Please join us in the virtual world of Second Life each Sunday at 2pm Pacific/ 5pm Eastern time. Download the interface at Secondlife.com, create your avatar, and join us at Sunshine Cathedral.
Call to Worship
Sunshine Cathedral is a different kind of church
where the past is past and the future has infinite possibilities!
This is the day our God has made.
Let us rejoice and be glad in it!
Opening Prayer
Almighty God, to you all hearts are open, all desires known, and from you no secrets are hid. Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your holy Spirit that we may perfectly love you and worthily magnify your holy names. Amen.
The Lessons
CLICK HERE for Audio of Readings
The Wisdom of Nona Brooks
“God formed the universe out of [God’s] own substance…all that is…is Spirit; for, since Omnipresence is…there can be but one substance, and that substance must be the substance that is omnipresent, the God-substance.”
The Wisdom of Christina Knox-Walthall
“There is only one presence and power in the entire universe…God, the Good, omnipotent. God created all space, the same God of love who made our planet made all planets and stars. The same God created all [people] in [the divine] image and likeness…All of space is filled with the same loving and protecting Spirit of God. Let us trust this loving Spirit within all [people]. Let us know that it is everywhere present.”
CLICK HERE for Audio of Gospel
A Reading from the Gospel of Luke (3.15-17, 21-22)
As the people began to experience a feeling of expectancy, they all wondered in their hearts whether John might be the Messiah. John answered, telling them all: “I baptize you with water, but there is one coming who is more powerful than I am. I am not worthy to loosen the straps of his sandals. He will baptize you with the holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fan is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
After John had baptized all the people, and while Jesus was engaged in prayer after also having been baptized, heaven opened and the holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my beloved One; in you I am well pleased.”
Reflection by Rev. Dr. BK Hipsher
CLICK HERE for Audio of "Return to Love"
These days we often think of fire as the great destroyer of homes, businesses, wilderness, and human life. Over these past few years out of control wildfires have swept through populated areas around the globe wiping out everything in its path. Just this past week in the United States in Philadelphia a fire claimed 13 lives in one building, 7 of them children. Just outside Denver week before last there were as many as 1000 homes consumed in a matter of hours by fire.
But fire just as often keeps us alive. Tomorrow night when the temperature hits 5 degrees Fahrenheit / -15 degrees Celsius I will be very grateful for the fire that warms the water in the heating system in my home as I lay cozy in my bed. I will be grateful for the fire the burns in my water heater for my hot shower, the gas fireplace in my office, and the blue flames of my stove and oven in my kitchen.
You see fire is fire. When it is harnessed and controlled for our wellbeing it is a life giving element eclipsed only by water in its importance to sustaining human life. When it is out of control, swept by wind and dry conditions or coming from the center of the earth in a volcano it can destroy everything in its path. So is fire good or bad, a force for good or ill? The answer – it depends.
Fire is a little bit like humans themselves really. We can be a force for good in the world, helping others, encouraging those who are discouraged, giving a hand to those in need. Or we can become self-centered, greedy, hateful, destructive to ourselves and those around us. But in the end, humans are humans and we are all made of the same stuff, created in the image of love that we call God. But we make a choice about how we will interact with the world.
When John was baptizing people and urging them to repent from their sins he was giving them a ritual to follow to remind us that we are not by nature evil, we are by nature good. And when we forget who we are we can symbolically wash away the stain of sin and death by entering the waters of baptism. But John knew that more was necessary than a ritual or even putting our will to bear upon our short comings. John knew that what is necessary to return to our true nature is a spiritual awakening, which he described as a cleansing fire that the teachings of Jesus would bring to our consciousness.
Today we celebrate Epiphany. This feast day in the Christian calendar commemorates two events of awakening and acknowledgement of God interacting with humanity – the Magi’s journey and visit to the child Jesus and the Holy Spirit descending on Jesus at his baptism. In the institutional church this feast day is described as the revelation of Jesus’ divinity, first to the Gentiles in the acknowledgment of these three foreign kings who journeyed over weeks and months to pay homage to him and in his baptism to those people who were in and near his own hometown, there with his own people and his early followers.
I guess what I’m thinking about today is the miracle that is embodied in the birth of every single human child. What a miracle this is when a baby is born. If you’ve ever been at or near the birth of a child you know that feeling, that RUSH of psychic energy that moves through a room when the child takes its first breath and cries. It makes me tingle just to think of it.
And I’m thinking about all of the other people who were at the Jordan river that day when Jesus was baptized. Did they see the dove flying above them? Did they hear the voice of God saying, not just to Jesus, but to them as well, “This is my belove child in whom I am well pleased”? If we are all made in the image of the One God can one of us be more special to God than another? I don’t think so. I believe that all of the stories that depict God loving Jesus give us a glimpse of how much God loves us.
