The Rev. Dr. Mark Lee
For Plymouth Congregational UCC
Pentecost 1A (lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts.php?id=142)

The one constant in life is change.  One of the constant changes we live is that of saying “Good-bye.”  Sometimes it is but for a while. Sometimes it is for good. The good-bye I am leaving you with is somewhere in between, for while I am leaving my professional role with this church and going to serve elsewhere on a 2-year contract, Ivan will keep our ranch here and I’ll come back to visit him regularly.  After 2 years, only God knows where I’ll be called next. Change, even good change, is often felt as loss, and as I say vaya con Dios it is with a mix of sorrow and hope.

Today’s texts carry that mix.  Paul is signing off his last letter to Corinth, a place he might or might not get back to.  And Jesus is trying to boil down years of teaching:  A Great Commission that refers to his Great Commandment.  Make disciples of every kind of people by teaching them to love one another.

Now when Matthew was writing this, it was a victory lap of sorts.  His audience read this about 50 years after the fact, and knew how this Commission was well on its way to being fulfilled.  A mix of persecution, catastrophic war, and missionary zeal had spread Christian communities through the core parts of the Roman Empire.  Christianity was in Rome, the center of the empire, even before Paul writes his letter to the church there around AD 50.  Even as all roads led to Rome, so also did all radiate from there.  The merchant and military classes were particularly mobile in the ancient world, believers among them.  Outside the empire, tradition credits the Ethiopian eunuch of Acts 9 with taking the gospel into Africa, and the apostle Thomas with founding the church in India that carries his name to this day.  

Sharing the the Good News is in Christianity’s DNA.   The Bible reminds us “Whenever anyone asks you to speak of your hope, be ready to defend it.  Yet do this with respectful humility.” [1 Peter 4:15-16]  Sometimes we have not done it well, but at its best it is “one beggar telling another where to find bread.”  I well remember being enthralled in college by stories from visiting missionaries, and we would make zealous commitments “To go wherever Christ calls us to go.”  (All the while hoping that it wasn’t really the ends of the earth, we wanted electricity and running water!)  

I was led into parish ministry.  There were obstacles, I got tossed out of my first seminary for being gay.  But I then met gay Christians who loved and nurtured and healed me, and later found Iliff in Denver that supported my reality and my call.  After working in administration for Unitarian and Episcopal churches, I pastored for 15 years in the Metropolitan Community Church, founding congregations in Ft Collins and Cheyenne. 

I learned that following God’s call isn’t an exercise in tea-leaf readings, casting fleeces, or trying to see behind the clouds. I don’t think God’s will is this pinpoint thing that God coyly hides from us and if we can’t figure it out our life is ruined. Rather it was listening to my heart, the advice of people I trust, and prayer to nurture the wide context of my faith. Trying some things and failing or succeeding.  God treats us as adults, asks us to use our mind, heart and community to weigh options, giving us choices between good things.  For myself, I found that those times I forced myself into something with sharp elbows and big ego did not usually turn out well.  Instead I learned that finding God’s will is usually unassuming and straightforward.  

My call to Plymouth is a perfect example:  after Julie left as Director of Christian Ed to pursue her PhD, I was chatting one day in Hal’s office.  I’d been on the Adult Ed Committee and then chair for a couple years.  I’d been retired on disability due to my health for a while, and that grated on me terribly; I missed active ministry.  I’d been exploring the UCC, taken history and polity courses, and was considering transferring my ordination.  So Hal asks me, “How would you like to lead an adult education program like Plymouth’s?”  Knowing that Plymouth had a policy against hiring members, I had not considered applying for Julie’s job.  So I’m wondering, “Where around here has an education program like Plymouth’s?” … “Is there was a good program at like Windsor or Loveland or Greeley?”  “No,” Hal said, “I mean here,” and after I got over my surprise, this new call was off and running.

This has been such a wonderful ministry you have let me do.  It has been so satisfying to teach, mange, learn and explore with you.  No, we did not figure out the Trinity.  We did not solve homelessness.  We don’t understand the Bible, or Jesus or God.  We have yet to build the world of peace and justice and welcome and inclusion and care and love that we know God keeps leading us towards.  But we have worked together towards all these things.  

I can’t take credit for it all.  I built on a long-standing program built by Alice Clark, Julie Mavity-Maddalena and many adult education committees.  More deeply, the roots of the program come from this church’s conviction that Christian Formation goes through our entire lives.  It isn’t like you go through Sunday school and get confirmed, get a diploma and are done.  You’re barely beginning!  This church knows that whether a person is 9 or 90 that there is yet more.  

Sometimes it is head-learning, a core of information about what it is to be Christian, good info about the Bible and history and tradition.  There are skills to be learned to weigh truth claims, consider evidence, and how to read our sacred texts in context.  All that information helps shape beliefs, but we have come to understand that beliefs are only tools.  Sometimes we build on them, sometimes we change them, some we even have to unlearn (God as old white man or Bible as science book, anyone?)  We realize that there is much more to following Christ than beliefs about him.  Beliefs are important, but they are not the goal.

It also takes heart-learning.  This is a lifelong quest for me, to bridge head and heart, and you have played an important role in helping me with that.  So we let ourselves (oh my, the terrible word my therapist keeps taunting me with) – FEEL.  We learn how the Spirit molds our heart, how healthy Christian community keeps us grounded, we dare to let ourselves grieve and enjoy and fear and thrill and love.  A lot of this is caught rather than taught, but we create good places for it to be caught – frank discussions, walking labyrinths together, doing lectio divina in small groups, listening so that we “bear one another’s burdens.”  “How is it with your soul” is a question we should ask each other more often.

All this would be incomplete however if it just left us with heads crammed full of theology and Bible, and hearts all warm with fellowship and the Spirit if it did not get our hands and feet dirty. Some of the best times have been when we have done an educational series on a topic and then it was manifest in the outer world as action.  Social action has to be grounded in clear, fact-driven analysis of a situation.  And social action has to be sustained by a core of spiritual heart and practice “to keep on keeping on.”  You don’t hear the Black Lives Matter protesters singing Justin Bieber.  They sing spirituals.  Sweet Honey in the Rock’s Ella’s Song, gives us a window into what is sustainable Christian Formation in our time:

“We who believe in freedom cannot rest
We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes

“Until the killing of black men, black mothers' sons
Is as important as the killing of white men, white mothers' sons

“That which touches me most
Is that I had a chance to work with people
Passing on to others that which was passed on to me.”1

“A chance to work with people, passing on to others that which has been passed on to me.”  There are so many:  you who have taught, you who have led discussions, forum moderators, you who tirelessly chased down political candidates for forums, you who reviewed books that you suggested for classes, you who have set up chairs or handled AV, so many of you who have been parts of boards, ministry teams, committees and projects,  the scores of people who make the Visiting Scholar program so great (and btw, we have Eric Elnes on tap for November for an online program). Thank you.  

