Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81507551772
Meeting ID: 815 0755 1772
To connect by phone dial: +1 646 558 8656
Opening Meditation Song: Christina Aguilera - Beautiful
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kEwGXLdbZ8
Opening Prayer: Divine Beloved, we open up our hearts and minds to you this evening seeking your presence as we pray together as one inclusive community. Guide us and give us the grace to hear our inner voice of connection to your wisdom and see the beauty of our being that you created in us. May that connection emanate from us to others and the whole world of creation to fill our lives with positive energy to change the hearts and minds of all your children to live together peacefully and productively.
Reading: Richard Rohr
Through Jesus Christ, God’s own broad, deep, and all-inclusive worldview is made available to us. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that the point of the Christian life is to stand in radical solidarity with everyone and everything else. This is the full, final, and intended effect of the Incarnation—symbolized by the cross, which is God’s great act of solidarity instead of judgment. This is how we are to imitate Jesus, the good Jewish man who saw and called forth the divine in Gentiles like the Syrophoenician woman and the Roman centurions who followed him; in Jewish tax collectors who collaborated with the Empire; in zealots who opposed it; in sinners of all stripes; in eunuchs, pagan astrologers, and all those “outside the law.” Jesus had no trouble whatsoever with otherness.
If we are ready to reclaim the true meaning of “catholic,” which is “universal,” we must concentrate on including—as Jesus clearly did—instead of excluding—which he never did. The only thing Jesus excluded was exclusion itself. [1]
Transgender priest Shannon Kearns provides an example of God’s inclusive solidarity with eunuchs, sexual minorities in the time of the prophet Isaiah:
In Isaiah 56:3b–5 … the prophet says, “And don’t let the eunuch say, ‘I’m just a dry tree.’ The Lord says: To the eunuchs who keep my sabbaths, choose what I desire, and remain loyal to my covenant. In my temple and courts, I will give them a monument and a name better than sons and daughters. I will give to them an enduring name that won’t be removed.”
It’s a word of comfort and hope. A word of healing.... Eunuchs are told they will be given an enduring legacy. This piece about being given an “enduring name” rings loudly for many transgender and nonbinary people, especially the ones who have claimed new names…. This also rings loudly for the many people who have felt excluded and cut off from entry into religious spaces because of their gender diversity.…
The message of the eunuchs is that the boxes don’t work. They aren’t fit to live in. They will likely kill us if we stay there. The freedom to move between spaces and worlds, the freedom to claim all of who we are, the freedom to be is what we are called to. The message of the eunuchs also calls us to look around and ask: Who is being excluded? Who is not welcome? Who is there no space for? That list of people and those names that come to your mind? The message in Isaiah 56 and from the story of the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8 says, “There is space for them in the kingdom of God, too.”… They don’t need to change to be worthy; they are made worthy by wanting to be included.
Anyone who desires the water is welcome.
Affirmations and Intentions:
May we look for your goodness in others when it hides beneath layers of coldness.
May we behold your radiance in the ones we neglect or spurn at home or work.
May we discover your love in our deepest self when we feel unloving and irritable.
May we embrace you in the persons whose faithfulness we take for granted.
May we see your empathy in those serving the wounded of the world.
May we unite with your peace hidden beneath the layers of humanity’s disharmony.
Silence to add your own intentions.
Closing Prayer: As we conclude your brief time together in this moment of oneness, may we go forward with your love for us, Holy One, and feel re-energized and confident in your ever presence and solidarity with us in our suffering and pain and joy in our lives. Amen
Closing Video: UNITY embraces the POWER of inclusivity
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