Message & Music

October 18, 2015 Season of Peace Series Continues with s-word peace

Is Jesus really the Prince of Peace?  Or is he, as bestselling author Reza Aslan (Zealot) argues, an insurrectionist who came to overthrow the Roman Empire and failed in his purpose?  Aslan rests his claim on Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 10:34 - Do not think that I have come to bring peace to [...]

October 11, 2015 Season of Peace Series Continues Transforming Anger

What makes you angry?  How angry are your family and friends, your boss and co-workers, your neighbors?  What are folks angry about?  From the local feud between bikers and truck drivers, to the debate over turning Memorial Park into a flood basin, to our national conversations about immigrants, race, and [...]

October 4, 2015 World Communion/Peacemaking Sunday Just Peace

Does Alanis Morisette’s “Peace of mind for five minutes, that’s what I crave” resonate with you?  What gets in the way of peace of mind, and how can we experience peace?  How can we bring peace to our most difficult relationships?  And how do we make a meaningful contribution to [...]

September 27, 2015 What It Means to be Christian Today Being the Church

This Sunday, September 27, 2015 at 9:30 a.m., we’re having an All Church Conversation about who God is calling us to be and where God is calling us to serve and grow.  Our scripture passage is Acts 4:32-35 and the SHPC Singers will sing for us!

September 20, 2015 What It Means to be Christian Today Where Christianity Meets Human Rights

From Syria to Lake County, California, people are losing everything through no fault of their own.  In a world where people are often valued based on their showplace homes and shiny cars, what value do we place on people who have only the clothes on their backs?  And how do [...]

September 13, 2015 What It Means to be Christian Today Christian Solidarity

This week the news brings us many poignant images of thousands of refugees who have left their homes with nothing more than a small pack, and often with small children, to try to find a safe home and a chance for a better life.  Here in Marin we have people [...]

August 30, 2015 Report from the Holy Land

Pastor Bev is back from a fascinating and jam-packed week in the Holy Land with a PCUSA study team tasked with reviewing our national church’s endorsement of the “two state solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The team met with Christian, Jewish, and Muslim religious leaders, government and military representatives, Israeli [...]

August 23, 2015 Eating Questions

When we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we ask God to give us this day our daily bread.  Jesus taught his disciples this prayer, which evokes the experience of the people Israel in the wilderness.  They were hungry and complaining to Moses that their old life in slavery provided steadier food! [...]

August 9, 2015 Fractured Families – Jacob and Esau, Fighting Twins

Family can be a source of purpose, strength, and joy, and families also have a lot of conflict, some of which seems so unnecessary.  Of all the Bible stories about family conflict, the story of Jacob and Esau, the Bible’s first twins, might bring up the most feelings for us [...]

August 2, 2015 Sarah and Hagar- Another Look

The book of Genesis tells us that Abraham’s wife Sarah, barren and desperate, provided her slave Hagar to Abraham to start a family.  Once Hagar became pregnant with Ishmael, the female rivalry started; Hagar and her son Ishmael were cast out and left in the wilderness without water.  Last week [...]