So many of you enjoyed my classes and gave me encouragement – and some of you endured my less than stellar projects and gave me loving feedback (anyone remember Kathleen Ray’s ransom atonement book, “Deceiving the Devil”?).  I love to teach, you taught me how to do it better, and having eager learners makes it a joy.  Thank you.

And for the love and care and guidance you gave me quite outside my professional role, encouraging my continuing education; supporting my pilgrimages; praying me safely home from Jordan; being patient when my health challenges flared up.  Thank you. You have made me welcome in your homes, on retreat at LaForet, over a hundred cups of coffee -- you have let me into your lives and hearts.  Thank you.

Now God is leading me to a new ministry – as an interim pastor for a medium sized church a half days’ drive away (I can tell you where in another week or so). I am about equal parts excited and terrified.  It will take everything I’ve learned in 30 years of ordained ministry – and all you have poured into my mind and heart these past years will so help that church.

So let me end by remembering todays epistle reading:

“Finally, brothers and sisters, farewell. Put things in order, listen to my appeal, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you.  Greet one another with a holy kiss.” (Maybe now that is a virtual kiss!)  
“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.”  [2 Cor. 13:11-13]

Or as I like to say:  God loves you today too.  Go live accordingly!

1 https://genius.com/Sweet-honey-in-the-rock-ellas-song-lyrics 
from the album “We Are All… Every One of Us” (© 1983).
Listen to it here:
  https://www.song-list.net/videos/sweethoneyintherock/ellassong 


 
Service prayers:

Communion prayer:
    Remembrance, Invitation & direction
    Great Thanksgiving & Epiclesis

We give you thanks, O Great and Loving Creator,
For creating a beautiful yet complicated world,
And placing us in it as stewards and participants.
We are glad that you sent Jesus to show us who you are
And how human life can fulfill your quest for justice and peace.
We thank you for gathering us as your church
Bound together always by the Holy Spirit
And connected today by the ingenuity of human technology.
Now Holy God, spread your Spirit upon these gifts of food and drink
Wherever we may be
that they might be for us the presence of the living Christ,
Making us one across time and space.
Spread your Spirit upon us,
so that like these communion elements
We too might be taken, blessed, broken and shared,
so that others might know the blessings
of living in communion with you and one another. 
Through Christ, with Christ and in Christ, in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
all glory and honor are yours Almighty God, now and forever. 

    Words of Institution
    Welcome to the table
    Serving

Pastoral prayer:

God who hears the cry of the poor and oppressed:
You have always been with us -- 
When we were slaves in Egypt,
When in exile in Babylon,
When under the power of empires, despots and tyrants,
When divided into factions and set against each other,
You are a God who rescues.
You came to us in Jesus, who blessed the poor and powerless
Walked the way of the Cross – and invites us to join him.

So we lift our hearts to you in these troubled times:
You know the violence that has oppressed our African American neighbors
For hundreds of years.  
Violence that changed legal forms
But still kept them scared and poor and hurt and killed.
Now we have seen with our own eyes
How agents of government casually kill them
And then provoke violence and harshly suppress peaceful protest.
We’ve always known these things, but the scales have fallen from our eyes.
We have seen how police supported by our own taxes
Managed by officials we elect
And armed with surplus from our bloated military
Walk the way of empire,
Sometimes benefiting us, and sometimes hurting us,
But consistently keeping black people, brown people, queer people, female people, poor people many other people disadvantaged, silenced and disposable.  

We feel sad.  We feel angry. We feel confused.  We feel guilty.  We feel powerless. But we are committed to follow You.

O, that you would tear wide the heavens and come down!  Give ear to the chants of your people!  Let the outcry come before you!
Save the unjustly imprisoned!  Heal the injured!  Cast down the mighty from their thrones, and lift up the lowly!  Fill the hungry with good things, and make the rich share their hoardings!

Give us eyes to see the truth of our society, and the hearts to bear that truth.  Keep those who march safe, and keep us safe when we join them.  Give us the sense to listen most to those who suffer the most, and then follow with our voices, wallets and votes.  Give us Christ-like courage to use our privilege to dismantle the systems that oppress the many to the benefit of the few, even when we are among the few.  

Let us work for your kin-dom, as we pray week after week lifting the prayer Jesus taught us:

Our Father who art in heaven……


Benediction:

God loves you this week too, so go live accordingly.  

So go into all the world:
In the love of God who created you,
The peace of Christ who redeemed you,
And the power of the Holy Spirit
    Who will sustain you 
        Through everything.  Amen.

Pentecost 16 C
Rev. Dr. Mark Lee                                                                  
Plymouth Congregational UCC     
Fort Collins, CO 
                                                                           
It was the worst of times. No, really the worst –  it was 586 BC,  and the trauma ripples through to this very day.  Ask any Jew.  Ask any Palestinian. The kingdom of Judah was being swallowed up by the Babylonian Empire. Armies surrounded Jerusalem. The ruling elites were split; some favored submitting to the Babylonians, others wanted to hold out, hoping for Egyptian intervention. People could come and go to a degree, but no equipment, food nor water could enter the city. Would God deliver them? Was this punishment for their sins? Who knew where God was in this? Hope was drying up faster than the last supplies of three year old grain. Hunger was spreading, desperate cannibalism was soon to come.  Has your world ever totally fallen apart?  Yeah, it was like that.
 
Jeremiah the prophet had been predicting this day for years.  He saw how the royalty – the house of David, who claimed an eternal covenant of God’s favor and were supposed to be God’s good earthly ruler – how they squeezed the common people for every shekel, every bushel of grain, every acre of land. He saw the way the whole country turned from God to idols.  Sure, the priests kept the Temple sacrifices running, but the temple had become a symbol of nationalistic political power rather than service to God.  So it was easy to work other values into the program. They hadn’t yet heard Jesus’ teaching, “You cannot serve God and Mammon.” Jeremiah loudly pointed out that their path would doom them. His message is not unlike Greta Thunberg’s: staying on the present course will certainly mean disaster.
 
