Remember
Sermon
Dancing The Sacraments
Sermons And Worship Services For Baptism And Communion
Call To Worship:
Come, let us remember and worship God who calls us.
Hymn: "This Is The Day The Lord Has Made"
(words and music: Psalm 118:24, Les Garrett)
Children's Time: A Horn Of Plenty
(From a cornucopia, a horn of plenty, take an apple, banana, green pepper, pumpkin, grape, strawberry, or pictures of the items, as they "speak.")
Once upon a time a red, round apple said, "I am sweet and hard and good to eat, but I wish I were soft and yellow."
The banana, soft and yellow, said, "I'd rather be green instead."
The green pepper groaned, "I wish I were fat and orange."
The orange pumpkin moaned, "I wish I were small and purple."
"I'm small and purple," said the grape. "I wish I were pink and plump."
The plump, pink strawberry was silent. It takes being still to think. Then she spoke:
It's good to be pink, it's great to be red,
It's nice to be purple or yellow instead.
To be big is wonderful,
Small is too, but best of all,
Is being ... YOU!
Talk Together:
What do you like best about being you? A storyteller once took a small bite from a lion animal cracker and "me--ow--ed." With each small bite the sound grew louder until the cracker was finished and she roared. As she ate, her shoulders were straighter, her head held higher, her voice stronger to show the meaning of communion, Christ--with--us, making us bold. (Distribute animal crackers and invite the children to eat and "be strong in the Lord.")
Prayer (with the children):
"I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart." Amen.
Prayer Of Confession:
Dear Lord, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Amen.
Words Of Assurance:
God says, "You are my beloved children. In you I am well pleased."
Psalter Reading: Psalm 80:1--7
Old Testament: Exodus 16:22--32
Epistle: Acts 20:7--12
New Testament: Matthew 6:11
Sermon:
Jesus and his friends gathered together in the Upper Room and sat at table, remembering they were in Jerusalem for the feast of Passover. Tonight there was a sense of mystery, beauty, and sadness in the air. Then Jesus stood. Taking the cup in his hands, he said, "Drink this and remember." Then he took the bread and said, "Eat, and remember." When they had finished, they went out into the night, singing a hymn of praise, their shoulders straight, their heads held high, their voices strong.
We are told to remember. A man once had a dream in which he wanted to return to a room called "Remember," where he had experienced healing and blessing and a sense of peace. In his dream he was told that he could return to it whenever he wanted or needed to and again receive healing and blessing. When persons do guided faith meditations, the meditation closes, "Knowing you can return whenever you want, open your eyes and come back to this place, this room, now."
We have such a "room" at the altar where we receive healing, blessing, and a sense of God's peace that passes all understanding.
All of us have memories. When a loved one has died, we remember all the things we said to one another and all that we left unspoken. That remembering can bring pain, but pain reminds us that this is important, that something needs to be remembered, recognized, and if need be, confessed and forgiven or blessed.
When my granddaughter was assigned the project in school of interviewing her great--grandmother, my mother, then 93 years old, was ecstatic. Someone cared. Someone was taking time to listen to her remembering. She remembered and talked of it frequently until her death two years later.
We remember in order to seek the truth about ourselves. In the journaling process of Ira Progoff, he has created an exercise naming one's "stepping stones," the important events that spontaneously arise in our memory when we sit down to write them. Listing them as they come to consciousness without chronological sequence and reading them reveal events of significance in our lives and where they might lead us now.
At the heart of liturgy and ritual is remembrance of the creation of the sun and moon and stars, the seas and all the waters, the earth and sky, the seasons, and not only remembering but connecting, being a part of and celebrating that oneness with all of God's creation.
Ritual reminds us of the importance of experiencing for ourselves and remembering, for when we remember, we do not take things for granted. Today we are called to remember creation so that we will not take the earth for granted, that we will not forget that the earth is the Lord's and everything in it, and of our connection with it.
