phone-in for (audio only) Phone Number: (646) 558-8656
Meeting ID: 825 1215 9155
Welcome to the Saturday evening liturgy of The Upper Room. Tonight we will consider Jesus as teacher. We will also examine our own roles, both as learners and as teachers.
Opening Prayer:
Holy One, we pray as learners, and we pray as teachers. Help us to embrace the awe that comes with discovering and re-discovering that Love is the key to your Kin-dom. And help us to share that awe with others.
Opening Song: Love Can Build a Bridge
Written by John Jarvis, Naomi Judd and Paul Overstreet
LITURGY OF THE WORD
First Reading: From a letter written by Anne Sullivan to her friend Sophia Hopkins, April 5, 1887
I must write you a line this morning because something very important has happened. Helen has taken the second great step in her education. She has learned that everything has a name, and that the manual alphabet is the key to everything she wants to know.
This morning, while she was washing, she wanted to know the name for “water.” When she wants to know the name of anything, she points to it and pats my hand. I spelled “w-a-t-e-r” and thought no more about it until after breakfast. We went out to the pump-house, and I made Helen hold her mug under the spout while I pumped. As the cold water gushed forth, filling the mug, I spelled “w-a-t-e-r” in Helen’s free hand. The word coming so close upon the sensation of cold water rushing over her hand seemed to startle her. She dropped the mug and stood as one transfixed. A new light came into her face. She spelled “water” several times. Then she dropped on the ground and asked for its name and pointed to the pump and the trellis, and suddenly turning round she asked for my name. I spelled “Teacher.” Just then the nurse brought Helen’s little sister into the pump-house, and Helen spelled “baby” and pointed to the nurse. All the way back to the house she was highly excited, and learned the name of every object she touched, so that in a few hours she had added thirty new words to her vocabulary. Here are some of them: Door, open, shut, give, go, come, and a great many more.
P.S.–I didn’t finish my letter in time to get it posted last night; so I shall add a line. Helen got up this morning like a radiant fairy. She has flitted from object to object, asking the name of everything and kissing me for very gladness. Last night when I got in bed, she stole into my arms of her own accord and kissed me for the first time, and I thought my heart would burst, so full was it of joy.
I love to think about this moment of realization.
What an extraordinary example of how a teacher can transform a person’s entire life.
These words are from Anne Sullivan, teacher of Helen Keller. We affirm her words with Amen.
Alleluia: Jan Phillips https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IC4nbwmQDVw
Gospel: A reading from the Gospel writer known as Mark (6:30-34)
The Apostles gathered together with Jesus
and reported all they had done and taught.
He said to them,
"Come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while."
People were coming and going in great numbers,
and they had no opportunity even to eat.
So they went off in the boat by themselves to a deserted place.
People saw them leaving and many came to know about it.
They hastened there on foot from all the towns
and arrived at the place before them.
When Jesus disembarked and saw the vast crowd,
his heart was moved with pity for them,
for they were like sheep without a shepherd;
and he began to teach them many things.
These are the words of the Gospel writer known as Mark. We affirm these words by saying, Amen.
Homily Starter:
Jesus really tried. Like a good manager, he recognized that his team was exhausted and hungry. So, he arranged a little getaway for them to rest and revive. But what teacher could ignore a group of students so thirsting for what he had to give them that they would figure out where he was going and manage to arrive before him? Clearly there was nothing else to do but to continue to teach them about the Kin-dom. And so that’s what he did.
We don’t really learn in tonight’s Gospel about any feelings of satisfaction and reward that Jesus and his friends might have felt once the crowd finally dispersed, back to their jobs, their families, their lives. I imagine that they may have just collapsed into sleep. But maybe, at some point, with one, two, or maybe a small crowd of his followers, he may have seen that “new light” brighten their faces, like the light that Ann saw on Helen’s face when she finally associated the feeling of a manually spelled word, w-a-t-e-r, with that cold, wet stuff flowing over the top of her mug onto her hand.
I think we are all both teachers and learners, all our lives. We have the capacity to share the simple, profound truth of the Kin-dom: l-o-v-e, with every single person we come into contact with, simply by living that word. And we can learn. By watching others live that word, we can be stopped in our tracks, bowled over, amazed. Until we find ourselves to be like “radiant fairies,” flitting from creature to creature, person to person, object to object, because we finally recognize the Divinity that lies within every single thing.
Statement of Faith
All: 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.
Prayers of the Community
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….”
We pray for these and all unspoken concerns. Amen.
LITURGY OF THE EUCHARIST
We are a priestly people. We are anointed. With open hands let us pray our Eucharistic prayer as one voice:
O Nurturing, Mothering one, you are always with us. We are grateful for Your constant loving and unconditional presence. At times we forget that You are holding us, attending to us. We fall and you pick us up. You send strangers, friends and family to our aid. We are never without Your Light and Spirit.
We experience great joy and we experience great pain and suffering. You are with us in the joy and the pain and suffering. When we experience Your presence, we long to sing our hymn of praise:
Holy, Holy, Holy by Karen Drucker
Creator and Lover of all beings, we cannot grow in the darkness of this world without Your Light. Our desire to be in Your light is a gift from You. Help us keep our hearts and minds open to You through our love and care for each other and all creation.
Please extend your hands in blessing
This bread and wine are a sign of your nourishment and a sign of your great love. Your Spirit is upon us and we belong to you and one another.
We thank you for Jesus, simple servant, lifting up the lowly, revealing you as God-With-Us, revealing us as one with you, and all creation.
On the night before he died, Jesus gathered for the supper with the people closest to him. Like the least of household servants, he washed their feet. Once again he showed us how to love one another.
Back at the table, he took the Passover Bread, spoke the grace, broke the bread and offered it to them saying, Take and eat, this is my very self.
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.
Bread and wine are transformed by your Spirit and we are transformed when we open ourselves to your Spirit. Every time we share this bread and wine we choose to be transformed. We choose to love as you love us.
As we celebrate and recognize you in this bread and wine we love and recognize you in each other. We are filled with gratitude and joy. Glory and Praise to you both now and forever. Amen
Through Jesus, we have learned how to live.
Through Jesus, we have learned how to love.
Through Jesus, we have learned how to serve.
AMEN.
Please receive communion with the word “L-O-V-E”
Communion Meditation: May the Christ Light, Kathy Sherman https://youtu.be/tY0Rj9Yd2lk
Loving Source of our being, You call us to live the Gospel of peace and justice. We live justly, we love tenderly, we walk with integrity in Your Presence.
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.
Let us pray together the prayer of 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 that 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.
The Prayer of Jesus as interpreted by Miriam Therese Winter
BLESSING
Please extend your hands and pray our blessing together
May we learn. May we teach. May we recognize the Divine Presence in everyone and everything. May we Love.
All: Amen.
Closing Song: Blessings by Hollow Coves
https://youtu.be/5M3JL9sHS5Q
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