Contents:
8:00 a.m.
The extreme delicacy of this Easter morning
Spoke to me as a prayer and as a warning.
It was light on the brink, spring light
After a rain that gentled my dark night.
I walked through landscapes I had never seen
Where the fresh grass had just begun to green,
And its roots, watered deep, sprung to my tread,
The maples wore a cloud of feathery red,
But flowering trees still showed their clear design
Against the pale blue brightness chilled like wine.
And I was praying all the time I walked,
While starlings flew about, and talked, and talked
Somewhere and everywhere life spoke the word.
The dead trees woke, each bush held its bird.
I prayed for delicate love and difficult,
That all be gentle now and know no fault,
That all be patient – as a wild rabbit fled
Sudden before me. Dear love, I would have
said
(And to each bird who flew up from the wood),
I would be gentler still if that I could,
For on this Easter morning it would seem
The softest footfall danger is, extreme . . .
And so I prayed to be less than the grass
And yet to feel the Presence that might pass.
I made a prayer, I heard the answer, “Wait,
When all is so in peril, and so delicate!”
-- May
Sarton
9:00 and 11:00 a.m.
“Mary
at Peace with the Risen Lord”
What they felt then: isn’t it
sweeter than every secret,
than all that’s only earth:
when he, still pale from the grave,
came assuaged to her:
in all ways resurrected.
O to her first. And they were then
being saved, ineffably.
Yes, being saved, that’s it. They had no need
to touch each other firmly.
He laid for a second –
if that – his soon to be
eternal hand on her woman’s shoulder.
And they began, like trees in Spring,
the boundless and the bounded,
the season of this
their utmost association.
Rainier
Maria Rilke
“Tell the Little Girl”
Tell the little girl her granddad is dead
and she’ll answer you, “That’s too bad,
but when’s he coming back?”
Raymond Souster
Jesus’
death on the cross was like a black hole in space that sucked into its collapsing
vortex the very meaning of the universe, until in the intensity of its compaction
there was an explosive reversal, and the stuff of which galaxies are made was
blown out into the universe. So Jesus as the cosmic Christ became universal,
the truly Human One, and as such, the bearer of our own utmost possibilities
for living.
Killing
Jesus was like trying to destroy a dandelion seed-head by blowing on it.
It was like shattering a sun into a million fragments of light.
Walter Wink
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A Prayer by Archbishop
Oscar Romero
It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision.
We may accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction
of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying that
the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes to Church’s mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that will one day grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything,
and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the difference
between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.
Oscar A. Romero, Archbishop of San Salvador,
in El Salvador, was assassinated on March 24, 1980, the Monday after Palm Sunday,
while celebrating Mass in a small chapel in a cancer hospital where he lived.
He had always been close to his people, preached a prophetic gospel, denouncing
the injustice in his country, and supporting the development of popular and
mass organizations. He became the voice of the Salvadoran people when
all other channels of expression had been crushed by repression, supported by
the government of the United States.
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Uncalled, unrobed, unanointed . . . Baby Suggs, holy, followed by every black
man, woman and child who could make it through, took her great heart to the
Clearing ...
After situating herself on a huge flat-sided rock, Baby Suggs bowed her head
and prayed silently. The company watched her from the trees. They
knew she was ready when she put her stick down. Then she shouted, “Let
the children come!” and they ran from the trees toward her.
“Let your mothers hear you laugh,” she told them, and the woods rang.
The adults looked on and could not help smiling.
Then “Let the grown men come” she shouted. They stepped out one by one
from among the ringing trees.
“Let your wives and your children see you dance,” she told them, and ground
life shuddered under their feet.
Finally she called the women to her. “Cry,” she told them. “For
the living and the dead. Just cry.” And without covering their eyes
the women let loose.
It started that way: laughing children, dancing men, crying women and then it
got mixed up. Women stopped crying and danced; men sat down and cried;
children danced, women laughed, children cried until, exhausted and riven, all
and each lay about the Clearing damp and gasping for breath. In the silence
that followed, Baby Suggs, holy, offered up to them her great big heart.
She did not tell them to clean up their lives or to go and sin no more.
She did not tell them they were the blessed of the earth, its inheriting meek
or its glorybound pure.
She told them that the only grace they could have was the grace they could imagine.
That if they could not see it, they would not have it.
“Here,” she said, “in this here place, we flesh; flesh that weeps, laughs; flesh
that dances on bare feet in grass. Love it. Love it hard.
Yonder they do not love your flesh. They despise it. . . . It is flesh
I’m talking about here. Flesh that needs to be loved. Flesh that
needs to rest and dance; backs that need support; shoulders that need arms,
strong arms I’m telling you. And O my people, out yonder, hear me, they
do not love your neck unnoosed and straight. So love your neck; put a
hand on it, stroke it and hold it up. . . . The beat and beating heart, love
that too. . . .Love your heart. . . .
