Open Table UCC

Thank you Sarah, Darbie, and Candi for painting this beautiful mural! Open and Affirming churches across the state are painting some variation of this design on downtown businesses (with their permission of course) this month in celebration of Pride Month. Everything is better when we let our lights shine together!

Click below to access "Open Table UCC E-Newsletter - 4/24/2026" - https://mailchi.mp/715b9e0258c9/open-table-ucc-e-news-18013837

Click below to access, "Open Table UCC E-Newsletter - 4/10/2026" - https://mailchi.mp/b523b7243de9/open-table-ucc-e-news-18013191

Easter Sunday
Sunday, April 5, 2026 Rev. Zack Jackson

John 20:17 (NRSVUE)
Jesus said to her [Mary Magdalene], “Do not touch me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”

Reflection: What a puzzling moment! After the horror and drama of the cross, the uncertainty of Saturday, and the momentary panic of realizing that Jesus’ tomb was empty, you’d think that the least that Jesus could do would be to give his friend Mary a hug. It’s a strange moment that has puzzled people for ages. Why wouldn’t the Risen Christ allow one of his most beloved disciples to hold on to him? In 10 verses, he will tell Thomas to touch his wounds, so it’s not like he was radioactive or something. What is it about this moment that he refuses to allow Mary to hold on to him?
I’m not sure, but I think it has something to do with what happens next. She had reached out to him, presumably, to make sure that he never left her sight again, but he says, “No. Now it’s your turn. I want you to leave me and I want you to go preach the Good News”. What a job! Can you imagine being the very first person who was commissioned to bring Jesus’ message? He could have appeared to John and Peter, but he waited until they left, because this was a job for Mary and Mary alone. And she did it. She left that garden and she became the first preacher of the Risen Christ. That, by the way, is not a job that she could have done from the garden. She could not have done that while holding Jesus’ hand. She could not have stepped out that day into her fullness if she were still waiting for Jesus to do everything for her. She ran out of that garden a new woman, empowered and emboldened by Jesus to do what was hers to do.
I think we could use that example today. I don’t need to tell you that the world is a mess right now, and many of us are trying to hold on to Jesus, praying that he would fix everything because it feels too big, but Jesus is saying to us, “Do not hold on to me. Go. Do what is yours to do. Do what only you can do at this moment”. So let us go. Let us take on the power and audacity of the Risen Christ, let us believe in impossible dreams, and let us go with the conviction that Jesus will never leave us.

Prayer: Risen Christ, conqueror of death and bringer of life, give us the boldness to believe that you have truly called us to this moment. Fill us with your power and love as we go out this Easter season to serve you and the world that you love. Amen.

Holy Saturday
April 4, 2026 Rev. Caroline Bashore

Matthew 27:62-66 (NIV)
The next day, the one after Preparation Day, the chief priests and the Pharisees went to Pilate. “Sir,” they said, “we remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said, ‘After three days I will rise again.’ So give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day. Otherwise, his disciples may come and steal the body and tell the people that he has been raised from the dead. This last deception will be worse than the first.” “Take a guard,” Pilate answered. “Go, make the tomb as secure as you know how.” So they went and made the tomb secure by putting a seal on the stone and posting the guard.

Reflection: Holy Saturday is the day when doubt finally sounds reasonable. Jesus is dead, really dead, and his body has been wrapped, sealed, placed behind a stone, and for the first time in a long time, nothing is happening. After all the excitement of the past few years, after the crowds and the miracles and the hope, this ending makes the accusation feel plausible: maybe he was never the Son of God after all.
And yet, it is the chief priests and Pharisees who remember what the disciples cannot. They go to Pilate because Jesus’ words still haunt them. They begin to wonder: what if he was telling the truth, what if this isn’t the end, what if this man truly is who he claimed to be? They believe resurrection is possible enough to guard the tomb. And we are left waiting, asking our own what if.

Prayer: God, we know how this story ends, yet we linger with the what ifs. What if the guards were right, what if the tomb stayed full, what if Jesus was only another hopeful story that ended too soon. Stay close as we wait, unsure, unsettled, and still hoping. Amen.

Maundy Thursday
Thursday, April 2, 2026 Rev. Frances Chester

Read: Exodus 12:1-4 (5-10), 11-14; Psalm 116:1-2, 12-19;
1 Corinthians 11:23-26; John 13:1-17, 31b-35 in your favorite translation.

Reflection: Exodus inaugurates the festival of Passover, with the blood of a lamb on doorposts signaling to God to pass over the Hebrew households on the night they are freed from slavery in Egypt. In 1 Corinthians Paul describes how the body of Christ joins together in memory of the body given for them, in symbols of bread and wine. John’s gospel brings us to the table with that body who bends down to wash dirty, stinking feet, before breaking bread and passing around the cup, offering them like he will his very flesh and blood later that night.
On Maundy Thursday our senses are soaked in the ways God delivers us. On this night, allow your feet or hands to be washed and feel the hands that touch your skin, the coolness of the water or cloth. Notice the texture of the bread and the sting of cheap wine or sugary grape juice that hits the back of your throat. Notice and know: God is here, choosing vulnerable flesh as the place of our salvation.

Questions for reflection: On a scale of one to ten, one being “at peace” and ten being “extremely uncomfortable,” where are you as you sit with the images of Jesus washing your feet, and of Jesus passing to you bread and a cup? Does your scale shift from one image to another? Sit with each moment, allowing Jesus to serve you.