But people don’t want to hear that, they didn’t want to change. The king put Jeremiah under arrest in the barracks of his bodyguards. This is where this story takes place. Jeremiah hears the crazy, weird, unexpected word of God. Amid the shouts of, “Incoming!” as rocks and arrows came flying over the city walls, amid the scorn of the king and his court, amid his own depression and uncertainty, he thinks he hears God. “Your cousin Hanamel’s field is going into foreclosure. Buy it and bail him out.” Jeremiah was from a suburb of Jerusalem, Anathoth.  He was the closest kinsman to Hanamel, and the law of redemption in Deuteronomy gave him the right  and obligation to buy the field if Hanamel was in danger of losing it to creditors and it passing out of the family forever. Those of you from farming families might have that sense of ancestral connection to the land; it was built into the system in ancient Israel.
 
This is not a good deal. Jerusalem and the legal structure of the kingdom are doomed. The Babylonians already occupy Anathoth. Tragically, the modern Palestinian village is practically encircled by the Israeli separation wall. Hanamel’s offer is like buying beachfront property in the Bahamas just as hurricane Dorian was making landfall. Has God ever led you to do something that seemed to make zero sense?  What then happened?
 
Hanamel shows up at Jeremiah’s prison, deed in hand.  “And then I knew it was the word of the Lord,” Jeremiah says.  That’s sometimes how God’s leading works – we have an intuitive, instinctual sense of something, and then the right person shows up and says the right thing, not knowing what has been going on in our minds and heart. So Jeremiah buys the field. At closing, everyone sees Jeremiah weighing out the silver, signing the deed, witnesses notarizing it, Jeremiah’s secretary Baruch filing one copy publicly and something unusual with another copy:  putting another in a clay jar, a jar that can be hidden and preserved --- like the Dead Sea Scrolls were – until after the present disaster has passed.  
 
What does this all mean? As a real estate investment, it’s the worst. The battering rams of the enemy army are at the gates. Really, what is Jeremiah doing? Crazy prophetic action.  What is God doing?
 
Jeremiah lifts up his voice: “The Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, proclaims: Houses, fields and vineyards will again be bought in this land.” “I will bring Israel back to this place to live securely. They will be my people and I will be their God.  I will give them one heart and one mind so that they may worship me all the days of their lives, for their own good and for the good of their children after them.  I will make an everlasting covenant with them. I will put in their hearts a sense of awe for me so they won’t turn away from me. Fields will be bought, and deeds will be signed, sealed and witnessed. For I will bring them back from their captivity.”  (Jer. 32:34-44, summarized).
 
Hope. Not a cocky-eyed optimism that things will get better. Not a surprising shift in the political scene. Not replacing a bad king with a good king. Hope isn’t denying reality. The Babylonians did destroy the city, temple, monarchy.  As the psalmist says, do not hope in princes, in political events, in the invisible hand of the economy, but in God. Hope is rooted in God’s promise, God’s action, God’s love. As the apostle Paul said, “Whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.”
 
What does hope look like? That’s a great question, a question that invites us to look closely at the world, to become attentive to and aware of the often small sprouts of green breaking through the concrete. What is a situation you know that seems hopeless, yet you have seen people hope in God even in the midst of it?
 
Among the souvenirs of my trips to Israel and Palestine have been different websites to follow. One is called “The Good Shepherd Collective.” It is a tough page to follow, for practically every day, there is some new encroachment documented. In just the last couple of weeks, an access road from Palestinian villages to their fields has been trenched and destroyed, a shepherd’s goat herd shagged and scattered, homes searched in the middle of the night, water tanks punctured, and I don’t know how many houses demolished. The reasons given are variations on the theme that the Palestinians lack deeds, travel documents or building permits, and that Israeli colonists need land, roads and water.  While many places in the world experience oppressive situations, Palestine is one I’ve seen first hand, and weighs on my heart.  So I was surprised to read from them:

“In the aftermath of a day like today, when the Israeli military utterly dismantled large sections of the South Hebron Hills, homes were razed, people were beaten and arrested, children traumatized - we are challenged to maintain hope in the face of darkness. People ask us: How do you keep the faith that a better tomorrow is waiting upon the horizon?

“We have enough humility to maintain hope. This is crucial. Far too often, people confuse being hopeful for being naive. We fully understand the matrix of control Israel has methodically constructed around us; after all, it is the corrosive thread shot through the fabric of our lives. But we also understand the movement rising up around us. We see diverse movements of justice joining in solidarity in ways that weren't happening decades ago. Black and brown voices are pushing the plight of Palestinians onto the main stage. Our Jewish friends are taking real risks and making real sacrifices to usher in a new future of liberation. We see all of this because we choose to have hope. We don't let cynicism creep in and masquerade as wisdom. We don't minimize the efforts of those around us. We are courageous enough to have hope. We don't worry that people will think that we are silly or misguided for knowing that a better tomorrow awaits us.  Good Shepherd Collective  September 11 at 2:29 PM · “

What is your hopeless situation?  Political cynicism, overload or despair?  Whatever the doctor told you at that visit you had?  The negative balance in your checkbook?  The cold cup of coffee from the friend who walked away, not crying?  Bulldozers flattening your home?  Babylonians battering down your gates and burning your temple? 

Take courage, God sees you.  Grasp your neighbor’s hands, for God will use them to buttress your heart.  Don’t curl up in fear, but open yourself to all the tiny signs of God’s faithfulness to you:  food on your table, an apology tendered, a gorgeous sunset, a demonstration supporting asylum seekers, a friendly face greeting you in the fellowship hall, a wrong made right, a satisfying grade on an exam, another day of sobriety or a courageous vote.  File these signs away, build up a stock in your heart.  Share them with others, and file away the ones they share with you. Use them as the building blocks for a future world where peace is normal, caring is public policy, and love binds neighbors and strangers together through God.

----------------------------------

Call to worship (from Ps. 91)

Leader:  Living in the Most High’s shelter, camping in the Almighty’s shade, I say to the Lord:
People:  “You are my refuge, my stronghold!  You are my God – the One I trust!”
Leader:  God will save you from the hunter’s trap, snares for your soul and body,
People:  God’s faithfulness is a protective shield, guarding us like a hen guards her chicks. God will protect us with his feathers, we’ll find refuge under God’s wings.
Leader:  Don’t be afraid of terrors at night, or arrows that fly in daylight; monsters that prowl in the dark, or destruction that ravages at noontime.
People:  God tells us, “Because you are devoted to me, I’ll rescue you. I’ll protect you, because you honor my name.  Whenever you cry out to me, I’ll answer.”
Leader:  Hear, O people, the help of our God:
People:  “I’ll be with you in troubling times.  I’ll save and glorify you, even through your old age.  I will forever show you my salvation!”
 
