fxtáéç Éy TwäxÇà Saint Paul s Church

Transcription

1 fxtáéç Éy TwäxÇà Saint Paul s Church Gathered by Grace ~ Sent Forth to Serve 201 E. Ridge Street, Marquette, MI (906)

2 Prelude We stand as able. From the narthex. Opening Acclamation: Presider: GATHERING Blessed is the Day Star dawning in the dark. Assembly: The advent of Christ is our Light and our Life. Hymn of Praise (see hymn board)

3 We sit. Sermon We stand as able. An Affirmation of Faith You, O God, are supreme and holy. You create our world and give us life. Your purpose overarches everything we do. You have always been with us. You are God. You, O God, are infinitely generous, good beyond all measure. You came to us before we came to you. You have revealed and proved your love to us in Jesus Christ, who lived and died and rose again. You are with us now. You are God. You, O God, are Holy Spirit. You empower us to be your gospel in the world. You reconcile and heal; you overcome death. You are our God. We worship you. Prayers of the People (Hymnal S 106, Form I) With all our heart and with all our mind, let us pray to the Lord, saying In gratitude, in praise, may our hearts turn to receive the Day Star. Guide us in the ways of laying our lives gratefully before You. You call us each by name. Teach us to serve all creatures of your sacred creation. Guide us toward unity, healing our division.

4 The nations are yours, part of your wondrous body. May all leaders know they are called to care; may they heed your peoples cries for release from senseless oppression. Guide us toward justice and peace, healing our deceit. This community is yours. Guide our hearts and minds in the ways of wisdom that we might hear and head the pleas of friends among us who hunger, thirst, and face the cold nights. Guide us toward mercy, healing our fear. Bless all in pain, and those who care for them, with your healing gifts. Open our hearts to see your tender Presence already within us. Guide us toward wholeness, healing our blindness. You welcome all who have completed their earthly journey. Your peace is now their peace. Guide us into your Heart, healing our soul. In gratitude and praise, we invite your peace into our lives. The Peace Presider: Not an easy peace, not an insignificant peace, not a half-hearted peace, but the peace of the Lord Jesus Christ is with you now. Assembly: And also with you. Hospitality Welcoming of Visitors and Guests Announcements Recognition of Parishioner Birthdays & Anniversaries

5 Presentation Anthem Presentation of the Gifts THE TABLE OF GOD We stand as able. Presider: The Lord is with you. Assembly: And also with you. Presider: Lift up your hearts. Assembly: We lift them to the Lord. Presider: Let us give thanks to the Lord our God. Assembly: It is right to give our thanks and praise. Presider: Gratitude, praise, hearts lifted high, voices full and joyful...these you deserve. For when we thought ourselves nothing, in you are we eternally something. When we believed we had no name and no faith and no future, in you are we called your children. When we lost our way or turned away, you did not abandon us. When we came back to you, your arms are open wide in welcome. And look, you prepare a table for us offering not just bread, not just wine, but your very self so that we may be filled, forgiven, healed, blessed and made new again. You are worth all our pain and all our praise. Sanctus (S 129) So now, in gratitude, we join our voices to those of the saints on earth and in heaven:

6 Presider: Lord God, as we come to share the richness of your table, we cannot forget the rawness of the earth. We cannot take bread and forget those who are hungry. Your world is one world and we are stewards of its nourishment. Assembly: Lord, put our prosperity at the service of the poor. Presider: We cannot take wine and forget those who are thirsty. The ground and the rootless, the earth and its weary people cry out for justice. Assembly: Lord, put our fullness at the service of the empty. Presider: We cannot hear your words of peace and forget the world at war or, if not at war, then preparing for it. Assembly: Show us quickly, Lord, how to turn weapons into welcome signs and the lust for power into a desire for peace. Presider: We cannot celebrate the feast of your family and forget our divisions. We are one in spirit, but not in fact. History and hurt still dismember us. Assembly: Lord, heal your church, in every brokenness. Presider: For us you are born, for us you heal, preach, teach and show the way of heaven; for us you are crucified, and for us, after death, you live again. Beloved Christ, present with us now, for all that you do and all that you have promised, what have we to offer? Our hands are empty, our hearts are sometimes full of wrong things. But with you is mercy and the power of transformation. So as we do in this place what you did in an upstairs room, send down your Holy Spirit on us and on these gifts of bread and wine that they may become for us your body, healing, forgiving and making us whole; and that we may become, for God, your body, loving and caring in the world as God s reign dawns. Among friends, gathered round a table, Jesus took bread, broke it and said, this is my body, it is broken for you. And later Jesus took the cup of wine and said, this is the new relationship with God, made possible because of my death. Take this all of you to remember me: Look, here is your Lord coming to you in bread and wine.

