Olive Tree Worship Service: April 27, 2013

Once a month St. Andrews holds an alternative meditative service for people living in the area. The focus for April was Fire. In between Taize chants we read and responded to images of fire. A number of Ecumenical Accompaniers commented on witnessing or attending to Palestinians who had been shot. 

Fire Readings

Some say the world will end in fire. Some say in ice. From what I’ve tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate to say that

for destruction is also great and would suffice.        

Robert Frost

Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led his flock beyond the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. Then Moses said, “I must turn aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses! And he said, “Here I am.”  Then he said, “Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place you are standing is holy ground.”    Exodus 3:1-5

bombs in Gaza

Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before, the Lord, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire, and after the fire, a sound of silence.

         I Kings 19: 11b-12

Earth is crammed with heaven

And every bush aflame with God

But only those who see take off their shoes.

                  Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Holy Fire

Self Portrait

It doesn’t interest me if there is one God

or many gods.

I want to know if you belong or feel

abandoned.

If you know despair or can see it in others.

I want to know

if you are prepared to live in the world

with its harsh need

to change you. If you can look back

with firm eyes

saying this is where I stand. I want to know

if you know

how to melt into that fierce heat of living

falling toward

the center of your longing. I want to know

if you are willing

to live, day by day, with the consequence of love

and the bitter

unwanted passion of your sure defeat.

I have been told, in that fierce embrace, even

the gods speak of God.

         David Whyte

Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in history of the world, man will have discovered fire.

                  Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

The Truth stands before me.

On my left is a blazing fire, and

on my right, a cool flowing stream.

One group of people walk toward the fire, into the fire,

and the other towards the cool flowing waters.

No one knows which is blessed and which is not.

But just as someone enters the fire,

the head bobs up from the water.

And just as a head sinks into the water,

that face appears in the fire.

Those who love the sweet water of pleasure

and make it their devotion are cheated by this reversal,

the deception goes further---

The voice of the fire says:

“I am not fire, I am fountainhead,

come into me and don’t mind the sparks.”

         Rumi

When the day of Pentecost had come,

They were all together in one place.

And suddenly from heaven there came a sound

Like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house

Where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire,

Appeared before them, and a tongue rested on each of them.

                  Acts 2: 1-4

Courage to Live Resurrected Lives

The following is the prayer I created for Prayers for the People for the Second Sunday after Easter at Saint Adrews. It begins with a prayer from the UCC minister and poet Maren Tirabassi writing in an online experiment in doing church online. The rest is my midrash on the texts of the day. Unfortunately or fortunately I forgot the prayer at home and had to remember what I had written so the prayer the folks at church was different from this. One important difference was that I said it was the business of this church to stick its fingers in the bloody sides of suffering. I like the addition.



Gracious God, may your name and the born,broken, risen incarnation be hallowed.
Give us this day our daily breath to sing your coming,
and in our remembering of you in sacrament bread and breakfast toast,
may your will be done.
forgivers and forgiven, we come to the source of our strength against temptation
and our endurance in suffering----
for yours is the holiness and the humanness and the beauty forever...
and in our lives right now. Amen.

Creator God, who made us in your own image,
who gave us bodies and said they were good,
help us not be afraid of your son's wounds or
the still bleeding sores of your suffering people.
Give us the boldness of Thomas to stick our fingers in to your bloody side,
into the warring and hurt filled places of our world.

Sovereign God, who commands our allegiance and obedience
above all other authorities including governments,
guide us now in how to live resurrected lives
based on sharing and compassion,
working for peace with justice.

God, who poured out his love for us
who allowed himself to be broken open for us,
be patient with us as we adjust to a new life
based on mutuality and love
where death has no dominion,
where you will continue to meet us on whatever road we are walking.

Witnesses to the Fact

The below is the prayer I read at St. Andrew's Easter sunrise service. I particularly like "draw forth our faithfulness from places of entombment; bring it to the light of day; set it free." We are all entombed and in need of resurrection. We are also all witnesses to God having raised Jesus to life.

On the way to Easter lunch a fellow minister asked if I believed in a bodily resurrection and I answered, "Yes." I was surprised at my answer. I didn't always. However, as I've come to really believe in the incarnation I have also come to believe in a bodily resurrection. Jesus was born and Jesus died. The tomb was empty. Death has no dominion.  Resurrection is a full mind, body, spirit, experience.

This is also why I love Thomas. He had to see and touch the wounds in Jesus' hands to believe it was him. Jesus is resurrected wounds and all. It's not just his spirit but his very broken and wounded body. All is let free.  May we live as if we too believe this is so.

