Monday, March 18, 2024

Aphorism of the Day, March 2024

Aphorism of the Day, March 18, 2024

With language we have come to explore the behaviors of the world towards us in the continual development of natural laws.  One could say the articulation of such natural laws is the languaged projection upon the world which confronts us and it is the expression of the covenant of the total environment toward us.  Even without invoking the name of God, we can accept that we project upon the All a covenant relationship in terms of what it promises to us.

Aphorism of the Day, March 17, 2024

God's omnipresence might best be understood as human being possessed with language ability and from this ability projecting words upon everything else even using like everything else as a negligible.  If something does escape language, we cannot know it except by language declaring a mysterious state of escaping language.

Aphorism of the Day, March 16, 2024

Everyone is called to be priestly in that all our lives are lived as offered.  We become priestly through intentionally offering our lives as belonging in solidarity with all.

Aphorism of the Day, March 15, 2024

Noted contrast.  The Ides of March is the death of Julius Caesar who was also a declared god.  The death of Jesus in contrast is remembered by a continuously reconstituted group of followers who changed a historical event into a spiritual process as seen in the Pauline confession, "I have been crucified with Christ."  Is anyone saying, "I have died with Julius Caesar?"

Aphorism of the Day, March 14, 2024

The writer of Jeremiah wrote about a new covenant of the law being written upon the heart.  This new covenant is appropriated by New Testament writers as the law of Spirit accessible to everyone.  In practice there often seems to be a disconnect between Spirit and the people who are channeling this Spirit.  Can Spirit be the overcoming of the continuous deconstruction which happens in language use?

Aphorism of the Day, March 13, 2024

Language is used by people to constitute their identity within contexts.  Biblical language was generated to constitute the identity of people in various places regarding a "transcendental," or a mystery of how promulgated values regarded to be superlative could reconfigure the inner language of people and result in behaviors which are consistent with the superlative values.

Aphorism of the Day, March 12, 2024

In a metaphor, the words of Jesus compares a seed which dies and becomes a plant with what will happen to him.  Does the plant have continuity with the seed from which it came?  Indeed, but it is noticeably different.  The post-death state of Jesus and everyone is quite different.  In the case of Jesus, some people got to experience Risen Christ appearances.  In the case of our departed loved ones, it remains mostly not yet in such appearances, save for memories, dream apparitions, and our mourning as proof that our loved one was indeed here.

 Aphorism of the Day, March 11, 2024

Preachers most often use the Gospels as eye-witness accounts, whereas the writing provenance of the Gospels make them more about the issues of the early Jesus Movement communities encoded in narratives about Jesus.

Aphorism of the Day, March 10, 2024

If those who have died are lucky they don't escape being in the language of the thoughts of the memories re-manifested in those who knew them, and perhaps even in those who didn't.  Who knows where the energy concrescence of selfhood goes and travels and in what varied forms?

Aphorism of the Day, March 9, 2024

Some would like to "escape" language by pretending that silence or any human life expression or activity could be known without first assuming language.

Aphorism of the Day, March 8, 2024

To blame a politician for being political is like blaming a fish for being in water.  The question is "for what polis" does a politician speak and legislate?   Is it for a true common good, for the largest number of people, or is it for only a local tribe?

Aphorism of the Day, March 7, 2024

Meaning is the differentiation of value that a person has learned within their community to place upon the events which occur to them.  Meaning is not final because in time meanings create and give birth to new variations in meaning.  Therefore finality in meaning cannot be fixed.

Aphorism of the Day, March 6, 2024

The present brings into existence a new past in how the past is assessed.  The past can only be dealt with from the now because we cannot be anywhere else.  History is the practice of anachronism since we cannot avoid import our questions from life now onto the historical traces which we have received.

Aphorism of the Day, March 5, 2024

The appearance of writing was magical in that it could be the trace of someone actually speaking without being there.  The appearance of writing created orality since when only orality existed, it is not known as such because it is not yet contrasted with having writing.

Aphorism of the Day, March 4, 2024

Reading the Bible not about reading eye witness accounts of things which could be empirically verifiable, it is about appreciating the symbolic codes used for scribal leaders (the Bible is writing) to promote community identity as that identity related to the highest values of the community, which in the case of the early Christians was the mystagogy of the Risen "Christ in you, the hope of glory."

