Just when I thought I had God under control the wild wind of the spirit blew me away. Entering the synagogue on the Sabbath, as was his habit, Jesus stood up to do the reading. The SPIRIT of DIVINITY is within all Creation, permeating all of the Cosmos! } The Risen One comes with hands full of love. Only a foolWould sweep and sweep and sweep, leaving her purse unguarded, to search for one lone coin. One quiet afternoon my brother Alan and I were playing on the shore. The big challenge of this period in the Church Calendar is that the focus is so very clearly on events that happened to "Someone else" so very long ago. Let us offer a sacrifice in the form of embodied LOVE. jQuery('#submit-action').attr('href','/paupress/?rel=pauContent&pau_type='+thisact); Crystal was very upset and still very stuck. By the way, theres much more in Chapter 15 of Pauls letter to the followers of Jesus Way in Corinth. Or perhaps it is that both are dead. Together, by your grace, we accept the life you offer. You created the universe and all living things. 2014-04-20 liturgy [Easter sunrise] Author: Mike Farley Amen. if ( '' != thisact ) { Change), You are commenting using your Facebook account. We will never know what actually happened two thousand years ago, we will always. Re-create us too, we pray, by your holy Word. We are free to live in the abundance of life here and now, in a Cosmos permeated by the DIVINE MYSTERY which is LOVE. Nothing was said until dinner the next day, by which time Steve and Anna had been back to church twice. The congregation is encouraged to move around the sanctuary. From desert cliff and mountaintop we trace the wide design, Jesus way did not include taking up the sword to achieve peace. Then I discovered the card placed in the center of my bed. People: Almighty God, who through your Son overcame death and opened to us the gate of everlasting life, grant that we who celebrate our Lord'sresurrection may arise from the death of our sin through the renewal of your Holy Spirit and may hear and obey your living Wordof truth;through Jesus Christ our Lord, who now lives and reigns with you and theHoly Spirit, one God forever. I had this wicked arm-hold sleeper, and that together with my full Nelson followed by a knee-arm press, was guaranteed to have my brother screaming uncle and agreeing to be my obedient servant until in no time at all. You responded with grace, humility, and welcome. May we be transfigured by her courage to do our part to turn her mourning into dancing. United States But we live in the 21st century and we have access to all sorts of information that the generations who have gone before us did not. Thousands of rotting corpses were left nailed to crosses in order to terrify the masses into submission. Humans have tried in vain to get themselves back into the garden, to restore our oneness with our creator. There are flowers in the sanctuary during Lent! Perhaps Jesus sensed that even their anger was a type of jockeying for position, when he insisted that, Anyone among you who aspires to greatness must serve the rest; whoever wants to rank first among you must serve the needs of all. We give thanks for the spirit of new life active in our lives as it was in the life of Jesus. Lent is observed in the Anglican, Eastern Orthodox, Lutheran, Methodist, Moravian, Oriental . all nourished from the same source of life. Faced with the needs of so very many, what can I do? Not all of us are up to the challenges. This my body, given for you. One of the authors of the Book of Genesis described creation like this : And God said, Let there be afirmamentin the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made thefirmament and divided the waters which were under thefirmamentfrom the waters which were above thefirmament: and it was so. You called forth prophets who dared to speak the truth of Life to worldly powers that promoted death. Then there are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies. Im in real danger of losing my ability to follow Jesus on what appears to all the world to be the foolish path of non-violent resistance to empire. Anna and Steve were Pentecostals who were convinced that my slack Lutheran ways simply werent serious enough to earn me a coveted spot in the Heaven of their dreams. Would restore, would be a shepherd, foolish enough to care enough to save the lost, the wandering, the lonely, the one outside the bounds of the flock. Not even our fear, even fear expressed in domination, greed, hatred and violence, not even fear of death, can kill the LOVE which lies at the very heart of all that is, and rises again and again, whenever and wherever, arrogance is ransomed by humility, fear is ransomed by courage, hatred is ransomed by kindness, violence is ransomed by justice, war is ransomed by peace, greed is ransomed by generosity, and self-centredness is ransomed by service to others. Second Sunday of Advent. The Risen One comes with hands full of love. *This liturgy is an adaptation of the traditional Great Thanksgiving liturgy. window.location.replace('https://progressivechristianity.org/paupress/?rel=contact&pau_form=contact_form'); They were both more than a little relieved to have Grandmas calming presence. Think for a moment. Ive told this story before, but then havent we all heard the story of Thomas, every Easter. Please feel free to use in your faith communities with attribution. Jesus reveals CHRIST. We gaze upon creation where erosion makes it known, To believe in the historicity of the resurrection is one thing. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on Jesus. Some walking away to become refugees, joining the endless flow of the displaced. Psalm 25:1-10. Our HEBREW ancestors, JESUS very own kin, understood the MYSTERY which we call GOD, as the verb TO BE, for this MYSTERY IS BEING itself. Risen indeed! Working, dancing, and church, a blessed trinity designed to secure passage back into my travels abroad. The story I want to tell you comes from the Irish author Frank McCourts autobiography entitled Tis. Resist making the characters in these parables all about us. The truth has left its living word for anyone to read. Risen Christ, The world despised and rejected you. The concluding prayer of thanksgiving was (heavily) adapted from a prayer by Katherine Hawker. I expect that whatever needs to be done will be done quickly, so that I can get back to normal. It wasnt until this endless loop exposed the presence of yet another face of CHRIST that I begin to be transfigured. Risen as he said! April 17, 2022 (Readings on USCCB website) . I remember flying out of there in a hot rage. Letting go isnt as simple as it sounds. There far away from their world, they were could safely worship Jesus. Humans are incomplete beings. I Suspect that You Do Too! People: First, by his resurrection he has overcome death, so that he might make us share in therighteousness he won for us by his death.Second, by his power we tooare already now resurrected to a new life.Third, Christ's resurrectionis a guarantee of our glorious resurrection.This is our faith and hope. Thank you for sharing this liturgy for communion. Jesus came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. I was unbeatable. Faith and EthicsKaren Armstrong is amongst a group of religious scholars who have noted that the essential teaching of each of the major religions usually includes some version of "love your neighbour". The Apostle Paul denies that Jesus resurrection was an actual physical resurrection. No wonder Jesus took Peter, John, and James up there to pray. The following liturgy was submitted by Rev. delivered us from slavery to sin and death, and made us a new people. We trust that with your grace present, even the smallest act of kindness, the shortest practice of goodness, or the slightest gesture of generosity can have significance well beyond all expectations. Yet the story of Jesus Way of being in the world continued to be present among those who sought to live as Jesus lived. These parables cant just be about a lamb, or a coin, or even a couple of squabbling children. I am tweaking this for this Sunday credit to your site will be given. You sent Jesus, your Son, to walk in the way of Lifethat we might follow. There we stood, we three kindred creatures, waving together as ONE, held in a vast Cosmos touched by the MYSTERY which is the LOVE which permeates ALL that IS, including us, for we are ONE, ONE with DIVINITY. Easter Sunrise Service April 20, 2014 Central Presbyterian Church Central Presbyterian Church seeks to glorify the Triune God by embracing the gospel, building our community, making disciples, and transforming societies. How dare I flirt with new ways of understanding REALITY, new discoveries about the Cosmos, new theories about the nature of human consciousness? May the Spirit open our souls in order for us to see humanity, God and creation through the eyes of Jesus. endobj I was suspicious of the kind of youth I would meet on a Tuesday at a Pentecostal church, I convinced a fellow chambermaid to come along with me, so that if we had to, Id have company as I hitch-hiked my way back to Jasper. Indeed, it can mean freedom to BE in ways which affirm REALITY, the REALITY we long to know, the ONE which IS BEYOND the BEYOND and BEYOND that Also, this LOVE which we call GOD. In the 17th century, Galileo Galilei a personal friend of the Pope, published a paper demonstrating that the sun could not possible revolve around the earth. Even our ancient Greek forebearers, they understood that if horses had gods those gods would be horses. "Ground Us and Grow Us in Love," rtf or pdf file of liturgy at Worship Ways. ~ 1 Corinthians 11:26. But we have seen the face of CHRIST, and CHRIST compels us, through CHRISTs tears, to go out from the safety of our lofty positions, down into the violent world to be the LOVE which creates peace through justice. What is sown is ignoble, what is raised is glorious. Gig Harbor, WA 98335 Leader: Let us pray.Lord God, send your Holy Spirit upon us, that the bread which we break may be to us the communion of the body of Christ, and the cup which we bless the communion of his blood. [Meal is shared according to custom of congregation.]. If that means violence, well maybe Im not the pacifist I claim to be. *People sing: ("Come, You Faithful, Raise the Strain," stanza 3)"Alleluia!" Free from misguided struggles to appease the idol god of our design, we are free to see beyond our blind self-centered desire for a life beyond this life, free to see the face of DIVINITY in our neighbours face, free to see DIVINITY in the majesty of the Cosmos, and in the beauty of the Earth. Hosanna in the highest. Only a fool would be such a steward as this. I like the Apostle Paul, do not believe in the resuscitation of a corpse. One: It is through our neighbors and creation that we see the rising of Christ, O God. 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