A Message from Pastor Kaji

I know it’s unbecoming to say: “I told you so.” But I did! Vanessa Lindley’s testimony on Sunday was more than powerful. It truly opened up our worship experience for vulnerability and authenticity in a way I haven’t seen before. What a gift. You’ll hear from her again this week, this time in your inbox, as she delivers a fantastic 1Q report. I am so proud and grateful for our leaders and our strong alignment this year. God continues to bless us richly.  

Looking ahead to this Sunday, we’re in Sirach. This is a book from the wisdom tradition that appears in the Apocrypha or Deuterocanonical books and remains beloved in many parts of the Church. In Sirach 4, Wisdom is personified as a living, active presence who gathers, guides, blesses, and shapes a people. She forms judgment, cultivates security, and leaves blessing in her wake. That makes this a rich text for thinking about ways of knowing. Scripture here invites us to see wisdom as relationship, practice, inheritance, and a way of moving through the world that changes the one who seeks it.

Questions for reflection/journaling this week: 

– What kind of person am I becoming through the knowledge I pursue every day?

– Where in my life do I need deeper wisdom, steadier judgment, or a clearer sense of what is holy?

– What have I learned to recognize as true, and how has that recognition changed the way I move through the world?

I can’t wait to see you in church!

Pax Christi,

Pastor Kaji

SCRIPTURE
Sirach 4:11-16 (Year A, p. 304)

11  Wisdom exalts her children
and takes in those who seek her.
12  The one who loves her loves life,
and those who turn to her early in the morning are filled with joy.
13  The one who takes her hand inherits glory,
and the Holy One blesses the place she enters.
14  Those who worship her worship the Holy One;
the Holy One loves those who love her.
15  The one who obeys her will judge the nations,
and the one who attends to her will dwell securely.
16  If they are faithful, they will inherit her;
and she will be the heritage of their descendants.