Acknowledging Our Gratitude for Blessings Received. Thanksgiving Eve.
Leader: God, Come to my assistance.
Participants: Holy One, Make haste to help me.
Glory and Joy be to Peace and Love and Grace. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
Prayer of Jesus. (Miriam Therese Winter)
Oh 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.
Reading: A Psalm of Thanksgiving. Psalm 80, (From Psalms for Praying by Nan C. Merrill)
--Reader 1--
Eternal Listener, give heed to your people,
You, who are our Guide and our Light!
You, who dwell amidst the angels, shine forth into the hearts of all nations!
Enliven your people with compassion that peace and justice might flourish.
Restore us, O Holy One; let your face shine upon us, teach us to love!
--Reader 2--
Gentle Teacher, help us to turn to You in prayer, fasting from negative thoughts.
In your steadfast Love, You weep with our tears, tears that rise from fear, doubt and illusion.
You uphold us when we feel the sting of pride, when anxiety threatens to paralyze us.
Restore us, O Holy One; let your face shine upon us, teach us to love!
--Reader 1--You companion us through the wilderness, through the shadows created by fear. You plant your Seed into each heart. You uproot the weeds of our sin, You cultivate the soil of our goodness.
Truly, in You, we become like a tiny acorn, holding the secret of a mighty oak. You nourish us with the food of Love, with streams of Living Water.
Restore us, O Holy One; let your face shine upon us, teach us to love!
--Reader 2--Be our strength as we break down walls that separate and divide. Let not fear pluck away the gifts we would share. Roll away the stones that become obstacles to growth, to producing a bountiful harvest.
Restore us, O Holy One; let your face shine upon us, teach us to love!
--Reader 1--Receive our gratitude, O Heart of all hearts. Look upon us and see what Love can do; rejoice in the new birth that You create! +Be glad where your Seed has found fertile soil. How much more the return of one healthy plant than ten thousand useless weeds!
Restore us, O Holy One; let your face shine upon us, teach us to love!
--Reader 2--May those who have borne the fruit of love radiate your Spirit into the world!
May we always walk and co-create with You;
Receive the gratitude of our heats, as we share in the Great Plan!
Restore us, O Holy One; let your face shine upon us, teach us to love!
Deb: Let us have a moment of quiet as we remember our intentions and those who need our prayers.
Please share your intentions if you wish…
Deb: As we prepare for our Quiet time in Darkness and Dream, May we remember with gratitude the beauty of Being Alive, the Blessing of Holy Presence, and the Gifts Given to us Freely. Knowing that we are supported and Loved, May we enter into our time of Rest with Contentment and Peace. AMEN.
Welcome to the Upper Room as we celebrate Cosmic Christ Sunday. The name of our celebration replaces the traditional name of Christ the King Sunday. This new image points to the transformation that Jesus modeled in his life, death and resurrection. This image sees Christ having a mission and presence that significantly impacts everyone from the beginning of time and beyond. Our theme today of fierce forgiveness could answer the question: How are we saved by the Cosmic Christ?
An eagerness and readiness to love is the ultimate freedom and future. When you’ve been included in the spaciousness of divine love, there is just no room for human punishment, vengeance, rash judgment, or calls for retribution. We certainly see none of this small-mindedness in the Risen Christ after his own rejection, betrayal, and cruel death; we don’t see it even from his inner circle, or in the whole New Testament. I really cannot imagine a larger and more spacious way to live. Jesus’s death and resurrection event was a game changer for history, and it is no surprise that we date our calendar from his lifetime.
The Crucified and Risen Christ uses the mistakes of the past to create a positive future, a future of redemption instead of retribution. He does not eliminate or punish the mistakes. He uses them for transformative purposes. People formed by such love are indestructible. Forgiveness might just be the very best description of what God’s goodness engenders in humanity.
Jesus did not come to change God’s mind about us. It did not need changing. Jesus came to change our mind about us. It did not need changing. Jesus came to change our minds about God-and about ourselves-and about where goodness and evil really lie.
These are the inspired words of Richard Rohr from his book called The Universal Christ and the community affirms them by saying: Amen
The rulers sneered at Jesus and said, “He saved others, let him save himself if he is the chosen one, the Christ of God.” Even the soldiers jeered at him. As they approached to offer him wine they called out, “If you are King of the Jews, save yourself.” Above him there was an inscription that read, “This is the King of the Jews.”