Invocation prayer:
 
You have gathered us, gathered us to you, O God, in the midst of a world that seems to have gone crazy.  So often, the news of oppression against your children, of destruction of our environment, of corruption in high places, of wars and rumors of war, weighs hard on us.  We come to this place seeking quiet from the din; we come to one another seeking a warm heart of comfort; we come to you seeking meaning and hope for the future.  Though your grace, grant us peace for today and hope for tomorrow.  Amen.
 
Prayer of thanksgiving and dedication
 
Thank you, God, for giving us hope when all seems hopeless! Thank you for being faithful even when everyone around falls away!  Thank you for being with us in our darkest nights, our deepest pits, our loneliest deserts!  Thank you for drawing us together as your people in this time and place.  In gratefulness, we offer our selves and our work, trusting you to do amazing things through all of us.  Amen.

Revs. Hal, Jane Anne, and Mark answer questions from the congregation.

Transfiguration Sunday
Rev. Dr. Mark Lee        
For Plymouth UCC, Fort Collins, CO
Mark 9.2-9

I watched the opening ceremonies for the Winter Olympics the other night. It was a wonderful mix -- of tradition and technology, of cultures, and even political intrigue. They pulled out all the stops with the light show and fireworks. What struck me was how, during the parade of nations, so many of the athletes were filming -– taking selfies, running video as they walked in, trying to catch a once-in-a-lifetime moment. Someday, when they are showing the pictures to their grandchildren, loading those ancient jpeg pictures on a screen will seem as exotic as the carousel projector slides our grandparents show us now. But the stories they’ll tell!
 
I bet that Peter, James and John wish they’d had a nifty iPhone when they went that day up Mt Tabor with Jesus. Mountains are one of those places through the Bible and through history that stokes our spiritual imagination, that are the sites of significant spiritual events. As Coloradoans we totally get that. Though I am told on good authority that the deserts, the oceans, ice-fields, and prairie badlands all are prime sites as well.   
 
So when Jesus asks them to go up the mountain with him, they are tapping into deep traditions: Abraham almost sacrificing his son on Mt Moriah, Moses receiving the law at Mt Sinai, him later seeing the Promised Land from Mt Nebo. Elijah defeated the prophets of Baal on Mt Carmel. Later Jesus prayed on the Mt of Olives, and ascended to heaven from an unnamed mountain in Galilee. To go up a mountain is to intentionally set out, looking in some way for the ultimate, for God.
 
Any mountain climb takes preparation. The text tells us that this happened “six days later,” after the events of the prior chapter. It is hard to know exactly what is being referenced, but most likely it is the story of Peter’s confession. You remember how that goes: Jesus asks the disciples “Who do people say that I am?” And they say, Elijah, or John the Baptizer or one of the other prophets. “But who do you say that I am?” Jesus presses. “You are the Messiah, the son of God” Peter says. Jesus commends him, “Flesh and blood didn’t reveal this to you, but my Father in heaven showed you this!” Of course, Peter doesn’t really understand that that means. So when Jesus then starts telling them that he will be betrayed to the rulers, suffer and die, and then rise on the third day, Peter says “No! That’s not the right story! You’re going to be the King, drive out the Romans, and we’ll be the world superpower!” Jesus has heard this siren song before, from the tempter in his own wilderness, so rebukes Peter: “Go away, Satan! You’re thinking in human terms, not God’s.”
 
I wonder what Peter and the other disciples thought about this over the following week. How might it have set them up to really see what happened on the mountain top?
 
Oh, the mountain top! Even an ordinary mountain top is exhilarating. You trudge through the forest, and often can’t see your goal. That’s how it would have been for Jesus and his friends, Mt Tabor is cloaked in thick oak chaparral. On other mountains, maybe you come out above the timberline, and the way is rocky and loose. There may be dangers from cliffs and exposure. And when, huffing and panting, you climb the last boulder -- Wow! I did it! And look! You can see the whole world! And indeed, from the top of Tabor, you can see the from the Sea of Galilee to the north, east to the Jordan River and the mountains beyond, west to Mt Carmel, and spreading out at your feet are the rich agricultural fields of the Jezreel plain. What a view!
 
And then came the sound and light show. Better than lasers, fireworks and virtual reality, suddenly reality looked completely different. Jesus was transfigured –- his everyday look faded to the background, and suddenly the brilliant light of God shone though him. It was like looking at the sun at the moment the eclipse ended, the light that was always there suddenly sparking through. And then appeared Elijah and Moses, two of the towering figures from Israel’s story, representing the Prophets and the Law. Now, how the disciples knew who each of them was, I’m not sure – but in these kind of non-rational spiritual experiences, sometimes you just know things to the core of your being.
 
These kind of experiences don’t happen to most people very often, maybe only once in a life. But when they do happen, the thing to do is just go with it. Surf the wave, keep listening to the song, bask in the light. There will be time for analysis and pondering and meaning-making later. Give free rein to ….. to whatever. When I was on pilgrimage in Israel last summer, when I was at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, I went into the small shrine built around the slap where Jesus was laid after his death. The monks only let you have maybe 2 minutes there before they moved you out, because there’s only room for 3 people, that’s how small it is. So I looked around inside the shrine, read the placard, “He is not here, he is risen!” and quickly kissed the slab. And started to cry. I stepped out of the shrine, tears running down my cheeks, and knew that God was doing something with me. As I cried harder, I went around behind a pillar in a corner – and cried and cried and cried. For 20 minutes. Yeah, I was the weird guy crying his eyes out. And I still can’t tell you why or wherefore. That I was sad, or joyful, or what. Or even that I felt better when I was done. All I could figure afterwards was that something cracked loose, broke free, came undammed, deep in my soul.
 
When something like that happens, you can’t catch and bottle it. Unlike the athletes taking pictures as they entered the stadium, it would have been absurd to try to take a selfie then, to capture it for later. But that’s pretty much what Peter suggests, though the narrator notes that “He didn’t know what he was talking about.” “Look, Lord, it’s good that John, James and I are here, because we can build some quick shelters, for you, Elijah and Moses, where we can just stay.” I mean, this is amazing, don’t let it stop!
 
