Sunday School, April 16, 2023 2 Easter A

 Sunday School, April 16, 2023    2 Easter A

Theme

How can we believe without seeing?

Can we see Jesus?  Can we hear him talk to us?  Can we touch him?

Can we see God?  Can we hear God?  Can we touch God?

Do we believe in God and Jesus without being able to see, hear or touch them?

How do we believe in God and Jesus without seeing, hearing or touching?

If we believe in God and Jesus without seeing, hearing or touching them is our belief not as good as the early disciples who walked with Jesus, talked with him, saw him and touched him?

All of these questions are answered by the story about the Doubting Thomas.  After Jesus appeared again after his death to his disciple, Thomas was not with the other disciples.  The other disciples told Thomas that Jesus appeared to them.  Thomas did not believe that Jesus was alive.  The next time Jesus appeared Thomas was with them.  When he saw and touched and heard Jesus, he believed.

Jesus said that Thomas was blessed and fortunate to see him.  Jesus said that other people did not see him and they too were blessed because they believed, just from hearing about Jesus.

The writer of the Gospel of John said that he wrote his Gospel so people might believe in Jesus Christ.

Face to face visit with Jesus, hearing about Jesus, and reading about Jesus.  These are all ways that we can come to believe and Jesus said all of these ways are blessed.

You and I do not live at the same time that Jesus lived but the disciples who lived with Jesus told others about him and many believed.  The disciples who walked with Jesus told about him and these stories were written down and we have the Gospels in the Bible to read and come to believe about Jesus.

All of these ways of believing are equally blessed by God.  Why?  Many people saw Jesus and did not believe.  Many people have heard about Jesus and not believed?  Many people have read about Jesus and not believed in him.

What makes seeing, hearing and reading about Jesus blessed and all equal?  The Holy Spirit is God’s unseen presence inside of us, in our hearts, and when are hearts are in love with God, then we can believe in Jesus through seeing, hearing and reading about him.  It is the presence of God’s Spirit within us that helps us come to believe in Jesus in a way that changes our life to follow the example of Jesus.

Prayer:

Lord Jesus Christ, even though I do not see you, I believe in you because I have heard about you and I have read about you and I have seen how you have changed the lives of people in my life.  Thank you for giving me the Holy Spirit inside of me to help me understand how the Risen Christ is still close within me.  Amen.

Today we read a story about a man named Thomas.  And Thomas has a nickname.  Do you know what his nickname is?  He’s called “doubting Thomas.”  What does that mean?  Well, it means that he would only believe that Jesus was alive, if he could see him, hear him, and touch him.

  Do any of us see, hear and touch Jesus today?  Do we believe that Jesus is alive?

  Do we only believe things that we can see, touch and hear?  No.  In fact some of the greatest things that we believe, cannot be seen, touched or heard.

  When you are not in the same room as your mom and dad, do they still love you?  Do your parents still love you when you can’t see them, touch them or hear them?  Of course they still love you.  And you can believe in that love.  So when you are at school, do your parents still love you?  Of course they do.

  I had a very special grandmother when I was young.  I just loved to be with her.  She was so much fun and she gave a nice birthday partyand she always fixed special favorite food for us.  And she told wonderful stories and she sang songs with us.  And I knew that she loved me.  And my grandmother got old and she died, and it is very sad that I could not hear her, see her or talk to her anymore in the way I used to.  But you know what?  I still feel her love for me.  I still believe in her love, even though I don’t see her, hear her or talk to her.  I still believe in her love.

  After the resurrection of Christ, the disciples could not see, hear or touch Jesus in the same way.  But they continued to know that Jesus loved them.  They still continued to believe that Jesus was still with them in very special ways.  And how could they tell that Jesus was still with them?

   They were used to arguing with each other; but when they live in peace with each other they knew that this peace was because Christ was still with them.  They used to hold grudges against each; but when they forgave each other, they knew that Christ was still with them.

  When I look at you, I can see you, I can hear you and I can touch you.  And you are wonderful to look at.  But you know what?  I can’t really see the very best part of you?  I can’t see what is inside of you. 

And what is inside of you is your spirit.  It is your spirit that makes you a wonderful mystery to enjoy.  And that spirit of yours is always going to be young and new and fresh.  Even though I can’t see your spirit, I know it is most important part of you that makes you special.

  The friends of Jesus did not see the Spirit of Jesus; but it was his best part too.  And when they could no longer see his body; they could still feel his Spirit with them.  And we can feel the Spirit of Jesus with us today.  We can feel it when we have peace and when we forgive each other.