Aphorism of the Day, March 3, 2024

With language a person is trying to manifest the connection of everything that is within oneself with everything that is outside of one epidermis and sensory portals.

Aphorism of the Day, March 2, 2024

The Bible is a collection of writings which were preserved and elevated to a place of community importance instantiated by the legacy of values which readers perceived and deemed worthy of promulgating and passing on to the next generation.  Within the entire universe of existing texts now, the biblical writings get evaluated among the vast amount of world knowledge.  The quantity of world knowledge necessarily changes the place and value and functional use of all previous literature, and the Bible too is subject to constantly being seen differently in the expansion of the universe of knowledge.

Aphorism of the Day, March 1, 2024

Writing and speaking can only be done in a fragmentary way since what we say and write is a miniscule  portion of the possible linguistic universe of everything which might come to language.  What we say and write is also imprisoned by the particular paradigms in which we find ourselves located.  We at all times should humbly admit that there is a great MORE universe of language which can dissolve our miniscule language efforts leaving our language constructs deconstructed by greater contexts.  The fact of the smallness of our language products being dissolved by existing within a great MORE, should not diminish our efforts to make them comply with what we regard to be highest, namely, what love and justice in word and deed can mean within our limited contexts.

Quiz of the Day, March 2024

Quiz of the Day, March 18, 2024

What did Moses believe about himself?

a. he was ineloquent in speech
b. his marriage to a Midianite disqualified him from leadership
c. he believed the Israelites would willing follow him
d. he was too close to the Pharaoh because of his adoptive mother

Quiz of the Day, March 17, 2024

In what biblical writing are we implored to present our bodies as living sacrifices?

a. Ephesians
b. John
c. 1 Peter
d. Romans

Quiz of the Day, March 16, 2024

How did God prove the divine self to Moses?

a. appeared in a burning bush
b. called him to go back to Egypt
c. rescued him from death
d. spoke to him the holy name

Quiz of the Day, March 15, 2024

The wife of Moses was

a. an Egyptian
b. an Israelite
c. a Midianite
d. none of the above

Quiz of the Day, March 14, 2024

Of the following, who propounded the notion of the church as the "Body of Christ?"

a. John
b. Luke
c. Peter
d. Paul

Quiz of the Day, March 13, 2024

What is true about the disposition of Joseph's remains?

a. he was embalmed in Egypt
b. he was buried in Egypt
c. Moses exhumed his remains
d. his remains were taken to the Promised Land
e. all of the above

Quiz of the Day, March 12, 2024

Where can the earliest written instructions of the Eucharist be found?

a. Matthew
b. Mark
c. Luke
d. John
e. 1 Corinthians

Quiz of the Day, March 11, 2024

What did Jacob do before he died?

a. gave instructions about Jacob's well
b. gave a prediction about Moses
c. gave a prediction about his sons
d. gave instruction for his burial in Egypt

Quiz of the Day, March 10, 2924

The bread of heaven discourse in in which Gospel?

a. Matthew
b. Mark
c. Luke
d. John

Which of the following is true about the burial of Jacob?

a. he was buried in Egypt
b. he was buried with his wife Rachel
c. he was buried in Bethlehem
d. he was buried with his father and grandfather

Quiz of the Day, March 8, 2024

In the biblical story, what brought the people of Israel into Egypt?

a. Joseph
b. Moses
c. a drought in Canaan
d. Jacob

Quiz of the Day, March 7, 2024

According to the book of Genesis what did all Egyptians despise?

a. asps
b. frogs
c. lice
d. shepherds

Quiz of the Day, March 6, 2024

Of the follow, who had the most to say regarding food sacrificed to idol?

a. John the Divine
b. Paul
c. Jesus
d. Luke

Quiz of the Day, March 5, 2024

Goshen is

a. where Abraham was buried
b. where Jacob's family settled in Egypt
c. the birth place of Moses
d. the location of the Red Sea

Quiz of the Day, March 4, 2024

"Talitha cum" means what?

a. come quickly
b. little girl, get up
c. why have you forsaken me
d. help, O teacher

Quiz of the Day, March 3, 2024

Joseph as chief minister of the Pharaoh, show favoritism to which brother?

a. Benjamin
b. Reuben
c. Asher
d. Judah

Quiz of the Day, March 2, 2024

Rachel was the mother of

a. Jacob and Esau
b. Joseph and Judah
c. Benjamin and Judah
d. Joseph and Benjamin

