Chapel Service at Andover
Newton
Theological School
November 11, 2009
Call to the Table
Locked
in our silence,
You
give us our voice.
Bound
by our fear,
You
free us in love.
Clutching
our greed, You
delight us with plenty.
Lost
in our wandering,
You
lead us with Wisdom.
Bent
by our hungers,
You
spread out your table.
All: We come to Your
table, We come in Christ's peace.
Song: Come,
Spirit of God
Confirming God's Presence
Where
people gather in Your
name,
You
have promised to be there.
Bound
to all the earth in hope,
We
feel Your loving care.
When
storm and flood engulf us,
You
reveal your power in love.
When
greed and lies devour the weak,
You
work your healing power.
Not
in shouting but in whispers,
You
confirm our lives.
In
the shadow of Your
suffering,
We
awaken to Your light.
In
the promise of Your
presence,
We
have gathered at Your
table.
ALL: Now in Your Wisdom help us
live the Hope that
heals.
Remembrance
From
the gutters of the slums
You
called the poor to table.
From
their hiding place in trees
You
called exploiters to your side.
To
the one who would betray you
You
offered food and drink.
In
the breaking of the bread
You
were recognized once more.
Through
the ages here at table
You
reveal yourself as peace.
Thanksgiving
O,
circled Source of every life,
From
tiny seeds you feed the world. With helpless babes you melt our
wintered
hearts. From pebbles of hope you build mountains of faith.
For
nurture at your table, our voices rise in thanks. For the speech that
courage
gives, for the hearing patience yields, we give you our unending
thanks. In
life, in death, in love, in hope, we sing our gratitude.
Thank you, God, Holy One
Thank
you, God Creating,* Thank
you, God.
*Redeeming,
Transforming
The Sharing
"The
Bread of Hope"
"The
Cup of Joy"
The Conversation
Scripture
Reading 1: In the beginning when God
created the
heavens and the earth, the earth was a
formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind
from God swept
over the face of the waters. Genesis 1:1-2
Ecologue Reader:
We are an argument of land and water enveloped in air. Land is wedded
to ocean,
covered with green forests and grassy plains, with roots that tickle us
to
fecund mirth. Their coupled care feeds the moving creatures, gives them
shelter
and a place to hide. The creatures bound with us are also bound to air.
The
fire is the friction of our life together.
When
creatures came in ocean, air, and on the land, we found delight in how
they
streamed in many colors back and forth. Their sounds reverberate
throughout our
wet and roiling body. Their footsteps echo in the hollows of our land.
Though
only punctuations in our life, they are our song,
we
are their stage and deepest memory.
Response: Mark Burrows
Scripture
Reading 2:
Then God said, "Let us
make humankind in
our image, according to
our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and
over the
birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of
the
earth, and
over every creeping thing that
creeps upon the earth." Genesis 1:26
Ecologue Reader:
The humans came in tiny numbers. We supplied them on the shores and in
the
trees in great abundance. Then they moved out on the plains. They
fought when
rain was scarce and other creatures left them only dust. They walked
unceasingly to find our body's offerings, and they were filled. They
began to
talk, but in their wanderings they soon forgot a common tongue. Their
arguments
turned into fights, their life together into fear.
Response: Mark Burrows
Scripture
Reading 3:
And Yahweh said,
"Look, they are one
people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning
of what
they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible
for them." So Yahweh scattered them abroad from there
over the
face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. Genesis
11:6-8
Ecologue Reader:
They do not know our language and have forgotten how to feel our mind,
to live
according to our time and listen to our memory. They are all one voice
within
us, but in their swirl of words, they struggle to abandon us.
Their
fear and need drive them unceasingly across our body, drawing lines of
separation to protect them from their deaths. Forgetting us, their
aspirations
turn to greed. They may poison us and kill each other every one, and we
would
lose their special beauty and delight.
Response:
Mark Burrows
Scripture
Reading 4:
For you shall go out
in joy and be led
back in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall burst into
song,
and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. The wolf shall
live with
the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the
lion and
the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. They will not hurt or
destroy on all my holy
mountain; for the earth will be full of the
knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea. Isaiah
55:12;
Is. 11:6-7, 9.
Ecologue Reader:
If they could talk with us and feel our time and memory, perhaps they
might
come home. They could rejoin our now and always play of the clay and
river,
cloud and rain, sand and the sea. They would remember rightly and be
reconciled.
Response: Mark Burrows
Ecologue Reader:
From the place where they began some humans moved slowly toward the
rising sun.
Others followed the setting sun. Their journey brought them to our
waters,
waters stretching farther than their eyes could see. They learned to
float on
logs and their need began to overcome their fear. They began to leave
the land.
They returned to our waters, their womb of ancient origins.
In
the rhythms of the icy times they found their way across the two great
oceans.
The wanderers toward the sunrise finally met the followers of sunsets.
They saw
each other's eyes at the elder mountains where the great trees bound
earth to
sky. Their hands touched at a worn old scar that remembers the ancient
parting
of the land. Their bodies found reunion and children came forth in our
long
watered valleys.
Yet
in the wooded shadows fingers closed in fear around carved wood and
sharp metal.
They left their cord of common life bleeding in the mountain's lap.
Though
children of the one sun, of the one earth, bound together with one
blood, they
died together in their fear upon the land. The waters carried their
blood back
to the sea that bore them.
There
were humans in those mountains who
called themselves
the Ani-Yunwi-ya, the
Primary People. The humans from
the sunrise called them Cherokee. Their struggle
for the land
still echoes in our depths and whispers in their memories.
Response: Mark Burrows
Concluding: At the end of an Earth
chapter when we humans have
overrun the earth and are meeting each other face to face at every
place. We
cannot flee from one another any more,
we cannot live
with walls rather than bridges. We hear the call to a higher ground of
reconciliation. But in our arrival at a point of emerging common
consciousness
we have imperiled the earth. Our reconciliation with each other cannot
occur
without a reconciliation
with Earth – a
re-connection with its underlying life, its frame of ultimate
existence,
Earth's Source, the one we call God, Allah, Brahma, the Holy One.
The Prayers
The Hope Prayer
O Source
of Life, You alone are holy.
Come and
govern us in perfect peace.
Give us
today all the food that we need.
Release
us from sin as we release our enemies.
Save us
in the trials of judgment.
Liberate
us all from evil powers.
For in
you is our justice,
Our
constitution, and our peace. AMEN.
Confirming a Deeper Hope:
May
the one God, whose hope in creation yet leads us into unknown futures,
reside
in our hearts as peace, our minds as wonder, our bodies as a dance, and
our
eyes as a boundless vision. May we walk in God's peace forever.
Amen.
Blessing Song:
Go
now in peace, blessing and blessed, Grounded in God, healing and whole.
Go
now in peace, blessing and blessed, Grounded in God, filled with God's
love.