Have you ever been wronged by someone? Have you ever been betrayed? Has someone ever violated you? Have you ever been hurt and wounded by someone? I think we all know what these experiences are like. These are some of the most bitter experiences in life

Sometimes I meet new people, and when they learn that I am a minister, they feel a need to explain to me that they don’t go to church anymore. For some of them, the church used to be a very important part of their lives, but bad experiences led them to leave their churches.

Tomorrow is Presidents Day. When I was growing up, we used to have two holidays in February, one celebrating George Washington’s birthday and another one celebrating Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, but for some reason we now have only a single holiday in recognition of all the men who have ever served as president of the United States.

Last year a good friend of mine died whom I had known for over twenty years while I was living in Minneapolis. Her name was Liz Heller and she was a Presbyterian minister. I want to tell you about Liz because she grew up at a time when churches like ours did not yet permit women to be ordained as ministers.

This week our congregation marked the passing of two of our beloved members: Victoria Woodworth and Anna Pistole. Some of us attended Victoria’s funeral on Friday and yesterday Anna’s memorial service was held here.

This past Monday our nation observed “Martin Luther King Jr. Day.” King was our country’s most famous civil rights leader. He was struck down by an assassin’s bullet on April 4, 1968, at the young age of 39, leaving behind a widow and four small children.

The Jews have a ritual called Yahrzeit. This is a Yiddish word that means “anniversary,”
and it refers to the one-year anniversary of someone’s death. On the Yahrzeit, a Jew who has been in grief marks the official end of the period of mourning by saying a special prayer for mourners