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
SEASON OF CREATION
Welcome and Theme (Mary Ann)
Welcome to the Upper Room. Today we continue our celebration of the Season of Creation. Today we celebrate living water. “Let us bless the grace of water-the imagination of the primeval ocean where the first forms of life stirred. Water: vehicle and idiom of all the inner voyaging that keeps us alive. Blessed be water our first mother.”
(blessing by John O’Donohue)
Opening Prayer: (Kim)
“We praise you Sister Water, who fills the seas and rushes down the rivers-who wells up from the earth and falls down from heaven-who gives herself that all living things may grow and be nourished.” (From Brother Sun, Sister Moon: St. Francis of Assisi’s Canticle of the Creatures by Katherine Paterson)
Opening Song: Sing the Water Song
LITURGY OF THE WORD
First Reading (Mary T.)
A reading from the book, The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching
Let us look at a wave on the surface of the ocean. A wave is a wave. It has a beginning and an end. It might be high or low, more or less beautiful than other waves. But a wave is, at the same time, water. Water is the ground of being of the wave. It is important that a wave knows that she is water, and not just a wave. We, too, live our life as an individual. We believe that we have a beginning and an end, that we are separate from other living beings. That is why the Buddha advised us to look more deeply in order to touch the ground of our being, which is nirvana. Everything bears deeply the nature of nirvana. Everything has been “nirvanized.” That is the teaching of the Lotus Sutra. We look deeply, and we touch the suchness of reality. Looking deeply into a pebble, flower, or our own joy, peace, sorrow, or fear, we touch the ultimate dimension of our being, and that dimension will reveal to us that the ground of our being has the nature of no-birth and no-death.
We don’t have to attain nirvana, because we ourselves are always dwelling in nirvana. The wave does not have to look for water. It already is water. We are one with the ground of our being. Once the wave realizes that she is water, all her fear vanishes. Once we touch the ground of our being, once we touch God or nirvana, we also receive the gift of non-fear. Non-fear is the basis of true happiness. The greatest gift we can offer others is our non-fear. Living deeply every moment of our life, touching the deepest level of our being, this is the practice of prajña paramita. Prajña paramita is crossing over by understanding, by insight.
These are the inspired words of Thich Nhat Hanh and we affirm them by saying: Amen
Wisdom Words about Water
(Reader 1)
Water is the mirror that has the ability to show us what we cannot see. It is a blueprint for our reality, which can change with a single positive thought. All it takes is faith, if you're open to it.
~Dr. Masaru Emoto
Pause for Chime
(Reader 2)
Among our Potawatomi people, women are the Keepers of Water. We carry the sacred water to ceremonies and act on its behalf. “Women have a natural bond with water, because we are both life bearers,” my sister said. “We carry our babies in internal ponds and they come forth into the world on a wave of water. It is our responsibility to safeguard the water for all our relations.”
~Robin Wall Kimmerer
Pause for Chime
(Reader 1)
But water will wear away rock, which is rigid and cannot yield. As a rule, whatever is fluid, soft, and yielding will overcome whatever is rigid and hard. This is another paradox: what is soft is strong.
~Lao Tzu
Pause for Chime
(Reader 2)
He said to me: “it is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life.
~Revelation 21:6
Pause for Chime
Gospel Acclamation: Dennis
Gospel (Dennis) A reading from the Gospel attributed to John (4:4-14)
Jesus had to pass through Samaria. He came to a Samaritan town called Sychar, near the plot of land that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, so Jesus, since he was tired from the journey, sat right down beside the well. It was about noon.
A Samaritan woman came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me some water to drink.” (For his disciples had gone off into the town to buy supplies,) So the Samaritan woman said to him, “How can you—a Jew—ask me, a Samaritan woman, for water to drink?” (For Jews use nothing in common with Samaritans.)
Jesus answered her, “If you had known the gift of God and who it is who said to you, ‘Give me some water to drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” “Sir,” the woman said to him, “you have no bucket and the well is deep; where then do you get this living water? Surely. you’re not greater than our ancestor Jacob, are you? For he gave us this well and drank from it himself, along with his sons and his livestock.”