7 Presider: As our Savior Christ has taught us, we now sing, The Breaking of the Bread Presider: We break this bread to share in the Body of Christ. Assembly: We who are many are one body, for we all share in the one bread. Presider: The Gifts of God. All are invited to God s table. The Communion We receive the bread in open and outstretched hands. We take hold of the cup firmly and guide it to our lips or hold the bread and dip it into the wine. Our response to receiving of the bread and wine is Amen. Communion Hymn (see hymn board)

8 We stand as able. Presider: Let us pray SENDING FORTH Lord Jesus Christ, you have put your life into our hands; now we put our lives into yours. Take us, renew and remake us. What we have been is past; what we shall be, through you, still awaits us. Lead us on. Take us with you. AMEN. Commissioning of Eucharistic Visitors We send you forth bearing these holy gifts that those to whom we go may share with us in the communion of Christ s body and blood. We who are many are one Body, because we share one bread and one cup. Presider: May the blessing of God Christ beside us Christ before us Christ beneath us Christ above us Christ surrounding us Inspire us with purpose and Confirm us in love. Assembly: Amen. Hymn (see hymn board) Deacon: Assembly: Go in peace to love and serve the Lord. Thanks be to God. The readings are taken from The Inclusive Hebrew Scriptures Vol. I, II, and III and The Inclusive New Testament with permission from: Priests for Equality/Quixote Center, P.O. Box 5206, Hyattsville, MD 20782, (The Eucharistic Prayer and closing blessing are from A Wee Worship Book of Iona and has been adapted by Kevin Thew Forrester.)

9 GOLDEN WISDOM Buddhism Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful. Udana-Varqu 5:18 Islam No one is a believer until you desire for another that which you desire for yourself. Sunnah Zoroastrianism Human nature is good only when it does not do unto another whatever is not good for its own self. Dadistan-I-Dink, 94:5 Baha i Blessed are those who prefer others before themselves. --Baha u llah, Tablets of Baha u allah 71 Judaism Shammai drove away the enquirer with the builder s cubit which was in his hand, and then went to Rabbi Hillel, who said: What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor; that is the entire Torah; the rest is commentary; go and learn it. Talmud. Shabbat 31A Sikhism Be not estranged from another for God dwells in every heart. Sri Guru Granth Sahib Christianity Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Jesus, Luke 6.31 Either we acknowledge that God is in all things or we have lost the basis for seeing God in anything. Richard Rohr, OFM

10 THE PRAYER OF JESUS IN ARAMAIC ( THE LORD S PRAYER ) O Birther! Father-Mother of the Cosmos/ you create all that moves in light. Focus your light within us make it useful: as the rays of a beacon show the way. Create your reign of unity now through our fiery hearts and willing hands. Your one desire then acts with ours, as in all light, so in all forms. Grant what we need each day in bread and insight: subsistence for the call of growing life. Loose the cords of mistakes binding us, as we release the strands we hold of others guilt. Don t let us enter forgetfulness But free us from unripeness From you is born all ruling will, the power and the life to do, the song that beautifies all, from age to age it renews. Amen Transliteration and original translation by Dr. Neil Douglas-Klotz from the Peshitta (Syriac-Aramaic) version of Matthew 6:9-13 & Luke 11:2-4. Reprinted from Prayers of the Cosmos: Meditations on the Aramaic Words of Jesus (Harper Collins, 1990).