Quiz of the Day, March 1, 2024

Of the following, who did not go to Egypt with Jacob?

a. Reuben
b. Benjamin
c. Rachel
d. Judah

Sunday, March 17, 2024

Prayers for Lent, 2024

Sunday, 5 Lent, March 17, 2024

God of all possible language expressions, the co-existence of every expression creates the conditions for supreme irony such that the Cross of Jesus becomes a state of glory.  Give us faith to uphold your ultimate irony upon everything such that what confronts us as impossible is reconciled within future outcomes.  Amen.

Saturday in 4 Lent, March 16, 2024

God of all, invite everyone to the priesthood of lives being offered in solidarity with all as living sacrifices; and let our sacrifices promote love and justice in our world.  Amen.

Friday in 4 Lent, March 15, 2024

God who makes history providence by outlasting all occasions by being continuous Becoming; the death of Jesus has become a spiritual process for us to die to what is unworthy and be renewed toward what is better.  Help us to know the submission of our selfish egos for loving you and our neighbors. Amen.

Thursday in 4 Lent, March 14, 2024

Holy Spirit of God, we commit to you the impossible human task of making unity out of diversity; give us the wisdom of orchestrating differences into a harmony which can balance the simplicity of unity or oneness with the complexity of differences.  Amen.

Wednesday in 4 Lent, March 13, 2024

God of who inspires us to doubt any sense of final sufficiency; give us the humility of continual reappraisal of our values so that we might ever be looking for surpassing values on which we can model our personal identities.  Amen.

Tuesday in 4 Lent, March 12, 2024

Lord Jesus Christ, you were not saved from death, even as we are not either;  give us the hope of endless continuity so that we can have future time to make the baffling and present have a greater context for more graceful meanings.  Amen.

Monday in 4 Lent, March 11, 2024

God of all, in our day Gentile means the "other" who have often been excluded from the salvation programs of society; give us the heart of Jesus to extend the welcome of love to all so that we might faithfully represent you as God of love. Amen.

Sunday, 4 Lent, March 10, 2024

Eternal Word, give us grace to inculcate the values learned from our inherited traditions, but give us open hearts to love beyond our tribal formation toward your love for everyone in the world.  Amen.

Saturday in 3 Lent, March 9, 2024

Eternal Word, since our human life is founded and known because we have language, let us work to have the meaningful expressions of language in speaking, writing, and body language be witness to our best quest at living lives of love and justice.  Amen.

Friday in 3 Lent, March 8, 2024

God who comprises the greatest collectivity of differences, you have placed us among different people with the task of living together well as it is known as justice for each member;  give us the largesse of heart to live beyond the affinities of our own tribe as we seek for the categorical imperatives of love and justice for all.  Amen.

Thursday in 3 Lent, March 7, 2024

Eternal Word of God, generating continuous meaningful occasions of becoming; let our new syntheses of meaning today integrate what has happened for us in ways that first help us to survive, then to act is better ways, and further to enhance the common good.  Amen.

Wednesday in 3 Lent, March 6, 2024

God of grace, your mercy is abundant in the seeming endless chances that you give us by the continual sustaining of everything; give us light toward our continual improvement in the practice of love and justice let those who hurt the common good know that they are hurting themselves.  Amen.

Tuesday in 3 Lent, March 5, 2024

God of the future which will reinterpret the meanings of what we think we are experiencing now; give us grace to live without knowing the full implication of the outcomes of what we do now, and let us be bold about love and justice being our current motive and goal.  Amen.

Monday in 3 Lent, March 4, 2024

Gracious God, we interpret the life of Jesus as your love for us in being completely with us, not to abolish freedom, but to give us the example of the direction that we are to choose to act with the deeds of our lives; grant us to honor the freedom of perfectability by becoming more loving and just in our actions today.  Amen.

Sunday, 3 Lent, March 3, 2024

Gracious God who is the flowing life at the sub-molecular level of all, give us a wise connecting flow of our interior lives with the exterior lives so that peace, love, and justice might be the visible outcomes.  Amen.

Saturday in 2 Lent, March 2, 2024

God who preserves by continuously being the compilation of all that is which retains all that has been; help us not to fear the loss of what has, is and will be the chief values of life, namely love and justice.  Amen.

