(Sunday, June 6 At 10 AM, Communion Sunday, Live-Streamed On Zoom)

Scripture:

I Samuel 8:4-20; Mark 3:19b-27

Hymns:

Holy! Holy! Holy!
In an Age of Twisted Values
Rejoice, the Lord is King!

Service Preview (Online):

Sermon: “Something Old: the Authoritarian Instinct” by Rev. Jim Reisner

Our text from First Samuel tells of when Israel asks for a king. The old prophet warns the people of all the suffering and servitude they will experience under the rule of a king, but the people nonetheless persist in their desire for an earthly ruler. Then God says to Samuel, “Let them have what they want.”

That authoritarian instinct is evident today in how much of the church in our country desires the rule of a strongman, or the charisma of a media-savvy preacher. There is within the human psyche a destructive desire to flee responsibility and to cede our wills by entrusting all to authoritarian rule. I liken it to the combination of a well-loved hymn and an old Henny Youngman joke: Take Thou Our Minds, Dear Lord, Please.

Our God does not wield power coercively. God demands of us our hearts but gives us our heads. God desires our love but leaves it to us how we will respond.

“Christianity stands or falls with its revolutionary protest against violence, arbitrariness and pride of power and with its plea for the weak. Christians are doing too little to make these points clear rather than too much. Christendom adjusts itself far too easily to the worship of power. Christians should give more offense, shock the world far more, than they are doing now. Christian should take a stronger stand in favor of the weak rather than considering first the possible right of the strong.”

-- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Link to Bulletin (PDF)

We will celebrate Communion this Sunday. Celebrating the sacrament on Zoom creates a challenge. We recommend that you prepare your own elements for communion – a cup of juice or wine; a piece of bread. We may trust that the holy mystery of the Living Christ among us which we affirm in Communion is great enough to transcend the limitations of our distance from one another in a Zoom meeting.

A congregational meeting of Takoma Park Presbyterian Church is called for Sunday, June 6, 2021, immediately following worship for the sole purpose of electing one ruling elder to fill a vacancy on the session to complete a term that ends in January 2022.

After the congregational meeting, there will be an informal discussion about recent recommendations from the TPPC Health and Safety Committee. These recommendations would allow people who want to attend the Sunday worship service in person to do so while Zoom is operating.  Although we will not be ready for a formal transfer to in-person worship until August, interested people can be in the Sanctuary for worship with certain specifications. 

Please attend the discussion if you would like to hear more

About Online Worship

We will gather by ZOOM (feed available starting about 10:45 AM). At the moment, Pastor Reisner and a few others broadcast from the church sanctuary while worshipers will be invited to sign on ZOOM.

Directions on how to connect and participate in virtual worship will be sent via a group.io e-mail. If you are unfamiliar with ZOOM we recommend you read up a little before the service. We will set an informal and experimental mood, ask forgiveness as we stumble along our way in a new medium. It will be fun.

We will set an informal and experimental mood, ask forgiveness as we stumble along our way in a new medium. It will be fun.

For more information on TPPC's coronavirus response, access the TPCC Coronavirus Update page.