Jesus replied, “Everyone who drinks some of this water will be thirsty again. But whoever drinks some of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty again, but the water that I will give them will become in them a fountain of water springing up to eternal life.”
These are the inspired words from the gospel writer called John and we affirm them by saying: Amen
Shared Homily (Mary Ann)
The woman at the well was in a dry place in life. We all have them. Those times when we feel disconnected from other people, from communities, from the Divine. The Samaritan woman was in a dry place. She came to get water in the middle of the day after all the other women had gone for a reason…Jesus saw her. A woman who had had five husbands and was currently living with a man she was not married to. Do you think she wanted this life? No! Like so many women throughout time she was caught in circumstances and making the best out of a dry patch in life, and so when Jesus talked about Living Water she was interested.
Water is life giving in and of itself.
Living Water implies something more than meets the eye.
Living Water is a concept as ancient as life itself.
The water we experience today is the same water that was present on the Earth during the lives of our mothers, our grandmothers all the way back to the origin of the universe itself. Earth recycles water, filtering it, cleansing it, purifying it. Water in turn works for us by clearing energy, cleansing us, nourishing us. We are at a place where science has been able to affirm the assertion that water is alive. Water carries consciousness. Water responds to thoughts, words, emotions. Water comprises 70 percent of the human body and 70 percent of the planet Earth’s surface. Masaro Emoto of Japan has done extensive work studying water and water consciousness. His work shows that water responds to music, the environment, words, thoughts and emotions.
What if the life in the water is the essence of the Divine within every living cell? Thich Nhat Hahn talks about nirvana. He says we do not need to look for or try to attain nirvana because we are always dwelling in nirvana. We are one with the essence of the Divine and in the moment that we realize this, all our fears vanish. I imagine the Samaritan woman gazing into Jesus’s eyes in that moment when she realized she was looking at the Christ. In that moment she stepped into the wave of Living Water he offered her, and her circumstances no longer mattered…her fears fell away. She went and shared the news with the people in her town and they in turn came to believe in Jesus. Water ripples forth. It begins as one drop, then becomes a wave and then an ocean. Imagine that we, here at the Upper Room, are a wave within an ocean of goodness spreading through the world. We are waves of impact. We carry Living Water to a thirsty world. May it be.
Statement of Faith (Connie F.)
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
Kim: As we prepare for the sacred meal, we bring to the table our prayer of intentions:
Kim: We pray for these and all unspoken intentions. Amen.
Mary Ann: 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 Your nourishing 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. 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: Here in this Place by Christopher Grundy
Kim: 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 invoke Your Spirit upon the 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:
All lift their plate as the community prays the following:
Take this bread and eat it;
This is my very self.
(consume bread and pause)
All lift their cup as community prays the following:
Mary Ann: 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)
Communion song: The River by Josh Groban
In union with all peoples living and dead, 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.
Holy One, your transforming energy is always moving within us and working through us. Like Jesus, we will open up wide all that has been closed about us, and we will live compassionate lives,
for it is through living as Jesus lived, that we awaken to your Spirit within,
Moving us to glorify You, O Holy One,
At this time and all ways.
Amen.
Kim: Let us pray as Jesus taught us with an eye toward this Season of Creation:
(Diane G.)
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 on this Creation Sunday. 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.
Mary Ann: We are called to live the Gospel of Creation in harmony and gratitude with all our sisters and brothers across the Earth. We will live justly, love tenderly and walk with integrity in Your Presence.
Final Blessing
Mary Ann: Let us pray together our closing blessing:
Creator most generous and kind, your gift of Earth and sky reveals your omnipotence and glory. May we go forward boldly to live in the glory.
May we treat all of Creation as sacred and discern the best path to an equitable distribution of the resources we share with our sisters and brothers across the globe. Let us live as if the future depends on it. Amen.
Closing Song: Let Go of the Shore by Karen Drucker
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