Friday in 2 Lent, March 1, 2024

God of the ever created great MORE, keep us humble about our importance in the great scheme of things and let us seek the perfection of completeness which comes from joining with others in the work of love and justice.  Amen.

Thursday in 2 Lent, February 29, 2024

God of omnipresence, forgive us for limiting your presence to temples; and teach us that as the body of Jesus was a temple of your supreme presence, so too are our bodies, and in fact the body of the entire world which bears your glory.  Amen.

Wednesday in 2 Lent, February 28, 2024

Eternal Word, give us the wisdom of language use to appreciate the variety of discourses which pertain to the many ways of communicating what it is to be fully human; help us to avoid the falsehood of interpreting wrongly the nature of the language being used so that we might rightly defend the validity of spiritual discourse.  Amen.

Tuesday in 2 Lent, February 27, 2024

God of love and law, we thank you for law as it teaches us to love our neighbor as our selves and we ask for grace not to use our performance of our codes of law to imply that we are better than others.  Amen.

Monday in 2 Lent, February 26, 2024

Eternal Word of God, you have made us in your image as languaged beings; give us the wisdom to articulate the discourses of our lives to the appropriate uses of the manifestation of the languages of spoken word, writing, and body language deeds.  Amen.

Sunday, 2 Lent, February 25, 2024

God of all, forgive us for tolerating the tacit hypocrisy of our own favored communities while being so discerning of the faults of others; give us grace to continue in kindness as the hidden source of survival in the midst of seeming rampant and systematic oppression.  Amen.

Saturday in 1 Lent, February 24, 2024

God in whom we live and move and have our being; we cannot see your boundaries and we often limit our love for only those with whom we have affinities; let your inclusive borders expand the direction of our love so that we might grow in our love for this world as you inclusively love this world.  Amen.

Friday in 1 Lent, February 23, 2024

God, you inspire the mysticism of who have come to know an interior identity with Christ, let the higher power results of identity with the death and resurrection of Christ empower repentance in our personal lives so that what happens in our social lives manifests the excellence of love and justice.  Amen.

Thursday in 1 Lent, February 22, 2024

God of all, help us to be global enough to commit to you the things over which we cannot directly control and help us to be very local in doing the immediate good in our power that we can do.  Amen.

Wednesday in 1 Lent, February 21, 2024

God of time, the before dies and is replaced with the after; give us wisdom to make every after a surpassing in excellent love and justice with what has gone before.  Amen.

Tuesday in 1 Lent, February 20, 2024

God who can be referred to as All; we don't enjoy everything which moves and has being within your Allness; give us the courage to influence the field of probabilities by overcoming evil with good.  Amen.

Monday in 1 Lent, February 19, 2024

Jesus the Christ, we often would only want you to be the triumphant one and not the suffering one, even as we would rather not have to incorporate suffering into our life experience; give us grace to be able to embrace and survive all the probable things which may happen to us today.  Amen.

Sunday, 1 Lent, February 18, 2024

God, you gave us Jesus to be for us the one who was bilingual in being what divinity would look like if it were limited in appearance to human experience; we thank you that Jesus was a witness of you inflicting yourself freely by being completely with us in temptation, suffering, and death and so incorporating all probability within the scope of your becoming.  Give us grace to incorporate what may come to us and let subsequent meaning beyond what is happening now redeem us and let us know that we have been always already together in and for all.  Amen.

Saturday, February 17, 2024

God, what will happen lies before us with a freedom that makes us both excited and trembling; help us to have wisdom to isolate from our past and current experience the ability to embrace what might happen to us next.  Amen.

Friday, February 16, 2024

Gracious God, give us grace to live with global things which we cannot directly change, but give us courage to accept the small but indirect acts of justice which can have eventual domino effects on the global level.  Amen.

Thursday, February 15, 2024

Bless our Lenten fasts, O God, with the result of impulse control which gives us the true freedom to practice the kind of justice to distribute enough to everyone in our world.  Amen.

Ash Wednesday, February 14, 2024

Gracious God, we know that our material existence can be reduced to ashes and recycled into the physical world; we ask that our sub-atomic life of spirit can be recycled into world as causative for future goodness as we leave irrefutable legacies of love and justice in the human chain of causation and let future good be a witness to our humble anonymity in being lost in the common good.  Amen.  