  So remember today; we can believe in things that we don’t see.  The spirit of Christ is with us today.  And that is meaning of the resurrection of Christ.  Amen.

Intergenerational Family Service with Holy Eucharist

April 16, 2023: The Second Sunday of Easter 

Gathering Songs: Glory Be to God On High;  Now the Green Blade Rises, He is Lord, He Lives!

Liturgist: Alleluia, Christ is Risen.

People: The Lord is Risen Indeed.  Alleluia.

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.

Song: Glory Be to God on High (Christian Children Songbook, # 70)

Glory be to God on high, alleluia.  Glory be to God on high, alleluia.

Praise the Father, Spirit, Son, alleluia.  Praise the Godhead, Three in one, alleluia.

Sing we praises unto Thee, alleluia, for the truth that sets us free. Alleluia.

Liturgist:         The Lord be with you.

People:            And also with you.

Liturgist:  Let us pray

Almighty and everlasting God, who in the Paschal mystery established the new covenant of reconciliation: Grant that all who have been reborn into the fellowship of Christ's Body may show forth in their lives what they profess by their faith; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

First Litany of Praise: Chant: Alleluia

O God, you are Great!  Alleluia

O God, you have made us! Alleluia

O God, you have made yourself known to us!  Alleluia

O God, you have provided us with us a Savior!  Alleluia

O God, you have given us a Christian family!  Alleluia

O God, you have forgiven our sins!  Alleluia

O God, you brought your Son Jesus back from the dead!  Alleluia

A reading from the First Letter of Peter

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who are being protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

Liturgist: The Word of the Lord

People: Thanks be to God

Let us read together from Psalm 16

I will bless the LORD who gives me counsel; * my heart teaches me, night after night.

I have set the LORD always before me; * because he is at my right hand I shall not fall.

My heart, therefore, is glad, and my spirit rejoices; * my body also shall rest in hope.

For you will not abandon me to the grave, * nor let your holy one see the Pit.

You will show me the path of life; *in your presence there is fullness of joy, and in your right hand are pleasures for evermore.

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.

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained." But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord." But he said to them, "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe."  A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe." Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God!" Jesus said to him, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe."  Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.

Liturgist:         The Gospel of the Lord.

People:            Praise to you, Lord Christ.

Sermon – Father Phil 

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.

Youth 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

Song:  Now the Green Blade Riseth,  (# 204 in the blue hymnal)

1-Now the green blade riseth from the buried grain, wheat that in the dark earth many days has lain; love lives again, that with the dead has been; Refrain: Love is come again like wheat that springeth green.

2-In the grave they laid him, Love whom hate had slain, thinking that never he would wake again, laid in the earth like grain sleeps unseen. Refrain

3-Forth he came at Easter, like the risen grain, he that for three days in the grave had lain, quick from the dead my risen Lord is seen: Refrain.

4-When our hearts are wintry, grieving, or in pain, thy touch can call us back to life again, fields of our hearts that dead and bare have been:  Refrain.

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 a 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 be 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.  

Words of Administration

Communion Anthem: He Is Lord (Renew!,  # 29)

1-He is Lord.  He is Lord.  He is risen from the dead and He is Lord.  Every knee shall bow, every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord!

2-He is King.  He is King.  He will draw all nations to him, He is king.  And the time shall be when the world shall sing that Jesus Christ is King.

3-He is Love.  He is Love.  He has shown us by his life that He is Love.  All his people sing with one voice of joy that Jesus Christ is Love.

4-He is Life.  He is Life.  He has died to set us free and he is Life.  And he calls us now to live evermore, for Jesus Christ is Life.

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: He Lives (Lift Every Voice and Sing # 42).

I serve a risen Savior, He’s in the world to today; I know that He is living, whatever others say;  I see his hand of mercy, I hear his voice of cheer, And just the time I need Him He’s always near.

Refrain: He lives.  He lives.  Christ Jesus lives today.  He walks with me and talks with me along life’s narrow way.  He lives, He lives salvation to impart!  You ask me how I know He lives.  He lives within my heart.

Rejoice, rejoice, O Christians, lift up your voice and sing.  Eternal hallelujahs to Jesus Christ, the King!  The hope of all who seek Him, the help of all who find, None other is so loving, so good and kind.  Refrain

Dismissal:    

Liturgist: Let us go forth in the Name of Christ. 

People: Thanks be to God! 