Blessings of new life-----

From Early in the Morning 5

O God we gather this Easter morning to express
gratitude in word and song.
We offer our thanks that when you could have abandoned us
you chose instead to affirm steadfast presence.
And we offer our thanks that the amazing graciousness of what
you will for your children far exceeds our expectations, our imaginings, even our hopes.

In days to come, may we live in Christ.
Show your power through us as you did through the crucified one.
Draw forth our faithfulness from places of entombment;
bring it to the light of day; set it free.

We pray in the name of the resurrected and risen Christ.
Amen.

Sending

Go, in awe of the creation., the incarnation, the death and resurrection of our God...
and give thanks. For God has raised Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses to the fact.

Olive Branch Worship

March 23, 2013

St. Andrews Scotts Memorial Church

Land

To tend a garden is a precious thing.

But dearer still the one where all may roam,

the weeds of poison, poverty, and war,

demand your care, who call the earth your home.

Kathy Galloway, Soul Weavings

Come and be still surrounded by candlelight darkness, meditative liturgy, prayers, chants and readings. Providing space for interior reflection and quiet, this meditational Saturday evening service is offered when the work of the week is completed and the calm of the weekend’s eve settles over our hearts and minds. Come and be still.

About our altar: Each month the gathered community will create the sacred space according to the theme of the month. You are invited to bring a reading or an object to share. We will also provide some materials for you to create a response to our theme.

The service begins with the sound of the bells

Welcome

 Music

                  Kristen plays flute

Lighting of candles in bowls while we sing 

God to Enfold Us (Iona) singing 3 times

God to enfold us, Christ to uphold us,

Spirit to keep us in heaven’s sight;

So may God grace us, heal us, embrace us,

Lead us through the darkness into the light

Opening Prayer  (from Rabbi Arthur Waskow)

One:     In the beginning, darkness covered the face of the deep.

Many:  Then the rushing breath of life hovered over the waters.

All:       Let us breathe together.

One:     Let us catch our breath from the need to make, to do.

Many:   Let us be conscious of the Breath of Life.

One:     We breathe out what the trees breathe in.

Many:   We breathe in what the trees breathe out.

All:       Together we breathe each other into life.

     Blessed is the One within the many.

     Blessed are the Many who make one.

        

This is My Song (tune Findlandia)     verse 1

This is my song, Oh God of all the nations,

a song of Peace for lands afar and mine.

This is my home, the country where my heart is;

here are my hopes, my dreams, my sacred shrine.

but other hearts in other lands are beating,

with hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.

Reading or Sharing

This is My Song   verse 2

My country’s skies are bluer than the ocean,

and sunlight beams on cloverleaf and pine.

But other lands have sunlight too and clover,

and skies are everywhere as blue as mine.

Oh hear my song, oh God of all the nations,

a song of Peace for their land and for mine.

Reading or Sharing

This is My Song  verse 3

May Truth and Freedom come to every nation;

may Peace abound where strife has raged so long;

that each may seek to love and build together,

a world united, righting every wrong;

a world united in its love for freedom,

proclaiming Peace together in one song.

Reading or Sharing

“Come and fill our hearts” (Taize) three times

Come and fill our hearts with your peace.

You alone, O Lord, are holy.

Come and fill our hearts with your peace, alleluia

Prayers for Ourselves, Others, and Creation

“Were You There When They Crucified My Lord”

Chorus: Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

Oh! Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

Were you there when they nailed him to the tree?

Were you there when they nailed him to the tree?

Oh! Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.

Were you there when they nailed him to the tree?

Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?

Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?

Oh! Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.

Were you there when they laid him in the tomb?

Were you there when God raised him from the dead?

Were you there when God raised him from the dead?

Oh! Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.

Were you there when God raised him from the dead?

Reading or Sharing

Sharing the Sign of Peace

Sending Song    Bless Now, O God, The Journey

Tune: Nettleton 339       Words: Sylvia Dunstan

Bless now, O God, the journey that all your people make,

the path through noise and silence, the way of give and take.

The trail is found in the desert and wends the mountain round.

Bless sojourners and pilgrims who share this winding way;

your hope burns through the terrors, your love sustains the day.

We yearn for holy freedom while often we are bound;

together we are seeking the road where faith is found.

Divine eternal lover, you meet us on the road.

We wait for lands of promise where milk and honey flow,

but waiting not for places, you meet us all around.

Our covenant is written on roads, as faith is found.

Sending Prayer

Sending Blessing

Deep peace of the running wave to you.

Deep peace of the flowing air to you.

Deep peace of the quiet earth to you.

Deep peace of the shining stars to you.

Deep peace of the infinite peace to you.

Readings

My homeland is not a traveling bag.

Nor am I a passing traveler.

It is I who am the lover.