Friday, March 15, 2024

Continual Covenant, Priestliness, and Transformative Process

 5 Lent   B          March 17, 2024
Jer. 31:31-34      Ps. 51:11-16       
Heb. 5:1-10        John 12:20-33    

Lectionary Link

Our appointed Scripture lessons for today provide us with at least three points for consideration, which I would like to unify in this presentation for some meaningful insights.

First, God is a God of new covenant.

Time means that contractual relationship have to be continually renewed. We always live knowingly or unknowingly in contractual ways: I will do this for you; and you will do this for me and each other. The big contract that we have, whether we know it or not is with God. "I will do this for you God, and whether I regard you or not, I expect this of the great plenitude of life." In fact we could say that the predictability in what we call natural law can be seen as a contract. "If I throw an apple into the air, it will faithfully come down into my hands, given usual conditions." One could say that the entire universe makes a contract with us all of the time. That being said, we know that when it comes to human social behaviors, we are not as precisely predictable as the consistency of natural laws.


In relationship between parties with high degrees of freedom, different times require that covenant with God be articulated differently. Why?  As Joseph Campbell once observed, ancient virtue can become modern vice. Why?  People understand covenant within their limited cultural context.  The former covenants included the tolerance of slavery, subjugation of women, ethnocentric exclusivity, ignorance of recognition of diverse but significant personal identities, and diet limitations. Covenants can be understood to protect exclusive communal identity which in effect locks lots of people out, from being accepted as beloved persons made in God's image.


What does a new covenant look like.  It is a covenant which proclaims the omnipresence of God in all people by an interior law, an interior order. What is the interior order within all people?  It is having language.  It is the image of Christ, who is called Language or Word from the beginning.


Since we are ordered by language in how we speak, write and act; we need forgiveness where we have practiced disorder.  We need our inner scripts corrected by Christ the Word and great playwright of life.  And we need to practice acting out the new scripts provided by the witness of Christ. The new law written upon our hearts is this ordering process toward surpassing ourselves in excellence in future states.


Next, we are called to be priestly because Jesus was priestliness itself.


Jesus was not a Levite, and he was not a priest in the Temple, yet the writer to the letter to the Hebrews declares him to be a priest with a timeless connection to the ancient archetype of priesthood, Melchizedek.


Christ is the priest of God for humanity.  Followers of Christ are called to be priestly.  And followers of Christ have a vocational priesthood for a few designated persons, not to exhaust the priestliness of Christ, but rather to model and call the followers of Christ to their own priestliness.


And what is the nature of that priestliness?  Well, following Christ, it is to be both sacrificial offering, and offerer of that offering.


It is to make our lives of suffering an offering to God on behalf of bettering our world.

This is most poignantly experienced when we quit taking our own suffering as uniquely individual, and accept it as in solidarity with the suffering within our world.  And since we are not our own but belong to Christ, with him we offer our suffering to God because being human is to be subject to suffering as an unavoidable probability of living. 


Accepting our priesthood with Christ, means that we do not pretend to exempt ourselves from the specific requirements of the conditions of our lives which happen to us. Living all our lives as offered to God through Christ is to accept our part in being a member of the kingdom of priest to serve our God.


What does Covenant with God, and accepting our priestly calling require?


Lastly, It requires accepting the time cycles in life as being transformative and redemptive. In the words of Jesus channeled through the Gospel of John, his life was like a seed which falls into the ground and dies. It changes and becomes the sprout, stem, leaves, and fruit.


There will arrive in human existence new circumstances which forces radical change of life/death comparison in appearance and experience. Being in covenant with God with a priestly ministry means that we identify ourselves with the transformative processes encompassing the agony and the ecstasy and we do this with the witness of the Risen Christ providing the hope of a surpassing and reconciling future glory to do the impossible, which will provide us with a convincing meaning of suffering and the purpose of life itself.


Let us be in a renewal of our covenant with God based upon the continuing new circumstances of our lives; let us accept our priestly ministry, of being both victim and priest, those who suffer, and those who offer their sufferings to God in solidarity with the suffering of Jesus and the suffering of the world.


And finally, let us commit ourselves to continual transformation in the cycles of time, as we humbly accept the profoundly difficult transitions, in the hope of being lifted up to future glorious meanings.  Amen.


