Renewal of Commitment for Debra Trees and Stephen Trimboli
40th year Wedding Anniversary, October 12, 2025
I renew my commitment to you because I love you.
I promise to share with you all that life brings us, the joys and the sorrows.
I want to continue being surprised by you, laughing with you, dreaming with you and dancing with you.
I pray that we might always remain in the Holy One who blesses us and all those whose lives we touch.
Amen
Community Blessing:
May the Holy One bless and keep you.
May you grow in trust in the love and support of family, friends and this community.
May you know peace, health, happiness and joy in abundance.
May you wake up in the morning welcoming our God of surprises.
May you find rest at night with gratitude for God who gives us each day our daily bread.
May it be like this all the days of your lives.
Blessed be God, Creator of all.
Amen
Welcome and
Theme:
Welcome
to this gathering of dear friends, the Upper Room Community. Today let’s consider the sources of deep
healing in our lives.
Opening
Prayer:
Beloved,
you created our infinite universe, and included in that grand creation is the
familiar ground upon which we walk each day, the friendly smiles and
comfortable embraces of the ordinary people in our lives. Help us to recognize these as treasures of healing
and wholeness. Help us to recognize your
presence in them. And help us in our
gratitude. Amen.
Opening Song: Come be in our
hearts – Sara Thomsen
https://youtu.be/gwxldz6oH2w
LITURGY OF THE WORD
First
Reading: A reading from the Second Book of Kings (2Kings
5:14-17)
Naaman went down and plunged into the
Jordan seven times
at the word of Elisha, the man of God.
His flesh became again like the flesh of a little child,
and he was clean of his leprosy.
Naaman returned with his whole retinue to the man of God.
On his arrival he stood before Elisha and said,
"Now I know that there is no God in all the earth, except in Israel.
Please accept a gift from your servant."
Elisha replied, "As the LORD lives whom I serve, I will not take it;"
and despite Naaman's urging, he still refused.
Naaman said: "If you will not accept, please let me, your servant,
have two mule-loads of earth, for I will
no longer offer holocaust
or sacrifice to any other god except to
the God of Israel."
This story is passed down to us from our
ancestors. We acclaim their wisdom with,
Amen.
Gospel Acclamation: Alleluia by Jan Phillips
https://youtu.be/IC4nbwmQDVw
Gospel: Luke
17: 11-19
As Jesus continued his journey to
Jerusalem,
he traveled through Samaria and Galilee.
As he was entering a village, ten lepers met him.
They stood at a distance from him and raised their voices, saying,
"Jesus, Master! Have pity on us!"
And when he saw them, he said,
"Go show yourselves to the priests."
As they were going they were cleansed.
And one of them, realizing he had been healed,
returned, glorifying God in a loud voice;
and he fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him.
He was a Samaritan.
Jesus said in reply,
"Ten were cleansed, were they not?
Where are the other nine?
Has none but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God?"
Then he said to him, "Stand up and go;
your faith has saved you."
This is the Gospel from the writer we
know as Luke. We affirm his words with "Amen."
Homily
Starter:
For many
years, whenever I heard this gospel, I assumed it was a simple rebuke about
ingratitude. Be more grateful, like the
Samaritan leper. But nothing is ever
simple in the gospels, is it? The
stories Jesus tells, and the stories told about Jesus always seem to have
deeper meanings, often subtle, sometimes radical, meanings. I think that today’s gospel is an example of
that. And it helps tremendously that
Luke’s gospel is paired with the beautiful story of Naaman, the leper.
Naaman, a
Syrian, is a foreigner. The grateful
leper in Luke’s gospel is a Samaritan, another foreigner. Why is this important? Why does the author of the book of Kings so
strikingly describe a foreigner who is so overwhelmed with gratitude for his
healing that he begs for Israelite soil so that he can pray on it from his own
homeland to the God of Israel? And why
does Jesus double down on that idea by adding another 9 lepers, who we presume
are not Samaritans, and who show no such gratitude, while the Samaritan leper
is effusive in his own thanksgiving?
I think
that part of the answer can be found in another gospel. In verse 4 of Mark’s sixth chapter, we see
the townspeople turning on Jesus. They
resent that Jesus, son of the local carpenter, is speaking with authority and
healing people. Jesus seems kind of
amazed by their rejection, and is, I imagine, more than a little hurt by
it. But he comes back with a statement
for them. “A prophet is not without honor except in
his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household.” In other words, the closer we are to someone,
the less we appreciate them.
Coming back to today’s gospel, I
ask: How often are we in need of healing
in our lives? How many times are our
minds clouded with doubt, fear, disappointment?
How many times do we feel empty?
Maybe even a little bit guilty about something we’ve done or not
done? For me, a completely honest answer
would be, “quite a few.” And when I have
felt ill, or hurt; when I’ve sunk down into the dark places, I know quite well
that redemption has been offered to me in the familiar faces and embraces of the
everyday people who share my everyday life.