Then it got more intense: a cloud covered the mountaintop, echoing the cloud on Sinai, the dazzling darkness where God is, and a voice: “This is my beloved Son, listen to him!” And then, the vision ended. Silence.
 
You can imagine the quiet disciples as they climbed back down the mountain. Jesus tells them not to tell anyone, “Until after the Son of Man has risen from the dead.” They are totally confused --- confused by Jesus predicting a death they cannot accept and a resurrection they cannot understand. Was this vision something like what Jesus means about his resurrection?
 
We always have to go back down the mountain. The vision ends. The retreat is over, it’s time to go home. It is getting late, a thunderstorm is coming up, better get off the mountain! That happened to me once, when I’d climbed a 14er, Conundrum Peak. I had started up late, and kept going even as the weather moved in. I got to the summit, quickly took a picture and started down. I was barely 100’ from the top when the rain and hail opened up, and the lightening started. I sat down on my butt and slid down a rock scree chute, because I didn’t want to be higher than anything around me! Descending can be as challenging as climbing. I got drenched, and wasn’t dressed for a storm. By the time I got back to Conundrum Hot Springs and camp, I was so hypothermic I could hardly get out of my clothes to get into the hot spring. Used up a couple of my 9 lives that day! But nobody at the camp seemed interested in my adventure.
 
So I wonder about the other 8 disciples, who hadn’t gone along that day, who didn’t have the amazing experience. Instead, they had the frustrating experience of trying to heal someone but not being able to! And while Jesus had told the 3 not to say anything, I bet they spilled the beans somewhere along the lines. When you hear God speak, it’s tough to stay quiet! So what did the others feel about it? Were they jealous? Did they not believe the story? Did they need to minimize it, that it was no big deal?
 
One of the great challenges of the Christian life is finding ways to talk about what God has done for us in ways that don’t put others off. It is so easy to have a blessed experience, and in our enthusiasm imply, “Because God did this for me, God should do this for you!” Or worse, to get proud and imply, “See how spiritual I am!” Sometimes it is perfectly well meaning, we want others to experience God too, and forget that people’s psychology of religion is different.

Centering prayer is a rich well of devotion for one person, and a frustrating bore to another. A Bach requiem lifts one person to the gates of heaven, while another is thrilled at Hillsong Worship or Casting Crowns. I remember feeling so insufficient at times in my life because I didn’t speak in tongues -– forgetting all the other beautiful gifts that God had given me.
 
We do well to train our eyes to see God in the everyday wonders we encounter --- I’m reminded of the story of the monk Brother Lawrence who was the monastery cook, who in his little book The Practice of the Presence of God wrote, “The time of business does not with me differ from the time of prayer; and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess God in as great tranquility as if I were upon my knees at the blessed sacrament.”
 
But even seeing God in every flower, meeting Christ in every homeless person, learning to hear God in the sound of sheer silence isn’t the final test. As wonderful as spiritual experiences are, as rare as they are, as unique to each person they are, they are not the bottom line of our Christian walk. But:

Fifth Sunday of Epiphany
​Rev. Dr. Mark Lee,
Plymouth UCC, 3.0 Worship                                                                                                          
February 4, 2018
 
One of the most interesting characters in JRR Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” fantasy novels is Gollum. You remember Gollum –- a former Hobbit named Sméagol who had killed his brother to get ahold of the awe-full Ring of Power, and then hid out deep in mountain caves with his “precious.” There, he degenerated into a shell of his former self, using the invisibility power of the ring to stalk unsuspecting goblins and fish as prey, which he’d gulp down raw. But after he loses the ring, first to Bilbo Baggins, and then to Frodo Baggins, his obsession brings him out of the caves in pursuit. We don’t know everything that happened to him once he emerged, but do know that he was tortured in the dungeons of Mordor to give up to the Evil One whatever he knew of the Ring’s whereabouts.
 
Actor Andy Serkis who played Gollum in the movie, framed his characterization around the idea of an addict going through withdrawals. His pain is physical as much a mental, the way he hops and jumps along, somewhere between a four-legged animal and a two-legged person. His face is contorted, he is but skin and bones. But he has also lost his own psychological center, and is split between the broken evil persona of Gollum, and the potentially good and stable person he once was, Sméagol. He never talks to anyone, only talks at himself, an ultimate narcissist.
 
Martin Luther famously described sin as “being curved in upon oneself.” Humans tend towards narcissism run amok, from the first sin in the Garden of Eden, when Adam wanted to become like God. When we lose track of who is God, and crown ourselves the Deity, we paradoxically lose our own selves, our own center. On one hand, we are all that matter; on the other, we never matter enough to be satisfied. And so it was with Gollum, turned in on himself, addicted to his Precious, he doesn’t even remember who he really is.
 
A sly cunning creature, he eventually ends up traveling with Frodo and Sam, guiding them on their way to Mordor where Frodo intends to destroy the Ring, and the power of the Dark Lord who forged it. Gollum doesn’t share that goal, but needs to be near the ring, and has dreams -– or nightmares -- of reclaiming it. By cunning or violence, he will get back his Precious.
 
Now Gollum is a pretty extreme character. Beyond his addiction to the Ring, he’s utterly narcissistic. He’s paranoid, certain that the world hates him. He’s if not schizophrenic, at least schizoid, torn between the Sméagol he once was and the Gollum he’s degenerated into. But he captures our imagination, our pity, even our love –- for we know Gollum in real life.
 
Most of us have known people who have descended into that sort of personal hell. Some people we love have succumbed to addiction, not to the Ring of Power, but maybe to a drug or a drink that gave them the illusion of power. Some people we love have suffered abuse, not in Sauron’s dungeons but in homes or schools or churches that should have been safe for children to play, young people to grow, and adults to flourish… and then they struggle to cope with their scarred psyches. Some people we love hear voices in their heads, stray neurons firing in their brains that reorganize into frightening words and images. Some people we love are so depressed that it seems the sun never shines and the flowers never bloom. Yes, we all know people who live with mental illnesses --- sometimes it is even us.
 
Our culture has not been kind to people suffering mental illnesses. For a long time, it was considered a moral failing, a lack of character or willpower, a yielding to crazy temptations. Insurances have often paid less for mental healthcare than other health care. “It’s all in your head” is used as a casual dismissal, that a person’s suffering isn’t real or serious.
 