Continuity and Personal Identity and the Heart Language of Hope

Easter Sunday A   April 9, 2023
Acts 10:34-43 Psalm118:1-2,14-24
Colossians 3:1-4 Matthew 28:1-10

Lectionary Link

In the moving river of time, we are ever living in the threshold of before and after.  In our use of language we have inherited the traces of what has been before and we relay and relate them to the after, the future.  And since we use the same identifying words for people and things of the past, we assume sameness of identity across time.

Sometimes sameness across time is recognizable, but not always.  Only perhaps insiders could recognize the sameness of identity of the person in my baby picture with what I look like now.  I, myself, could not recognize my baby pictures without being told by my parents.  But as people, we carry within ourselves the memory pictures which tells us that we are the same person at 60 as we were at 16.  I knew my identity at 16 and short of significant mental impairment, I know myself to be the same person now that I was when I was 16, even though I have added innumerable occasions of becoming like a tree with countless experiential age rings.

In the human life cycle there are two major change events in identity: birth and death.  In birth, one is released from symbiotic unity with one's mother where one got oxygen from the umbilical cord and one is forced into an external world to gasp for the first breath of air, outside air.  One is inspired, by taking air within one's lungs.

And when one dies, one no longer draws air from outside.  One loses one's spirit, one's breath for ever.

You and I, with memory know how to process sameness and continuity in our lives and within our community.  Our personal identities are tied up with our family and community identities.  Our personal identities are interwoven with our community identities because of the places where we have learned language.

Our communities have told how to label and name the internal geography of our inward life.  We call our inward life, soul, spirit, heart, mind, memory, and feeling, all of which cannot be empirically verified.   We are taught to weave our inner lives with our outer lives.

As Christians we have inherited a tradition to talk about the continuity of our lives both after our births and after our deaths.  Why would we want to address the life after our deaths?  It is something which is unknowable.  It is impossible to know and yet we are obsessed with the afterlife?  Why do we want to know the unknowable?

We want to know the unknowable because we cherish the living knowable in such a way that we do not think that it should end, or if suffering make us want to end it, we think that there has to be something better to transition to.

The imaginations of resurrection derive from the language of the heart.  Every culture has heart language; such language includes the vocabulary of things which cannot be proven or tested by science, but they are statistically proven by the number of people who confess to adhere to such language.

And what is some of the vocabulary of the language of the heart?  Love, hope, joy, faith, gentleness, goodness, patience, justice and self-control.  The language of the heart cannot help but get instantiated in human stories.

And on this day, we tell the story of hope.  The story of hope is an endless future.  And why do we have an endless future?  Because we belong to God.  We belong to Totality from which nothing and no one can be subtracted.  You and I cannot be subtracted from the All; we can only be continuously integrated with everything that has been and everything that will be.

The resurrection of Jesus is our best story of hope about our future continuity.  If Jesus knew himself again after he had died, and if other people knew him again after he had died, then the case for our future continuity is illustrated for us in a poignant and personal way.

The hopeful story of the resurrection is not meant to diminish our joy and delight with our lives now, with the people whom we have loved and lost.  The hopeful story of the resurrection personalizes the inward intuition that our selfhood will never be lost because we are intricately connected to the great preserving All.

Resurrection and afterlife are different life, hopeful life, even while we mourn the loss of access to the people who have brought us the most joy in this life.

Today we do not use the resurrection of Jesus to deny the sadness of the loss of people in our lives.  I am sure the disciple friends of Jesus wished that he had lived a full life into his eighties for nineties. 

The resurrection story is the creation of the heart language of hope to instantiate in a story the intuition that nothing is ever lost, it is only preserved in some surpassing state of becoming.

It is this future state of becoming beyond our death which we confess today even as we thankfully and humbly mark the tentativeness of our current lives.

We are grateful today that Jesus embraced the tentativeness of human life and that he discovered death to be tentative too because he could not be erased from a greater afterlife.

Today, we let our heart language of hope cry again, "Alleluia, Christ is Risen.  The Lord is Risen indeed!  Amen.

Latest Stage in the Easter Relay Race

Easter Vigil      April 8, 2023

Ex.14:10 Canticle 8, Ez 36:24-28 Psalm 42:1-7
Rom.6:3-11 Luke 24:1-12

Lectionary Link

I would like to use the metaphor of a relay race tonight with a variation.   A relay race consists of runners who run a prescribed distance and then pass off the baton to another runner until the race is complete.  But for the Easter relay race, I would propose that our history includes many prior runners who have handed the baton of the Easter tradition to us and we tonight hand the baton of tradition to the next persons to are to run the next stage.

Tonight in the Easter Vigil, we are those in the current and latest stage of the tradition of Salvation history which has been handed to us throughout the generations.

