Bridget Mary's Blog: Upper Room Christmas Liturgy

Upper Room Christmas Liturgy 2017

Kim Panaro, ARCWP and Bernie Kinlan led the Upper Room Community's Christmas liturgy. Kim's homily reflection is printed below the Gospel reading.

Opening Prayer

O Holy One, you bless us always and invite us to awaken to your life within us. May we like Jesus, continue your incarnation as we look beyond our comfortable lives and find you among the lost, lonely, ill and neglected. This season reminds us again and again, that the story begun over 13 billion years ago continues through the ages in each of us as we open our hearts to you and your light shine through us. Amen.

Opening Song: Little Town by Over the Rhine

LITURGY OF THE WORD

A reading by Jane Deener-Quiat and Rex Hunt

Adapted from A Service of Holy Communion at Christmas

https://progressivechristianity.org/resources/a-service-of-holy-communion-at-christmas

Today celebrate God-with-us beyond our words, beyond our images, for we know God is beyond those things. But today we find joy in the image of God coming to us in the form of a child. We sense God’s presence in creation and in the immensity of our universe, in the incredible display of life on this planet, and in our consciousness
of something far greater than ourselves.

As Christians, we rejoice in the birth of Jesus. In him we see the fullness of possibility to make God visible in our lives. Like all of us he grew in wisdom as he aged. He questioned. He searched for meaning. He shaped his convictions. He experienced love and came to know love’s connectedness with God.

He stood firmly in his own religious tradition and preached good news to all people dreaming of a better humanity. We rejoice that he taught us not to imagine a manipulative, intervening God, but one who is as close as breath and as soft as a whisper, yet as powerful in the focus of our lives, as were the mighty prophets in the Hebrew Old Testament drawing us toward the good.

We rejoice that Jesus led people to discover the sacred in the ordinary, in the lowly, in everyday life, in human yearnings to be better people, and in being neighbor to one another.

Bread and wine, the fruit of vine and earth. He gave us these to keep us connected to the story. May these ordinary things be blessed. For they represent both the ordinary and the extraordinary as Jesus calls us to follow him. May we share generously of this wonderful gift we have received.

These are the inspired words of Jane Deener-Quiat and Rex Hunt and we affirm them by saying, Amen.

Alleluia

Gospel (Lk. 2 1-14)

This is the story told by the disciple Luke to celebrate the birth of our brother, Jesus:

Just before Jesus was born, Caesar Augustus published a decree ordering a census of the whole Roman world. All the people were instructed to go back to the towns of their birth to register. And so Joseph went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to “the city of David” - Bethlehem, in Judea, because Joseph was of the house and lineage of David. He went to register with Mary, his espoused wife, who was pregnant.

While they were there, the time came for her delivery. She gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She put him in a simple cloth wrapped like a receiving blanket, and laid him in a feeding trough for cattle, because there was no room for them at the inn.

There were shepherds in the area living in the fields and keeping night watch over their flock. The angel of God appeared to them, and the glory of God shown around them. They were very much afraid.

The angel said to them, “You have nothing to fear! I come to proclaim good news to you – news of great joy to be shared by the whole people. Today in David’s city, a savior – the Messiah - has been born unto you. Let this be a sign to you: You will find an infant wrapped in a simple cloth, lying in a manger.”

Suddenly, there was a multitude of the heavenly host with the angel, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven! And peace to God’s people on Earth.”

These are the inspired words of Luke and we affirm these words by saying, Amen.

Kim Panaro's HOMILY STARTER CHRISTMAS EVE MORNING 12/24/2017

Have you ever had the experience of listening to a friend or relative telling a story about an event at which you were present and thinking “I do not remember any of it the way they’re telling it”. They exaggerate minor details, emphasize their own or others’ role in the events and sometimes add things that simply did not happen. You may wonder if they are just making things up to sound more interesting, to make a point they want to make or they just have a bad memory. More often than not, I believe, people recount stories in a way that simply conveys the meaning the event had for them. In other words, the truth of the story lies not in the historic validity of the details but the deeper truth or meaning that the event has had for them. The event, if it was meaningful in their lives, has become part of their own sacred story.

So, it is with our reading from Luke today. It is a beautiful tale of singing angels, shepherds, a journey for soon to be parents and the birth of a child from the house of David who would show the world the glory of God. A beautiful myth but one that for some, loses creditability in the utter impossibility of historic accuracy. As adult believers, we understand that this story, like all sacred stories is written to express eternal truth, holy truth. We understand that the wonder and splendor of Jesus is found in the hopes and dreams of the people who came to believe in him. People who lived lives of poverty, oppression, violence and injustice. They saw in the life and ministry of Jesus, the hope that an ordinary person could live a life so united with his God that he could transform the world. The writer of Luke honors this by weaving a birth story that is worthy of the one who would embody the hopes of a nation and ultimately the hopes of people for 2000 years.

So, what about you and me? Most of us would probably humbly describe ourselves as ordinary. When we were born, chances are, someone looked at us in a crib or held us in their arms wondering “I wonder who this child will become. What mark will this little one, so full of potential, will make of the life God has given them?”. Stories are holy stories when they recount the action of the Holy one in the lives of people. When people tell the story of your life’s events will they be able to see the Holy One acting in and through your sacred story? Will the deeper truth of your life resemble the story of Jesus? Jesus shows us that the Holy One can be trusted to walk with us in every moment of life, transforming and molding us into people of justice, compassion, mercy, faith, trust and hope. Every minute of every day, every breath we take is full of this holy potential. How is my story reflecting this truth? Can you see in the remembrance tale of birth of Jesus the rebirth of your own sacred potential, your own unfolding and precious sacred story?

