Market Street United Methodist Church

10/18/2026

10/14/2026

“The Good Samaritan”
“One does not HAVE a neighbor; I MAKE myself someone’s neighbor” -Paul Ricoeur

This parable from Luke 10 is considered one of the most well known in the gospels. Like many other Christians, I have heard this story hundreds of times. However, it wasn’t until adulthood a mentor gave me a more significant understanding of this story.

When an expert in religious law, a lawyer, asks Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?”, Jesus answers him with this parable. A man traveling down a well known dangerous road from Jerusalem to Jericho is ambushed by robbers, who steal his possessions, and beat him leaving him “half dead.” Two members of the lawyer’s own religious class pass the man by but the one who does stop is an outsider, a Samaritan, who takes pity on the man, caring for his wounds, and takes him on his donkey to a nearby inn. He is the true neighbor. Jesus tells them to go and do likewise. The Jewish listeners would have winched because at the time Samaritans were considered a member of an excluded group, an ‘other’. Jesus is giving the lawyer a lesson in God’s law of love.

In his short essay on this parable Paul Ricoeur notes that the Gospel would completely condemn the modern world. Jesus is telling us that we don’t simply HAVE neighbors. We MAKE ourselves someone’s neighbor. This is a very anti-modern attitude. Through a modern world of fences, borders, screens, social media, ring cameras, automobiles, etc. we are increasingly living in an age of a dehumanized world of abstract, anonymous and distant relationships. Many often using, religion, politics or “the law” to distance themselves from the wounded and most vulnerable people in our communities. Immigrants, refugees, single mothers, the unhoused, and those in prison. Like all of the parables, Jesus is using this one for the church to imagine the kind of community it is called to be. The parables are meant to be lived. If you want to love your neighbor you are going to have to go make yourself one.

Signed Giclee Prints, Digital Downloads available: kellylatimoreicons.com

10/04/2026

10/02/2026

Grief doesn't wait for a convenient time or follow a schedule. Whether your loss happened last month or many years ago, if your heart feels heavy right now, you don't have to carry it alone. Especially as we approach the holidays.

We're starting a free online grief group, a safe space to process loss, share your story, and begin healing alongside others who understand.

This group is open to everyone and anyone navigating grief, whatever form it takes. Together, we'll create space for honesty, support, and hope. We'll meet weekly for seven weeks, with a special session at the midpoint dedicated to grief during the holidays.

Wednesdays | Weekly | 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm
October 7
October 14
October 21
October 28: "Grief During the Holidays" session
November 4
November 11
November 18
To register for the Zoom link and for more information:

Please click the link to complete this form.

09/27/2026

09/25/2026

"Work on your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure." - Philippians 2:12-13

In reflecting on these words, John Wesley noted that even when we feel unworthy or at a loss to do the good work of faith, there is always something we can do:
"You can do something, through Christ strengthening you. Stir up the spark of grace which is now in you, and he will give you more grace." - John Wesley in sermon 85, "On Working Out Our Own Salvation".

Read the whole sermon: https://www.resourceumc.org/en/content/sermon-85-on-working-out-our-own-salvation

09/16/2026

Ruth and Naomi
“I will never leave you, where you go I will go...”

“Ruth embodies the three classic biblical categories of the vulnerable person; she is widow, sojourner, and orphan-by-choice, having left her birth family to accompany Naomi to a foreign land, a small rural town (Bethlehem) where a Moabite woman would be viewed with suspicion. She is a model for me of someone who crosses borders for the sake of life — borders both literal and figurative, as she acts in unconventional and selfless ways to create a new community out of a situation of profound loss.” ~ Ellen Davis

Icon commissioned by my best friend Paul Clever in honor of his two wonderful girls with the same names

Giclee Signed Prints and Prayer Candles: kellylatimoreicons.com