We commemorate some of the various stages of Salvation History by reading the many Scriptural lessons and Psalms, and by praying the Collects or prayers of the Easter Vigil.

These writings came from people in the ancient past, who have been given insights about the meaning of God and salvation.  They were written down to share continuously.  As inheritors of these writings, we read them again and promulgate them into the future.

These are the great stories which provide us with our salvation identity.  They beginning by positing a Divine Being who uses language to speak into creation everything that has come into being, thus bearing the insight that creation and word happen together.

Word gives identity and being to what we know to be.  The word was to inhabit our bodies as body language in how we were to conduct ourselves.

Our great salvation story lets us know about our perpetual failure to conduct ourselves in the best possible way, in the ways of love and justice.

Our great salvation story provide us with the messages of continual education and correction that have arisen to show us how to amend our lives in the direction of excellence.

The salvation story came to us through the Hebrew people and has been known through their textual tradition.  They were to understand themselves as a paradigmatic people who would live so well as an example to all people that they would by a sort of  moral osmosis influence the rest of the people of the world.  The task of their being an exemplary people was too much to require of them and among the many unfriendly nations they came to suffer many setbacks, even slavery, occupation, and exile.

And yet even with such setback, the story of deliverance and salvation was made evident even as it has always been evident that salvation is never finished, but always ongoing and progressive.

In our salvation story, it has fallen to Jesus Christ to offer a program of direct access to the love of God.  But the profound selfishness of humanity was not ready for the profound love of God which Jesus came to bring.

Jesus has brought to salvation history a universal appeal; he could not be limited to a particular time or particular people.

When Jesus loved profoundly, he threatened people who did not want love and preference to be so widely shared.  And so he was killed when people thought that profound goodness and love could be stopped or limited.

And we again embrace our leg of the relay race tonight.  We come to receive again the message of Jesus living again after his death.  We come to testify that goodness and love cannot be ended by death.

And tonight we accept our next leg of the Easter race into the future.  In hope we proclaim that love cannot die and that it will out live us in this world, and embrace us freshly when we die.

Let us with thanksgiving receive the sacred tradition of hope that has been passed on to us tonight.  Let us pass on this tradition through baptism, healing, teaching, and loving care.  Let us tonight be conduits for the Easter message being passed on into the future.

Tonight we make the hopeful shout into the never-ending future: "Alleluia, Christ is Risen!  The Lord is Risen Indeed!  Alleluia!"  Amen.

Prayers for Lent, 2023

Holy Saturday, April 8, 2023

O God, on this Holy Saturday, we enter into the Sabbath Rest of Jesus in his death to all that is unworthy in life and in our lives in particular.  From our rest from what is unworthy we await the resurrecting Spirit of Christ to use the members of our body for goodness and love.  Amen.

Good Friday, April 7, 2023

God of Great Creative Freedom, you shared aspects of that freedom with all even to the point of Pontius Pilate freely condemning Jesus to death on a cross; give us grace to use the freedom that we have to live toward loving and just outcomes.  Amen.

Maundy Thursday, April 6, 2023

Providing and Sustaining Holy One, you reveal the survival of human community found in eating holy and life giving meals together, and in the service to each other; we commit ourselves again to offering Eucharist and to mutual service.  Amen.

Holy Wednesday, April 5, 2023

O Christ the sun, your light was eclipsed by the darkness and shadows of death for your Tenebrae; give us grace in our tenebrae to survive the hours and days when it seems as though Hope has lost.  Amen.

Holy Tuesday, April 4, 2023

O Continuous Plenitude, we know you by having Eternal Word found us as human beings with language, and we define the beginningless and the endless Continuity with stories; we thank for the stories of Holy Week which challenge us to come to meaningful engagement with life and death and to enhance the meanings of our lives with justice.  Amen.

Holy Monday, April 3, 2023

God of time, give to us a week of holy remembering of the events in the life of Jesus and so interweave their meanings with our lives in search of continuous meaning of what love means for us and our world.  Amen.

Palm Sunday/Passion Sunday, April 2, 2023

God of justice, when just people hear either Hosanna or Crucify him, let us be with the crowd who valorizes love and justice for all.  Amen.

Saturday in 5 Lent, April 1, 2023

Encompassing God beyond life and death, help us not to use the cross of Jesus to minimize the actual horrors of the event of death in the feelings of those who suffer the loss of their loved ones.  Give us faith to live with uncertainty and the delay in knowing the meaning of pain and death.  Amen.

