Donna Rougeux, ARCWP,
and Deven Horne led the Upper Room Liturgy for the Third Sunday in Easter
Season. They focused on the call to encounter new life as we become co-creators
of the kin-dom. Deven’s and Donna’s homily starters are printed below the
readings.
Peace
Prayer
Let
us center ourselves and call upon peace for ourselves and each other.
Relax,
close your eyes and open place your hands on your lap palms up.
Take
a deep breath allowing the air to fill your lungs, hold a second and exhale
slowly all the air from your lungs and allowing your shoulders to relax.
Again,
in the name of the Mother, the Daughter and the Holy Spirit.
Breathe
and relax your face muscles and smile welcoming in the love of the Beloved
Creator.
Now
pray – May peace be with me and with each of us as we co-create this sacred
space in which to open our hearts, minds and bodies to Divine Grace.
First
Reading by Jan Phillips
Anyone
who has been shaped in any way by religious tradition has been exposed to a
tremendous amount of contradictions. Sacred texts have been mistranslated,
misinterpreted, and misunderstood for millennia. Depending on our programming,
we can find in them anything we need to support our bad behaviors – sexism,
racism, homophobia, slavery, violence.
That
is why we need to inquire within, dip down into our own well of wisdom and come
up with a faith that is true to who we are and what we know. If something you’ve
been taught doesn’t ring true, alter it. If it’s too small to contain your
magnitude, expand it. If it polarizes people, excludes people, leads to
anything other than understanding and openness, broaden it or abandon it. It is
up to us to create new canons of compassion and morality. We cannot wait for
leaders to rise up from the masses and save us from ourselves – we are the
leader and this is our time.
Great
Being of light and darkness,
I
stand with you and in you
A
citizen of earth
A
co-creator of culture.
I
am the bulb to your Light
And
your radiance illumines the paths I take.
Only
praises ring out from my lips,
Tears
of joy flow like rivers down my cheeks.
These are the inspired words of Jan
Phillips from her book “No Ordinary Time. The Rise of Spiritual Intelligence
and Evolutionary Creativity” and we affirm them by saying, Amen.
Gospel Reading:
John 21:1-14
Later Jesus again was manifested to the
disciples at Lake Tiberias. This is how the appearance took place.
Assembled were Simon Peter, Thomas “the
Twin,” Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, Zebedee’s children, and two other
disciples. Simon Peter said to them, “I’m goin out to fish.”
“We’ll join you,” they replied, and went off
to get into their boat.
All through the night they caught nothing. Just
after daybreak, Jesus was standing on the shore, though none of the disciples
knew it was Jesus. He said to them, “Have you caught anything, friends?”
“Not a thing,” they answered.
Cast your net off to the starboard side,”
Jesus suggested, “and you’ll find something.”
So they made a cast and caught so many fish
that they couldn’t haul the net in. Then the disciple whom Jesus loved cried
out to Peter, “It’s the Teacher!”
Upon hearing this, Simon Peter threw on his
cloak-he was naked-and jumped into the water.
Meanwhile the other disciples brought the
boat to shore, towing the net full of fish. They were not far from land-no more
than a hundred yards. When they landed, they saw that a charcoal fire had been
prepared, with fish and some bread already being grilled. “Bring some of the
fish you just caught,” Jesus told them. Simon Peter went aboard and hauled
ashore the net, which was loaded with huge fish-one hundred fifty-three of
them. In spite of the great number, the net was not torn.
“Come and eat your meal,” Jesus told them.
None of the disciples dared to ask, “Who are
you?” -they knew it was the savior.
Jesus came over, took the bread and gave it
to them, and did the same with the fish. This marked the third time that Jesus
had appeared to the disciples after being raised from the dead.
These are the inspired words from the Gospel
of John and community affirms them by saying: Amen.
Deven’s homily starter:
As I
was reading the first text by Jan Phillips in her book ”No Ordinary Time”, a
light bulb went off in my head and physically my body reacted with sparks of
emotion within me. I know you must have had these moments too when something
resonates very deeply with you and you think, “Ahh yes! Of course!”.
It went from my mind to my heart in seconds and it just clicked. What
struck me clearly was that this was telling me I could give myself permission
to believe what made sense to me, to accept all those experiential moments in
my life that sounded the bells of truth inside me and to co-create my faith.
“If something doesn’t ring true, alter it”. Oh! I can believe something else??
Yes, using my heart and what I have come to know through experience, I can
expand my thinking. I can also “reject” or “abandon” what doesn’t fit my
ever-evolving canons. Using the moral compass that Jan Phillips outlines here
of “compassion and morality” will lead the way. Not only is it okay to do but
it is meant to be done, in order to illumine the path of co-creation with the
Divine in our time.
Does
this make sense to you? What would Jesus say to me about my Ah Ha moment?
Donna’s homily starter:
Today’s gospel reading is filled with ah-ha moments for the
disciples. This is another story about an appearance of the resurrected Jesus.
Most of the appearance stories picture the people to whom Jesus appears as not
recognizing him at first. For example when Mary goes to the tomb and finds it
empty she begins to cry and talk to the gardener who really is the resurrected
Jesus. Her ah-ha moment comes when Jesus says her name because she then
recognizes Jesus. In today’s story the disciple Jesus loved had the ah-ha
moment of recognizing Jesus when the empty fishing net became full of
fish. This was followed by Jesus
inviting Peter and the other disciples to breakfast on the beach. When they
bring the net to shore filled with 153 fish, we the readers of the story as
well as the disciples may have an ah—ha moment of remembering when Jesus
multiplied the loaves and the fishes to feed a crowd of 5000 people. As Jesus
broke bread and fish with the disciples the next ah-ha takes us to the last
supper and connects us today with the story when we break bread together. If
you happened to read beyond our first reading you would see that Peter was
being asked three times by Jesus, “Do you love me.” The ah-ha in this part of
the story is a beautiful reconciliation scene when Jesus is transforming
Peter’s three denials into three affirmations of love. Not only is Peter
reconciled, Jesus invites Peter to continue his ministry as a fisher of humans.
Why do we need to pay attention to ah-ha moments in scripture and
in our lives? Because these moments are unexplainable encounters with mystery,
encounters with something bigger than us,
encounters with the Divine. These moments change, empower us and give us
new life to be co-creators of the kin-dom. These ah-ha moments take Peter and
us out of fishing boats where it feels safe and normal and into the risky but
life giving work of the kin-dom building. Living into ah-ha moments gives us
the courage to let go of the misinterpretations and misunderstandings that Jan
Phillips talks about. She is giving us a litmus test for our faith. She is
telling us to abandon boats, settings or misunderstandings that keep us locked
into judging and excluding people and move toward listening to the God voice
within us, our conscience, the wisdom written in our hearts, that helps us
create canons of compassion and morality.
What did you hear? What will you do? How will it change you?
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