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"WAFUDOGS" - April 20-21

Come and support our food booth at the Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival on Saturday, April 20 and Sunday, April 21. We will be selling "Wafudogs" (Hot dogs served with a Japanese flare!) Check them out!! This is a Pine Fundraiser - we can use your help and support.

The Arrival

We are excited "The Arrival" by director Narissa Lee will be showing at the San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival! Saturday, June 23rd, 11:00am at the Victoria Theatre. It will be a part of a film "Taking a Chance on God". Get Tickets here!

Message From The Pastor

Lent is an important time in the Christian year, an opportunity where we are collectively called to look within, touch the Divine, so that we can learn how to live out in the world. It is a time where we prepare spiritually to walk alongside Jesus Christ in his ministry, towards death so that, from it, Resurrection can happen. It is a time to be in solidarity, to be one, with Jesus. This time of unity and solidarity, however, is by no means limited to the life and ministry of Jesus. We can extend this practice of unity and solidarity with those in our communities, and with those throughout the world, with whom we are so intricately connected, especially in our globalized times.

On the first Sunday of Lent, we at Pine we called to respond through prayer to the Filipino workers in Louisiana, who were being trafficked for their labor by Grand Isle Shipyard.

The Philippines was, at the end of last year, hit by a typhoon in an area that had never seen such environmental disaster. As a third world country, the Philippines has little to help it recover. The government, backed by the US, is more interested in the interests of international corporations that ravage the land and contribute to massive deforestation, making it even more difficult for the Filipinos there to survive and recover.

Much contributes to the migration of Filipino workers – the inability to find jobs that pay decent wages, the indifference of the government that encourages their own people to leave, the colonial history that shaped a government to imitate that of the colonizers (Spain and the US). Human beings have become an (export) commodity. And we, being residents and compliant with the US government, our government, such exploitation of people continues.

During this season of Lent, I encourage us all to use our spiritual practices to be mindful of our connections with one another and worldwide. Perhaps this is a crucial time for Pine and its members to be thinking strategically in our ministries, that they all contribute to giving life and love that extends beyond our church walls, and allow us to never forget how interconnected God’s Creation is.

Now that my living situation has settled for the time being, I look forward to the newness in ministry – our growing partnership with ASPIRE, the NRJ-Pine choir, refreshed lay leadership, the presence of young children and babies, more opportunities to get to know one another on a spiritual level, and more opportunities to immerse ourselves in the communities that need the good, loving, liberating news of God. May God’s presence move among us and may we be trusting enough to allow the ripples of the stream carry us beyond our expectations.

And to recognize the interconnection is not to make us feel guilty. For Jesus does not forgive that we may feel guilty, but to be liberated in order to act. It is to recognize the depth of access to be participants through connections and relationships already built and to anticipate and be inspired by the possibility of future connections to be built by Emily and Megumi in their willingness to “come and see.”

Lent practices call us to also “come and see.” We don’t all need to go to the Philippines to see one another, to see the suffering and humble strength of others and of ourselves. We just need to have the intentionality to be mindful of one another, of God’s Creation, and the ways that we are, indeed, One.

Martin Luther King, Jr. once wrote in his letter from Burmingham Jail that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justive everywhere.” By that same token, let us remember that justice and healing anywhere, brings a little bit of justice and healing everywhere, no matter where in the world it happens. Our connections, sometimes from unexpected and unseen places, will contribute to the diversity of our faith community and to the life of our ministry. There is work to be done and bridges to be built. May this time of Lent prepare us in birthing the Easter mystery that is resurrection.

Pastor Jeanelle