Saying no more, she stood up then and danced with her twisted hip the rest of
what her heart had to say while the others opened their mouths and gave her
the music. Long notes held until the four-part harmony was perfect enough
for their deeply loved flesh.
-- Toni Morrison, Beloved
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According to the Gospels, Jesus’ miracles were real, specific, and discernible
events. Yet they occurred in an atmosphere of eschatological expectation
and faith. When wrenched from this context, they look like the works of
a magician or sorcerer. In his own time and in the earliest church the
question of a miracle could not be separated from faith in Jesus’ preaching
and power, both of which had to do with the kingdom of God. Faith could
not, and cannot prove the miracles happened; faith provides the context in which
their meaning can be discussed.
– Robert
Spivey & Moody Smith
We walked down the path to the well-house, attracted by the fragrance of the
honeysuckle with which it was covered. Someone was drawing water and my
teacher placed my hand under the spout. As the cool stream gushed over
one hand she spelled into the other the word water, first slowly, then rapidly.
I stood still, my whole attention fixed upon the motions of her fingers.
Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten – a thrill of
returning thought; and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me.
I knew that “w-a-t-e-r” meant the wondrous cool something that was flowing over
my hand. That living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy,
set it free! There were barriers still, it is true, but barriers that
could in time be swept away.
I left the well-house eager to learn. Everything had a name, and each
name gave birth to a new thought. As we returned to the house every object
which I touched seemed to quiver with life. That was because I saw everything
with the strange, new sight that had come to me. . . . I learned a great many
new words that day. I do not remember what they all were; but I do know
that mother, father, sister, teacher were among them – words that were
to make the world blossom for me, “like Aaron’s rod, with flowers.” It
would have been difficult to find a happier child than I was as I lay in my
crib at the close of that eventful day and lived over the joys it had brought
me, and for the first time longed for a new day to come.
– Helen
Keller
Lord, since long, long ago, innumerable times
I have thought of your face. Especially since coming to this country I
have done so tens of times. When I was hiding out in the mountains of
Tomogi; when I crossed over in the little ship, when I wandered in the mountains;
when I lay in prison at night. . . . Whenever I prayed your face appeared before
me; when I was alone I thought of your face imparting a blessing; when I was
captured your face as it appeared when you carried your cross gave me life.
This face is deeply ingrained in my soul – the most beautiful, the most precious
thing in the world has been living in my heart.
– Shusaku
Endo
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Human life begins swimming in womb waters. The mother knows birth is
imminent when her waters flow out, as if the waters could swim the infant out
into the world. The Bible includes many birth narratives . . . Water plays
a significant role in the creation narratives . . . The people of Israel were
born in water. The exodus narrative tells of the creation of the people,
who like each person must find a path through the water to emerge alive.
Significant encounters are birthed at wells . . . .
Water renews life. Many biblical narratives occur at wells, places
where the community gathers to share life. People travel to rivers, lakes,
and the sea for bodily renewal and for communal connection. Public parks
and shopping malls often contain fountains to help turn artificial places into
communal spaces. Some medieval Christian churches and shrines were built
near or on top of pagan water sites; reidentifying the source of the water was
easier than denying the renewing power of the waters . . . .
Recalling the baptismal emphasis of the earlier church, the lectionary presents
Lent as a time to reinvigorate the community’s baptismal life . . . verses with
Nicodemus about birth from above, Jesus encounters the woman of Samaria at the
well, and Jesus heals the man born blind, who washes away his blindness in the
pool of Siloam . . . The Spirit of
Christ is bringing new life to the entire baptized community . . . .
The water also functions as a symbol of one another in the church.
Filled with the Spirit, we nourish one another. We are a cup of cold water
for one another . . . Is the source of the living water Jesus, or the believer?
The sacramental Christian responds Yes to both. Christ the water, incarnating
God’s water of creation, flows continuously in the Spirit, who waters the believers,
who themselves become the spring of living water in the world.
Gail Ramshaw, Treasures Old and new: Images in the
Lectionary
Water – blood, lymph, mucus, sweat, tears, inner oceans tugged by the moon,
tides within and tides without. Streaming fluids floating our cells, washing
and nourishing through endless riverways of gut and vein and capillary.
Moisture pouring in and through and out of you, of me, in the vast poem of the
hydrological cycle. You are that I am that.
John Seed and Joanna Macy
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Dear God,
I know all about where babies
come from. I think. From inside / mommies and daddies put them
there. Where were they before / that? Do you have them in heaven?
How do they get here? Do you / have to take care of them all
first? Please answer all my / questions. I always think of
you.
Yours truly, Susan
( Letters to God: The New Collection )
“What is death?” Kino asked.
