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phone-in for (audio only).Phone Number: (646) 558-8656
Meeting ID: 825 1215 9155
Chosen for Love
Welcome: Each of you is welcome this evening as we consider the words we so often hear attributed to Jesus, “Love one another.”
Opening Prayer: Holy One, we are gathered on this spring evening surrounded by evidence of your abiding love for us. As we listen to the words of Jesus, our brother and teacher, help us to recognize that he is asking us to love each other in the same way that you love all of us: wholly, completely, without reservation, or thought of consequence. Amen.
LITURGY OF THE WORD
Opening Song and First Reading: There’s So Much Energy in Us, Cloud Cult https://youtu.be/o0bhERhPYZQ
This inspiring song was written and performed by Craig Minowa of Cloud Cult. We affirm the spirit of this song by saying, Amen.
Gospel Acclamation: Alleluia https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IC4nbwmQDVw
Gospel: John 15: 9-17
Jesus said to his disciples:
“As the Father loves me, so I also love you.
Remain in my love.
If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love,
just as I have kept my Father’s commandments
and remain in his love.
“I have told you this so that my joy might be in you
and your joy might be complete.
This is my commandment: love one another as I love you.
No one has greater love than this,
to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
You are my friends if you do what I command you.
I no longer call you slaves,
because a slave does not know what his master is doing.
I have called you friends,
because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father.
It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you
and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain,
so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you.
This I command you: love one another.”
This is the recounting of the words of Jesus by the gospel writer we know as John. We affirm these inspiring words by saying, Amen.
Homily Starter:
In today’s gospel Jesus returns to a familiar theme: Love one another. There are four Greek words used for love in the gospels. The one John chooses to use in this one is “Agape.” Agape love is that which is more concerned with the greatest good of another person, or persons than the greatest good of self. It is love in the extreme. It is crazy love. It makes no logical sense. Because what, we might ask ourselves, can I do for my beloved if I die seeing to their greatest good? If I end up in prison seeing to their greatest good? If I am discredited and my actions seen as irrelevant seeing to their greatest good? And yet Jesus calls his followers to that crazy love, agape love. He tells them that there is no greater love than this. Was he thinking of John the Baptist when he said this? The man who lived his life outside the norm, shouting down the authorities, calling many to recognize that God, and not Caesar was the source of life? The man who baptized Jesus and who was imprisoned and executed for speaking out so boldly? Or was Jesus thinking and speaking of his own agape love for his many disciples and knowing that he too was risking his own life? We don’t know. What we do know is that Jesus was thinking beyond both himself and the Baptist. He was thinking of every person listening that day. And he was calling them to that wild love. In fact he was commanding them to it. And as crazy as it seems, he demonstrated in his own death and resurrection that Agape love is the true source of life. He was showing us all how to do it. Because if we all truly were to put the greatest good of all first and foremost, the kin-dom would finally flourish. Here on earth, where it remains elusive, just out of reach. In our first reading we hear in song this command to love told another way. The crew has been searching for a million years for this source of energy, this wellspring, this water that will leave them never thirsty again. They have used philosophy, religion, and technology. All have come close, but have fallen short. It is only when finally, almost by accident, just as their last breath is running out, that they remember that love is more important than anything else; more important even than this search that has taken a million years. And then they finally see it. They are finally filled with that energy, that life that is greater than life. They finally enter the kin-dom. And it is love that saves them. In this hurt and broken world, where breath is running out and the kin-dom is just beyond our reach we all need to remember the command we were given so many years ago by the man who lived that command straight through death and beyond. Love one another.
What did you hear in today’s readings? Please share your wisdom with the group.
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.
LITURGY OF THE EUCHARIST
Denise: As we prepare for the sacred meal we bring to this table our blessings, cares and concerns. Please feel free to voice your concerns beginning with the words “I bring to the table….”
Prayers From Community
Denise: We pray for these and all unspoken concerns. Amen.
Denise: Let us join with open hands to pray our Eucharistic prayer together:
All: Source of Love and Light, we join in unity of Spirit, love and purpose with Your people everywhere, living and crossed over. With all of creation across billions of galaxies, we open our hearts and souls to become One.
In your loving embrace we are liberated from division, fear, conflict, pride and injustice. We are transformed into wholeness which we resolve to bring to all whose lives we touch. With gratitude, we meld ourselves Your Divine Presence which knows all, shelters all and transforms all into love, abundant and eternal.
In one voice, we praise Your loving, healing ways and the glory of all You have Created:
Holy, Holy, Holy by Karen Drucker
All: We thank you, Holy One, for Jesus, a man of courage whose exquisite balance of human and Divine points our way and who strives with us in our time of need. We yearn with passion to live as Jesus, one with you and your Spirit, in peace and justice.
May our desire to be one with You join us to all living things. We seek to heal the differences that isolate us so that we may live in healthful unity with all people, of every ethnicity, skin color, gender orientation or class. May we have the imaginative sympathy and love of Your Spirit to move with courage beyond the confines of bias, miscommunication, ignorance and hurt and into the healing place where Divine light and love abide.
Denise: Please extend your hands in blessing of bread and wine.
All: Together, we call on Your Spirit, present in these gifts - bread that satisfies our hunger and wine that quenches our thirst – to make us more deeply One, living in the fullness of holy compassion and Sophia wisdom.
Anticipating the likelihood of betrayal, arrest and pain, Jesus wanted more than anything to be with his friends, to share a meal, exchange stories and create fond memories. To strengthen the bonds of friendship that evening, Jesus washed the feet of his friends in an act of love and humility.
All lift the bread.
All: Back at the table, he took the bread, spoke the grace, broke the bread and offered it to them saying, Take and eat, this is my very self.
All lift their cups.
Then he took the cup of blessing, spoke the grace, and offered it to them saying:
Take and drink of the covenant
Made new again through my life in you.
Whenever you remember me like this,
I am among you. (pause)
As we celebrate and recognize you in this bread and wine, we recognize you in each other. Sharing the bread of life and wine transforms us and opens us to your Spirit. Knowing that Jesus spent his time with the lowly and hurting, the needy and shunned, we seek to remain open to how we can bring love, healing and unity to whomever is in need. We ask for the grace to see with the eyes of Jesus, touch with the hands of Jesus and heal with the heart of Jesus. Amen.
Please receive communion with the words, “I am an expression of your Love.”
All consume their bread and cup
Communion Meditation: Behold Now the Kingdom, John Michael Talbot https://youtu.be/TWd0OE5jaoA
Denise: Let us join with disciples of all ages to pray together:
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 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 (Miriam Therese Winter)
Closing Blessing: Denise
Please raise your hands in blessing:
In times of peace may we be Love. In times of conflict may we be Love. When friends surround us may we be Love. When our enemies berate us may we be Love. When we succeed may we be Love. When failure haunts us may we be Love. May the Love that is the Divine in the world take root in us and grow the Kin-dom. Amen.
Closing Song: This Joy, by The Resistance Revival Chorus https://youtu.be/1TbDPwA09Bc
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