Friday in 5 Lent, March 31, 2023

God of freedom, we suffer under the deeply sad inconveniences of death and harm when they happen before reaching the ages of life expectancy; in our untimely losses the field of probability becomes changed and we beseech your grace to live hopefully within new horizons of imminent probabilities.  Amen.

 Thursday in 5 Lent, March 30, 2023

God of all, give us grace to discern what we do within our identity in the crowd with whom we lodge; give us boldness to leave the former influences of our lives when love and justice is not the motive for peer actions.  Amen.

Wednesday in 5 Lent, March 29, 2023

God, whose Son ask for his killers to be forgiven because of their ignorance; enlighten us to move each day from our ignorances to see more clearly what wisdom asks of us in the cause of love and justice.  Amen.

Tuesday in 5 Lent, March 28, 2023

God of Mystery, we are amazed at the continuity of the confessed personal relationship with Jesus of so many throughout history when so many others in history are forgotten; we honor the knowable Christ found in our lives today.  Amen.

Monday in 5 Lent, March 27, 2023

Gracious God, the death of Jesus came to be called a good death in the providential confession of those who knew him in his afterlife; let us not diminish life by over-glorifying his death unless we use the power the inspiration of his death to prolong abundant life for as many as possible.  Amen.

Sunday, 5 Lent, March 26, 2023

Everlasting God of Time, we continually wait with hope for ordinary history to be understood as a surpassing providence of goodness for our lives and the life of our world, and in faith we hold on to resurrection reparation of all things with justice, forgiveness, and love. Amen.

Saturday in 4 Lent, March 25, 2023

God, whose image is buried within everything, you creatively are always already resurrecting previous occasions to new occasions which retain likeness of the previous.  Give us grace to be in the flow of creativity and with freedom add to new life with excellence.  Amen.

Friday in 4 Lent, March 24, 2023

God, you are the poetry of Plenitude, the endless reservoir of Word creating words to come along side what we experience and provide us with the meanings to grow in love and justice.  Inspire us to translate the poetry of Plenitude into the words and deeds of love, grace, and just today.  Amen.

Thursday in 4 Lent, March 23, 2023

God, who is Word, you have give the words Bread, Way, Life, Resurrection, Truth, Vine, and Lamb of God as metaphors for teaching us the many ways in which you are with us.  Thank you for being as close to us as our language is close to us.  Amen.

Wednesday in 4 Lent, March 22, 2023

God of former times, current time and future time; you let us know in Jesus that the divine omnipresence is resurrection life always for everyone.  Give us the grace of aware of such resurrection life even now.  Amen.

Tuesday in 4 Lent, March 21, 2023

God of all seasons happening everywhere, when it is spring for us, it is fall for others; we invoke your presence upon the time of our life today and we beseech your favor upon us to spread love, kindness, and justice in all the seasons of our life.  Amen.

Monday in 4 Lent, March 20, 2023

God of life, you give us the sense of afterlife before we die and this hope strengthens us in our progressive demise; let the hope of betterment motivate our lives today.  Amen.

Sunday, 4 Lent, March 19, 2023

God of such Light, our seeing eyes are ever adjusting to your brightness; help us to see more clearly today the ways in which we can be rightly related to everything, everyone, our own histories, and in ways which are honest, just, and loving.  Amen.

Saturday in 3 Lent, March 18, 2023

Gracious God, your perfection keeps us moving and changing and improving our seeing of what is good, right and just.  Forgive us our judgments from our continuous comparisons of each other and of we once were and let not our imperfection make us timid in progressing toward what is more just and loving.  Amen.

Friday in 3 Lent, March 17, 2023

God of love and justice, keep us on alert about new paradigms of thought and action which will make more manifest the practice in our world, the truth of love and justice.  Amen.

Thursday in 3 Lent, March 16, 2023

God of Time and Future, as we wait for the future to fill the fuller meanings of what is happening now, let us not procrastinate to do love and justice now.  Inspire us to know that justice and love always results in a better future.  Amen.

Wednesday in 3 Lent, March 15, 2023

All-Knowing God, we are grateful that you do not hold us accountable for what we do not yet know because of our situation and capacity; keep us open hearted and open minded about the new insights which can yet transform our lives in excellence.  Amen.

Tuesday in 3 Lent, March 14, 2023

God of Light, let your light enlighten us to see beyond mere appearances and plumb the nuances of inward grace and let us be inspired to let the moving words of Scripture make us very literally and externally loving and justice.  Amen.

Monday in 3 Lent, March 13, 2023

Gracious God whose Spirit inspires self control, give us grace to be good orchestrators of the multiverses which can accompany our conscious lives from within.  Give us wisdom and arising insights to propel us to be better at love and justice in our various situations.  Amen.

