Leviticus 19:18; 1 Corinthians 13:1-7"A life without love is like a year without summer."-Swedish Proverb

Selections of1 Samuel 20& 31, 2 Samuel 1; Wisdom of Solomon 1:13-15, 2:23-24; Psalm 30: Thanksgiving for Recovery from Grave Illness: A Song at the dedication of the temple. Of David."If you're not personally free to be yourself in that most important of all humanactivities — the expression of love — then life itself loses its meaning."-Harvey Milk

Mark 4:35-41; 2 Corinthians 6:2-11; Selections of 1 Samuel 17:1-18:16"We are not what other people say we are. We are who we know ourselves to be, and we are what we love. That’s okay." - Laverne Cox

Mark 4:26-34; Psalm 92:1-4, 12-15; 1 SAMUEL 15:34-16:13“Your gifts, leadership, purpose—none of it is about you. Instead, a life of significance is about serving others. It’s about guiding those who need your talents—those gifts, that leadership, and purpose.”-Kevin Hall

“Rebirth” Rev. Dr. Karen Georgia Thompson; John 17:21-23 “Diversity is about all of us, and about us having to figure out how to walk through this world together.”-Jacqueline Woodson

Mark 2:23-3:6; Psalm 139: 1-6, 13-18 The Inescapable God; 1 Samuel 3:1-10; 2 Corinthians 4:5-10 “Observe the Sabbath day and keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. 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 all 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.-Deuteronomy 5:12-15

“Wonder then is a force of liberation, it makes sense of what our souls inherentlyknow we were meant for. Every mundane glimpse is salve on a wound, instructionsfor how to set the bone right again. If you really want to get free, find God on thesubway, find God in the soap bubble. Me, I meet God in the taste of my grandmaschicken, I hear God in the raspy leather of Nina Simone’s voice, I see the face ofGod in the boney teenager bagging my groceries and why shouldn't I? My faith isheld together by wonder, by ever defined commitment to presence and payingattention.”-Cole Arthur RileyPsalm 29: The Voice of God in a Great Storm; John 3:1-12; Isaiah 6:1-8

“inheritance” “ours is no solitary journey we are invited to travel accompanied by generationscalling us into our deeper selves whispering to us of our wisdom and strength”-Rev. Dr. Karen Georgia ThompsonPsalm 104:24-34, 35b; John 15:26-27

“While you’ll feel compelled to charge forward it’s often a gentle step back that willreveal to you where you and what you truly seek.”-Rasheed OgunlaruPsalm 1; Acts 1:15-17,20-26;

John 10:11-18; Psalm 23 (CEV); Acts 4:5-12Lucille Clifton, from “won’t you celebrate with me” “what did i see to be except myself? i made it up here on this bridge between starshine and clay, my one hand holding tight my other hand;”

Luke 24:36-48; Psalm 4: Confident Plea for Deliverance from Enemies; Acts 3:12-19“Sometimes, a story does not make sense as it unfolds. Complex narratives withlayers of meaning may need to be revisited time and time again to unpack theclues, metaphors, and relationships the story explores.”-Rev. Dr. Cheryl A. Lindsay

Acts 4:32-35; Psalm 133: The Blessedness of Unity; John 20:19-31“Patience is power. Patience is not an absence of action; rather it is "timing" it waitson the right time to act, for the right principles and in the right way.”-Fulton J. Sheen

Luke 24:1-12; Luke 9:10-17The bread has been baked and broken, and now, it is ready to share. Pairing the Easter story with Luke’s story of feeding five thousand, we focus today on how the love of God expands to include everyone in need. Share the Bread of Life and confidently declare Christ is Risen!-Love Will Rise!

Psalm 118:19-29; John 6:25-35This week we celebrate Palm Sunday, the one day a year when we reallyacknowledge how desperate and confused we are. We are filled with hope andfear all at the same time, and we turn to God and to one another, never really surewhich emotions we will project. Even with all our preparations and attempts, we willfall short. We will be left feeling hungry. We still need God. We have journeyedthrough our Lenten worship series, Let Love Rise, following each week through thesteps of baking bread, with each step representing our own spiritual preparation.This week, as we come to the final step of baking and finishing with fire, we seeclearly that the focus is on Jesus and his preparation to be, to give, and to share theBread of Life. He entered the city, each step bearing all the hopes and fears ofhumanity; each step making him more ready. And so we pick up palms, shout“Hosanna!” and Let Love Rise.-Palm Sunday

Psalm 119:9-16; Luke 13:6-9, 20-21After so much work, it’s finally time to wait. It is time for the bread dough to rest, butif you watch closely, it is not resting idly. It is slowly rising. We have moved throughthis season of Lenten preparation to arrive at this moment of sabbath resting andhopeful rising. We are almost ready to follow Jesus to his last days of bread broken,shared and given for all.-Waiting for Rising

Micah 6:6-8; 1 Corinthians 1:18-31The cross and the church are foolishness in the world. Are they foolishness toyou? Are you willing to do your part to see the foolishness of God redeem theworld? Are you using your gift to the glory of God or was God just being foolish incentering plans in you?

Psalm 19: God’s Glory in Creation and the Law; Matthew 13:24-33One of the most difficult steps of making bread is milling the wheat grains into flour.It takes both time and labor. The Bible doesn’t have very many references for millingflour, so we will focus this week on the Parable of the Weeds in Matthew 13, in whichJesus spoke about the farmer allowing weeds to grow alongside the wheat,separating them just before milling. What is the labor that God pours into us toprepare us this Lenten season?-Milling the Flour

Psalm 22:23-31; Exodus 16:2-5 , 13-30It is hard to find a balance in life between what God does and what we do. Whenthings are going well, how do we find a balance between gratitude for God’sblessings and celebration of our own hard work? When things are not going well,how do we balance our own frustration with trust in God’s provision? We continueour worhsip series this Sunday with a focus on harvesting, gathering the gifts of God.Harvesting is an essential part of our life together and necessary for any bread-making, but farming is a difficult enterprise requiring a balance of God’s creationand human effort. There are many opportunities for us to be partners with God asGod provides for the world. Let us worship!-Harvesting Blessing

Psalm 25: Prayer for Guidance and for Deliverance; Luke 8:1-5When Jesus preached his sermons and parables, he often used illustrations relatingto everyday life at the time- farming, family, cooking and sharing meals. In order tounderstand his meaning, it is helpful for us to learn more about bread in Jesus’ time.What was the process and labor needed to produce a loaf of bread? This Sunday,we begin at bread’s beginning, with a sower and the seed. Let us join together aswe begin our Lenten journey and Let Love Rise.-Starting with a Seed

2 Kings 2:1-12; Psalm 50:1-6:The Acceptable Sacrifice: A Psalm of Asaph; Mark 9:2-9“God places us in the world as his fellow workers-agents of transfiguration. We workwith God so that injustice is transfigured into justice, so there will be morecompassion and caring, that there will be more laughter and joy, that there will bemore togetherness in God's world.”-Arch Bishop Desmond Tutu