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Watsonville First United Methodist Church

Watsonville, CA

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Pastor’s Monthly Column for the Pajaronian Newspaper ~ Why Christians Must Support Common Sense Gun Law

May 26, 2022

I’m sick to my stomach as I watch helplessly the common recurrence of mass shootings and with the paralysis of our nation to do anything about it. I feel assaulted and traumatized by the sheer volume of violence I witness on television and mass media. Mass shootings have devolved into America’s favorite pastime.

President Joe Biden made a statement after returning from the Asian summit last Tuesday from the Roosevelt Room of the White House as first lady Jill Biden looked on concerning the mass shooting by an 18-year-old gunman who opened fire at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas killing 19 children and 2 teachers, before being killed by police. It caught my attention when Biden made this remark in his speech:

“I just got off my trip from Asia, meeting with Asian leaders, and I learned of this while I was on the aircraft. And what struck me on that 17-hour flight—what struck me was these kinds of mass shootings rarely happen anywhere else in the world. Why? They have mental health problems. They have domestic disputes in other countries. They have people who are lost. But these kinds of mass shootings never happen with the kind of frequency that they happen in America. Why? Why are we willing to live with this carnage? Why do we keep letting this happen?”

It is true that no other nation in the world has gun violence like we do here in America. We have criminally insane number of guns. We have more guns than the entire population in America. There is a saying, “A mountain looks clearer from the plane.” Having lived in Korea, I never saw anyone owning a gun nor rarely ever heard of homicide by gun violence. In Asian countries like Korea, Japan, Singapore and the likes, there is an arduous process of owning a gun and the requirement for renewing a license every year. After their mass shootings, Australia and New Zealand both passed their robust gun safety laws that put our country to shame.

Just days after turning 18 this month, the gunman purchased two “AR platform rifles” and 375 rounds of ammunition. I am appalled at ease in which any person can walk into a gun store and purchase deadly semi-automatic rifles. Why is it that it’s more difficult to get a driver license that being able to purchase deadly assault weapons? There is an old adage, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

On Tuesday before the Western Conference game in Dallas, Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr strongly criticized Republican Senators for holding up the passage of legislation that would tighten background checks on gun sales. “I ask all of you senators who refuse to do anything about the violence and school shootings and supermarket shootings – I ask you, ‘Are you going to put your own desire for power ahead of the lives of our children and our elderly and our churchgoers?’” Coach Kerr asked. He also made direct reference to a piece of legislation called House Resolution HR-8 (the Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2021) that has been passed by the House of Representatives but has been seating in the Senate. “We’re being held hostage by 50 senators in Washington who refuse to even put it to a vote, despite what we, the American people, want,” Kerr said. “They won’t vote on it, because they want to hold on to their own power. It’s pathetic.”

Today I make a critique of Christianity’s complicity with violence. As Christians we profess to follow Jesus who was a peacemaker and a fierce advocate for nonviolence. In Matthew 26:52 Jesus says to Peter who draws a sword against Roman soldiers who have come to arrest Jesus, “Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.”  Jesus wept over the city of Jerusalem, saying, “If you had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.” (Luke 19:41-42)

Christian evangelicals, particularly white Southern Baptists, mostly have parted ways with sensible gun laws. As Christians, we have a moral obligation to act in the face of what some blithely call the new normal of mass shooting in America. Nor should we fall for the siren call of more guns, the unproven good-guy-with-a-gun myth. Some are simply politically opposed to gun control because they are Republicans. We can begin with a modest goal of requiring universal background checks and the deadliest kind of weapons should be much harder to get. It’s a start and a step in the right direction.

“Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called the sons and daughters of God.”
~ Matthew 5:9

Join us for in-person worship this Sunday, May 22, 2022 at 10:00 am

May 19, 2022

Please join us for in-person worship on Sunday, May 22 at 10:00 am! 
The bulletin for this Sunday is available for viewing HERE.

Please join us every Sunday for in-person Worship at 10am. *Masks are optional. We follow local, state, and federal guidelines. You can also worship online by going to our website “watsonville1stumc.org” and click Facebook or YouTube. It will be uploaded in Sunday afternoon for your viewing.

Sixth Sunday of Easter
Sunday, May 22, 2022, 10 am

Children’s Time                        “The Empty Pot”                          Pastor John

Both children and adults will delight in this ancient Chinese story with surprise ending that teaches an important lesson in life.

Special Music                             Turn, Turn, Turn           by Brandon and Trisha Kett

[This American song Turn, Turn, Turn (To Everything There Is a Season) is written by Pete Seeger in the late 1950s and first recorded in 1959. The lyric is from the Ecclesiastes in the Hebrew bible written around 300 BC. According to rabbinic tradition, Ecclesiastes was written by the wise King Solomon in his old age. It speaks of the truth of temporality and paradoxes in life.]