I collect cups for remembering. There is the cup on which the blue birds sit and silently sing that was given me by my daughter--in--law, the black and red Italian mug from our family's years there, a cup with sailing vessels my son bought me on our trip to the state of Washington because I had said that morning at our bed--and--breakfast home on the lake, "I love this cup." I have a cup from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, that reminds me of the Mennonites and my seven--year stay among them, and one from Colorado that lifts my eyes to the hills "from whence comes my help," a flowered cup from Dallas that speaks of shopping with my friend Pat, and one with a storybook goose handle my surrogate granddaughter, Sarah, bought me. One cup is decorated with literary animals celebrating "Tea Time" to remind me of Bridget, my British friend, and our tea times together. One of them pictures the sunset on Galveston Island where my nine--year--old grandson and I attended an Elderhostel week, learning about dolphins. There are the exquisite Portuguese cups and the Jerusalem cup that asks, "Can you drink from the cup I drink?" My "cups run over"!
Some of us take the cup and the bread Sunday after Sunday, as the dew, the manna, by which God fed the people in the wilderness, remembering to live one day at a time, trusting in God's providence, praying, "Give us this day our daily bread."
The Bedouin still gather the manna and bake it into bread, for as the bread we eat at the communion table was sent from heaven, so our daily manna comes from God who calls us to feed in order for us to feed others and to remember.
In worship we remember the wonderful works that God has done. Holy communion is the enactment of the story in which Christ says to us, "Do this in memory of me." Then we taste the bread and wine and celebrate with the psalmist who sang, "Taste and see that God is good." We see the rich, raw, red of the grape and the deep brown of the freshly--baked bread that comes from the ground's grain. We hear the words of our Lord and smell the odor of the warm bread, and in the smell is the memory, as Jesus said, "Do this in remembrance of me." We feel the symbol, the "touch" of God holding us in unconditional love, remembering Jesus' touching the children, the lame, the blind.
The sacrament is given and received in hospital rooms and jail cells, in one room tin--roofed huts and long--aisled crystal cathedrals. It is "at home," as God is, in the sanctuary and in the world.
In communion we also celebrate mystery. The universe or ninety percent of it is a dark mystery. Lifting the bread, Jesus said, "This is my body, eat," and the cup, "This is my blood. Drink all of it." What if Peter had said, "What if we don't understand?" and John, "When is the assignment due?" Matthew adding, "Will we be tested on it?" The power of Jesus' words is limited by the literal--minded. As we enter the poetry of the biblical text, we discover the nature of revelation as symbolic disclosure, creating meaning, calling for participation, while preserving the mystery. The sections of the Hebrew Scripture most quoted in the New Testament are poetry: the Psalms and the book of Isaiah. The essence of religion is remembrance and connection.
A child asked Jacob the Baker, "Why do you say, 'A child sees what I only understand'?" Jacob answered, "Imagine a boy, sitting on a hill, looking out through his innocence on the beauty of the world. Slowly he begins to learn by collecting small stones of knowledge, placing one on top of the other. Over time, his learning becomes a wall. Now, when he looks out, he can see his learning, but he has lost his view. When he becomes a man he decides to take down the wall, but it takes time and he becomes an old man who rests on the hill and looks out through his experience on the beauty of the world. He understands, but he will never see the world again as he saw it as a child on that first, clear morning." A girl interjected, unable to contain herself, "Yes ... but ... the old man can remember what he once saw!" Jacob replied, "You are right. Experience matures to memory and memory is the gentlest of trusts."1
A man described his wife, in her role as an Episcopal priest, distributing the bread of communion one Sunday. Among the kneeling participants was a four--year--old girl. She looked up expectantly as the priest bent down to give her a piece of bread. As he watched he wondered at the contrast between his childhood image of God, a male authority figure shaking his finger, and that of his wife, God as a beautiful woman, bending down to feed us.