“Death is the great gateway,” Kino’s father said.
His face was not at all sad. Instead it was quiet and happy.
“The gateway – where?” Kino asked again
Kino’s father smiled. “Can you remember when you were born?”
Kino shook his head. “I was too small.”
Kino’s father laughed. “I remember very well. Oh, how
hard you thought it was to be born! You cried and you screamed.”
“Didn’t I want to be born?” Kino asked. This was very interesting to him.
“You did not know anything about it and so you were
afraid of it,” his father replied. “But see how foolish you were!
Here we were waiting for you, your parents, already loving you
and eager to welcome you. And you have been very happy, haven’t you?”
“Until the big wave came,” Kino replied. “Now I am
afraid again because of the death that the big wave brought.”
“You are only afraid because you don’t know anything about death,”
his father replied. “But someday you will wonder why you were afraid,
even as today you wonder why you feared to be born.”
-- Pearl S. Buck
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Scripture strongly affirms ministries of spiritual healing . . . The root of
the word healing in New Testament Greek, sozo, is the same as
that of salvation and wholeness. Spiritual healing is God’s
work of offering persons balance, harmony, and wholeness of body, mind, spirit,
and relationships through confession, forgiveness, and reconciliation.
Through such healing, God works to bring about reconciliation between God and
humanity, among individuals and communities, within each person, and between
humanity and the rest of creation. The New Testament records that Jesus
himself healed the estranged and sick and sent out his disciples on ministries
of healing. James calls us also to pray for and anoint the sick, that
they may be healed.
All healing is of God. The Church’s healing ministry in no way detracts
from the gifts God gives through medicine and psychotherapy. It is no
substitute for either medicine or the proper care of one’s health. Rather,
it adds to our total resources for wholeness.
Healing is not magic, but underlying it is the great mystery of God’s love.
Those who minister spiritual healing are channels of God’s love. Although
no one can predict what will happen in a given instance, many marvelous healings
have taken place.
God does not promise that we shall be spared suffering but does promise to be
with us in our suffering. Trusting that promise, we are enabled to recognize
God’s sustaining presence in pain, sickness, injury, and estrangement.
Likewise, God does not promise that we will be cured of all illnesses; and we
all must face the inevitability of death. A Service of Healing is not
necessarily a service of curing, but it provides an atmosphere in which healing
can happen. The greatest healing of all is the reunion or reconciliation
of a human being with God. When this happens, physical healing sometimes
occurs, mental and emotional balance is often restored, spiritual health is
enhanced, and relationships are healed. For the Christian the basic purpose
of spiritual healing is to renew and strengthen one’s relationship with the
living Christ. . . .
Laying on of hands, anointing with oil, and the less formal gesture of holding
someone’s hand all show the power of touch, which plays a central role in the
healings recorded in the New Testament. . . . Anointing the forehead with oil
is a sign act invoking the healing love of God. The oil points beyond
itself and those doing the anointing to the action of the Holy Spirit and the
presence of the healing Christ, who is God’s Anointed One.
-- The United Methodist Book of Worship
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Similar to many ancient religions, biblical religion reveres mountains, not
for their natural beauty, but as the earthly place closest to the divine and
thus a likely spot for a theophany. As a site where we meet God, mountains
figure in significant events in Jesus’ life: his preaching, transfiguration,
and ascension.
Gail Ramshaw
Christ brought the apostles up to the mountain that he might show them, before
his resurrection, the glory of his divinity. This was so that after he
had risen from the dead, they might know that he had not received this glory
as the reward of his labor, as one who had had it not, but that he had had it
from all eternity, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit. It was
therefore this glory of his divinity, which was hidden and veiled to humanity,
that he revealed to the apostles on the mountain. And there appeared to
them Moses and Elijah talking with him. The prophets were filled with
joy, and the apostles likewise, in their ascent of the mountain. The prophets
rejoiced because they had seen Christ’s humanity, which they had not known.
And the apostles rejoiced because they had seen the glory of his divinity, which
they had not known.
Ephraem,
Sermon for Transfiguration
Afterwards the angel bore me up to a towering mountain, and placed me
on the mountainside. And as I looked up to the summit, a light so great
and brilliant appeared there that I could scarcely bear to look at it.
“This is the mountain,” the angel said, “that you began to climb three years
ago, and this is how far you have come. You will climb the rest of the
way. and when you reach the top, you will not regret all your toil.”
Elizabeth of Schoneau, Visions
Almighty God, on the mountain you showed your glory in the transfiguration
of your Son. Give us the vision . . . .
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January 30, 2005
Today was Youth Sunday. The entire service
was organized and presented by our youth. As such, no traditional sermon
was delivered by the Pastor. These were the words of meditation chosen
for this special Sunday.