Now one of the criminals hanging there reviled Jesus, saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us.” The other, however, rebuking him, said in reply, “Have you no fear of God, for you are subject to the same condemnation? And indeed, we have been condemned justly, for the sentence we received corresponds to our crimes, But this man has done nothing criminal.” Then he said, “Jesus, remember me whey come into your kingdom.” He replied to him, “Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”
These are the inspired words for the gospel writer known as Luke and the community affirms them by saying: Amen
Homily Starter (Donna and Connie)
Shared Reflections
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.
LITURGY OF THE EUCHARIST
Connie: As we prepare for the sacred meal, we share our intentions.
Dennis reads the intentions gathered from the community
Donna: With open hearts and hands let us pray our Eucharistic prayer in one voice:
O Great Love, thank you for living and loving in us and through us as we set our hearts on belonging to you. May all that we do flow from our deep connection with you and all creation.
You know our limitations and our essential goodness and you love us as we are. You beckon us to your compassionate heart and inspire us to see the good in others and forgive their limitations. Acknowledging your presence in each other and in all of creation, we sing:
Holy, Holy: Here in This Place by Christopher Grundy
(Donna) Guiding Spirit, when opposing forces in us tug and pull and we are caught in the tension of choices, inspire us to make wise decisions toward what is good.
We thank you for our brother, Jesus, and for all our sisters and brothers who have modeled for us a way to live and love in challenging times. Inspired by them, we choose life over death, we choose to be light in dark times.
Please extend your hands in blessing.
We are ever aware of your Spirit in us and among us at this Eucharistic table and we are grateful for this bread and wine which reminds us of our call to be the body of Christ in the world.
(Connie)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.
Donna lift the plate:
(Connie)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)
Connie lift the cup and pray:
(Donna)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)
(Connie)We share this bread and cup to proclaim and live the gospel of justice and peace. We choose to live justly, love tenderly, and walk with integrity.
Please receive communion saying: We are the Face of the Cosmic Christ.
Connie: Holy One, your transforming energy is within us and we join our hearts with all who are working for a just world. We pray for wise leaders in our religious communities. We pray for courageous and compassionate leaders in our world communities.
We pray for all of us gathered here and like Jesus, we open ourselves up to your Spirit, for it is through living as he lived that we awaken to your Spirit within,
moving us to glorify you, at this time and all ways.
Amen.
Community member : 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
Donna: Please extend your hands and pray our blessing:
ALL: May the Fire of Love ignite our hearts and radiate through us.
May the Spirit truth and justice burn within us.
May we continue to be the face of the Holy One, and
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
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.
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:
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.
Source of all peace, we come together in the gathering darkness of this holy night in your name.We open our hearts and minds in your presence and allow your peace to fill us.We pray that we become vessels of that peace, to be poured forth in our homes, our communities, and our world.Amen.
Blessed is the dark, in which our dreams stir and are revealed. Blessed is the dark of earth, where seeds come to life. Blessed are the depths of the ocean where no light shimmers: the womb of all earthly life.
Blessed is the light into which we awake, the light that sparkles on the waters: that calls the tree forth from the seed, and calls the shadow forth from the tree.
Blessed are we as we move through darkness and through light.
PETITIONS
Reader:As our world darkens and grows cold we pray for our sisters and brothers who are without shelter; may they find peace and comfort in roof, walls and food, and may we find them as we search for ways pour forth your compassion.
All:Light in darkness, hear us.
Reader:For the creatures of our forests, marshlands and fields, as cold and darkness descend; may they live safely through the harsh months to come.
All:Light in darkness, hear us.
Reader:For our own hearts; may your peace be light and warmth for us, even in these shortening days.
All:Light in darkness, hear us.
Reader:At this time we invite you to add our own petitions.(Pause)
Reader:For these we pray.
All:Source of all peace, hear us.
CLOSING PRAYER
We praise you for darkness which calls us to rest.We praise you for the cold which calls us to reach out to those in need.We praise you for the soft, white, cold snow which awakens our senses to beauty and reminds us of the coming light.Oh Spirit of Seasons, Bringer of Peace, we praise you tonight and always.