Monday, March 11, 2024

Sunday School, March 17, 2024 5 Lent B

  Sunday School,  March 17, 2024    5 Lent B


Theme: Change

Time means that things and people and everything change
People change
Have you ever looked at your baby picture?  Are you different now?  You have changed in many ways.  In fact, you have changed so much that only your parents would know that it is you in your baby pictures.

Sometimes we can see change as it is happening.  Sometimes we can see change right now.  You blow a bubble, it floats into the air and pops and disappears.  You see clouds in the sky and they change shapes and they pass across the sky.

A seed is a tiny thing planted in the soil.  It disappears out of sight.  A root grows from it and a stem pushes out of the soil and the little seed is gone.  It has disappeared.  It seems to have died, but it became something else.  It changed.

Jesus told the people that his life would be like a seed put in the ground.  The seed would be buried and would die.  But when Jesus died he came back to life to show people how God would change all of our lives after we die.  We will live again.  We will always be changing.  We change in a big way when we die.  But the life of Jesus came to us from God to tell us that we will change again after we die.  We will become something like the butterfly breaking out of the cocoon.

Let us accept change.  Let us try to make good changes in our lives, being kind and loving and in learning more and more.  We can keep changing in good ways and live with hope even though we know that at death we will change in a big way.

Because Jesus changed in a big way when he died and when he reappeared, he gave us the message that when we died we will reappear to be with God.

Everything is changing in big ways and little ways.  We can see some changes and some change is so slow we don’t recognize it.

Jesus said at the big change that happen at his death, he would change and live again.  And now we do not have to fear the big change of death.


Sermon

  I would like to tell you about Mr. Rose.  Mr. Rose like to plant a garden every spring.  He loved to plant vegetables.  And he liked to have some fun doing it.  When Mr. Rose planted his garden, his garden looked like it was decorated for Halloween.  At the end of each row in the garden, he would put little tomb stone markers.  On one tomb stone, he would write, “Carrot seeds, RIP,(Rest in Peace).  On another, “corn seeds, RIP (Rest in Peace). And he would do the same for the other rows of vegetables.  And he would set up a Ghost Scarecrow in his garden.
  All of the kids in the neighborhood would watch Mr. Rose and his garden that looked like a grave yard.  And the joke around town about Mr. Rose was this:  “Mr. Rose is burying his seeds in the ground.”
  We have read some words of Jesus today.  He said, “If a seed is not buried in the ground and die, it will always remain a seed, but if it is put into the ground, it dies, and it becomes a plant that produces fruit and many more seeds.”
  Jesus said this to teach us about the change that occurred in his life.
  When Jesus lived, only a few people knew who he was.  But when he died and rose again, he became the most popular person in the history of the world.  Jesus has been gone for more than 2000 years, but we still celebrate his life today.  Jesus once lived in Palestine, in Israel.  But today, Christ lives in our hearts.  Jesus went through many changes in his life.  He was a baby, a young boy, and he was great teacher and prophet.  And he died.  But when he died, he did not stay buried, he became the risen Christ who could be presence to people all over the world.
  You and I are going through changes in our lives.  We all started out real small and tiny….and we were born as babies and we became children….and we keep changing and growing.  When we grow big we lose our smallness and we gain our bigness.  When we go to second grade in school, we lose first grade.  So we are always losing things in life, but we are always gaining things too.
  And when we look at death, we can think that we are losing someone in a very important way.  And we are.  But Jesus tells us to have hope, because when people die, then we know that God is taking care of them, because we no longer can.
  Jesus tells us that our lives are always changing.  We are losing some things, but we are gaining better things.
  So, when a seed is put into the ground and we know that it is gone forever, we know that the seed will sprout and become a beautiful plant.  Jesus wants us to know that God can always bring something beautiful out of everything that happens to us.
  This is the hope that we can have today.
 


Intergenerational family liturgy with Holy Eucharist
March 17, 2024: The Fifth Sunday In Lent
Gathering Songs:
Jesus Loves Me,   When I Survey the Wondrous Cross, When Jesus Wept, May the Lord

Liturgist: Bless the Lord who forgives all our sins.
People: His mercy endures forever.  Amen.

