It's a message that grounds us in the materiality of our embodied selves, while poetically, metaphorically, and experientially teaching us lessons that fill and feed the spirit. Water is life, and Jesus is the Living Water from which we drink our lives of faith and hope, love and joy.

We find food in creation, food post-flood, and food in the life and times of Jesus. Food features heavily in the early church, affecting identities and creating divisions when unjustly distributed. And food is a permanent and wondrous feature of the life we anticipate with God. 

There's so much going on in the world that vies for our attention, focus, and energy. It's a constant battle to focus on anything for any length of time. Worry, and the tyranny of the urgent move us into actions that are reactive, not proactive. The ideals of groundedness, home, time to be - to think - to live, increasingly distant for many of us.

Religiously and spiritually speaking, we live in an extraordinary time. There are competing versions of spiritual truths, historical and biblical facts and interpretations, and—of course—morality and ethics. The religion of Jesus is endangered as the rhetoric conflates earthly allegiances with heavenly ones.

Another beautiful Sabbath day! The relative peace and quiet that's ours amidst a storm of global strife is a gift we must cultivate awareness around. It's important to find the energy and strength in this fleeting gift to continue to serve our God as we serve one another, and to advocate for peace and justice in this world.

Happy Easter weekend! The global Christian family celebrates Resurrection Sunday, saying, "He is risen, He is risen indeed!" Hopefully, these words find voice and meaning among we who are Sabbatarians today, for no moment could be more important than the resurrection. As the Apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15:9, "If we who are [abiding] in Christ have hoped only in this life [and this is all there is], then we are of all people most miserable and to be pitied." That's how confident the Apostle was.

As we journey to the betrayal of Jesus Easter week on Thursday, the crucifixion Friday, Jesus' quiet Sabbath rest in death, and marvel with great joy in the remembrance of the Resurrection, we come upon an oddity in the Lenten cycle.

It's a special time at Hollywood Adventist Church. During Lent, the underlying ethical themes focus on a commitment to personal change and conversion. This traditionally happens through acts of self-denial (such as fasting), solidarity with all of humanity through acts of charity and giving, forgiving and accepting the forgiveness of others, and recognizing the real need for social justice in our world. In short, the season holds many possibilities for personal growth and the enactment of justice.

We're officially deep into the Lenten Season. If you've been following us week-to-week, you may recall that earlier this year we talked about the power of ritual, and tangentially, the importance of remembering. This series borrows from the scriptural record and "remembers" those who have gone before in a way that informs us about our own journey of faith, centered on the person of Jesus.

It's true that Adventists don't adhere to the Christian calendar—at least not formally. There's no lectionary printed by the church, nor any liturgical or sermonic guide—thanks be to God! What we center is Christ, the teachings of the apostles, and the words and lessons of scripture.

Today is my final sermon in this series on "rituals." While Adventists aren't used to framing their behaviors with this particular word/concept, it can be enormously helpful as I trust you've seen! We've covered a lot of territory. My sermon today is also profoundly shaped by loss and grief.

As you may have heard, our friend and Hollywood member, Mark Harman, was found deceased in his home in La Crescenta Tuesday afternoon. He was only 33 years old. Many of you know him from his consistent, devoted, and capable work in our AV Department at the Hollywood and Burbank Adventist Churches. Mark was a native of this area.

There's a limit to the efficacy of Rituals. We can see this plainly in passages like Micah 6:1-8 where—through the prophet's voice—God makes it clear: the symbolic and ritualistic acts of sacrifice matter only if or when accompanied by actions that back them up. God would rather have justice and mercy exercised by his people than the sacrifices of animals to atone for injustice and the lack of empathy.