Holy Week & Easter Schedule 2025
From Questioning Why to Cultivating Justice
Kindred in Christ,
If you’ve ever spent time with a child, you know their favorite question: Why?
Why is the sky blue?
Why do I have to eat vegetables?
Why do bad things happen?
At first, these questions are about curiosity—a child’s way of making sense of the world. And that curiosity is a gift. Asking hard questions is how we grow. Scripture itself is filled with people questioning God, from the psalmists crying out in lament to Job demanding answers for his suffering. Our faith is not afraid of questions.
Yet as we grow older, we realize that not all why questions have neat answers. And sometimes, our need to explain suffering isn’t really about understanding—it’s about control. We want a reason, a cause, something to make pain and injustice feel less random. The problem is that some answers only serve to justify suffering rather than challenge it.
Jesus speaks directly to this in our Gospel reading this week. When people come to him asking why tragedy struck certain people, he refuses to offer easy answers (Luke 13:1-9). Instead, he shifts the conversation: Repent. Bear fruit. Turn toward life while there is still time. In other words, the question is not why this happened, but what now?
This Sunday, we will explore what it means to let go of the temptation to explain away suffering and instead take up the work of repentance—the kind of repentance that isn’t about guilt, but about turning toward life. We will see how this struggle played out in the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. As a theologian, he wrestled with hard questions about injustice, but he also knew that faith without action was hollow. When he came to America to study at Union Seminary, he was disillusioned by the purely academic approach to faith. It was in the Black churches of Harlem—where he encountered a Christ who suffers with the oppressed—that he found the courage to return to Nazi Germany and resist.
In a world filled with suffering—the war in Ukraine, the genocide in Gaza, the violence experienced in our own country under the Trump administration—Bonhoeffer’s witness challenges us. Like him, we are living in a time of political and moral crisis. And like him, we must ask: Will we simply analyze suffering from a distance, or will we enter the struggle for justice?
I hope you will join us this Sunday as we continue our Lenten journey. May this season stretch us, challenge us, and ultimately draw us deeper into God’s love, mercy, and peace.
Alongside you,
Rev. Paul Ortiz
Between the Hen and the Fox: A Lenten Journey of Justice and Love
As we continue our Lenten series, Cultivating and Letting Go, this Sunday’s scripture confronts us with a striking contrast: the cunning fox and the sheltering hen. In Luke 13, Jesus calls Herod a “fox”—a symbol of deceitful power, a ruler who mimics a lion but lacks true authority and justice. In contrast, Jesus describes himself as a mother hen, longing to gather her vulnerable chicks under her wings. It’s an image of protection, fierce love, and a radically different kind of power.
What does it mean to follow a God who chooses the way of the hen rather than the might of the fox? It means standing in solidarity with those the foxes of this world try to scatter—those pushed to the margins, denied dignity, or forced to live in fear. It means embracing a power rooted in love rather than dominance.
We see this struggle in our world today, as policies and ideologies seek to erase and exclude those who do not fit into narrow definitions of belonging. Trans youth, immigrants, and many others are being told they do not have a place, that they are unworthy of protection and human rights. But Jesus calls us to resist the fox’s fear-driven rule and instead gather one another in love.
This Sunday, we will light the Candle for Peace, Justice, and Hope for Trans Youth, standing as a people committed to creating spaces of refuge, safety, and belonging.
Lent calls us to cultivate courage and let go of fear—to embrace the way of the hen, even in a world full of foxes. Join us this Sunday as we walk this path together.
Alongside you,
Rev. Paul Ortiz
Cultivating and Letting Go
Kindred in Christ,
Lent always begins in the wilderness.
Before Jesus began his ministry, he was led into the wilderness, where he fasted, prayed, and faced temptations—not of obvious evil, but of power, control, and certainty. He was asked to turn stones into bread, to take dominion over the world, to prove God’s faithfulness with spectacle. Each time, he refused. Each time, he let go. And in doing so, he emerged with a clearer sense of who he was and what truly sustained him.
This Lent, we, too, step into the wilderness—not as a place of punishment, but as a place of transformation. Our theme for this season is “Cultivating and Letting Go.” Lent is not just about giving things up; it’s about creating space. It’s about letting go of what holds us back—fear, control, distractions—and cultivating what brings life—trust, love, and justice.
Like the Israelites who brought their first fruits to God in gratitude (Deuteronomy 26), and like Jesus who trusted that we do not live by bread alone (Luke 4), we are invited to ask:
What do I need to release in order to grow?
What truly nourishes my soul?
Where is God calling me to trust more deeply?
Throughout Lent, we’ll reflect on these questions together in worship and community. I invite you to join us as we embrace this sacred season—not as a burden, but as an opportunity to grow in grace and community.
Let’s walk this journey together.
Alongside you,
Rev. Paul Ortiz
Transformed by the Light of Christ
The Transfiguration According to St. Luke by Kelly Latimore
Kindred in Christ,
This Sunday, we reflect on the story of Jesus’ Transfiguration in Luke 9:28-36. On the mountaintop, Peter, James, and John witness a dazzling vision of Jesus, standing in the company of their ancestors Moses and Elijah. It’s a breathtaking moment, filled with divine awe. Peter wants to stay, to build dwellings and remain in the brilliance of that holy space. But Jesus doesn’t let them linger—because transformation isn’t meant to stay on the mountaintop. It’s meant to move us into the world.
On April 3, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee, the night before he was assassinated, The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his final speech. In it, he spoke words that turned out to be more prophetic than anyone could have imagined in that room that day. The Rev. Dr. King said:
“I’ve been to the mountaintop. I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we as a people will get to the Promised Land!”
Like Moses, who stood on Mount Nebo to see the Promised Land without entering it, like Jesus, who was transfigured on the mountain but would soon walk the road to the cross, The Rev. Dr. King saw the vision of God’s justice, the promise of an end to segregation and Jim Crow, but would physically not get there himself. And yet, like Jesus, The Rev. Dr. King knew that the vision calls all of us down into the valleys, where the work of liberation and love happens.
As a church committed to God’s kin-dom of justice and peace, we are called to be both witnesses to God’s vision and workers in the world. We are called to see clearly—to be transformed by the light of Christ—and also to act boldly, walking in his way of compassion, courage, and justice.
I hope you will plan to stick around directly after service this Sunday, for an Advocacy Sunday event led by Church and Society. Also, you are invited to attend an Ash Wednesday protest at a local Chevron Station, calling people to divest and repent from supporting companies that support genocide in Palestine. I will be distributing ashes at the protest, as well as attending the related service of lament and repentance in the evening at the Wesley Club. These events are organized by Christians for a Free Palestine.
May we be a people who do not accept the disfiguration of injustice, but rather carry the light of Christ’s transfiguration into our world.
Alongside you,
Rev. Paul Ortiz