Dear Pilgrims of our Triune God,
What a glorious week we’ve had, with the sun out to greet us each day; a breeze cools us off; and flowers abound. The summer solstice (June 20, 2020), is just around the corner! O, happy days!
The Sunday after Pentecost is traditionally called Trinity Sunday, when we celebrate the very nature of God through our Christian prism: God the Creator; Jesus Christ, the Holy Child of God; and the Holy Spirit, God among us today. The Scripture/Gospel is Matt. 28:16-20, a.k.a., the Great Commission. “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (v. 19). In a youtube clip (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0jgabIVoT4), explaining Christianity, the religious scholar Stephen Prothero calls Christianity a “soft monotheism,” compared to Judaism and Islam, which are radical monotheisms (e.g., one God). Christians believe that there is one God, but in three persons: Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost (traditional) or God, Christ, and Spirit (more modern). One novelist calls the Trinity “triplets perched on the fence between monotheism and polytheism.” I once heard a priest preach a sermon in St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, explaining Trinity Sunday this way: we serve a God who conceives of God’s own self as a community. After all, we sing “Holy, Holy, Holy,” with vim and vigor, ending with these words of praise, “God in three persons, blessed Trinity.” God is a community of three persons. And our Doxology from Glory to God, Hymn #608 goes like this: "Praise God, from whom all blessings flow; praise Christ, all people here below; praise Holy Spirit ever more; praise Triune God, whom we adore" (words by Neil Weatherhogg, 1988). We could call this “Community Sunday.” Join us this Sunday as we celebrate the ministry of the Rev. Chris Dungan, in our community of faith, supported and blessed by the Holy Trinity! Amen and amen!
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Requests and Opportunities
Hold on to your 40 items of clothing from Lent, in which, when the pandemic “shelter in place” order will be lifted, and we can take these items to SnowCap.
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While we are not meeting in person, the Community of Pilgrims will still welcome your financial contribution. Please make a check out to Community of Pilgrims, and mail it to Brett Webb-Mitchell, 9460 SW Martha St., Tigard, OR 97224. Many thanks!
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For those who want to volunteer some more in the Portland-metro area, here’s a list of volunteer opportunities: https://www.opb.org/news/article/coronavirus-help-oregon-washington-volunteer-donate-give-blood/. And here’s a neat calligraphy project that Lorinda Moholt participated in, with proceeds to Oregon Food Bank: https://give.oregonfoodbank.org/CCC
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The Presbytery of the Cascades chose to give $1,000 to churches and new faith communities to make a change in the world. We are working with the folks at Moreland Presbyterian Church to figure out how to grow the amount of giving from this stimulus check to include Human Solutions and other non-profits doing good work in this day of COVID 19 pandemic.
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Events!
June 7, Gather and Devotion, Zoom!
June 14, Gather and Devotion, Zoom!
June 21, Gather and Devotion, Zoom!
June 28, Gather and Devotion, Zoom!
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Poem
Trinity Sunday, by Malcolm Guite
In the Beginning, not in time or space,
But in the quick before both space and time,
In Life, in Love, in co-inherent Grace,
In three in one and one in three, in rhyme,
In music, in the whole creation story,
In His own image, His imagination,
The Triune Poet makes us for His glory,
And makes us each the other’s inspiration.
He calls us out of darkness, chaos, chance,
To improvise a music of our own,
To sing the chord that calls us to the dance,
Three notes resounding from a single tone,
To sing the End in whom we all begin;
Our God beyond, beside us and within.
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Buen Camino!
Pastors Brett & Chris
Rev. Dr. Brett Webb-Mitchell (919) 444-9111; brettwebbmitchell@gmail.com Rev. Chris Dungan chrisdungan1@msn.com