And the land is my beloved.

Mahmoud Darwish, Diary of a Wound

Genesis 8: 6-12

At the end of 40 days Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made and sent out a raven; and it went to and fro until the waters were dried up from the earth. Then he sent out the dove from him, to see if the waters had subsided from the face of the ground; but the dove found no place to set its foot, and it returned to him to the ark, for the waters were still on the face of the whole earth. So he put out his hand and took it into the ark with him. He waited another seven days, and again he sent out the dove from the ark; and the dove came back to him in the evening, and there in his beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf; so Noah knew that the waters had subsided from the earth. Then he waited another seven days, and sent out the dove; and it did not return to him anymore.

I thank You God for most this amazing

day for the leaping greenly spirits of trees

and a blue true dream of sky, and for everything

which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,

and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth

day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay

great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing

breathing any---lifted from the no

of all nothing---human merely being

doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and

now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

                  ee cummings

Good people,

most royal greening verdancy,

rooted in the sun,

you shine with radiant light.

In this circle of earthly existence

you shine so finely,

It surpasses understanding.

God hugs you.

You are encircled by the arms

of the mystery of God.

         Hildegard of Bingen

Deuteronomy 8: 6-10

Therefore keep the commandments of the Lord your God, by walking in his ways and by fearing him. For the Lord your God

Is bringing you into a good land, a land with flowering streams, with springs and underground waters welling in valleys of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land where you can eat bread without scarcity, where you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron and from whose hills you may mine copper. You shall et your fill and bless the Lord your God for the good land that he has given you.

The dignity of nature as creation needs to be bound up with our responsibility for the preservation of life.

                           World Council of Churches

We know that in all Creation

Only the human family

Has Strayed from the Sacred Way.

.

We know that we are the ones who are divided

And we are the ones who must come back together

To Walk in the Sacred Way.

.

Sacred One,

Teach us love, compassion, and honor

That we may heal the earth

And heal each other.

-- A prayer of the Ojibway Nation

…A small evening

a neglected village

two sleeping eyes

thirty years

five wars

I witness that time hides for me

An ear of wheat

The singer sings

Of fire and strangers

Evening was evening

The singer was singing

And they question him

Why do you sing?

He answers them as they seize him

because I sing

And they have searched him:

in his breast only his heart

in his heart only his people

in his voice only his sorrow.

Mahmoud Darwish from poem of the land

I have always found it difficult not to be moved by Jerusalem, even when I hated it---and God knows I have hated it for the sheer human cost of it. But the sight of it, from a far or inside the labyrinth of its walls, softens me. Every inch of it holds the confidence of ancient civilizations, their deaths and their birthmarks pressed deep into the city’s viscera and onto the rubble of its edges. The deified and the condemned have set their footprints in its sand. It has been conquered, razed, and rebuilt so many times that its stones seem to possess life, bestowed by the audit trail of prayer and blood.  Yet somehow, it exhales humility.  It sparks an inherent sense of familiarity in me---that doubtless, irrefutable Palestinian certainty that I belong to this land. It possesses me, no matter who conquers it, because its soil is the keeper of my roots, of the bones of my ancestors. Because it knows the private lust of my foremothers. Because I am the natural seed of its passionate, tempestuous past. I am a daughter of the land, and Jerusalem reassures me of this inalienable title, far more than yellowed property deeds, the Ottoman land registries, the iron keys to our stolen homes, or UN resolutions and decrees of superpowers could ever do.

         From Mornings in Jenin  by Susan Abulhawa

Prodigal God

Luke 15:11b-32

St. Andrews Scots Memorial Church, Jerusalem

March 10, 2013

John Newton trafficked in the slave trade, brought thousands of men, women, and children from Africa to the auction blocks.  He was successful in human trafficking not only because he was good at it but because there was a high demand for it in Empire’s expanding colonies.

Then on March 21, 1748 there was a great storm at sea and the ship he was steering started to sink. In desperation John called out to God for mercy as he steered his leaking ship for 11 hours straight. He was rescued by a sea captain wbo his father asked to search for him.  He was saved that day. He traced his religious conversion to his prayers being answered. It was the hour he first believed because God had saved a “poor wretch like him.”

Once back on dry land he decided to read the Bible in Greek and Hebrew and stop blaspheming.  In 1754 after suffering a stroke he became a tax collector in Liverpool and an evangelical lay minister. From there he went on to become an Anglican priest, a popular preacher among the dissenters and those beginning to question the ethics and morality of slavery.

