Join Us for a Service of Worship
Sunday, October 20, 2019 11:00 AM
Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Scriptures include: Genesis 32:22-31, Luke 18:1-8
Rev. Dr. Libby Grammer will preach a sermon entitled “Faith is an Active Verb”
All too often we Christians think that faith is something that happens to us – we passively accept a belief in God. But Scripture repeatedly reminds us 
that faith is an active relationship with God. Jacob, who was renamed Israel in our Genesis passage for Sunday, is an example of how the people of Israel – and how we, as spiritual descendants – refused to let go of God, even when wrestling and struggling in relationship. That is what faith looks like – not a perfect, pie-in-the-sky happy-go-lucky relationship with the Divine every day, but knowing that when the going gets tough, we can have a resoluteness not to let go and God will be there, willing to transform us through that relationship. Jesus, too, taught us not to let go. He said in his parable of the unjust judge (or the persistent widow) that we should never give up on asking God for what we need. No matter how tough it is to keep reaching out, God promises to be there, as long as we need to hold on, and God promises to bless us through it.
The art for this Sunday is a print of a painting entitled “Jacob Wrestling with the Angel,” by Marc Chagall, 1887-1985.
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