Earth: The Pale Blue Dot (Photo from the spacecraft Voyager)
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Welcome and Theme: Ellen and I welcome you to this, the second Sunday of Season of Creation. Today the Gospel speaks of what is precious to us. And what we have lost. And what we will do to restore that which is lost.
Ellen: Opening Prayer: From Black Elk's Earth Prayer
At the center of the sacred hoop
You have said that I should make the tree to bloom.
With tears running, O Great Spirit, my Grandfather,
With running eyes I must say
The tree has never bloomed
Here I stand, and the tree is withered.
Again, I recall the great vision you gave me.
It may be that some little root of the sacred tree still lives.
Nourish it then
That it may leaf
And bloom
And fill with singing birds!
Hear me, that the people may once again
Find the good road
And the shielding tree.
Opening Song: Root of the Root, Sara Thomsen
Liturgy of the Word
First Reading: “The Pale Blue Dot” recited by Carl Sagan https://youtu.be/wupToqz1e2g
These are the prophetic words of Carl Sagan and we affirm them by saying Amen.
Psalm: Psalm 104 (Adapted from Nan Merrill’s “Psalms for Praying”)
Response: Praise the Creator of the Universe! Bless the Heart of my heart, O my soul!
O You, who know all hearts, how manifold are your works!
In wisdom You have created them all;
the earth is filled with your creatures.
O, that we might receive your gifts,
taking only what is needed with grateful hearts.
Response: Praise the Creator of the Universe! Bless the Heart of my heart, O my soul!
All of creation looks to You,
to give them food in due season.
When we are in harmony with You,
the earth provides;
yes, a bountiful harvest to be shared with all.
Response: Praise the Creator of the Universe! Bless the Heart of my heart, O my soul!
When we misuse what You have created for us,
we blame You for the famine and
destruction that ensues,
and feel alienated from You.
Even so, You continue to send forth your Spirit, and
the earth, though not without turmoil, is renewed.
Response: Praise the Creator of the Universe! Bless the Heart of my heart, O my soul!
The glory of the Radiant One endures forever, for
the works of Love are sure.
We will sing praise to You while we have breath.
May our songs be pleasing to You,
for we rejoice and are glad in You.
May all who feel separated from You
open their hearts to new Life!
Response: Praise the Creator of the Universe! Bless the Heart of my heart, O my soul!
Alleluia: Ellen
Gospel: Luke 15: 1-10
By this time a lot of men and women of questionable reputation were hanging around Jesus, listening intently. The Pharisees and religion scholars were not pleased, not at all pleased. They growled, “He takes in sinners and eats meals with them, treating them like old friends.” Their grumbling triggered this story.
“Suppose one of you had a hundred sheep and lost one. Wouldn’t you leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the lost one until you found it? When found, you can be sure you would put it across your shoulders, rejoicing, and when you got home call in your friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Celebrate with me! I’ve found my lost sheep!’ Count on it—there’s more joy in heaven over one sinner’s rescued life than over ninety-nine good people in no need of rescue.
“Or imagine a woman who has ten coins and loses one. Won’t she light a lamp and scour the house, looking in every nook and cranny until she finds it? And when she finds it you can be sure she’ll call her friends and neighbors: ‘Celebrate with me! I found my lost coin!’ Count on it—that’s the kind of party God’s angels throw every time one lost soul turns to God.”
These words that retell stories attributed to Jesus were written by the gospel writer we know as Luke. The community affirms them by saying, Amen.
Homily Starter:
Sheep losing their way, wandering into the wilderness. Coins rolling across the floor to become caught in some remote and invisible crack. Jesus, the master of metaphor, uses these as symbols forlost souls. Lost and alienated people; peoplewithout connection, tetherless, floating in the void. What celebration then, to have found even one of these! To reconnect! To celebrate their rediscovery of the bond, the umbilical cord, the path that leads to water and life, at last!
In the dimension of time we are two-thousand years removed from the teacher from Galilee. But in the realm of spirit, of life, we are as near to him as his contemporaries. And are we any different? Do we become lost? At loose ends? Disconnected? It is clear to me that we do. That we are. And on this Creation Sunday I would suggest that one of the touchstones from which we have become lost is our mother, the Earth. The planet from which we sprang, the place that holds us in our place, the place that is our place, the place which cradles us is under siege. She is suffering.
Our mother is over four billion years old. We humans have been living on her lands and waters, breathing her atmosphere, for about 200,000 years. A tiny fraction of her long life. During that time, a time referred to by some as the Anthropocene, we have, through our actions, fundamentally changed all of her systems; chemical, physical, and biological. Our influence has diminished her air quality. We have razed her forests, blown the tops off her mountains in search of fuel buried deep inside them, and fouled her oceans with our refuse.
Yet in all this, our mother is not the lost one. She will heal, with or without us, given time. We are the ones who are lost. We have severed a connection so deep; a connection with one who calls from deep time to us. Who calls our name. Who searches every crevice, who looks behind every tree trunk, who pines for our return.
In her essay called “Unraveling,” Terry Tempest Williams explains that “We are unraveling in inexplicable ways given how tightly and mysteriously the world is woven together. Pull one strand and all the strands are disrupted, threatening the integrity of the overall pattern.”
And yet we are called by our mother to return. And she reaches out her arms so that we might find her. If we look, if we take time to notice, we will see her. In the changing of the seasons we will see her. In the falling rain we will see her. In the rounded stones at the bottom of a stream there she is. And as we see her we can’t help but love her. And to love her is to reconnect with her, the one who is, as Carl Sagan reminds us in The Pale Blue Dot, “the only home we’ve ever known.” This reconnecting may save her. It will certainly save us.
Please share your thoughts on today’s readings.
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.