The Bible gives us female images of God that are intimate and loving, along with that of king, male, powerful, and distant. As a woman, I prefer communion in which the priesthood of all believers offers the bread and wine to one another, to the "priest," usually male, standing over me in authority and dominance. The latter is my remembering from childhood.
Visiting new places creates images we remember. Once I spent three weeks in Tuscany and wrote of those memories:
Carefully, when they are ripe,
we pick the memories,
pouring them into vast,
empty,
concrete
vats,
storing them in large wooden casks
in dark cellars to ferment,
and when they are ready
bottle them in words
one day to share:
to sniff their bouquet
and sip the fullness of their fruit.
Jesus asks us to remember the poor, the hungry, the homeless.
Remember the earth, which is groaning, and the children who are deprived of wonder, music, and celebration. But especially to remember our blessings when we eat to remember and celebrate Christ's presence among us here and now, celebrating the earth and her fruit, for God works through all things. So come now, take, eat, and celebrate that presence. Amen.
Sacrament Of Holy Communion
Hymn: "Be Present At Our Table, Lord"
(words: John Cennick; music: Louis Bourgeois)
Prayers Of The People
Pastoral Prayer:
Dear God, each time we come to the altar, kneel, cup our hands together to receive "the body of Christ, the bread of heaven," we remember the words of Jesus at his last meal. We remember that in that act he began the holiest of feasts, the ritual of the Eucharist, the love feast of the church. In this feast we taste the holiness of heaven, your love and presence here and now. We thank you for your blessing of life and bread, family and friends, and pray you will help us remember to share them with others in Christ's name. Amen.
The Lord's Prayer
Offering
Doxology
Hymn Of Commitment: "Bread Of Heaven, On Thee We Feed"
(words: Josiah Conder; music: French and Welsh melody)
Benediction:
Go now in the name of God, the Giver of all good gifts through Jesus Christ, blessing us in the taking of his body and blood, and the Holy Spirit, who enables us to remember and to share. Amen.
____________
1. Noah ben Shea, Jacob the Baker (New York: Ballantine, 1989), pp. 75--77.
Come, let us remember and worship God who calls us.
Hymn: "This Is The Day The Lord Has Made"
(words and music: Psalm 118:24, Les Garrett)
Children's Time: A Horn Of Plenty
(From a cornucopia, a horn of plenty, take an apple, banana, green pepper, pumpkin, grape, strawberry, or pictures of the items, as they "speak.")
Once upon a time a red, round apple said, "I am sweet and hard and good to eat, but I wish I were soft and yellow."
The banana, soft and yellow, said, "I'd rather be green instead."
The green pepper groaned, "I wish I were fat and orange."
The orange pumpkin moaned, "I wish I were small and purple."
"I'm small and purple," said the grape. "I wish I were pink and plump."
The plump, pink strawberry was silent. It takes being still to think. Then she spoke:
It's good to be pink, it's great to be red,
It's nice to be purple or yellow instead.
To be big is wonderful,
Small is too, but best of all,
Is being ... YOU!
Talk Together:
What do you like best about being you? A storyteller once took a small bite from a lion animal cracker and "me--ow--ed." With each small bite the sound grew louder until the cracker was finished and she roared. As she ate, her shoulders were straighter, her head held higher, her voice stronger to show the meaning of communion, Christ--with--us, making us bold. (Distribute animal crackers and invite the children to eat and "be strong in the Lord.")
Prayer (with the children):
"I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart." Amen.
Prayer Of Confession:
Dear Lord, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Amen.
Words Of Assurance:
God says, "You are my beloved children. In you I am well pleased."
Psalter Reading: Psalm 80:1--7
Old Testament: Exodus 16:22--32
Epistle: Acts 20:7--12
New Testament: Matthew 6:11
Sermon:
Jesus and his friends gathered together in the Upper Room and sat at table, remembering they were in Jerusalem for the feast of Passover. Tonight there was a sense of mystery, beauty, and sadness in the air. Then Jesus stood. Taking the cup in his hands, he said, "Drink this and remember." Then he took the bread and said, "Eat, and remember." When they had finished, they went out into the night, singing a hymn of praise, their shoulders straight, their heads held high, their voices strong.