Sunday, 3 Lent, March 12, 2023

Gracious Word of God, let our words and deeds today give cause to know that love and justice can be empirically verified by those who consistently experience them in our lives.  Amen.

Saturday in 2 Lent, March 11, 2023

Eternal Word, you have made us to realize that we are worded beings who come to signify everything in and with words; give us the grace of good word ability to be able to sew together our inward lives from which words are born, with our outer world as we try to make the life of love and justice actual in our various locations.  Amen.

Friday in 2 Lent, March 10, 2023

God, who is All, let us not reduce you to dogma to divide us from people who don't agree with us; let us respect the mystery that is appropriate to the Infinity which should make our humility inevitable.  Amen.

Thursday in 2 Lent, March 9, 2023

Creating God, from the plenitude of all that is past a new present arrives; give us grace to integrate the old with the new arisings and let that integration be completed with the goal of more kindness and justice.  Amen.

Wednesday in 2 Lent, March 8, 2023

O God, on whom we project language use even to the confession as the equivalence of God with Eternal Word; give us the grace of wise use of the language in our lives in our speaking, writing, and behaviors.  Amen.

Tuesday in 2 Lent, March 7, 2023

Gracious Word of God, words have come to code and classify our interior lives and our outer world; give us grace on how we use classifying words and let the qualifying words of love and justice be prominent is how to elevate our worded lives in speaking, writing, and body language acts.  Amen.

Monday in 2 Lent, March 6, 2023

God, whom we don't see; help us to be awaken to our perpetual inwardness as what often is seen as seeming negligible inner linguistic programming of how we have been coded to act.  Let the insight of Christ as eternal Word open us to new inner re-programming toward becoming more Christlike and allowing the divine nature to be through us.  Amen.

Sunday, 2 Lent, March 5, 2023

Gracious God of past, present, and future; keep us curious about what might be new in our future especially the potential insights which might help us to surpass ourselves in excellence.  Amen.

Saturday in 1 Lent, March 4, 2024

Grant us, O God, the grace to ever be born again as we embrace our continuous future rebirths int time as surpassing ourselves in the practice of love and justice in our future states.  Amen.

Friday in 1 Lent, March 3, 2023

God, who is mighty, our world lives too often by conferring on the mighty the right to own the majority of land and resources; teach us the power of restraint and the power to transform wealth, education, and power to care for others.  Amen.

Thursday in 1 Lent, March 2, 2023

God of time and history, Jesus left so that the Risen Christ could become fresh in new unfolding of love and justice within all time; give us grace to do the hard and necessary adjustments to the requirement of love and justice in our time.  Amen.

Wednesday in 1 Lent, March 1, 2023

God of love, who is love, and who loves the world; you sent Jesus to be for us the example of love and when his body was killed out of life, his love continued with many more showings.  Give us more showings of love today that we too might be showings of your love.  Amen.

Tuesday in 1 Lent, February 28, 2023

God of our spiritual transformation, you lead us into even new interpretations of spiritual meanings; give us grace to leave misreadings for our lives which have kept us in bad thinking, emotional infancy, and wrong behaviors.  Amen.

Monday in 1 Lent, February 27, 2023

Gracious Lover of the world, your Son Jesus became manifest as a sign of your love for us and as an Exemplar for us to love and be loved; keep us occupied in the perpetual enterprise of loving today.  Amen.

First Sunday in Lent, February 26, 2023

Second Adam Jesus Christ, you met the serpent who seeks to poison humanity with constant mistimings of words and deeds; give us grace to bring our lives in a holy timing of always doing the propitious things.  Amen.

1 Saturday in Lent, February 25, 2023

Gracious Christ, following your example let the human gifts of creativity be used for good and not for megalomaniacal exhibitionism of prideful person; give humanity the grace to resist using their abilities divorced from the service of others.  Amen.

1st Friday in Lent, February 24, 2023

Jesus Christ, most gifted of all; you were tempted to use your gifts for the wrong motives; in humility you chose the path of suffering with us so that our suffering could known as God with us in the worst probable conditions of life and death.  Amen.

1st Thursday in Lent, February 23, 2023

God, who presides over all probabilities, we are faced with inward and outward ordeals which challenge us to lose appropriate timing in when and how we should behave.  Give us the Christly timing and Christly resistance to the temptations which seek to throw off the timing to do right at the right times.  Amen.

 Ash Wednesday, February 22, 2023

Creator God, the story of our dust spiritualized into our unified being reminds us of our future separation from our bodies as they become dust again; Give us grace to cherish and care for our lives in our bodies with love and justice and let our Lenten journeys be known to result in progress in repentance.  Amen.