Message       “We’d Never Know How High We Are, Till We Are Called to Rise”

“We’d never know how high we are,
till we are called to rise;
and then,
if we are true to plan,
our statures touch the sky.”
~ Emily Dickinson

Join us for in-person worship this Sunday, May 15, 2022 at 10:00 am

May 12, 2022

Please join us for in-person worship on Sunday, May 15 at 10:00 am! The bulletin for this Sunday is available for viewing HERE.

Sunday in-person Worship at 10am: *Masks are optional. You can also worship online by going to our website “watsonville1stumc.org” and click Facebook or YouTube. It will be uploaded in Sunday afternoon for your viewing.

Fifth Sunday of Easter
Sunday, May 15, 2022, 10 am

This Sunday is the In-Person Lego Sunday! 
First, children will be in worship. Following the Special Music, the teacher,
Joan Culbertson, will lead our children to the Nursery Room.

Special Music: The Dream of Olwen,  Charles Williams, Marina Thomas, Piano Solo

I want to personally introduce you to Dr. Haley Feuerbacher. Haley is my daughter’s generation better known as the” millennials”. She is wise and perceptive and has a good pulse on the culture and the experience of what young people are going through and the challenges they face today. She brings a fresh, new voice that we all need to hear. Welcome Haley!

Message   “Not Just Resurrection But Transformation”   Dr. Haley Feuerbacher

Dr. Haley Feuerbacher is a storyteller, creator, adventurer, facilitator, spiritual activist, and theologian. She attended Vanderbilt Divinity School and Brite Divinity School for her Master’s in Theological Studies and completed her Ph.D. at Southern Methodist University in Religion and Culture and Women’s and Gender Studies. A recent transplant to California from Texas, Haley was a faculty member at SMU and The Seattle School for Theology & Psychology and served for several years as a youth minister and then as campus minister for a United Methodist Reconciling college ministry. Passionate about the power of joy and compassion for personal and systemic transformation, Haley is currently the founder and executive director of the Center for Courageous Compassion, which is creating a movement of fierce survivor-centeredness and transformation of trauma in which our helpers, caregivers, activists, leaders, and ministers engage in courageously compassionate work, life, and being that yields sustainable joy and resists systems and patterns that lead to vicarious trauma, burnout, and compassion fatigue. Haley is also a running coach, yoga facilitator, surfing and outdoor enthusiast, partner to SB, mother to son Christian, and author, with her first book, Single (M)Other, available later this year through Wipf & Stock.

Join us for in-person worship this Sunday, May 8, 2022 at 10:00 am

May 6, 2022

Please join us for in-person worship this Mother’s Day Celebration on Sunday, May 8 at 10:00 am! 
Marieta Flores has prepared roses to be handed to all our mothers. 
The bulletin for this Sunday is available for viewing HERE.

Sunday in-person Worship at 10am: *Masks are optional. You can also worship online by going to our website “watsonville1stumc.org” and click Facebook or YouTube. It will be uploaded on Sunday afternoon for your viewing.

Mother’s Day Celebration

Sunday, May 8, 2022, 10 am

Children’s Time  “Baby Moses & His Mother’s Faith and Love”  Carmelita Abenoja 

Choir Anthem: No Other Song, Choir
Words & Music by John W. Peterson

Message: “Mother Is a Word Called Love” by Carmelita Abenoja

Join us for in-person worship this Sunday, May 1, 2022 at 10:00 am

April 29, 2022

Please join us for in-person worship this Sunday, May 1 at 10:00 am! The bulletin for this Sunday is available for viewing HERE

Sunday in-person Worship at 10am: *Masks are optional. You can also worship online by going to our website “watsonville1stumc.org” and click Facebook or YouTube. It will be uploaded in Sunday afternoon for your viewing.

Third Sunday of Easter
With Holy Communion

Sunday, May 1, 2022, 10 am

This Sunday is the In-Person Lego Sunday!

First, children will be in worship. Following the Special Music, the teacher, Joan Culbertson, will lead our children to the Nursery Room where Lego Sunday will be held.

Children’s Time                    “Ukrainian Easter”                           Pastor John

Loneliness, as defined by mental health professionals, is a gap between the level of connectedness that you want and what you have. The recent study found that one in five Americans said they always or often felt lonely or socially isolated.

In small doses, loneliness is like hunger or thirst, a healthy signal that you are missing something and to seek out what you need. But prolonged over time, according to latest researches, loneliness can be damaging not just to mental health, but also to physical health and life expectancy. Loneliness has real consequences to our health and well-being.

Message “A Cure for the Epidemic of Loneliness” Rev. John Song

If you want to go fast, go alone.
If you want to go far, go together.
~ African Proverb

“No person is an island. Even a hermit lives in the context of one’s monastic community and requires visitors. That is why the cruelest punishment is to put a person in an “isolation confinement”. When infants and babies do not receive adequate human touch and interactions, they develop mental illnesses and literally die.

We are social creatures born to be relational. I AM because of WE.

My sense of self was forged out of people whom I have had relationships with. That is why the idea of “separate-self” is an illusion.”     ~ John Song


“For where two or three have gathered together in My name,
I am there in their midst.”
~ Matthew 18:20

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