Evening Prayer Wednesday, 5 May 2021
Earthseed
by Octavia Butler
Here we are–
Energy,
Mass,
Life,
Shaping life,
Mind,
Shaping Mind
God,
Shaping God.
Consider—
We are born
Not with purpose,
But with potential.
All that you touch
You Change.
All that you Change
Changes you.
The only lasting truth
Is Change.
God
Is Change.
Good evening and welcome to Evening Prayers
That this evening may be holy, good and peaceful,
let us pray with one heart and mind.
Silence is kept.
As our evening prayer rises before you, O God,
so may your mercy come down upon us
to cleanse our hearts
and set us free to sing your praise
now and for ever.
Breathe in
Breathe out
Be still…
When our faith is weak
you strengthen us,
when we lose our way
you rescue us,
when we fall into sin
you forgive us.
Gracious Father,
please remind us
as we forget,
that your love is
unconditional,
always moulding us
into what we could be,
always blessing us
that we might glorify you.
For love,
grace
and forgiveness,
we thank you.
Amen
Presence
The more we call on the Lord
the more we can feel his Presence.
Day by day he draws us closer
to his loving heart
Freedom
“Leave me here freely all alone
In cell where never sunlight shone
should no one ever speak to me
This golden silence makes me free.”
Part of a poem written by a prisoner
at Dachau concentration camp
Consciousness
Where do I sense hope, encouragement,
and growth areas in my life?
By looking back over the last few months,
I may be able to see which
activities and occasions have produced rich fruit.
If I do notice such areas, I will determine
to give those areas both
time and space in the future.
THE WORD OF GOD
John 14:1-6
‘Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.’
Thomas said to him, ‘Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?’
Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
WORDS OF WISDOM
The passion is really the mystery of all mysteries, the heart of the Christian faith experience. By the word “passion” here we mean the events which end Jesus’s earthly life: his betrayal, trial, execution on a cross, and death. . . .
The spectacle of an innocent and good man destroyed by the powers of this world is an archetypal human experience. It elicits our deepest feelings of remorse and empathy (and if we’re honest, our own deepest shadows as well). . . . It’s been used to stir anger and scapegoating. It’s been used to fuel anti-Semitism, to induce personal guilt—“Christ died for your sins”—and to arouse devotion in a sentimental and even fanatical way.
From a wisdom point of view, what can we say about the passion? . . . The key lies in . . . reading Jesus’s life as a sacrament: a sacred mystery whose real purpose is not to arouse empathy but to create empowerment. In other words, Jesus is not particularly interested in increasing either your guilt or your devotion, but rather, in deepening your personal capacity to make the passage into unitive life. If you’re willing to work with that wager, the passion begins to make sense in a whole new way. . . .
The path [Jesus] did walk is precisely the one that would most fully unleash the transformative power of his teaching. It both modelled and consecrated the eye of the needle that each one of us must personally pass through in order to accomplish the “one thing necessary” here, according to his teaching: to die to self. I am not talking about literal crucifixion, of course, but I am talking about the literal laying down of our “life,” at least as we usually recognize it. Our only truly essential human task here, Jesus teaches, is to grow beyond the survival instincts of the animal brain and egoic operating system into the kenotic joy and generosity of full human personhood. . . .
What is the meaning of the passion? First of all, God wasn’t angry. Again: God wasn’t angry! Particularly in fundamentalist theology, you’ll often hear it said that God got so fed up with the sins and transgressions of Israel that he demanded a human sacrifice in atonement. But of course, this interpretation would turn God into a monster. How can Jesus, who is love, radiate and reflect a God who is primarily a monster? And how can Christians theoretically progressing on a path of love consent to live under such a reign of terror? No, we need to bury once and for all those fear-and-punishment scenarios that got programmed into so many of us during our childhood. There is no monster out there; only love waiting to set us free.
Cynthia Bourgeault
https://cac.org/the-wisdom-of-the-passion-2021-04-01/
Copyright © 2021 by CAC. Used by permission of CAC. All rights reserved worldwide.
PRAYERS & INTERCESSIONS
We pray for the world…
Lord, in your mercy
hear our prayer.
We pray for the universal church of Christ…
Lord, in your mercy
hear our prayer.
We pray for one another and all those known to us…
Lord, in your mercy
hear our prayer.
THE LORD’S PRAYER
As our Saviour taught us, so we pray
Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins
as we forgive those who sin against us.
Lead us not into temptation
but deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power,
and the glory are yours
now and for ever.
Amen.
Calm me, O Lord, as You stilled the storm.
Still me, O Lord, keep me from harm.
Let all the tumult within me cease.
Enfold me, Lord, in Your peace.
I will lie down this night with God,
and God will lie down with me;
I will lie down this night with Christ,
and Christ will lie down with me;
I will lie down this night with the Spirit,
and the Spirit will lie down with me;
God and Christ and the Spirit,
be lying down with me.
AMEN
The Blessing
This night and every night
grant to me light
This night and every night
grant to me peace
This night and every night
grant to me rest
This night and every night
grant to me grace
This night and every night
grant to me joy
In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Amen
Thank you for join us. Goodnight and God bless!
Revd. Ernesto Lozada-Uzuriaga