We are told to remember. A man once had a dream in which he wanted to return to a room called "Remember," where he had experienced healing and blessing and a sense of peace. In his dream he was told that he could return to it whenever he wanted or needed to and again receive healing and blessing. When persons do guided faith meditations, the meditation closes, "Knowing you can return whenever you want, open your eyes and come back to this place, this room, now."
We have such a "room" at the altar where we receive healing, blessing, and a sense of God's peace that passes all understanding.
All of us have memories. When a loved one has died, we remember all the things we said to one another and all that we left unspoken. That remembering can bring pain, but pain reminds us that this is important, that something needs to be remembered, recognized, and if need be, confessed and forgiven or blessed.
When my granddaughter was assigned the project in school of interviewing her great--grandmother, my mother, then 93 years old, was ecstatic. Someone cared. Someone was taking time to listen to her remembering. She remembered and talked of it frequently until her death two years later.
We remember in order to seek the truth about ourselves. In the journaling process of Ira Progoff, he has created an exercise naming one's "stepping stones," the important events that spontaneously arise in our memory when we sit down to write them. Listing them as they come to consciousness without chronological sequence and reading them reveal events of significance in our lives and where they might lead us now.
At the heart of liturgy and ritual is remembrance of the creation of the sun and moon and stars, the seas and all the waters, the earth and sky, the seasons, and not only remembering but connecting, being a part of and celebrating that oneness with all of God's creation.
Ritual reminds us of the importance of experiencing for ourselves and remembering, for when we remember, we do not take things for granted. Today we are called to remember creation so that we will not take the earth for granted, that we will not forget that the earth is the Lord's and everything in it, and of our connection with it.
I collect cups for remembering. There is the cup on which the blue birds sit and silently sing that was given me by my daughter--in--law, the black and red Italian mug from our family's years there, a cup with sailing vessels my son bought me on our trip to the state of Washington because I had said that morning at our bed--and--breakfast home on the lake, "I love this cup." I have a cup from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, that reminds me of the Mennonites and my seven--year stay among them, and one from Colorado that lifts my eyes to the hills "from whence comes my help," a flowered cup from Dallas that speaks of shopping with my friend Pat, and one with a storybook goose handle my surrogate granddaughter, Sarah, bought me. One cup is decorated with literary animals celebrating "Tea Time" to remind me of Bridget, my British friend, and our tea times together. One of them pictures the sunset on Galveston Island where my nine--year--old grandson and I attended an Elderhostel week, learning about dolphins. There are the exquisite Portuguese cups and the Jerusalem cup that asks, "Can you drink from the cup I drink?" My "cups run over"!
Some of us take the cup and the bread Sunday after Sunday, as the dew, the manna, by which God fed the people in the wilderness, remembering to live one day at a time, trusting in God's providence, praying, "Give us this day our daily bread."
The Bedouin still gather the manna and bake it into bread, for as the bread we eat at the communion table was sent from heaven, so our daily manna comes from God who calls us to feed in order for us to feed others and to remember.
In worship we remember the wonderful works that God has done. Holy communion is the enactment of the story in which Christ says to us, "Do this in memory of me." Then we taste the bread and wine and celebrate with the psalmist who sang, "Taste and see that God is good." We see the rich, raw, red of the grape and the deep brown of the freshly--baked bread that comes from the ground's grain. We hear the words of our Lord and smell the odor of the warm bread, and in the smell is the memory, as Jesus said, "Do this in remembrance of me." We feel the symbol, the "touch" of God holding us in unconditional love, remembering Jesus' touching the children, the lame, the blind.
The sacrament is given and received in hospital rooms and jail cells, in one room tin--roofed huts and long--aisled crystal cathedrals. It is "at home," as God is, in the sanctuary and in the world.