But consider: nobody thinks catching the flu, or falling down the stairs, or having a stray cosmic ray mess up some cell’s DNA that sprouts into cancer, are moral or character faults. And modern brain science increasingly shows how mental illness is rooted not in sin or in soul- sickness, but in errant electrical and chemical activity (or sometimes inactivity) in the brain. So we now know that the voices of schizophrenia are not some demon whispering in a person’s ear, but are more like electrical interference overloading the circuits in a computer chip. Net result: programs crash.
 
Even addictions, a set of diseases once heavily morally judged, we now understand as illnesses. We’re going to have a Forum on March 4 in which Dr. Ross Lane, an addiction specialist, will talk about the opioid epidemic.
 
Which leads me into the scripture text that Anne read earlier. This healing is the very first miracle in the Gospel of Mark, and starts to create Jesus’ reputation as a powerful teacher and healer. He healed minds as well as bodies.
 
Now, ancient people did not understand brain chemistry any more than they knew about bacteria and viruses. And just as they ascribed health, strength and fertility to good spirits, they ascribed disease to bad spirits -– spirits being a cipher for forces they neither understood nor controlled. So mental illness was seen as demon possession, that a person’s real self had been taken over by some evil spirit. And just as people even today quickly walk past the shouting street person, they counted such people as unclean, antisocial, outcast.
 
The gospel told us earlier what Jesus was teaching in the synagogue that day: "Listen up! This is the time! Change your hearts and lives, for God’s realm is coming soon!” He’s not talking about some end-of-the-world thing, still less about the afterlife, but about God’s realm were the poor, meek, merciful and peacemakers are blessed, where people love even their enemies, where captives are freed, Prodigals are welcomed, and all get what they need.
 
So this guy stands up in the synagogue and starts yelling back. Lacking the social filters most people have, he starts in on Jesus. “You’re the Son of God!” Well, everyone around knows
that’s just crazy talk. Or even if they suspect Jesus is quite unique, they certainly don’t say it
out loud!

But Jesus doesn’t push him away. He doesn’t ignore him. He doesn’t call security. He doesn’t condemn him. He meets him right where he’s at, in the midst of his illness. He takes him seriously. And loves him right into health. I suspect that the account is abbreviated –- Mark’s gospel in particular collapses longer events into a dramatic moment. Healing usually takes more time than this story has. But it is clear that grace has changed the man. No longer is he mastered by illness, but by Jesus. And no longer outcast, but now supported by the other Christ followers. That’s important: Have you ever noticed how Jesus’ healing stories always bring someone back into community?
 
What would it be if Gollum met Jesus? What would grace look like for him? Grace –- that completely undeserved love from God. Grace -- the love that just Is –- that is there for us whatever we do, whatever we don’t do, whether we like it or not. Grace -- Love that meets us in our illness, our broken places…. In the shadows where we hide our sin from even ourselves, God’s love is still there. Rather than being turned in on ourselves, we are given a new center in God.
 
I think that Gollum – or Sméagol – experienced that sort of grace in the person of Frodo. He
has taken to calling Frodo “Master” – a new focus, a new center, outside his broken self.
 
Frodo is both cautious and kind to Gollum, unlike everyone else who is repulsed by him, is scared of him and mean to him. As the movie progresses, Frodo is able to draw out more and more of Sméagol, remind him of the Hobbit he once was, and call him towards a better self. The more Sméagol trusts Frodo, the stronger Sméagol becomes. There is a pivotal scene, in which Sméagol and Gollum are arguing aloud, first whether to murder Frodo and seize the Ring, and then turning to the deeper issue of who is in charge of their life. The voice of Gollum starts:
 
Gollum: We wants it. We needs it. Must have the precioussss. They stole it from us. Sneaky little hobbitsesss. Wicked, trickssssy, falssse!
Then Sméagol argues back:  No! Not Master.
Gollum: Yes, precious. False. They will cheat you, hurt you, lie.
Sméagol: Master’s my friend.
Gollum: (taunting) You don’t have any friends. Nobody likes YOU...
Sméagol: Not listening. Not listening.
Gollum: You're a liar and a thief.
Sméagol: (shaking his head) Nope.
Gollum: Mur...derer...!
Sméagol: (starts to cry and whimper) Go away.
Gollum: Go away! (cackles) Hahahahaha!
Sméagol: (cries, whispering) I hate you, I hate you.
Gollum: (fiercely) Where would you be without me? Gollum, Gollum. I saved us. It was me. We survived because of me!
Sméagol: (resolute) Not anymore.
Gollum: (surprised) What did you say?
Sméagol: Master looks after us now. We don’t need you.
Gollum: What?
Sméagol: Leave now and never come back.
Gollum: No!!!
Sméagol: (louder) Leave now and never come back!
Gollum:  (bares teeth, growling) Arghhhh!
Sméagol: LEAVE NOW AND NEVER COME BACK. (Sméagol pants and looks around for Gollum) We... we told him to go away! And away he goes, preciousss. (dances around, happily) Gone, gone, gone! Sméagol is free!
​

Rev. Dr. Mark Lee
Easter 6A  Acts 17:22-34                                                                                          
May 21, 2017
Plymouth UCC, Fort Collins CO
 
One of the biggest challenges of being a progressive Christian is figuring out how to talk about God. We are keenly aware of the shortcomings of traditional dogmas -– dogmas that often make God into little more than a cosmic policeman, an angry parent, Santa Claus, or an abstract force. We are rightly atheistic about those ideas of God, for they are unworthy of devotion. We know that human language falls short when talking about the Ultimate, God who is beyond being boxed in by words. We resonate with the idea that God cannot be known, but can only be loved. So often our theology becomes “To Whom It May Concern,” hoping that making the “sign of the question mark” <sign> is sufficient piety.
 
But one of the ongoing themes of scripture is that God takes initiative in revealing Godself to humanity. Moving through the Bible, you see a variety of understandings of God, some clear and some fuzzy, some that are discarded and some that endure. But as you move along, you see a distinct progression of understanding from the wild God of Abraham through the Lawgiver at Sinai and the Justice-seeker of the prophets, to the Christ revealed in Jesus and the Spirit who animates the church. God works to fill in the blanks.
 