The Voluntary Weakness of God: The Emptying of Apparent Divine Power

Good Friday   April 7, 2023
Gen 22:1-18 Ps 22
Heb.10:1-25 John 18:1-19:37

Lectionary Link

How many times do we observe life situations and ponder whether the bad, the evil, the greedy, the haughty proud, and the tyrants are winning?  It can appear that the strongest, the wealthiest, and the smartest people are using strength, wealth, and intelligent to be bullies, economic tyrants while they purchase the best of creative intelligence to expand their power and their greed.

And it does not seem like nature has a way of correcting the situation, even the natural event of death, since when one tyrant dies another arises.

The death of Jesus illustrates how the web of evil works in our world.  The Roman Empire created condition of peace referred to as the Pax Romana, a world peace due to the ability of the Romans to crush any opposition and so impose their "enlightened" laws everywhere.  And such a peace does provide a framework of stability for government and commerce to be conducted.

But with such forced peace, what has to be tamped down is resentment; the resentment caused by memories or aspirations for more local and individual freedoms.

How do the various parties within Judaism try to fly under the radar and avoid the Roman soldiers from crushing them totally?  How do the religious leaders in Jerusalem negotiate with the Roman authorities to try to make the best out of a circumstance of an occupied country and city?  How do the Jews have freedom of religious practice while being occupied by the Romans whose most prominent religion is the cult of a divine Emperor?

On Good Friday, we read the Passion account from the Gospel of John.  If the Gospel of John has come to writing after the year 90, what can we assume about the writer and the readers of this Gospel?  We can assume that they know that Jerusalem was destroyed in the year 70.  We can assume that the inhabitants of Jerusalem and environs who were from all different groups of Judaism, became scattered to the various other cities and towns of the region.  We can assume that there was blaming happening among the various groups of Jews, the Sadducees who lost the Temple for their priests to offer the sacrifices, the Pharisees, who were more adaptive to being able to live without the Temple, the Essenes in the desert, the Zealots who probably suffered great losses in the battles, the followers of John the Baptist, non-practicing Jews who had learned to do business with Romans, and the members of the Jesus Movement.  Part of the blame game was to assign providential reasons for the bad events incurred by the people of Jerusalem.  And that is what prophets of all stripes did: These bad things happened because you did not practice obedience to God in the way that God truly wanted.

What can we also assume about the community which generated John's Gospel?    They were a community which knew the frequent break down between the various Jewish parties, even to know the mutual practice of excommunication or not being welcoming to each other.  What did the Johannine community also experience?  They experienced the appeal of the Gospel being offered to non-Jews who also were not required to adhere to the ritual practices of Judaism.  They were a mixed and mongrel community, of dislocated people who were trying to forge their continuing existence in new places.  But being such nomadic people and open to befriending all people, they also became clubs of mutual support of people in transition, who did not have long local roots in the places where they had come to reside.

If the Johannine community had become welcoming to Gentile members and had become enemies with the parties in Judaism that could not embrace Jesus as their Messiah; such a situation would influence how the narrative of Jesus would be told.

The Passion Gospel of John is the latest Gospel Passion; it is quite advanced in hindsight providence.  Such a Gospel writes a narrative of about the voluntary self emptying of the divine Jesus to the point of death.  The Romans were responsible, the rival Jewish parties were seen as complicit, but what does John's Jesus say to Pilate?  "You have no power over me unless it was given to you from above."

Does it matter that the Jews and Pilate were involved in the crucifixion according to the Gospel of John?  No, they had no power over Jesus unless it was given from above.

Another factor to consider in the passion recounted by the writer of John.  The writer is quite confident about how effective the Gospel has been within the communities throughout the Roman Emperor.  The Jesus Movement is here to stay.  It is inherently winsome.  It is spirited and charismatic.  It is irresistibly converting of many, many people.  And because of the successful outcome, the message of the Cross of Jesus has to be told with the confidence of convincing providence.  "God meant it to happen."

What we can say today is that God is still being emptied into the many dire weaknesses which have and continue to inflict our lives and world.  We still have not experienced enough overcoming success to declare most of the profound suffering in our world as worthy to be called "providential."  We do not feel confident to call the evils of the past, "God's will."  We would not want to minimize suffering by proclaiming it as providential even if we have seen some redeeming outcomes.

