Please join us between 9:30 and 9:55 am via Zoom
Here is the Zoom link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82512159155
phone-in for (audio only).Phone Number: (646) 558-8656
Meeting ID: 825 1215 9155
Theme: “As We Receive Communion, We Become Communion.”
Welcome: Dave: As we come together this morning, we ask Spirit to open our hearts and minds to the words spoken here so that they will not just be words, but will be the spiritual nourishment we need to maintain the joy in our lives as we work to live the gospel in a time of great need and great challenge.
Theme: Lindy: Jesus saw himself and all he thought as feeding those around him. In these hard times it seems that each of us is hungry for so much. What life was like before Covid...For what we need today. For what our children, our neighbors, our nation, and our world needs. We here, the people of the Upper Room, choose to feed the world by being inclusive, just, and loving!
Pause
Opening Song: Anthem by Tom Conroy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HP2gwC5TGFs
Liturgy of the Word
Theada: A reading from Valarie Kaur, a 21st century Sikh American activist
In the face of horrors visited upon our world daily, in the struggle to protect our loved ones, choosing to let in joy is a revolutionary act.
These are the inspired words of Valarie Kaur, a 21st century Sikh American activist and the community affirms them by saying, Amen.
Dennis: Alleluia
Ginny: The Temple authorities started to grumble in protest because Jesus claimed, “I am
the bread that came down from heaven.” They kept saying, “Isn’t this Jesus, son of Mary and Joseph? Don’t we know his mother and father? How can he claim to have come down from heaven?”
Mike: Jesus said in reply, “It is written in the prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard God’s word and has learned from it comes to me.
Not that anyone has seen Abba God — except one who has opened his heart. He has seen Abba God. In all truth I tell you everyone who believes has eternal life.
I am the bread of life.
Your ancestors ate manna in the desert and they are dead, but this bread comes down from heaven so that anyone may eat it and not die.
I am that Living bread. The bread I shall give is my flesh, for the life of the world.
Ginny: These are the inspired words attributed to the disciple known as John. The Community affirms these words by saying AMEN.
Pause
Lindy: Shared Homily: As We Receive Communion, We Become Communion
The Gospel today can be confusing...Did Jesus actually say all that? Was he quoting part of what was written in the Old Testament? Was he claiming to do what many call transfiguration today?
I don't think it really matters whether he said it, who is right, or if anyone is right. What matters is how he lived. It mattered then and it matters now.
Jesus lived through a hard time. He made a choice to spend his adult life helping others. Reminding everyone around him that happiness depends on giving and receiving love. He spent his life nourishing everyone around him, feeding them what they needed most.
His kindness was like giving them food, bread, staving off the hunger they were experiencing….teaching them 1st by reminding them that their faith told them that loving their Creator was the most important thing they could do. Reminding them that the Creator was providing them, and protecting them, and always will. Reminded them with his love for them as well. He told them stories we call parables today to give them ideas to contemplate...helping them to choose what to do for themselves. He fed their souls with attention, conversation, and gentleness, and assurance too.
Eventually he knew if he continued to pour out all his strength and time helping others find peace and joy in a chaotic country it probably would cost his life. Mahatma Gandhi had the same experience. Like Gandhi, Jesus chose joy. He wasn’t willing to stop.
He fed them, and now us with his teaching, his stories, and his kindness. Are we willing to take all this in, to receive this communion, consume this bread of life he gave, learn how to live peace and joy in our time and become communion by pouring this revolutionary love onto every person we meet? What will it cost us? How will it enrich us?
Dave: And now Jim will lead us in our Statement of Faith.
Jim Marsh. Let us pray our Statement of Faith together
All: 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.
Liturgy of the Eucharist
Dennis: As we prepare for the sacred meal, we bring to this table our blessings, cares and concerns.
We bring these and all deeply held blessings, cares, and concerns to the table of friendship and peace.
Eucharistic Prayer
Lindy: Holy One of Light, from whom every gift comes, send your Spirit into our lives with the power of a mighty wind by the flame of your wisdom. Open the horizons of our minds.
Dave: We are a priestly people. We are anointed. With open hands let us pray our Eucharistic prayer as one voice:
O Nurturing, Mothering one, You are always with us. We are grateful for Your constant loving and unconditional presence. At times we forget that You are holding us, attending to us. We fall and You pick us up. You send strangers, friends and family to our aid. We often forget we are never without Your Light and Spirit.
We experience great joy and we experience great pain and suffering. You are with us in that joy and that pain and suffering. When we experience Your presence, we long to sing our hymn of praise:
Holy, Holy, Holy Here in this Place by Chris Grundy
https://youtu.be/sgkWXOSGmOQ
Lindy: Creator and Lover of all, we cannot grow in the darkness of this world without Your Light. Help us keep our hearts and minds open to You through our love and care for each other and all creation.
Theada: Please extend your hands in blessing.
This bread and wine is a sign of Your nourishment and a sign of Your great love. Your Spirit is upon us and we belong to You and one another.
We thank you for Jesus, simple servant, lifting up the lowly, revealing you as God-With-Us, revealing us as one with you, and all creation.
Dave: On the night before he died, Jesus gathered for the Seder supper with the people closest to him. Like the least of household servants, he washed their feet. Once again, he showed us how to love one another.
All lift the plate and pray:
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.”
(Pause)
All lift the cup and pray:
Lindy: Then he took the cup of blessing, spoke the grace, and offered it to them saying:
“Take and drink.
Whenever you remember me like this, I am among you.”
By Your Spirit we are transformed. Every time we share this bread and wine we choose to be transformed. We choose to love as You love us.
Through him, we have learned how to live.
Through him, we have learned how to love.
Through him, we have learned how to serve.
Lindy: Please receive this bread and wine saying: “As we receive communion, we become communion.”
Communion song: Breathe Love by Susan Lincoln & Craig Toungate
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2eBbv7vVZg&ab_channel=SusanLincoln%26CraigToungate-Topic
Lindy: Loving Source of our being, You call us to live the Gospel of peace and justice. We live justly, we love tenderly, we walk with integrity in Your Presence.
Dave: Let us pray together the prayer of Jesus:
O Holy One, who is 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.
This is The Prayer of Jesus as interpreted by Miriam Therese Winter
Lindy: Closing Prayer
Nurturing one
We thank you for the earth’s vegetation enfolded in your warmth.
We thank you for earth’s creatures encircled in your loving arms.
We thank you for all those women and men who mothered us.
May we always remain in your everlasting community of love. Amen
BLESSING
Dave: Please extend your hands and pray our blessing together.
May we continue to be the Face of God to each other. May the certainty of our connectedness to one another and all creation ignite us to love more fully. May those who nurtured us be remembered with love today and always. May we, like Jesus, persist in love and be a blessing for all. All: Amen.
Closing Song
City of God by Dan Schutte
"Be the change you want to see in the World"
Mahatma Gandhi
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