Or redemption might wait in the wings of a butterfly, or the song of a
bird in my own neighborhood. And yet so
often I don’t recognize these gifts. I
don’t linger in an embrace, I don’t stand to watch the whole sunset, I move
along from the butterfly without really seeing it, because these are familiar
things, everyday magic that I fail to really see. And so how can I be saved by them? How can they heal me in my distress if I’m so
quick to turn away from them? How can I
be grateful…truly grateful for gifts that I don’t even unwrap?
Naaman and the Samaritan, strangers
among strangers, unwrapped the gifts, and so they were deeply grateful. The other nine lepers were healed of their
skin disease, but were they so blinded by their familiarity with their healer
and their God that they continued to suffer from complacency?
When I see – really see - my own
beautiful world and the familiar beloveds that inhabit it; when I see them with
the eyes of a stranger, with the soul of a foreigner, I begin to see the glory
within them. In my amazement I allow
them to heal me. I am redeemed because I
have unwrapped the gift. And I kneel on
the soil at my own feet in gratitude.
What did you hear in today’s
readings? Please share your thoughts.
Statement
of Faith
We believe in the Holy One, a divine mystery
beyond all definition and rational understanding,
the heart of all that has ever existed,
that exists now, or that ever will exist.
We believe in Jesus, messenger of the Divine Word,
bringer of healing, heart of Divine compassion,
bright star in the firmament of the Holy One's
prophets, mystics, and saints.
We believe that We are called to follow Jesus
as a vehicle of divine love,
a source of wisdom and truth,
and an instrument of peace in the world.
We believe
in the Spirit of the Holy One,
the life that is our innermost life,
the breath moving in our being,
the depth living in each of us.
We believe that the Divine kin-dom is here and now,
stretched out all around us for those
with eyes to see it, hearts to receive it,
and hands to make it happen.
Prayers
of the Community
As we prepare for this sacred meal we are
aware of our call to serve, and just as Jesus is anointed, so is each of us. We
bring to this table our prayers for the community.
We pray for these and all unspoken intentions. Amen.
LITURGY OF THE EUCHARIST
(Written
by Jay Murnane)
Please
join in praying the Eucharistic prayer together.
Blessed are you, Holy One, source of all creation. Through your
goodness you made this world and called us to be Your co-creators. We give
thanks for the diversity and beauty of life around us and within us.
We open our awareness to the goodness of all creation. You have surrounded us with beauty and love, and we are grateful for it. You offer us healing in familiar faces and you have made us healers as well.
In joy and in thanksgiving we join with all the everyday healers, both living and eternal, and we sing a hymn of praise.
Holy,
Holy, Holy by Karen Drucker
https://youtu.be/kl7vmiZ1YuI
We thank you for
Jesus, simple servant, lifting up the lowly, revealing you as God-With-Us, and revealing
us as one with you and all of creation.
He lived among us to show us who we are and challenged us to know you. He taught us the strength of compassionate love.
Please extend your
hands in blessing:
We are grateful for your Spirit at our
Eucharistic Table and for this bread and wine which reminds us of our call to
be the body of Christ in the world.
On the night before he died, Jesus gathered for supper with the people closest to him. Like the least of household servants, he washed their feet, so that they would re-member him.
(All lift their plates and pray the following)
When he returned to his place at the table, he
lifted the bread, spoke the blessing, broke the bread and offered it to them
saying:
Take and eat, this is my very self.
(All lift their cups and pray the following)
Then he took the cup of the covenant, spoke the
grace, and offered it to them saying:
Take and drink.
Whenever you remember me like this,
I am among you.
What we have heard with our ears, we will live
with our lives. As we share communion, we become Communion both
love’s nourishment and love’s challenge.
You are called, consecrated and chosen to serve.
Please receive Communion with the words, “I am
open to healing in everyday life.”
Communion Meditation/Song: I
Am the One – Janis Ian
https://youtu.be/83CKYR9uyFI
Prayer
after communion:
Holy One, we are willing to do everything Jesus did, to re-create the living presence of a love that does justice, of a compassion that heals and liberates, of a joy that generates hope, of a light that illumines people and confronts the darkness of every injustice and inequity.
We trust you to continue to share with us your own spirit, the spirit that animated Jesus, for it is through his life and teaching, all honor and glory is yours, O Holy One, forever and ever. Amen.
Let us pray as Jesus taught us:
Holy
One, you are within, around and among us.
We celebrate your many names.
Your wisdom come; your will be done,
unfolding from the depths within us.
Each day you give us all that we need.
You remind us of our limits and we let go.
You support us in our power, and we act with courage.
For you are the dwelling place within us,
the empowerment around us,
and the celebration among us,
now and forever, Amen.
Adapted by Miriam Therese
Winter
BLESSING
Please raise your hands in blessing:
May we welcome the healing love of family, friends, and the world around us. May it enter us and make us whole. And may we respond with gratitude. Amen.
Closing
Song: GRATEFUL: A Love Song to the World
https://youtu.be/sO2o98Zpzg8