“Lord, make me a channel of
thy peace –
that where there is hatred,
I may bring love –
that where there is wrong,
I may bring the spirit of forgiveness –
that where there is discord,
I may bring harmony –
that where there is error,
I may bring truth –
that where there is doubt,
I may bring faith –
that where there is despair,
I may bring hope –
that where there are shadows,
I may bring light –
that where there is sadness,
I may bring joy.
Lord, grant that I may seek
rather to comfort than to be comforted –
to understand, than to be understood
–
to love, than to be loved.
For it is by self-forgetting
that one finds.
It is by forgiving that one
is forgiven.
It is by dying that one awakens to the Eternal
Life. Amen.”
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“I Am a Jew,” Franta Bass *
I am a Jew
and will be a Jew forever.
Even if I
should die from hunger,
never will
I submit.
I will always
fight for my people,
on my honor.
I will never
be ashamed of them,
I give my
word.
I am proud
of my people,
how dignified
they are.
Even though
I am suppressed,
I will always
come back to life.
* (Franta Bass was one of the Jewish children in
Terezin.
He died at Auschwitz at the age of 14 in October
1944.)
“Made in God’s Image,” Kenneth Waters
So then, just talk about
“spiritual color” and tell them:
“Whatever color life is,
that’s the color of God;
whatever color
justice is, that’s the color of God;
whatever color peace is,
that’s the color of God;
whatever color freedom
is, that’s the color of God;
whatever color joy is,
that’s the color of God;
whatever color healing
is, that’s the color of God;
whatever color salvation
is, that’s the color of God;
whatever color power is,
that’s the color of God;
whatever color truth is,
that’s the color of God.” . . .
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“Down By
The Riverside”
Gonna lay down my sword & shield / down by the
riverside
Down by the riverside / down by the riverside
Gonna lay down my sword & shield / down by the
riverside
And study war no more
I ain’t gonna study war no more / I ain’t
gonna study war no more
I ain’t gonna study war no more / I ain’t
gonna study war no more
I ain’t gonna study war no more / I ain’t
gonna study war no more
Gonna put on that long white robe . . .
Gonna put on that starry crown . . .
Gonna walk with the Prince of Peace . . .
Gonna shake hands around the world . . .
Gonna lay down those atom bombs . . .
Optional Verses –
Gonna lay down my income tax / And pay for war
no more
Gonna lay down my defense stocks / And live
off of war no more
Gonna lay off those Congressional hawks / And
vote for war no more
“Listen to what I got to say, you people! There ain’t but one river
and that’s the River of Life, made out of Jesus’ blood. That’s the river
you have to lay your pain in . . . . It’s a River full of pain itself, moving
toward the Kingdom of Christ, to be washed away, slow, you people, slow as this
here old red water river round my feet.”
Flannery O’Connor, “The River”
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At the sound of the knock, Amahl’s mother awoke with a start but didn’t
move from her bed on the bench. “Amahl,” she said drowsily, “go and
see who’s knocking at the door.”
“Yes, Mother.” He went to the door and opened it a crack, his heart thudding
in his chest. He closed the door quickly and rushed to his mother.
Amahl was shaking with excitement. “Mother” – he stopped.
He hardly dared tell her what he had seen. “Outside the door there
is” – he swallowed and went on with an effort – “there is a king with a
crown.”
She went with determination toward the door and Amahl limped close behind
her. As the door swung open and she saw the three kings standing there
in all their splendor, she caught her breath. She bowed to them in
utter amazement.
“Good evening,” said the tall king with sweet blue eyes and a long white
beard. “I am King Melchior.” He wore rich robes trimmed with
ermine, and silver slippers, and his voice was majestic but very kindly.
“Good evening,” said a black king softly. “I am King Balthazar.”
He, too, was tall, but dark-bearded, and he wore robes of gold and scarlet
and leopard skin.
“Good evening,” said the third king. “I am Kaspar.”
Amahl wanted to laugh with delight. Kaspar’s robes, while they
were rich, didn’t fit him very well, and his crown was askew on his head
as if he had just slapped it on any old way. His shoes didn’t match
either – one was gold and the other was purple. Amahl whispered triumphantly
to his mother, “What did I tell you?”
“Noble sires,” she said in an awed voice.
The black king, Balthazar, asked gently, “May we rest a while in
your house and warm ourselves by your fireplace?”
Amahl’s mother answered humbly, “I am a poor widow. A cold fireplace
and a bed of straw are all I have to offer you. To these you are welcome.”
King Kaspar, who seemed to be a little deaf, cupped his ear. “What
did she say?”
Balthazar answered him, “That we are welcome.”
Kaspar smiled down at Amahl and his mother. Amahl clapped his hands
with excitement. “Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!” exclaimed
Kaspar.
Then the three kings said together, “Thank you!”
Gian-Carlo Menotti
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