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
Thanksgiving Celebration - Gratitude
Presider 1: Welcome and Theme:
Good morning and Happy Thanksgiving. At first glance, planning for the Thanksgiving liturgy seems easy. We thank God for our family, friends, health or whatever else we feel happy to have in life. But as is often the case, it is that and much more. We also remember that the stories about Thanksgiving, are told within the truth of the genocide of the People of the First Nations of the Americas. So before moving forward , it feels fitting to take a moment of silence to be in solidarity with those for whom Thanksgiving is not a celebration but a painful reminder of the loss of life, culture, tribal land and a way of living on this earth.
PAUSE
Today we will consider what it means to live with a joyful heart through the lens of the sacred story of the Upper Room Faith community. This Sunday we will dedicate our new home and bless our community deacons. As we prepare for this happy milestone let us start by remembering our sacred story as a community of companions.
Opening Song: A Harvest of Thanksgiving
https://youtu.be/8JB7R2RokaY
LITURGY OF THE WORD
First Reading: A poem by Lynn Kinlan
Something Sacred Out of Nothing Foreseeable
In the beginning was the Word
(actually, there were many words from the very verbal bunch)
and they pretty much added up to
“This is a crazy thing we got going here.”
One priest became two priests, then three and four, five priests, six priests—
A half dozen ore more. Maybe not so crazy.
We were evicted from our first home through no fault of our own except
perhaps the nudge of the Holy Spirit.
We landed in a large Presbyterian church fellowship hall, sitting in a circle
on hard plastic chairs with a friendship table in the center.
and we were gladdened as members came and went and mostly stayed.
Book clubs met, liturgies with specialized themes were composed. Beloved
Knitters began and coffee after church lingered as we rushed
to roll our stuff into storage on metal pushcarts before a three-hour rental window closed.
Newly edited words of consecration became a signpost
of the growing confidence in our progressive hearts.
Moment of Oneness and Donation Sundays fleshed out how
to live in community beyond Sunday mornings.
A community room was added for meetings and meditation and we grew
to seven and eight priests in number with an activist Board, tangling like
the arms of an octopus to figure out community life without hierarchy or clericalism.
Willing co-presiders multiplied and added fruitfully to our celebrations.
A Kentucky born, Albuquerque based, priest joined y’all to become the ninth priest
to serve this crazy, sacred thing we got going.
Our hearts gladdened as membership doubled to 25 or 35 and into the mid-40s.
We felt like Sally Fields, accepting an Oscar, “They like us, they really like us!”
It wasn’t the number of companions but the richness that each added which inspired.
Ideas percolated along with coffee, joys and trials were shared and maybe we’d still be there
holding black loose-leaf binders in our laps but for…
Pandemic.
We took to the imperfect substitute of zoom to keep us going.
Now people of faith might wish they were not so gob smacked at how often
earthly imperfection gives way to heavenly possibility.
Gob smacked and grateful we were at a growing on-line presence all over North America,
enriching and encircling us with the Spirit of Divine love across broadband.
Our tenth and eleventh priests were added as
a watershed moment, years in the making arrived.
Maybe the danger of living with pandemic gave us courage.
Maybe the zoom fellowship has made us bolder, able to seize the day.
Maybe we were tired of being held to three hours a week with our worldly
possessions on metal pushcarts.
Whichever it is, the sweeping wind of the Holy deposits us where we belong,
close to the flame but not in the fire.
Blessed and grateful are we to carry on the tradition of faith, sustain the trust and evolve
even when we may not have it exactly right and all together all the time.
Change is life-giving and creative and eye-opening.
The only thing to fear is the conventional, rule-bound stasis we left behind us years ago.
These are the inspired words of Lynn Kinlan and the community affirms them by saying, Amen.
Gospel Acclamation: Celtic Alleluia
Second Reading: A reading from the Letter of Paul to the Philippians (4:4-8)
Rejoice in the Savior always! I say it again: Rejoice! Let everyone see your forbearing spirit. Our savior is near. Dismiss all anxiety from your minds; instead present your needs to God through prayer and petition, giving thanks for all circumstances. Then God’s own peace, which is beyond all understanding, will stand guard over your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
Finally my sisters and brothers, your thoughts should be wholly directed to all that is true, all that deserves respect, all that is honest, pure, decent, admirable, virtuous or worthy of praise.
These are the inspired words of Paul to the community of Philippi, and our community affirms them by saying, Amen.
Homily Starter
The first time I heard Lynn’s poem I remember thinking how important it is to know one’s history. It is right and necessary to know where we have come from. Why? One answer is that all sacred holidays are based on the belief that we must know our history and we must pass it on in story and ritual. Passover, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, Chanukah and every other “holiday” that I can think of, exists for the purpose of telling how an often downtrodden, naive, and befuddled yet brave and hopeful people found a way to respond to the circumstances of their lives through the lens of faith in a God they couldn’t see. Salvation history is a fancy way of saying that ordinary people, by persevering together with their companions, living by shared principles, and seeing beyond their differences, can cooperate with God to bring forth a unique expression of the kin-dom.