Statement of Faith

We believe in the Holy One, a divine mystery
beyond all definition and rational understanding,
the heart of all that has ever existed,
that exists now, or that ever will exist.

We believe in Jesus, messenger of the Divine Word,
bringer of healing, heart of Divine compassion,
bright star in the firmament of the Holy One's
prophets, mystics, and saints.

We believe that We are called to follow Jesus
as a vehicle of divine love,
a source of wisdom and truth,
and an instrument of peace in the world.

We believe in the Spirit of the Holy One,
the life that is our innermost life,
the breath moving in our being,
the depth living in each of us.

We believe that the Divine kin-dom is here and now,
stretched out all around us for those
with eyes to see it, hearts to receive it,
and hands to make it happen.

LITURGY OF THE EUCHARIST

Presider 1: As we prepare for the sacred meal, we bring to this table our blessings, cares and concerns. Please feel free to voice your concerns beginning with the words “I bring to the table….” (pause) And we pray for these and all unspoken cares and concerns. Amen.

Presider 2: Please join in praying our Eucharistic Prayer: (written by Jay Murnane)

All: O Holy One, you are continually creating the universe, continually giving birth to all of us. We sense the need to do the same, to set ourselves free from a sense of emptiness and barren hopelessness.

We celebrate you as the Source of light and life and love, and we celebrate your presence and all-ways care. We give thanks, and joined with your vision of harmony and peace, we sing:

Alleluia Sing! by David Haas

Blessed be our God!

Joy of our hearts, source of all life and love!

God of Heaven and Earth!

Dwelling within, calling us all by name!

Alleluia, sing!

Gift of love and peace!

Jesus Christ, Jesus our hope and light!

A flame of faith in our hearts!

Proclaiming the day, shining throughout the night!

Alleluia, sing!

(Alleluia Sing by David Haas)

All: Your wisdom invites us to draw on our tradition, as old as the stars, shining through Sarah and Abraham, shining through your prophets in every age and every culture. We join that enlightening, enlivening tradition with what we are as we risk fidelity to a dream.

Filled with your spirit, we, like Jesus, can give birth in our day to your living word for the sake of hope enfleshed in creativity and confrontation, healing and reconciliation, justice, universal and unconditional love.

On the night before he faced his own death, Jesus sat at the Seder supper with his companions and friends. He reminded them of all that he taught them, and to fix that memory clearly with them, he bent down and washed their feet.

When he returned to his place, he took bread, gave thanks and offered it to them saying:

Take and eat of the Bread of Life

Given to strengthen you

Whenever you remember me like this

I am among you. (pause)

Jesus then raised a cup of blessing, spoke the grace saying:

Take and drink of the covenant

Made new again through my life in you.

Whenever you remember me like this,

I am among you. (pause)

Let us share this bread and cup

To proclaim and live the gospel of justice and peace

O Holy One, we dare again to dream the ancient dreams and open ourselves to marvelous visions. There are mountains of arrogance to lower, valleys of fear and separation to fill in, to create a community and communion that stretches throughout our consciousness and around our world.

In this way, working to renew the face of the earth, we are opened up to your Spirit, the Spirit of light and life and love born in Jesus.

For it is through his life and teaching, all honor and glory is yours, O Holy One, forever and ever.

All: Amen.

Presider: Let us pray as Jesus taught us:

O Holy one who is within, around and among us.
We celebrate your many names.
Your wisdom come; your will be done,
unfolding from the depths within us.
Each day you give us all that we need.
You remind us of our limits and we let go.
You support us in our power, and we act with courage.
For you are the dwelling place within us,
the empowerment around us,
and the celebration among us,
now and forever, Amen.

Adapted by Miriam Therese Winter

Presider 1: Please join in our prayer for the breaking of the bread:

(presiders break bread during this prayer)

All: O Holy One, You call us to live the Gospel of peace and justice. We will live justly.

You call us to be Your presence in the world. We will love tenderly.

You call us to speak truth to power. We will walk with integrity in your presence.

Presider 2: "This is the bread of life. Through it we are nourished and we nourish each other.

All: What we have heard with our ears, we will live with our lives; as we share communion, we will become communion, both Love’s nourishment and Love’s challenge.

Presider 1: Our Eucharistic celebration is all-inclusive. You are a spark of the Divine and nothing can separate you from God’s love. All are welcome to receive at this table.

Please pass the bread and the cup with the words: “You are an incarnation of the Divine!”

Presider 2: Our communion meditation is: Silent Night - Each Holy Child by Shaina Noll

CLOSING PRAYER: written by Bernie Kinlan

Dearest Holy One,
We have listened to the inspiring words of our readings and the reflections of the community of the Upper Room. Let us remember that YOU are as close as a breath and soft as a whisper. We can be as frightened as the shepherds in the field. Yet, we see in each other your presence; we leave in confidence knowing that we are never alone. Let us share the gifts that we have with all we meet on the Journey.

BLESSING:

May we continue to be the face of God to each other. May we call each other to extravagant generosity! May we, like Jesus, be a shining light and a blessing in our time!

All: AMEN

CLOSING SONG: O Come , All Ye Faithful by Pentatonix