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Welcome to our Saturday evening liturgy. Tonight we consider the oneness, love, and intimacy we all share in the Holy One, who is both within and around all that is.
Opening Prayer:
Holy One, you are the one we see every time we open our eyes. In beauty and brokenness, in joy and in pain, you are there. There is nothing that is outside of you. For this we rejoice, and give thanks. Amen.
Opening Song: God Beyond All Names, Bernadette Farrell
https://youtu.be/8K6i08rFlh4
LITURGY OF THE WORD
First Reading: From Joan Chittister’s essay, “Where is God?”
The Sufi tell stories that say all I think I'll ever know about finding God.
The first story is a disarming and compelling one. It is also, I think, a troublesome one, a fascinating one, a chastening one: “Help us to find God,” the seeker begged the Elder. “No one can help you there,” the Elder answered. “But why not?” the seeker insisted. “For the same reason that no one can help a fish to find the ocean.” The answer is clear: There is no one who can help us find what we already have.
These are the words of Joan Chittister, disciple of Jesus. We celebrate her words by saying, Amen.
Alleluia: Jan Phillips https://youtu.be/IC4nbwmQDVw
Gospel: Luke 20:27-40 (Message Bible, adapted)
Some Sadducees came up. This is the Jewish party that denies any possibility of resurrection. They asked, “Teacher, Moses wrote us that if a man dies and leaves a wife but no child, his brother is obligated to marry her and give her children. Well, there once were seven brothers. The first took a wife. He died childless. The second married her and died, then the third, and eventually all seven had their turn, but no child. After all that, the wife died. That wife, now—in the resurrection whose wife is she? All seven married her.”
Jesus said, “Marriage is a major preoccupation here, but not there. Those who are included in the resurrection of the dead will no longer be concerned with marriage nor, of course, with death. They will have better things to think about, if you can believe it. All ecstasies and intimacies then will be with the Holy One. Even Moses exclaimed about resurrection at the burning bush, saying, ‘God: God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob!’ God isn’t the God of dead people, but of the living. To God all are alive.”
Some of the religion scholars said, “Teacher, that’s a great answer!” For a while, anyway, no one dared put questions to him.
These words come to us from the writer known as Luke. We celebrate these words by saying Amen.
Shared Homily
Tonight’s gospel reading seems intended to convince its readers of the reality of an afterlife. I’m not here to argue against that reality. But there is something else in Luke’s recounting of this inquisition of Jesus by the Saducees that I would like to address, and that is summed up in the line, “all ecstasies and intimacies then will be with the Holy One.” To help explain why I am drawn to this particular line please allow me to tell a story.
My mother had three sisters, and they were all very close. My mother was particularly close to her youngest sister, Geri. Unfortunately my Aunt Geri passed away fairly young, and my mother was devastated by her loss. But it was a little complicated, because my mom also held a bit of a grudge against my aunt. The grudge involved a painting my mom had loaned to my aunt (my mother was an artist), and which my aunt either lost or sold. My mother’s feelings were hurt by this, and she always felt a little bitter about it. Not long after my mother passed away I thought about the two of them, two sisters who loved on another deeply but who had lived with this unspoken wedge in their relationship for many years. I wondered whether somehow, in whatever afterlife they found themselves, if the two of them had somehow worked this sticking point out. And lo and behold, I clearly heard my mother’s voice say to me “those things don’t matter here.”
I understood at that moment how intimacy and love work when everyone you see, everyone you meet, everyone you have ever loved or known, and even those you have never met, and never will meet in this life, are faces of the Holy One to you. Jesus doesn’t deny that marriages and relationships are important. He simply points to a reality that goes beyond them. The reality within each person, the soul of each person, shines with a spark of the Divine. And that spark is what we all have in common. It is the “ocean” in which we swim, to quote Joan Chittister’s story. What a freeing thought, that we can look into any human face and glimpse this amazing truth! Indeed, our God is the God of the living, and present in each and every one of us!
Please share your thoughts on tonight’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.
Denise: As we prepare for the sacred meal, we voice our intentions beginning with the words, “We bring to the table…..”
Denise: We pray for these and all unspoken intentions. Amen.
Denise: Please join in praying the Eucharistic prayer together:
All: O Holy One, you have birthed us in goodness, gifted us with life and cherished us in love. In the heart of our being, your Spirit dwells; a Spirit of courage and vision, a Spirit of wisdom and truth.
In the power of that same Spirit, we lift our hearts in prayer, invoking anew the gift of wisdom and enlightenment, that we may continue to praise and thank you, in union with all who sing the ancient hymn of praise:
Holy Holy Holy– Karen Drucker
ALL: Holy One, we see around us the work of your hands, the fruit of your wisdom and love. The unfolding story of creation witnesses unceasingly to your creative power. We recognize that when we deviate from that wisdom we hinder the creative presence of your love and wisdom in our midst.
But your Divine Presence never leaves us. As our brother Jesus reminds us, again and again you call us back, your creative goodness blooming anew.
Denise: Please extend your hands in blessing.
All: Holy One, your Spirit dwells within and around the gifts of this Eucharistic table, bread of the grain and wine of the grape. They are 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 and for the sake of living fully, 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 within them, he bent down and washed their feet.
All lift their plate and pray the following:
When he returned to his place at the table, he lifted the Passover bread, spoke the blessing, broke the bread and offered it to them saying:
Take and eat; this is my very self.
All lift their cup and pray the following:
He then raised high the cup of the covenant, spoke the grace, and offered it to them saying:
Take and drink.
Whenever you remember me like this, I am among you.
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.
(consume bread and wine)
Communion Meditation:
I Am the One – Janis Ian, video by Denise Hackert-Stoner
In faith and hope we are sustained; in grace and dignity reclaimed. In praise, we thank you.
In union with all who live now and with those who have gone before, we unite our thoughts and prayers, asking wisdom and courage:
- to discern more wisely your call to us in the circumstances of our daily lives;
- to act justly and courageously in confronting the pain and suffering that desecrates the Earth and its peoples;
- to take risks in being creative and proactive on behalf of the poor and marginalized;
- and to love all people with generosity of heart, beyond the labels of race, creed and color.
And may we ever be aware and alert to the new things Your Spirit makes possible in us, as our world unfolds amid pain and beauty, into the fullness of life to which all are called, participating in the wise and wonderful work of co-creation.
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.
Denise: Let us pray the prayer 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 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)
Denise: Let us pray together our blessing:
Holy One, ever-more aware of the intimate connections that bind us as your people, let us look upon one another with recognition, with love, and with the joyful knowledge that we are one in you. Amen.
Closing Song:
Joy in our Hearts by Karen Drucker https://youtu.be/QRBSdrI1MBI
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