And it is against that background we come to this story of the apostle Paul speaking in the center of Greek philosophy, the Areopagus in Athens. Paul had been preaching and arguing in the marketplace and had piqued the interest of some of the intellectuals in the city. “What is this babbler talking about?” they said (obviously not terribly impressed). “He seems to be proclaiming foreign deities.” The way they said this, it appears that they thought Paul was preaching about two gods: Jesus and Anastasia, a god Jesus and a god Resurrection.  They were a bit confused.
 
So Paul ends up standing in the center of the council –- imagine our city council chambers –- to explain his teaching. He starts by finding common ground with his audience. “I see that you are very religious. In fact, I see that you even have an altar to An Unknown God, so let me tell you about this unknown God you already are worshiping.” No such altar has been found, but it does seem consistent with Athenian religion. Maybe the idea was “The God Above all Gods,” or maybe insurance, “Just in case we missed one.” Perhaps it was even “E, None of the Above.” Paul treats it as “The presence of the absence of God,” which we well know is a spiritual hunger that provides an opening for the gospel.
 
When we feel like God is unknown, it helps to start at basic things we can know. So Paul lays out several key points: God is the creator of the universe. (He doesn’t get into how God did it, just that God did.) In the book of Romans, he suggests that this fact alone ought to inspire humans to worship God. “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made.” So obviously, he goes on, God cannot be confined to a human shrine or temple, and as Creator who is and has all, God doesn’t need anything from people -– such as sacrifices.
 
Paul then turns from considering the wide world around us to human societies and personhood. He points out that all of humanity is related, despite having different countries and cultures. He appeals to secular knowledge, citing Greek philosophers, that “In God we live and move and have our being,” and that “We are his offspring.” The point being that God is not so far off in the heavens as to be unattainable, but as close as our own breath. The theological grounding of this is that since we are created in God’s image, there is a continuity between us and God, a basis for relationship.
 
All of this, Paul’s audience would likely have been right with him. Most educated pagans did not believe that the gods actually lived in the temples, or were identical with the statues and shrines. They could agree that you start with creation to learn about God. But the trick—for them and for modern people -- is not to get stuck just with nature.

UCC pastor and author Lillian Daniel wrote a famous essay a few years ago. Entitled, “Spiritual But Not Religious? Please Stop Boring Me,” she talked about her fear of conversations with seat mates on an airplane. You’ve all been there: you introduce yourself to your fellow travelers, see if you have common ground for a conversation, or whether you should retreat into your book and headphones for the duration. She writes
 
I dread the conversation with the person who finds out I am a minister and wants to use the flight time to explain to me that he is “spiritual but not religious.” Such a person will always share this as if it is some kind of daring insight, unique to him, bold in its rebellion against the religious status quo.
 
Next thing you know, he’s telling me that he finds God in the sunsets. These people always find God in the sunsets. And in walks on the beach. Sometimes I think these people never leave the beach or the mountains, what with all the communing with God they do on hilltops, hiking trails and ... did I mention the beach at sunset yet?
 
Like people who go to church don’t see God in the sunset! Like we are these monastic little hermits who never leave the church building. How lucky we are to have these geniuses inform us that God is in nature. As if we don’t hear that in the psalms, the creation stories and throughout our deep tradition. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lillian-daniel/spiritual-but-not-religio_b_959216.html)
 
Now, I love seeing God in sunsets. I hike in the mountains, and look up at the crags soaring over my head and have a thrill at the majesty that created them.  Or I lie down in a meadow, and try to count all the flowers within a few feet of my nose -– 12, 15, 20 varieties, each delicate and unique, witnesses to God’s amazing creativity. I might not know much about that God, but I know that God is pretty amazing. But I also know that is but a starting point if that God is going to have any impact on my life, and here is where both Paul’s audience and Lillian Daniels’ seat mate wants to get off the plane. Paul moves from the general revelation of God in creation to the particular revelation of God in Christ. Back to Paul’s speech:
 
But having overlooked past ignorance, now God says that everyone everywhere must change their ways. God has set a day when he will judge the world’s people with fairness. And God has chosen the man Jesus to do the judging. God has given proof of this to all of us by raising Jesus from death.
 
Paul manages to pack almost everything challenging about Christian faith into four sentences!
 
First, our connection with God has a definite ethical component, it shapes how we live. Even the general knowledge of God we get from creation puts some imperatives upon us: If I am hiking a mountain meadow, honoring the beauty of the place prevents me tossing my garbage around. If I believe that other people are the children of God as am I, then loving them as myself ought be a given. But following Jesus brings other values to the fore, things that can’t be deduced from the world around me. “Blessed are the poor.” “The meek will inherit the earth,” “The greatest among you must be the servant of all.” “Love your enemies.” These bid us cross the bridge from being nice people to being disciples of Jesus.
 
Second, Paul lays out the prospect of a final judgement.
 
(Mark, are you sure you want to go THERE? OK, no I don’t really, and if it weren’t integral to Paul’s argument here I’d slide past it!)
 
Of all the doctrines liable to turn off modern people, judgment is probably about the top of the list! We’re leery of it because we know how often judgement is actually unjust: that the golden rule means that the ones with the gold make the rules, that the powerful use the legal system to oppress the already powerless. We have felt the sting of being judged unfairly, for how we dress or who our family is or where we work or who we love or what we believe or anything and everything else. We also know how easily we form unfair judgments of others, and then how tenaciously we hold them even when further facts prove us wrong.

OTOH, we do believe in judgment. Our very discomfort with unfair judgment signals that we believe in right judgement. We have a keen sense that the universe ought to be administered by a moral code, that evildoers should receive their just desserts and the good should be blessed. We are outraged when it appears that people in high places -– hello Washington? –- are acting unjustly, hurting people without consequences. We expect our officials to treat people fairly, to administer the law without partiality to race or riches. Our consciences have been formed by the Hebrew Prophets, who prophesied destruction to those who cheated the poor, dispossessed widows from their lands, who bent the law to favor the powerful over the people.
 
So if our problem isn’t with judgment per se, but with who is doing the judging -– Paul has an answer, he says it is Jesus who is the judge. The one who took children into his lap, forgave Peter for denying him, and condemned the Temple establishment who “devoured widows’ houses.” The one who gave his life to save the world.
 
Paul’s audience is probably mostly still with him, most of them believed in an afterlife judgment, where the good were rewarded and the evil punished. But then there was the capstone of Paul’s argument, and where he lost most of his audience. When he started talking about Jesus’ resurrection, they were done.
 