Ellen: As we prepare for the sacred meal, we bring to the table our prayer of intentions:
Ellen: We pray for these and all unspoken intentions. Amen.
Liturgy of the Eucharist
Denise: With open hearts and hands let us pray our Eucharistic prayer in one voice:
O Holy One, you are always with us. In the blessed abundance of creation, we gather to celebrate Yournourishing gift of life. May our hearts be open as You invite us to participate in the wise and wonderful work of co-creation. May we be ever aware of Your Spirit within and among us as our world unfolds amid pain and beauty into the fullness of life.
We are grateful for Your Spirit whose breath inspired the primal waters, calling into being the variety and abundance we see around us on this Earth, our home and Mother. Your Spirit sustains and animates our every endeavor, inviting us to act in wisdom and in truth.
In gratitude and joy we embrace our calling and we lift our voices to proclaim a song of praise:
Holy, Holy, Holy by Karen Drucker https://youtu.be/kl7vmiZ1YuI
(Presiders come to the table)
Ellen: As a community, we gather in the power of your Spirit, refreshing wind, purifying fire and flowing water, for the variety and diversity of Creation. We seek to live as Jesus taught us, wise and holy as Spirit-filled people, courageous and prophetic, ever obedient to your call.
Please extend your hands in blessing.
We are ever grateful for Your Spirit which animatesthe gifts of this Eucharistic table, bread of the grain and wine of the grape, that they may become gifts of wisdom, light and truth which remind us of our call to be the body of Christ to the world.
On the night before he faced his own death, Jesus sat at the Seder supper with his companions and friends. He reminded them of all that he taught them, and to fix that memory clearly with them, he bent down and washed their feet. When he returned to his place, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and offered it to them saying:
Denise lifts plate while Ellen reads:
Take this bread and eat it;
This is my very self.
Denise lifts cup while Ellen reads:
Jesus then raised a cup of blessing, spoke the grace and offered the wine 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.
(drink and pause)
Denise: Please receive communion with the words, “I am at one with the Divine.”
Communion Meditation: Find Our Way to Love (Earth Version), The Many https://youtu.be/g4R2-kA000s
Denise: In union with all of creation, we unite our thoughts and prayers, asking wisdom to discern more wisely your call to us in the circumstances of our daily lives.
We seek to act justly and courageously in confronting the suffering that desecrates the Earth and its peoples; to take risks in being proactive on behalf of the marginalized who suffer the environmental injustices of fouled air, tainted water, and a poverty of parks and public spaces that bring people together to enjoy nature. We pray for inspiration to act with the harmony and unity and synthesis that is modeled for us by the trees of the forest, and the stars of the evening.
Denise: Let us pray as Jesus taught us with an eye toward this Season of Creation:
Generous Creator, the intricate and elegant biodiversity of our world is your hallowed autograph on our lives, on our souls and in our hearts.
We yearn for the wholeness of being in harmony with Your will and with all living things.
Each day we draw on your creative, life-giving energy with gratitude and awe as we find nourishment in, seed and field, river and forest.
May we be stewards and co-creators with you in caring for the gifts of Your Creation.
We acknowledge our shortcomings, especially our neglect of the environment. We seek to be reconciled with those we have hurt and we resolve to do better.
With your unfailing wisdom and the wind of Your Spirit, inspire us that we may reach out and love one another and care for the world, our home.
Strengthen us to work for local and global justice so that we may one day reap a harvest of equality and fairness as if they were wildflowers, propagating spontaneously, unerringly and in surprising abundance. Amen.
Blessing
Ellen: Please raise your hands as we bless one another.
May all the beauty and mystery of creation stir our souls and embolden us to make changes in the way we view our relationship to the earth. Let us go forth then, to nourish the root of the sacred everywhere we see it.
Ellen: Before we begin our closing song, just a reminder that you can find the words to the song written out at the end of today’s liturgy.
Closing Song: Love Song to the Earth https://youtu.be/pLCSTn6_uU0
This is an open letter
From you and me together
Tomorrow's in our hands now
Find the words that matter
Say them out loud
And make it better somehow
Looking down from up on the moon
It's a tiny blue marble
Who'd have thought the ground we stand on
Could be so fragile
This is a love song to the earth
You're no ordinary world
A diamond in the universe
Heaven's poetry to us
Keep it safe
Keep it safe
Keep it safe
'Cause it's our world
It's our world
It's not about possessions,
Money or religion
How many years we might live
When the only real question
That matters is still a matter of perspective
Looking down from up on the moon
You're a tiny blue marble
Who'd have thought the ground we stand on
Could be so fragile
This is a love song to the earth
You're no ordinary world
A diamond in the universe
Heaven's poetry to us
Keep it safe (Keep it safe, yeah 2x)
Keep it safe (Keep it safe, yeah)
(Keep Keep Keep it safe, yeah)
Keep it safe
Keep mama earth safe
'Cause it's our world
It's our world
Badabang bang bang bang bang
See mama earth is in a crazy mess
I's time for us to do our best
From deep sea straight up to everest
She under crazy stress
Unless you wanna be motherless
Clean heart
Green heart
Is the way I stress
Speediness and too much greediness
Six billion people all want plentiness (It's our world)
Some people think this is harmless (It's our world)
But if we continue
There'll only be emptiness
Oh no nonono
This is a love song to the earth
You're no ordinary world
A diamond in the universe
Heaven's poetry to us (Heaven's poetry to us)
Keep it safe (Keep it safe)
Keep it safe (Keep it safe)
Keep it safe
(Special paradise)
Let's keep it safe
This is a love song to the earth
You're no ordinary world
A diamond in the universe
Heaven's poetry to us
Keep it safe
Keep it safe
Keep it safe
It's our world
Keep it safe
It's our world
It's our world
It's our world
'Cause it's our world
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