Shepherd Me, O God Fourth Sunday of Easter (B) April 25, 2015 Cameron-Davidson from May 2, 2009 Ann and Trevor Weekes Prayer Requests and Announcements Opening Song: Shepherd Me, O God #497 Call to Worship: The doors are open; the good shepherd calls. Come in to find a place of comfort and safety. We turn away from our weariness and fear; we leave behind our anxiety and cares. There is bread here to feed our every need; there are still waters to refresh our souls. We would devote ourselves to learning and praying. We seek to live in genuine community. There are tasks for all of glad and generous heart. Find strength in this hour to follow Jesus steps. Praise God for this time apart; praise God for refreshment and renewal. 1
Opening Prayer: Ed Hays (Prayers for a Planetary Pilgrim) Save your servant, O Sustainer of Life, from too early a death. Free me of that affliction of believers who so easily become rigid of heart in their journeys to you. Make my heart like the green willow tree that easily bends in the wind, that bows gracefully before the storm only to raise its head again with renewed life when the angry clouds have moved on. Fill me this day, I pray, with the strength of your Spirit, the strength to be flexible and ever-green. Create within me the heart of a disciple of life, a heart that is gentle and meek. Let me learn a lesson from your daughter water who seeks the lowest path, ever yielding and humble, yet wears down the strongest stones into sand. In her I see the wisdom of the Tao: The hard and strong will fall; the soft and meek shall overcome. Reading 1: Jn 3:1-2 See what love Abba-Amma God has lavished on us in letting us be called God s children! Yet that is in fact what we are. The reason the world does not recognize us is that it never recognized God. My dear friends, now we are God's children, but it has not been revealed what we are to become in the future. We know that when it comes to light we will be like God, for we will see God as God really is. 2
Traditional Prayer from Ghana Journeying god, pitch your tent with mine so that I may not become deterred by hardship, strangeness, doubt. Show me the movement I must make toward a wealth not dependent on possessions, toward a wisdom not based on books, toward a strength not bolstered by might, toward a god not confined to heaven. Help me to find myself as I walk in other's shoes. Responsorial Psalm: 100:1-2; 3, 5 We are God s people, the sheep of God s flock. Sing joyfully to Yahweh, all you lands; serve Yahweh with gladness; Come before God with joyful song. We are God s people, the sheep of God s flock. Know that Yahweh is God, who made us. We are Yahweh s people, the flock Yahweh tends. We are God s people, the sheep of God s flock. Yahweh is good, whose kindness endures forever, And whose faithfulness is to all generations. We are God s people, the sheep of God s flock. Reading 2: Thomas Merton Dialogue with Silence My God, it is to You alone that I can talk because nobody else will understand. I cannot bring anyone on this earth into the cloud where I dwell in Your light --- that is, in Your darkness where I am lost and abashed. I cannot explain to anyone the anguish which is Your joy, nor the loss which is the possession of You, nor the distance from all things which is the arrival in You, nor the death which is the birth in You, because I do not know anything about it myself. All I know is that I wish it were over---i wish it were begun. You have contradicted everything. You have left me 3
in no-man s land. You have got me walking up and down all day under those trees, saying to me over and over again: Solitude, solitude. And You have turned around and thrown the whole world in my lap. You have told me, Leave all things and follow me, and then You have tied half of New York to my foot like a ball and chain. You have got me kneeling behind that pillar with my mind making a noise like a bank. Is that contemplation? Reading 3: Rainer Maria Rilke (The book of a monastic life, I.51) Only in our doing can we grasp you. Only with our hands can we illumine you. The mind is but a visitor: it thinks us out of our world. Each mind fabricates itself. We sense its limits, for we have made them. And just when we would flee them, you come and make of yourself an offering. I don't want to think a place for you. Speak to me from everywhere. Your Gospel can be comprehended without looking for its source. When i go toward you, it is with my whole life. Gospel Acclamation & Gospel Reading: Jn 10:11-18 God be with you. And also with you A reading from the Holy Gospel according to John. Glory to you, O God Jesus said: I am the good shepherd. A good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. A hired man, who is not a shepherd and whose sheep are not his own, sees a wolf coming and leaves the 4