Greek philosophy posited a complete disjunction between spirit and matter, with spirit as good and bodies as evil. So the idea of resurrection -– that the divine Christ would be resurrected in his human body –- was just plain nuts to them. Why would a good spiritual god want an evil material human body? For them, it was like a circular square, hot ice, or jumbo shrimp. Nonsense! The story says that when they heard him talk about the resurrection, some scoffed. Some said politely, “We’ll talk about this more later.” But a couple of people did believe -– not much of a haul compared to some other places Paul ministered, or the 3000 baptized after Peter’s Pentecost sermon. Sometimes evangelism is just hard. That’s probably one reason we have this story!
 
But resurrection, stumbling block to hyper-spiritual thinking, is where Christian piety becomes worldly, embodied, practical. Resurrection is the antidote to being too heavenly minded to be any earthly good. Following the Hebrew conception that God created matter, the universe, and human bodies, and called them Good, the resurrection is God’s ultimate blessing on real life. Bodies and how we treat them -- our children’s bodies, our parent’s bodies, poor bodies, black bodies, sick bodies, vulnerable bodies, our own bodies, even dead bodies – are central to God’s concern. Resurrection seals God’s blessing on our commitments to health, to environmental sustainability, to just economic systems that take good care of everyone’s body. It sees everyone as good creations of the God who is in, through, and beyond it all material creation.
 
Resurrection means that there is continuity between this word and whatever comes after death. It’s at the edge of what human language can tackle, but it ensures a full orbed, sensual, individual destiny as part of a redeemed, not destroyed, creation. Whatever heaven might be, it is no thin intellectual spirit existence, but as fully embodied as your best sweaty hike, the experience of childbirth (without the pain), front row center at the symphony or the most connected lovemaking. In the resurrection, we are able to plumb ever deeper into the being of the Creator, learning and feeling and experiencing ever more of God and God’s universe, plunging ever towards that infinity.
 
God will no longer be distant, God will no longer be “the Unknown God.” No more, “To Whom it may concern,” we worship the God the risen Jesus shows us. Amen.

Call to worship (from Psalm 19, 2 Tim. 3:16, John 1:14, Acts 17:28)
 
(One): “The heavens declare God’s glory, the sky proclaims God’s handwork!” (Many): We sing God’s praise!
 
“All scripture is breathed by God, useful for teaching and training in righteousness.” We learn God’s ways so we may be equipped to serve!
 
“The Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory.” We follow as Jesus’ disciples, for he shows us God.
 
“In God we live and move and have our being.” We dance in step with the living Spirit of God!
 
Opening prayer
 
Self-revealing God, we look in awe at galaxies spinning above us, peaks in the distance, and flowers beneath our feet, and we feel your creative power. We open the pages of scripture, and see you leading our ancestors in faith through wilderness to promised land. We grieve over their unfaithfulness and thrill when you bring them home from exile, knowing that our own story with you is but little different. Often you seem so distant, but now you reveal yourself in Jesus, one of us, showing us what a life filled with your love can accomplish: the redemption of the world. So we dedicate this time to worship you: to praise you, to lift our prayers, to hear your Word, to share our gifts, to feel your presence, to know you better. Show yourself afresh to us now, that we can live lives fired by love. Amen.
 
Prayer of dedication
 
Risen Christ, you have showered us with blessings both spiritual and material. We are refreshed with your presence in prayer and song, comforted and challenged by your Word, strengthened and touched by our fellow worshipers. Out of gratefulness, we open our hearts, minds, cupboards and pockets to give ourselves to you and our neighbors. Thank you for the opportunity to share your blessings. Amen.

Pastoral prayer
 
Most gracious and loving God:
You are to be praised for the beauty and wonder of all your works. The world around us testifies to your creativity and your glory, and our hearts are filled with awe. You have created us as your children in your own image, gifted with curiosity, intellect and the capacity to love and be loved. You have set us into relationship with one another, and working together we have created societies that, at their best, maximize the human capacity you have made us for. We also know that at times we abuse these gifts, hurting and hunting and hating our sisters and brothers, and that we sometimes wreck unspeakable harm on every aspect of your world. Yet you are a God whose capacity for forgiveness and new beginnings, so we rejoice to repent and start afresh on the path you lead us upon. While you are a God who has made yourself known in dreams to Abraham, thunder on Mt. Sinai, sheer silence to Elijah, and ultimately in the life, teachings, death and resurrection of Christ, it is most often through relationship with other people that you reveal yourself to us.
 
So today, we want to thank you for certain people in particular.  All through our lives, you have taught us by way of women and men, elders and peers, people who dedicate their time and thought and energy to not only knowing you, but to sharing you with us. Some of them serve in our congregation, teaching children, youth and adults in our Formation programs. Some we have met other places. Each of us can name before you a teacher, a coach, a scoutmaster, a parent, a pastor, a guide, an advisor, a friend, a counselor or even a bartender who was instrumental in showing us how to live in you and without whom we would not be who we are. (pause) Thank you for them. Bless them.  Let them know that their efforts make a difference.  Continue to lead them into greater knowledge and wisdom. Give them joy in their work, sustain them through challenges, and may they know how deeply we appreciate them.
 
Hear, O God, our prayers: All we speak aloud and all that we nurture in the depths of our spirit. Grant us patience through affliction, reconciliation from estrangement, and courage against injustice. We pray all these things through our Savior Jesus Christ: Amen.
 
9 am & 6 pm communion prayer
 
Epiclesis (based on BCP Rite 2, prayer C)
 
God of all power, Ruler of the Universe, you are worthy of glory and praise.
At your command all things came to be: the vast expanse of interstellar space, galaxies, suns, the planets in their courses, and this fragile earth, our island home.
 
From the primal elements you brought forth the human race, and blessed us with memory, reason, and skill. You made us the rulers of creation. But we turned against you, and betrayed your trust; and we turned against one another.
 
Again and again, you called us to return. Through prophets and sages you revealed your righteous Law. And in the fullness of time you sent your only Son, born of a woman, to fulfill your Law, to open for us the way of freedom and peace.
 
So remembering him today,
We ask you to send your Holy Spirit upon these gifts from vineyard and field And upon us
That as we share this sacred memorial

We may be strengthened at heart By Christ’s resurrection life.
Amen. Benediction Go forth today:
Thanking God for all who have taught you and shown you the way In the name of
God who created you in God’s own image,
Christ who redeemed you to make the whole world God’s realm, And the Spirit who sustains you though anything