And before you ask… no I do not think that any loving parent would make a human sacrifice of their child to appease a system that they themselves set up. But that is a discussion for another day. Our focus today is on the reality that we are all made from the same stardust that is the substance of the universe, the very substance of God. At our very essence we are love. And whether we are aware of it or not has no bearing on its truth.
As we begin this New Year in 2022 let us begin the journey back to our own birth, back to that moment of pure love, pure vulnerability, pure trust in God. And let us awaken to our own essence, our own belovedness as Jesus did at his baptism. Let us return to the beginning when all we knew was love. Amen.
For a list of music suggested to meditate on for this service click the link below:
"Many Gifts, One Spirit" Sunday, January 16, 2022 Epiphany II, MLK Day, Sunshine Cathedral of Second Life
Please join us in the virtual world of Second Life each Sunday at 2pm Pacific/ 5pm Eastern time. Download the interface at Secondlife.com, create your avatar, and join us at Sunshine Cathedral.
Call to Worship
Sunshine Cathedral is a different kind of church
where the past is past
and the future has infinite possibilities!
This is the day our God has made.
Let us rejoice and be glad in it!
Opening Prayer
Almighty God, to you all hearts are open, all desires known, and from you no secrets are hid. Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your holy Spirit that we may perfectly love you and worthily magnify your holy names. Amen.
The Lessons
CLICK HERE for Audio of Excerpt from "Letter from a Birmingham Jail"
The Wisdom of Martin Luther King, Jr.
I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as the prophets of the eighth century B.C. left their villages and carried their "thus saith the Lord" far beyond the boundaries of their home towns, and just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco Roman world, so am I compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town. Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid.
Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.
CLICK HERE for Audio of Reading from 1 Corinthians 12
The Wisdom of the Apostle Paul (1 Corinthians 12.4-11)
There are different varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different forms of activity, but the same God who produces all of them in everyone.
To each of us, the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. To one, is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom; and to another, the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit. Another by the same Spirit is granted faith, while still another is granted the gift of healing by the same Spirit.
To one, is granted the gift of mighty deeds; to another, the gift of prophecy; and to yet another, the gift to discern spirits. One receives the gift of tongues and another the ability to interpret them. One and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing them individually to each person as the Spirit wills.
Reflection by Rev. Dr. BK Hipsher
CLICK HERE for Audio of "One Spirit Many Gifts" 01162022
One Spirit, Many Gifts
“To each of us, the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good…”
This passage from 1 Corinthians is a beautiful expansion upon the guiding principles of the great faiths of every religion on the planet… Treat others the way you would like to be treated and love your neighbor as yourself. And the great directive of theJewish tradition is the mandate to “treat the stranger as though they are part of your own family because you were once a stranger and you know how that feels.”
Never have these ideals been more important than today. As we went to sleep last night praying for the safety of the hostages at Congregation Beth Israel in Coleyville, Texas we spend this day, tomorrow, and every day reflecting on the dream The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. dreamed.
We all have a part to play in this great struggle between good and evil, between racism and equality, between division and unity. Each of us are filled with the same spark of divinity, the same spirit of love, that manifests in many different ways as Paul wrote to the Corinthians. We are each called to enact our part in the drama of life, working for justice, and living in love.
None of us can do it alone. We must all work together to bring Dr. King’s dream to a lived reality. Each of us has a gift to contribute. Each of us has our own individual part to play in manifesting justice love in this world. Just as evil can never triumph over good, darkness can never overcome light. And let us all embrace the scientific truth that light is made up of a spectrum of color that is both seen and unseen, color that gathered together illuminates the beauty of creation like the mountains bathed in sunshine and the darkness of the night banished by the light of the dawn.
In the United States, tomorrow is the day set aside to remember that dream, the dream of a young black preacher who stood up and spoke truth to power, a young person who did not capitulate to the powers that, to this day, hold a racist hierarchy in place in the US and in many other countries around the world. King dreamed of a day when there would be no “us and them” no group who would refer to their neighbors as “other.”
Today we remember that young black preacher who dreamed. His words are more eloquent than any I could offer here today. So let us hear the sacred words of that young preacher again…
“Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.
So even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all [people] are created equal.
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day down in Alabama with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, one day right down in Alabama little Black boys and Black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning: My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrims' pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania. Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado. Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California. But not only that, let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia. Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee. Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, Black … and white … , Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last. Free at last. Thank God almighty, we are free at last.”
These words cannot be realized unless we all work for justice. This dream can never become a reality without each of us contributing our own particular gifts in the battle for justice to overcome the evil that divides us. Even though our brother Martin now sleeps, we are awake and alive to carry forth his dream of justice. Ken Yehi Ratzon Let it be so. Amen
For a list of music suggested to meditate on for this service click the link below:
Download SCSL_20220116
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