As Lynn reminds us in our first reading, our story is precious. For sure, it is full of twists and turns, funny, frustrating and fascinating moments. “Unmute yourself, I don’t like the camera angle, use the raised hand feature ,not the clapping one, I can’t hear, it’s too loud, these chairs are a pain to set up all the time, mute us, don’t mute us, more sheet cake, less sheet cake, grape juice and gluten free bread, we’re moving, we’re not moving, why do we have so many priests, what the heck is a non- clerical cleric, what does this group believe anyway”……on and on. We can and should laugh because this is reality, our birth story.
We are not essentially different than the early followers that Paul was writing to. As John Dominic Crossan says, these biblical letters are basically us reading someone else’s mail.
In Philippians, Paul reminds his community to rejoice at all times. Remember that Paul was writing from prison. He was not happy to BE in prison but he was happy IN prison. Whatever life presents, Paul teaches rejoicing in God and the faith that is shared. Paul always strove to embody and teach living with gratitude. Paul encouraged prayer. We do not pray to change God, we pray to change ourselves.
Since last Thanksgiving, there has been much, death, illness, poverty, disasters, uncertainty, personal and familial struggles. Like Paul, we choose to be steadfast in God because there is no other place for us to find footing but in God. We can have joy IN the struggle not FOR the struggles. We can rejoice always because of God’s faithfulness, not because of the circumstances.
We are finding our way as individuals and as an Upper Room community. Life is is often a comedy of errors and an ocean of tears. Today we give thanks for each of you, for our journeying together and for the life of this community. For new babies, successful surgeries, deeper faith, more loving understanding of each other, a beautiful dream, our poets, artists, musicians, technicians, worker bees and thinker bees. We are thankful for creative liturgies, new wine in new wineskin, learning, questioning, creating, comforting. We are thankful for the awareness of God that beckons us to grow every day into followers of Jesus that strive for steady minds and open hearts.
What did you hear in our readings or message today?
Shared Homily
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.
Intentions
Presider 1: 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 blessings, cares and concerns:
(Community shares Intentions)
We bring these and all deeply held blessings, cares, and concerns to the table of friendship and peace. Amen.
LITURGY OF THE EUCHARIST
Eucharistic Prayer – Gratitude (written by Jay Murnane)
Presider 1:
O Holy One, we are amazed by the world around us, and we respond with deep thanks.
We are blessed by the lights of the heavens: the sun and moon, planets and comets and stars; we are blessed by the darkness which keeps us from being blinded by the light, and eases us into contemplation and rootedness.
We are blessed by the generous oceans, and the cliffs and shores which embrace them and allow us to be touched, and to touch. We are blessed by streams and lakes and rivers, by snow and rain.
We are blessed by mountains, which teach us of solitude; where we can feel the power of the softest wind.
We are blessed by all the harmonies of creation, which charge our souls with hope.
We are blessed by the children whose open arms and imaginations teach us enthusiasm and delight at living in the now.
We are blessed by friends who share with us the dark and the light, the tears and the laughter – our companions on the journey.
We are filled with appreciation for all these blessings, as we become aware that all is oneness and oneness is all. And so we sing:
Holy, Holy by Karen Drucker
Presider 2: Because of the pain in our hearts and the immensity of the world’s pain, we often walk this good earth without appreciation and awareness.
We are blessed by all those who have asked us to look around, open up, breathe deeply and really see. We appreciate our elders in the family of life – whale and wolf and sunflower and wheat – who simply live with joy and abandon.
We celebrate the troubadours and the truth-tellers who have gone before us, and who are with us now. We celebrate Jesus, who lived fully in love to show us how to live, and who died only for the sake of integrity and life.
On the night before he died, he sat at a table with friends and relived with them his work, his teaching and wisdom of the universe. Then he went among them as servant, washing their feet, touching their hearts.
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)
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.
(pause)
What we have heard with our ears, we will live with our lives. As we share communion, we will become communion, both love’s nourishment and love’s challenge.
Please receive Communion with the words, You are the Face of God.
Communion Meditation: Thankful by Josh Groban
https://youtu.be/gBEI1F22uqE
Post-Communion Prayer:
Presider 1: As we are joined with all of creation, so are we are joined with Jesus in life and ministry, death, and resurrection.
We are joined with him in standing with the broken and wounded of the earth, with hands open and ready to serve, creativity turned to healing, resolution and reconciliation.
We journey towards greater and fuller openness and awareness, a living sense of gratitude. Always opening up to the amazing energies of your creative spirit, we enter into life as Jesus did,
As his companions, students, troubadours and truth-tellers,
Breathing with your own spirit, we are able to mirror your own glory,
O Holy One, as we live every day. Amen.
Presider 2: Let us pray the prayer Jesus as interpreted by Daniel Berrigan:
Our Mother, Father, who are in the world and surpass the world,
Blessed by your presence, in us, in animals and flowers, in still air and wind.
May justice and peace dwell among us, as you come to us.
Your will be our will;
You will that we be sisters and brothers, as bread is bread, water is itself,
For our hunger, for quenching of thirst.
Forgive us.
We walk crookedly in the world, and fail of our promise.
But we would be human, if only you consent to stir up our hearts.
Amen.
BLESSING
Presider 1: Let us pray:
May we continue to be the face of God to each other. May we call each other to extravagant generosity! May our name be a blessing in our time!
All: AMEN
Closing Song: Joy in Our Hearts by Karen Drucker
https://youtu.be/QRBSdrI1MBI
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