Liturgist:  Oh God, Our hearts are open to you.
And you know us and we can hide nothing from you.
Prepare our hearts and our minds to love you and worship you.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Opening Song: Jesus Loves Me This I Know (All the Best Songs for Kids, # 54)
1 Jesus loves me! This I know, For the Bible tells me so.  Little ones to Him belong; they are weak but He is strong.  Yes, Jesus loves me.  Yes, Jesus loves me.  Yes, Jesus loves me.  The Bible tells me so.
2 Jesus loves me!  He who died!  Heaven’s gates to open wide.  He will wash away my sin, Let His little child come in. Yes, Jesus loves me.  Yes, Jesus loves me.  Yes, Jesus loves me.  The Bible tells me so.

Liturgist:         The Lord be with you.
People:            And also with you.
Liturgist:  Let us pray
Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners: Grant your people grace to love what you command and desire what you promise; that, among the swift and varied changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

First Litany of Praise: Chant: Praise the Lord

O God, you are Great!  Praise the Lord
O God, you have made us! Praise the Lord
O God, you have made yourself known to us!  Praise the Lord
O God, you have provided us with us a Savior!  Praise the Lord
O God, you have given us a Christian family!  Praise the Lord
O God, you have forgiven our sins!  Praise the Lord
O God, you brought your Son Jesus back from the dead!  Praise the Lord

A Reading from the Prophet Jeremiah

The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt-- a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the LORD. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, "Know the LORD," for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD;

The Word of the Lord
People: Thanks be to God

Let us read together from Psalm 51

Create in me a clean heart, O God, * and renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from your presence * and take not your holy Spirit from me.
Give me the joy of your saving help again * and sustain me with your bountiful Spirit.

Litany Phrase: Thanks be to God! (chanted)
Litanist:
For the good earth, for our food and clothing. Thanks be to God!
For our families and friends. Thanks be to God!
For the talents and gifts that you have given to us. Thanks be to God!
For this day of worship. Thanks be to God!
For health and for a good night’s sleep. Thanks be to God!
For work and for play. Thanks be to God!
For teaching and for learning. Thanks be to God!
For the happy events of our lives. Thanks be to God!
For the celebration of the birthdays and anniversaries of our friends and parish family.
   Thanks be to God!

Liturgist:         The Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to John
People:            Glory to you, Lord Christ.

Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, "Sir, we wish to see Jesus." Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. Jesus answered them, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor. "Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say-- `Father, save me from this hour'? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name." Then a voice came from heaven, "I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again." The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, "An angel has spoken to him." Jesus answered, "This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself." He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die.

Liturgist:         The Gospel of the Lord.
People:            Praise to you, Lord Christ.

Sermon:

Children’s Creed

We did not make ourselves, so we believe that God the Father is the maker of the world.
Since God is so great and we are so small,
We believe God came into our world and was born as Jesus, son of the Virgin Mary.
We need God’s help and we believe that God saved us by the life, death and
     resurrection of Jesus Christ.
We believe that God is present with us now as the Holy Spirit.
We believe that we are baptized into God’s family the Church where everyone is
     welcome.
We believe that Christ is kind and fair.
We believe that we have a future in knowing Jesus Christ.
And since we all must die, we believe that God will preserve us forever.  Amen.


Litany Phrase: Christ, have mercy.
For fighting and war to cease in our world. Christ, have mercy.
For peace on earth and good will towards all. Christ, have mercy.
For the safety of all who travel. Christ, have mercy.
For jobs for all who need them. Christ, have mercy.
For care of those who are growing old. Christ, have mercy.
For the safety, health and nutrition of all the children in our world. Christ, have mercy.
For the well-being of our families and friends. Christ, have mercy.
For the good health of those we know to be ill. Christ, have mercy.
For the remembrance of those who have died. Christ, have mercy.
For the forgiveness of all of our sins. Christ, have mercy.

Liturgist:         The Peace of the Lord be always with you.
People:            And also with you.
Song during the preparation of the Altar and the receiving of an offering

Offertory Song: When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,   
1-When I survey the wondrous cross where the young Prince of Glory died
    All the vain thing that charm me most, I sacrifice them to his blood.
2-Were the whole realm of nature mine, that were an offering far too small; love so amazing so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.