sheep and runs away, and the wolf catches and scatters them. This is because he works for pay and has no concern for the sheep. I am the good shepherd, and I know mine and mine know me, just as Abba God knows me and I know Abba God, and I will lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. These also I must lead, and they will hear my voice, and there will be one flock, one shepherd. This is why Abba God loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own. I have power to lay it down, and power to take it up again. This command I have received from Abba God. Hear what the Spirit is saying to the Church. Glory and praise to Jesus the Christ! Silent Reflection followed by Discussion Intercessions Jesus, risen from the dead, you have filled the world with light and hope: You showed yourself to your disciples and assured them with your touch -- give us the grace we need to touch others by our lives. We pray... Kyrie, kyrie eleison (sung) Jesus, you give us the gift of peace -- help us to create a world of peace and harmony. We pray... Kyrie, kyrie eleison That the dawn of Easter peace cast out the shadows of war in Iraq and around the world. We pray... Kyrie, kyrie eleison Jesus, you showed us the way of true leadership -- inspire all leaders to be faithful to their call. We pray... Kyrie, kyrie eleison For those who are sick and for those who give them love and care, we pray... Kyrie, kyrie eleison For all of us here today and those we want to remember who are not here. We pray... Kyrie, kyrie eleison 5
Bread-breaking Prayer Lift up your hearts. We lift them up to God. Let us give thanks to God our Creator. It is right to give God thanks and praise We have shared bread many times in our lives, in many places, for many reasons. The bread that we now break is a sharing in the life of Christ. May our acceptance of it today be a sign of our faith * in the ongoing goodness of a God who journeys with us, * in the power of love to remove any barrier within and among us, * in the mystery of the call given to each one here, to make bread and life and beauty available to everyone. We pray, then, good and gracious God, that we might recognize you in this breaking of bread today. It is the bread of heaven, the bread of the poor, the bread of our lives. May we recognize you every time we join someone on a journey, every time we share a meal, every time we take bread into our hands. And may this recognition call forth such a joy in us that we might never lose sight of your goodness. May it inspire such love in us that our hearts might continue to burn within us, keeping alive your memory and your promise. And may it provoke such a longing for truth in us that we will never be satisfied until the whole earth experiences your justice and your peace. 6
Let us share this bread as Jesus taught us, knowing that our lives are forever changed by this and every breaking of bread. Loving Creator, we honor you, and we honor all that you have made. Renew the whole world in the image of your love. Give us what we need for today, and a hunger to see the whole world fed. Strengthen us for what lies ahead; heal us from the hurts of the past; give us courage to follow your call in this moment. For your love is the only power, the only home, the only honor we need, in this world and in the world to come. Amen. And so we break bread together, in the spirit of Jesus who calls us and strengthens us to walk in his way. Bread broken. Wine poured out. The gifts of God for the people of God. Sharing of Bread & Wine: He Will Come, Shirley Caesar Reflective Silence Meditation: Enriching the Earth by Wendell Berry To enrich the earth I have sowed clover and grass to grow and die. I have plowed in the seeds of winter grains and various legumes, their growth to be plowed in to enrich the earth. I have stirred into the ground the offal and the decay of the growth of past seasons and so mended the earth and made its yield increase. All this serves the dark. Against the shadow of veiled possibility my workdays stand in a most asking light. I am slowly falling 7
Blessing into the fund of things. And yet to serve the earth, not knowing what I serve, gives a wideness and a delight to the air, and my days do not wholly pass. It is the mind's service, for when the will fails so do the hands and one lives at the expense of life. After death, willing or not, the body serves, entering the earth. And so what was heaviest and most mute is at last raised up into song. May God bless us and keep us, May God s face shine on us, May God be gracious to us and grant to us, and to all our broken world, peace. May the blessing of Almighty God, The Creator, Redeemer, and the Holy Spirit, Come upon us and remain with us forever. Amen. Closing Song: Though the Mountains May Fall, #435 HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PAT! HAPPY BIRTHDAY JACK DUNCAN HAPPY BIRTHDAY DELLE & MARISA 8