In 1772 he wrote a hymn for the New Year called “Faith’s Review and Expectation,” the hymn we know as “Amazing Grace.” In 1788, a full 40 years after his being saved, he wrote a pamphlet “Thoughts on the Slave Trade” where he described the conditions on the ships during the Middle Passage. By then he was actively engaged in reforming his country’s acceptance of the slave trade and had joined the abolitionists like William Wilberforce and George Whittfield. He lived to see the Slave Trade Act passed in 1807. Grace or God’s mercy may have saved John Newton that day out at sea but surely it was grace that transformed a man who traded slave s into one who fought for their freedom. And as he says in his hymn, “Twas grace that brought us safe thus far… and grace will lead us home.”

Now I don’t know if John Newton lived to hear his beloved Amazing Grace sung by slaves in the colonies brought from there by Scotland to the early settlers. And I am pretty sure he didn’t hear it sung by both sides of the American Civil War or as a requiem by the Cherokee Indians on the Trail of Tears. I know he didn’t hear it sung right before Martin Luther King delivered his I Have a Dream speech or when Nelson Mandela was freed from prison or when the Berlin Wall fell. I know he didn’t hear his beloved new year’s hymn cataloguing his own fall and rescue by grace but I do believe he would nonetheless be pleased to know that his hymn has touched so many who have felt lost and are now found or so many who have been wronged and are now free.

In addition, this iconic hymn is often sung at memorial services or any time the church needs to be reminded that God’s love is indeed extravagant, wide and merciful. We sing it today as an illustration of our Gospel story for it reminds us that we too are in need of God’s amazing grace whether we are the prodigal son or the righteous son.

We sing it acknowledging “through many dangers, toils and snares” that it was “grace that brought us safely thus far…”

Yet undeserved grace is a wee bit of a problem for us, is it not? Isn’t this parable of the return of the Prodigal Son rather difficult to accept? Isn’t it basically unfair or unjust that the father welcomes his wayward spendthrift son back without even an apology, a sign of repentance? Now to be fair, some claim that his moment of repentance came in the pigpen, others say it happened after he was wrapped in his father’s arms.

Now as the responsible child in my family, I have to admit I feel a kinship with the older dutiful son, the one who stayed home and did his work and tried to live a faithful life. For if it is all about undeserved grace, what’s the point of trying to lead a righteous or good life?  I have to admit it is challenging for me to really accept that God’s love is as amoral as this welcome home parable suggests.  I identify strongly with this older brother who must have felt like he had only two choices in the end---

Condone the undeserved love extended to his brother or stay out in the cold secure in being right. I think I have played this part many times, how about you? 

Or do you identify more with the younger brother, with John Newton, who feel that you were once lost and have now been found, were without a home and now feel welcomed? Do you assume you don’t deserve grace because you have squandered the inheritance your loving father has given you?  

I believe it is easier to be resentful of unearned love unless we are the one toward whom the father is running with open outstretched arms. The parable and the hymn make more sense if we identify with the sinner, the poor wretch.

Many years ago when I was first discerning my call to ministry in Raleigh North Carolina our congregation had a discussion about changing the line “wretch like me.” It seemed too extreme for many in the congregation. Just as the choir director was about to figure out an alternative phrasing one of the men in the congregation spoke up and told us his story about his time in prison for stealing money from his company. He told us that this hymn and in particular those words spoke directly about how he felt. He said his return to God and us was not real without this confession. Needless to say, we kept the words not just for him but that part of ourselves, our shadow selves that we often try to hide from others.   

Now years later I think that both brothers are lost.  I’ve had a few years standing out in the cold of righteousness and have found it has not brought me closer to God.  I believe now that each brother is lost and needs to be found---- one to his addictions and the other to his righteousness.

 Episcopal priest and theologian Barbara Brown Taylor says that each brother is not only lost but also needs the other. Both sons are lost to the father----one through irresponsibility and the other through self-righteousness. The younger brother needs some of his older brother’s discipline while the older brother needs some of his younger brother’s humility.

And the father knows this. Is this why he does not need his younger son’s verbal repentance?  The father does not choose one son over the other but rather focuses on bringing them back together. And does the father not also experience a kind of resurrection in his son’s return? Where once there was loss and death, now there is life.

Every time God’s active, stretching, searching, healing love finds someone and calls that person home, transformation happens. It may not happen right away. It took John Newton another 40 years before he spoke out against the slave trade but it did happen. Every time God welcomes us home, deserved or undeserved, it is a time for celebration for the lost has been found and the dead now live. Is this not the good news today?

So let us go then and give thanks to our prodigal God for the wideness of mercy and grace, for extravagant welcome that can save us from drowning or self inflicted self -righteousness. Let us open our tables to sinners and tax collectors, God’s outcasts. Let us open our arms wide and celebrate that we are all welcome here and in God’s home.

.