17 th Week in Ordinary Time

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17 th Week in Ordinary Time July 28, 2012 Kris Olson-Garewal Announcements Opening Song Come to the Table of Plenty #310 Opening Prayer When the heart is hard and parched up, come upon me with a

1 17 th Week in Ordinary Time July 28, 2012 Kris Olson-Garewal Announcements Opening Song Come to the Table of Plenty #310 Opening Prayer When the heart is hard and parched up, come upon me with a shower of mercy When grace is lost from life, come with a burst of song and come with the ceremony of a king. When desire blinds the mind with delusion and dust, O thou holy One, thou wakeful, come with thy light and thy thunder. by Rabindranath Tagore When tumultuous work raises its din on all sides, shutting me out from beyond, come to me, my Lord of silence, with thy peace and rest. When my beggarly heart sits crouched, shut up in a corner, break open the door, my king, Reading From Sara Miles take this bread (pp92-3) And then in the New Testament appeared the central, astonishing fact of Jesus, proclaiming that he himself was the bread of heaven. Eat my flesh and drink my blood, he said. I thought how outrageous Jesus was to the church of his time. He didn t wash before meals; he said the prayers incorrectly, he hung out with women, foreigners, the despised and unclean.

2 Over and over he told people not to be afraid. I liked all that, but most of all I liked that he said he was bread and told his friends to eat him. As I interpreted it, Jesus invited notorious wrongdoers to his table, airily, discarded all the religious rules of the day, and fed whoever showed up, by the thousands. In the end, he was murdered for eating with the wrong people. And then here s where the story got irrational. I didn t actually believe it, the way I believed in the boiling point of water or photosynthesis, but it seemed true to me wholly true, in ways that mere facts never could be. I believed that God rose from the dead to have breakfast with his friends. I read about the crazy days after Jesus s arrest, death, and burial, when the terrified disciples were scattering, just as I d seen peasants and revolutionaries run from the violence of soldiers in Latin America. A stranger hailed them on the road to Emmaus. They had told him what had happened; and he explained it all by citing Scripture, recounting old prophecies in impressive detail. Then, according to the book, they came to a village and invited the stranger to eat with them, as the night was drawing near. He sat down at the table, took bread, and broke it. Suddenly, their eyes were opened. He made himself known in the breaking of bread, and they felt their hearts on fire. Then he vanished. In another story, he reappeared cooking food on the beach. In another, he showed up to tell his followers that he was hungry and wanted something to eat. They gave him a piece of fish. All of it pointed to a force stronger than the anxious formulas of religion: a radically inclusive love that accompanied people in the most ordinary of actions eating, drinking, walking and stayed with them, through fear, even past death. That love meant giving yourself to feed and live for others. The stories illuminated the holiness located in mortal human bodies, and the promise that people could contain: one I had sensed all my life could be expressed in the sharing of food, particularly with strangers.

I couldn t stop thinking about another story: Jesus instructing his beloved, fallible disciple Peter exactly how to love him: Feed my sheep. Jesus asked, Do you love me?

Gospel Acclamation & Reading John 6:1-15 God be with you. And also with you. A reading from the holy gospel according to John Glory to you, O God.

3 I couldn t stop thinking about another story: Jesus instructing his beloved, fallible disciple Peter exactly how to love him: Feed my sheep. Jesus asked, Do you love me? Peter fussed: Of course I love you. Feed my sheep. Peter fussed some more. Do you love me? asked Jesus again. Then feed my sheep. It seemed pretty clear. If I wanted to see God, I could feed people. Gospel Acclamation & Reading John 6:1-15 God be with you. And also with you. A reading from the holy gospel according to John Glory to you, O God. After this, Jesus crossed the Sea of Galilee -- or of Tiberias- and a large crowd followed him, impressed by the signs he had done in curing the sick. Jesus climbed the hillside and sat down there with his disciples. The time of the Jewish Passover was near. Looking up, Jesus saw the crowds approaching and said to Philip, 'Where can we buy some bread for these people to eat?' He said this only to put Philip to the test; he himself knew exactly what he was going to do. Philip answered, 'Two hundred denarii would not buy enough to give them a little piece each.' One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said, Here is a small boy with five barley loaves and two fish; but what is that among so many?' Jesus said to them,

4 'Make the people sit down.' There was plenty of grass there, and as many as five thousand men sat down. Then Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed them to those who were sitting there; he then did the same with the fish, distributing as much as they wanted. When they had eaten enough he said to the disciples, 'Pick up the pieces left over, so that nothing is wasted.' So they picked them up and filled twelve large baskets with scraps left over from the meal of five barley loaves. Seeing the sign that he had done, the people said, 'This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.' Jesus, as he realized they were about to come and take him by force and make him king, fled back to the hills alone. Silent Reflection followed by Dialogue Intercessions God of justice, we pray for the feeding of the world. Give wisdom to those who make policy about food and food production. Help our leaders to ensure a fair share for all. Send plentiful harvests and welcome farm workers to growers and ranchers. God of justice, we pray for the Church, feeding your people with word and sacraments. Guide and bless our bishops, priests, ministers, and nuns as they feed Christ s flock with their teachings. May every celebration of the eucharist be a rich banquet of your forgiveness and love. Show us how to be instruments of grace to those in physical and spiritual need And show us how to share generously what you have so freely given to us. God of justice, we pray for our local community. Bless our local markets, food stores, cafes and restaurants.

5 Bless us at the tables we share with family and friends, and make us good companions at meal times and beyond. Increase in us the spirit of hospitality to strangers. Teach us to live and to eat more simply, so that there may be more to share with the hungry. God of justice, we pray for the poor, the hungry and all prisoners, and for the people we love who need your care today. We name them before you now (name individuals here) Bring healing, peace and hope to all who suffer. Bring spiritual nourishment to all who are hungry for truth. God of justice, we thank you for inviting us in Christ to the feast of the age to come. We thank you for those who have gone before us in faith. Bring us, with all your saints, to rejoice with you for ever. Adapted from Prayer of the Anglican Church of Australia Breaking and Sharing of Bread Dorothy Day ( ) We cannot love God unless we love each other, and to love each other we must know each other in the breaking of bread; and then we are not alone anymore. Heaven is a banquet and life is a banquet, too, even with a crust, where there is companionship. Love comes with community. Grant us, O Lord, the love that comes with the breaking of bread. Song Bread for the World #349 Silent Reflection Closing Prayer Our Father..

6 Closing Song The Cry of the Poor #583 Birthdays On the 31 st Leo Maturana and Rosa Camara

3. Then Jesus climbed a hill and sat down with his disciples around him. 4. (It was nearly time for the Jewish Passover celebration.) 5. Jesus soon sa

3. Then Jesus climbed a hill and sat down with his disciples around him. 4. (It was nearly time for the Jewish Passover celebration.) 5. Jesus soon sa 121 6. After this, Jesus crossed over to the far side of the Sea of Galilee, also known as the Sea of Tiberias. 2. A huge crowd kept following him wherever he went, because they saw his miraculous signs