In communion we also celebrate mystery. The universe or ninety percent of it is a dark mystery. Lifting the bread, Jesus said, "This is my body, eat," and the cup, "This is my blood. Drink all of it." What if Peter had said, "What if we don't understand?" and John, "When is the assignment due?" Matthew adding, "Will we be tested on it?" The power of Jesus' words is limited by the literal--minded. As we enter the poetry of the biblical text, we discover the nature of revelation as symbolic disclosure, creating meaning, calling for participation, while preserving the mystery. The sections of the Hebrew Scripture most quoted in the New Testament are poetry: the Psalms and the book of Isaiah. The essence of religion is remembrance and connection.
A child asked Jacob the Baker, "Why do you say, 'A child sees what I only understand'?" Jacob answered, "Imagine a boy, sitting on a hill, looking out through his innocence on the beauty of the world. Slowly he begins to learn by collecting small stones of knowledge, placing one on top of the other. Over time, his learning becomes a wall. Now, when he looks out, he can see his learning, but he has lost his view. When he becomes a man he decides to take down the wall, but it takes time and he becomes an old man who rests on the hill and looks out through his experience on the beauty of the world. He understands, but he will never see the world again as he saw it as a child on that first, clear morning." A girl interjected, unable to contain herself, "Yes ... but ... the old man can remember what he once saw!" Jacob replied, "You are right. Experience matures to memory and memory is the gentlest of trusts."1
A man described his wife, in her role as an Episcopal priest, distributing the bread of communion one Sunday. Among the kneeling participants was a four--year--old girl. She looked up expectantly as the priest bent down to give her a piece of bread. As he watched he wondered at the contrast between his childhood image of God, a male authority figure shaking his finger, and that of his wife, God as a beautiful woman, bending down to feed us.
The Bible gives us female images of God that are intimate and loving, along with that of king, male, powerful, and distant. As a woman, I prefer communion in which the priesthood of all believers offers the bread and wine to one another, to the "priest," usually male, standing over me in authority and dominance. The latter is my remembering from childhood.
Visiting new places creates images we remember. Once I spent three weeks in Tuscany and wrote of those memories:
Carefully, when they are ripe,
we pick the memories,
pouring them into vast,
empty,
concrete
vats,
storing them in large wooden casks
in dark cellars to ferment,
and when they are ready
bottle them in words
one day to share:
to sniff their bouquet
and sip the fullness of their fruit.
Jesus asks us to remember the poor, the hungry, the homeless.
Remember the earth, which is groaning, and the children who are deprived of wonder, music, and celebration. But especially to remember our blessings when we eat to remember and celebrate Christ's presence among us here and now, celebrating the earth and her fruit, for God works through all things. So come now, take, eat, and celebrate that presence. Amen.
Sacrament Of Holy Communion
Hymn: "Be Present At Our Table, Lord"
(words: John Cennick; music: Louis Bourgeois)
Prayers Of The People
Pastoral Prayer:
Dear God, each time we come to the altar, kneel, cup our hands together to receive "the body of Christ, the bread of heaven," we remember the words of Jesus at his last meal. We remember that in that act he began the holiest of feasts, the ritual of the Eucharist, the love feast of the church. In this feast we taste the holiness of heaven, your love and presence here and now. We thank you for your blessing of life and bread, family and friends, and pray you will help us remember to share them with others in Christ's name. Amen.
The Lord's Prayer
Offering
Doxology
Hymn Of Commitment: "Bread Of Heaven, On Thee We Feed"
(words: Josiah Conder; music: French and Welsh melody)
Benediction:
Go now in the name of God, the Giver of all good gifts through Jesus Christ, blessing us in the taking of his body and blood, and the Holy Spirit, who enables us to remember and to share. Amen.
____________
1. Noah ben Shea, Jacob the Baker (New York: Ballantine, 1989), pp. 75--77.