Doxology
Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise Him, all creatures here below.
Praise Him above, ye heavenly host. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Prologue to the Eucharist.
Jesus said, “Let the children come to me, for to them belong the kingdom of heaven.”
All become members of a family by birth or adoption.
Baptism is the celebration of our birth into the family of God.
A family meal gathers and sustains each human family.
The Holy Eucharist is the special meal that Jesus gave to his friends to keep us together as the family of Christ.

The Lord be with you
And also with you.

Lift up your hearts
We lift them to the Lord.

Let us give thanks to God.
It is right to give God thanks and praise.

It is very good and right to give thanks, because God made us, Jesus redeemed us and the Holy Spirit dwells in our hearts.  Therefore with Angels and Archangels and all of the world that we see and don’t see, we forever sing this hymn of praise:

Holy, Holy, Holy (Intoned)
Holy, Holy, Holy Lord, God of Power and Might.  Heav’n and earth are full of your glory.
Hosanna in the highest.  Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. 
Hosanna in the highest. Hosanna in the Highest.

(All  may gather around the altar)
Our grateful praise we offer to you God, our Creator;
You have made us in your image
And you gave us many men and women of faith to help us to live by faith:
Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Rachael.
And then you gave us your Son, Jesus, born of Mary, nurtured by Joseph
And he called us to be sons and daughters of God.
Your Son called us to live better lives and he gave us this Holy Meal so that when we eat
  the bread and drink the wine, we can  know that the Presence of Christ is as near to us as  
  this food and drink  that becomes a part of us.

And so, Father, we bring you these gifts of bread and wine. Bless and sanctify them by your Holy Spirit to be for your people the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ our Lord.  Bless and sanctify us by your Holy Spirit so that we may love God and our neighbor.

On the night when Jesus was betrayed he took bread, said the blessing, broke the bread, and gave it to his friends, and said, "Take, eat: This is my Body, which is given for you. Do this for the remembrance of me."

After supper, Jesus took the cup of wine, gave thanks, and said, "Drink this, all of you. This is my Blood of the new Covenant, which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Whenever you drink it, do this for the remembrance of me."

Father, we now celebrate the memorial of your Son. When we eat this holy Meal of Bread and Wine, we are telling the entire world about the life, death and resurrection of Christ and that his presence will be with us in our future.

Let this holy meal keep us together as friends who share a special relationship because of your Son Jesus Christ.  May we forever live with praise to God to whom we belong as sons and daughters.

By Christ, and with Christ, and in Christ, in the unity of the Holy Spirit all honor and glory
 is yours, Almighty Father, now and for ever. AMEN.

And now as our Savior Christ has taught us, we now sing,

Our Father: (Renew # 180, West Indian Lord’s Prayer)
Our Father who art in heaven:  Hallowed be thy name.
Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done: Hallowed be thy name.

Done on earth as it is in heaven: Hallowed be thy name.
Give us this day our daily bread: Hallowed be thy name.

And forgive us all our debts: Hallowed be thy name.
As we forgive our debtors: Hallowed be thy name.

Lead us not into temptation: Hallowed be thy name.
But deliver us from evil: Hallowed by thy name.

Thine is the kingdom, power, and glory: Hallowed be thy name.
Forever and ever: Hallowed be thy name.

Amen, amen, amen: Hallowed be thy name.
Amen, amen, amen, amen: Hallowed be thy name.

Breaking of the Bread
Celebrant:       Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.
People:            Therefore let us keep the feast. 

Word of Administration.

Communion Hymn: When Jesus Wept (blue hymnal, # 715)
When Jesus wept, the falling tear in mercy flowed beyond all bound; When Jesus groaned, a trembling fear seized all the guilty world around.

Post-Communion Prayer

Everlasting God, we have gathered for the meal that Jesus asked us to keep;
We have remembered his words of blessing on the bread and the wine.
And His Presence has been known to us.
We have remembered that we are sons and daughters of God and brothers
    and sisters in Christ.
Send us forth now into our everyday lives remembering that the blessing in the
     bread and wine spreads into each time, place and person in our lives,
As we are ever blessed by you, O Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Closing Song: May the Lord (Sung to the tune of Eidelweiss)
May the Lord, Mighty God, Bless and keep you forever, Grant you peace, perfect peace, Courage in every endeavor.  Lift up your eyes and seek His face, Trust His grace forever.  May the Lord, Mighty God Bless and keep you for ever.

Dismissal:   

Liturgist: Let us go forth in the Name of Christ.
People: Thanks be to God! 

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