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Welcome, friends, as we gather in prayer and thanksgiving, as a beloved community.
Opening Prayer: Holy One, open our minds and hearts to your truth. Allow us to hear you, to see you, to live in your Divine Love, just as our brother Jesus did. And as we strive to live as he did, help us to become more and more the people you created us to be. Amen.
Opening Song: Ancient Words, Michael W Smith https://youtu.be/gqtEtqmjHf4?si=0uuXwka2di8A30Xc
LITURGY OF THE WORD
First Reading: From Richard Rohr, Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi
Our conscious need for mercy is our only real boarding pass. The ego doesn’t like that very much, but the soul fully understands.
In different ways, we humans falsely divide the world into the pure and impure, the totally good and the totally bad, the perfect and imperfect. It begins with dualistic thinking and then never manages to get beyond it. Such a total split or clean division is never true in actual experience. We all know that reality is a lot more mixed and “disordered” than that; so, in order to continue to see things in such a false and binary way, we really have to close down. That is the hallmark of immature religion. It demands denial, splitting, and mental pretense. It moves from the first false assumption of purity or perfection toward an entire ethical code, a priesthood of some sort, and various rituals and taboos that keep us on the side of the seeming pure, positive, or perfect — as if that were even possible.
I mean this next point kindly: Organized religion is almost structurally certain to create hypocrites (the word literally means “actors”), those who try to appear to be pure and good, or at least better than others. Jesus uses the word at least ten times in Matthew’s Gospel alone! We are unconsciously trained to want to look good, to seek moral high ground, and to point out the “speck” in other people’s eyes while ignoring the “log” in our own (Matthew 7:3–5). None of us lives up to all our spoken ideals, but we have to pretend we do in order to feel good about ourselves and to get others of our chosen group to respect us.
These are the words of priest and theologian, Richard Rohr. We affirm his words with Amen.
Gospel Acclamation: Celtic Alleluia by Christopher Walker
Gospel: Matthew 8: 5-10, 13
When Jesus entered Capernaum,
a centurion approached him and appealed to him, saying,
“Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, suffering dreadfully.”
He said to him, “I will come and cure him.”
The centurion said in reply,
“Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof;
only say the word and my servant will be healed.
For I too am a man subject to authority,
with soldiers subject to me.
And I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes;
and to another, ‘Come here,’ and he comes;
and to my slave, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”
When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him,
“Amen, I say to you, in no one in Israel have I found such faith.
I say to you, many will come from the east and the west,
and will recline with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
at the banquet in the Kingdom of heaven,
but the children of the Kingdom
will be driven out into the outer darkness,
where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.”
And Jesus said to the centurion,
“You may go; as you have believed, let it be done for you.”
And at that very hour his servant was healed.
This story, passed down from our ancestors, is told by an ancient writer we know as Matthew. We affirm his words with Amen.
Homily Starter:
The centurion is a man who understands rules. He’s a mid-level officer in the Roman army, one who both receives and gives orders. Being an army officer, he knows well how to adhere to regulations. And being a perceptive and caring human being, he is sensitive to the regulations that others follow. Even when those “others” are subject to the force of his own command.
So, when his servant falls ill, the centurion goes to Jesus, the healer everyone is talking about. He could order Jesus to follow him and enter his home, where the servant is lying. But he knows that for Jesus, a Jewish teacher, the gentile centurion’s home would be considered unclean. So, rather than putting Jesus in that difficult situation, the centurion asks Jesus to heal the servant from a distance. And Jesus is impressed. He is impressed with the faith of this outsider who represents all that the Jewish people hate and fear. He is impressed with the humility of a man who is willing to set aside his own significant power out of respect for the religious regulations of a subjugated person. He is impressed with the love of this powerful man for his servant.
And the Jewish bystanders who are standing there witnessing this remarkable incident? Jesus loves them. He has just wrapped up the great discourse of his teachings in the Sermon on the Mount. Those teachings were meant just for these, his people. But he also knows them, and sees their shadow side, which can manifest in hypocrisy. Three times in the sermon on the mount, and many other times in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus refers to hypocrisy. As Richard Rohr reminds us, it is often religion itself, with its dualistic way of looking at life, that can lead people to act like hypocrites. So, this centurion, who represents the power and greed of the Roman occupiers, in his dialogue with Jesus, becomes a lesson in humility and authenticity. This is the gift of Jesus, to see inside a person, any person, to recognize both the light and the shadow dwelling within that person, and to love the whole person. No need for hypocrisy. That centurion is probably not a perfect person. He is part of an occupying force. He follows orders that lead him to subjugate his fellow human beings. But there is good in him, and Jesus sees it.
We are, each one of us, whole people, made of light and shadow. And just as we are, in all our complexity, we are worthy. Worthy of the Love who made us, and worthy of the precious gift of our lives. No need to pretend to be perfect. No need to point out the flaws of others to make ourselves appear better by comparison. No hypocrisy. Just Love.
What did you hear in today’s readings? Please share your thoughts.
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.
Prayers of the Community
As we prepare for this sacred meal, we are aware of our call to serve, and just as Jesus is anointed, so is each of us. We bring to this table our prayers for the community.
Prayers for the community.
We pray for these and all unspoken intentions. Amen.
LITURGY OF THE EUCHARIST
(Written by Jay Murnane)
Please join in praying the Eucharistic prayer together.
Blessed are you, Holy One, source of all creation. Through your goodness you made this world and called us to be Your co-creators. We give thanks for the diversity and beauty of life around us and within us.
We open our awareness to the goodness of all of creation and we remember our responsibility to serve. You invite us to build the earth into a community of love rooted in justice. You placed confidence in us, for you made us and you know that we are good.
In joy and in thanksgiving we join with all the faithful servants who have gone before us and we sing:
Holy, Holy, Holy by Karen Drucker video by Denise
We thank you for Jesus, simple servant, lifting up the lowly, revealing you as God-With-Us, and revealing us as one with you and all of creation.
He lived among us to show us who we are and challenged us to know you. He taught us the strength of compassionate love.
Please extend your hands in blessing.
We are grateful for your Spirit at our Eucharistic Table and for this bread and wine which reminds us of our call to be the body of Christ in the world.
On the night before he died, Jesus gathered for supper with the people closest to him. Like the least of household servants, he washed their feet, so that they would re-member him.
When he returned to his place at the table, he lifted the bread, spoke the blessing, broke the bread and offered it to them saying:
Take and eat, this is my very self.
(pause)
Then he took 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.
(pause)
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.
Please receive Communion with the words, I am worthy.
Communion Meditation/Song: You Say, Lauren Daigle https://youtu.be/sIaT8Jl2zpI?si=yj9bR_Z7YjuK93_D
Prayer after communion:
Holy One, we are willing to do everything Jesus did, to re-create the living presence of a love that does justice, of a compassion that heals and liberates, of a joy that generates hope, of a light that illumines people and confronts the darkness of every injustice and inequity.
We trust you to continue to share with us your own spirit, the spirit that animated Jesus, for it is through his life and teaching, all honor and glory is yours, O Holy One, forever and ever. Amen.
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
Please raise your hands in Blessing:
May we see each person, and ourselves, with the eyes of Jesus: light and shadow, strength and weakness, trial and error, and completely worthy of love. May we bless and be a blessing in our own time. Amen.
Closing Song: Look in the Mirror by Carmen Boyle video by Denise https://youtu.be/BF_eU_NjuW8?si=lcBpC1e_KVnLxcda
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