Let us accept on Good Friday today that you and I identify with the dilemma of God.  The dilemma of God is known in the self-emptying of apparent divine power.  Why is it a dilemma?  Because the greatest gift of God is freedom.  Why is freedom great?  Because it is what make morals and ethics significant and truly valuable.  Why is it a dilemma?  Because the Great Freedom that is God shares with agents of lesser freedom and this means that Great Freedom allows the play of lesser freedoms within all the agents who are not God.  So there is the freedom for an entire array of probabilities of occurrences.

And on this day we pause at the occurrence of the Cross of Jesus.  We share the dilemma of God in God taking identity with the suffering ones who have lost the power to prevent their suffering.

Today also reveals another principle:  When unjust suffering happens, it has the invisible power and force to transform in the inner realm.  And for this reason, we can come to confess with St. Paul in identifying with God's dilemma: "I have been crucified with Christ, and I live, yet not I, but Christ lives within me."  By the time the Gospel of John was written, the cross had become the mystical power to die to the selfish self.  To this ironic power today we submit in our contemplation of the Cross of Christ.  Amen.

Liturgy: Holy Play with a Purpose

Maundy Thursday April 6, 2023
Ex. 12:1-14a Ps. 78:14-20, 23-25
1 Cor 11:23-32 John 13:1-15

Lectionary Link

Prelude means "before the play."  Have you ever thought of liturgy as Holy Play?  That might seem embarrassing since as people of faith we would want to say that we are not childish in our thoughts and habits.  And we don't want to be accused of being disconnected with actual living situation.

It could be that liturgy and ritual have become disconnected from life situations and have lost their sign value for people who may be coming to church out of social habit or simply to obey church leaders.

Maundy Thursday is Holy Play and with profound connective purposes which are important for our lives.

A crucial issue for the church is being a significant community negotiating the survival of people among other communities of people.  The Jesus Movement communities of the Gospels and those presided over by St. Paul were communities threatened by the great social force of the first centuries, namely, the Roman Empire.

What are the key elements for a community of people to survive within a Empire.  One element is that they needed to stay together to provide some very basic support for each other.  If we understand the need to stay together for mutual support, then we can understand Holy Eucharist as a meal with a purpose.  The Holy Eucharist is the most concrete expression of the social reality of the church.  It shares some of the same functions as a family meal.  Why does a family have meals?  To make sure that each member is fed with the basic sustenance of life.  The family meal is not just about food; it is also about fellowship, a mutual checking in with each other to express care, concern, stories, and prayer.

St. Paul and the early church leaders understood that Holy Eucharist was a gift and command of Jesus to keep the church together as a continuing community into the future.  The early church understood Jesus to be a leadership of hospitality, the kind of hospitality which keeps people together.  And so on Maundy Thursday, we commemorate the gift of the Holy Eucharist as the gathering which is always an anticipation of the next gathering in the future with those who care for each other and for those who want to invite others to the same benefit of a mutual caring community.

The Holy Eucharist is also an evangelical aspiration of hope because it expresses the ideal desire for all the people of the world to be able to sit down together in hospitality and the care which sees to everyone having enough.

The aspiration the future fellowship of all humanity is met with reality of the differences of the egos of the people of this world.  Not only is it difficult for heterogenous people to get along and have fellowship; it is also a challenge for homogeneous people to get along and share unbroken fellowship.  People from the same society and backgrounds and from the same family still face the individual ego that demands that "it is my way or the highway."

And that brings us to the second feature of the Holy Play of Maundy Thursday: Foot-washing.  Jesus, is the Rabbi, the chairman of the board, and yet he emptied himself of exalted position and did something which no one else would do for the meal.  He perform the task which was forgotten by his disciples.  He took the role of a servant and washed their feet.  By so doing, he was showing them that is was only in service that the community and fellowship could survive and be perpetuated into the future.

Many Christians in America do not find themselves in servant roles.  Why?  Because we have so much that we can pay to get things done.  We can pay and so seeming to "not need other people."  We act as independent financial agents paying for the goods and services of our lives.

This means that we have a greater challenge.  If we don't need the Holy Eucharist for checking in or we don't need the services of others, then we miss the point of Maundy Thursday. 

The point is that we "check our egos" to comprise the community and we "check our egos" to serve to pay the community forward into the future.  In our baptisms, each Christian is an "ordained" minister with gifts for the community.

Let us remember tonight, not to forsake the gathering of the Holy Eucharist.  It is still the most concrete social expression of the church.  And let us also remember the Holy Play of foot-washing; serving and loving to serve in knowing that we are usefully beneficial to each other.

May God open our eyes to the connection of the holy play of Holy Eucharist and foot-washing to reality of community and service tonight.  Amen.