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
Welcome
Presider 1: (Elaine): Tomorrow, September 1, the Season of Creation 2025, begins with a World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation. We are beginning a day early.
We Beloved community, welcome to this sacred gathering during the Season of Creation—a time to remember who we are and to whom we belong. Whether you arrive with joy or with burden, with clarity or with questions, know this: there is space for you here. In the heart of the Creator, in the body of Christ, in the breath of the Spirit—you are home.
Together, we lift our hearts to the One who breathed life into all things: to the Creator of stars and soil, of rivers and redwoods, of hummingbirds and humanity. Let us come as we are—honoring the beauty of creation, lamenting its wounds, and seeking healing, renewal, and right relationship with all beings.
Opening Prayer
Presider 2: (Mary Theresa): Creator of all, You are the breath that stirred the deep, the flame that kindles stars, the voice that sings through forest and field. We gather today in awe of Your wild and wondrous world—
giving thanks for earth beneath, sky above,and all the beloved beings who share this home with us.
In this Season of Creation, open our eyes to the beauty we too often overlook.
Open our hearts to the groaning of the Earth and the cries of all who are harmed by our neglect.
Open our hands, that we might be healers, justice-seekers, and faithful stewards
of the sacred gifts You have entrusted to our care.
Meet us in this space, Holy One. Bless this gathering with Your presence. Renew us in love, restore us in hope, and reawaken us to the deep truth:we belong to one another, and we belong to You.
Amen.
Opening Song: Brother Sun (Giving Glory)-Liz Vice from The Porter’s Gate, Climate Vigil Songs
https://youtu.be/vbLI_8kTyPY?si=VqYPIW4V0JrNF2cB
LITURGY OF THE WORD
First Reading: A reading from the Book of Job
Job 38; 1-18
Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm, (saying) Who is it who obscures my plans with words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a (human). I will question you, and you shall answer me where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand.
Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone? While the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy? Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb? When I made the clouds its garments and wrapped it in thick darkness, When I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place, When I said, This far you shall come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt?
Have you ever given orders to the morning, or shown dawn its place?...
The earth takes shape like clay under a seal; its features stand out like those of a garment. Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep? Have the gates of death been shown to you?
Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth? Tell me if you know all this!
These are inspired words from our sacred scripture and we affirm them with, Amen.
Second Reading: A reading from the letter of Paul to the Ephesians
Eph 1: 3-10
(Praise be to God in Christ ) who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing …. For we are chosen with the Holy One before the creation of the world, to be holy and blameless in the sight of God. In love we are predestined for kinship through Jesus Christ in accordance with divine pleasure and will ~ to the praise of glorious grace, freely given us as loved ones. … lavished on us, with all wisdom and understanding made known to us, the mystery of divine will according to God’s pleasure …. to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth.
These are the inspired words of Paul and we affirm them with, Amen.
Gospel Acclamation: Alleluia Celtic Alleluia by Christopher Walker
Gospel: Luke 5: 1-11
One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, the people were crowding around him and listening to the word of God. He saw at the water’s edge two boats, left there by the fishermen, who were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore. Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat. When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down the nets for a catch.” Simon answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.” When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their boats began to break. So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink. Jesus said to Simon, “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will fish for people.” So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him.
These are the inspired words of the Gospel writer known as Luke and we affirm them with, Amen.
Homily ~ Elaine
Today’s Gospel speaks to us of abundance and how we participate in the generosity of the Earth, or more specifically in this case – the generosity of the sea, from where we also share an evolutionary beginning. I see Jesus trusting the law of attraction when he instructs the disciples – and us – to cast our nets again into what seems a lifeless body of water. And I see us – peace & justice workers – rolling up our sleeves to pool its resources for the benefit of all by signaling our partners, other activists in other boats to better share the catch. Gathering people so that we might all participate in abundance. The work of Love.
Whenever I behold the Earth’s abundance, I also think of heaven, the after-life, the state of being to which I’m closer now at my age of 76 than ever before. Nirvana, I hope. Bliss. Getting high with my loved ones gone before me in all the beauty and mystery of Creation.
According to a Newsweek poll taken in 2002, 71% of those who believe e in heaven think of it as an “actual place.” (Lisa Miller, Heaven) Some think heaven “looks like a garden and maybe also a city,” as the letter to the Hebrews says. That reading is also prescribed in today’s lectionary. I love that! Well, maybe heaven is like a garden; maybe like a city. For me, a metropolitan woman gone country, heaven would be both .. and so much more! “Or what’s a heaven for?” exclaims the poet Robert Browning.
Heaven, most of us would agree, is eternal and infinite, the home of God and our beloved gone before us. Maybe heaven is a parallel universe, some of us think ~ a universe that intersects with our world here and now. Maybe it’s a mirrored state of being, a unified consciousness in which we participate, even as we breathe with our human lungs and think with our amazing brains on Planet Earth. Science can corroborate these philosophical clues and theological visions of heaven both beyond us and also here on Earth. For we are learning that Earth is also the home of God. As we often pray in our liturgies, the kingdom of God is “stretched out all around us” for all “with eyes to see it” and “hands to make it happen.”
Our eyes are wide opened – yes, we’re the woke crowd (!) How often in the bible are we enjoined to wake up and pay attention! And our hands are busy on this first Sunday of the Season of Creation as we work for a full and equitable world “in unity with everything” as stated in Ephesians. For God’s good pleasure and our pleasure too. Twice in this very brief passage we hear of God’s pleasure in Creation. We may have missed that as we grew up with preaching that failed to let it be known: God takes pleasure in our being! It’s as though the Universe strongly desires us into evolutionary life. And we, for our part, are built with the potential to respond entirely to the Source Who Wills Us to Be. Amazing!
The best of Religion begins with our instinct for amazement. For wonder and delight. For playfulness at the root of Religion from antiquity, according to some sociologists. (Robert Bella) And for some philosophers too. Even Plato, who can still plague us with dualisms between body and spirit, called us “the plaything of God.” I like to think of playing with God, for we are seeing our mutually interactive influences in the creative energies. Our knowing, as humans, evokes aspects of the world! And the world responds to each of us. Remember the butterfly effect (scientific chaos theory): The smallest thing – like the flap of a butterfly’s wings can set off a reaction on the other side of the world.
Most astounding … our continuous participation with the creating world. We are co-creators with God.
In that experience of co-creation, the biblical readings from antiquity beg for an exercise in imagination today. Einstein believed that imagination is as important as intelligence. So let’s go together today on an imaginative and playful journey with the vivid and poetic images in Scriptures here. Are you with me?
Imagine … in your mind’s eye … laying the foundations of the earth with God. Imagine shaping the earth, marking off its dimensions. What would that look like for you? How would it feel?
Go ahead now, place a measuring line across the Planet. Set its footings and cornerstone. And then, with however you imagine the Creator God to be – imagine us all standing together to gaze at the Earth’s vast expanses.
Imagine us singing with the morning stars! We are made of star stuff (Carl Sagan, 1973) . Every atom of oxygen in our lungs, of carbon in our muscles, of calcium in our bones, of iron in our blood, phosphorous, sulfur was created inside a star before Earth was born. We share a 97% likeness with the stars!
Can you see us putting the sea behind doors, bursting from the womb? Fixing its limits, telling the proud waves where to halt at the shore?
Let’s imagine us together, journeying to the springs of the ocean and walking in the recesses of the deep. We’ll show dawn its place. … Make garments for the clouds. Wrap the Earth in thick darkness at night . Ahh
And when we come to the holy night we call death, let’s know it as the gate to heaven, that mystery we have yet to explore forever.
We’ll pause now to listen to what we heard.
What is your experience of co-creation now?
Pause for quiet
Homily Sharing
Statement of Faith
Presider 2: Let us pray our Statement of Faith together
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
Presider 1: As we prepare for the sacred meal, we bring to the table our prayers and intentions.
Presider 1: We pray for these and all unspoken intentions. Amen.
Presider 1: With open hearts and hands let us pray our Eucharistic prayer in one voice:
Blessed are You, Source of all life, whose breath moved over the waters, whose Word spoke galaxies into being, whose Spirit dances in every leaf and creature.
From stardust You formed us, from soil and sky You nurtured us,
and You called it all good.
In this sacred Season of Creation, we give You thanks for the wonder of the world—
And so, with Earth and all her peoples,
with sea and sky, sun and moon,
with angels and ancestors,
we join the unending hymn of praise:
Holy, Holy: Here in This Place by Christopher Grundy
https://youtu.be/uXyu57tR2gk?si=DW76N-rNE9cCQXsh
Presider 2: 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.
Presider 2: Please extend your hands in blessing.
All: Your Spirit resides within and around us and within all of creation, and in the bread and wine on this table. You have gifted us with wisdom, light and truth, which remind us of our call to be the body of Christ in the world.
On the night before he faced his own death, Jesus sat at 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:
Take and eat;
This is my very self.
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.
All: This is the bread of life and the cup of blessing. Through it we are nourished and we nourish each other. What we have heard with our ears, we will live with our lives; as we share communion, we become communion, both Love’s nourishment and Love’s challenge.
Presider 2: Please receive communion with the words: I am / You are one with Creation.
Communion song: Karl Jenkins – Benedictus – Part 1 (stop at 3:38)
https://youtu.be/ibwxzxER_pY?si=hnTkkRqg-QTewp7k
Presider 1: Please join in praying our prayer after communion.
All: Holy One, your transforming energy is always moving within us and working through us. May the power of Your Divine Love rain down upon us and bring healing to our lives so we may protect our world. We are thankful for the pulse of life that fills us each day. May we be encouraged and strengthened as we work for justice, love and peace in the world.
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 at this time and all ways.
Amen.
Presider 2: Let us pray as Jesus taught us:
Holy One, you are 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.
Adapted by Miriam Therese Winter
Blessing
Presider 2: Let us raise our hands and pray our blessing:
May the Source of Life, who dances in every atom and sings in every sunrise, bless you with wonder. May the Spirit, who stirs in the winds and whispers through the trees, bless you with wisdom.
May your hands be rooted in justice,
your heart open with compassion,
and your soul alive with praise.
Go in peace, to love and to serve—
in harmony with creation,
in communion with all,
and in the name of the One who is Love.
Amen.
Closing Song: Karl Jenkins – Benedictus – Part 2 start at 3:38
https://youtu.be/ibwxzxER_pY?si=RPoNiIa34ZXBCznp&t=218
