Prayer, day 2695: For the Ordination of Deon Johnson as Bishop of the Diocese of Missouri

Almighty God, who is making heaven and earth,
we lift our hearts to You in gratitude and praise.
Come, Holy Spirit, come.
Let all the round Earth sing out your glory;
let heart tell to heart the wonders of the Lord.
Plant within our hearts the strength and courage
to serve You and your Holy Church in all we do.
May we celebrate the beauty of God
in every person we encounter,
aflame with the light of Christ,
who is mother and father of us all.
Make us steadfast laborers in the fields of justice and peace,
standing with all oppressed in body, mind, or spirit.

Abide within our hearts, Blessed Jesus,
that we may sing your love into the world.
Make us healers, hearers, doers,
shepherds for the found as well as the lost,
grounded in your grace and mercy.

In humility, we lay our lives before You:
bless and hallow them to your glory, O Merciful One.
Spirit of God, rest upon us,
and extend the shade of your blessing over all for whom we pray.

Amen.

Prayer 2694

Holy One,
we praise You and sing out your blessings
asking your guidance as we live into your call to us.

Let us never rest
until all live in peace and security
and we work to bring your kingdom to life--
a kingdom of abundance, equality, and justice--
that all may taste of the sweets of your wisdom,
O God of All Creation.

May our hearts be lifted and strengthened
by the rising tide of your truth, Lord Christ:
that we are called to love one another
as the visible sign of opur love for God.

Spirit of Wisdom,
extend the cooling shade of your peace
over all who turn to You for help or assurance,
and grant your blessing upon these beloveds.

Amen.

Prayer, day 2693

Almighty One
we ask your peace to rest upon us
as we lift our hearts and hopes to You.
Give us the wisdom, O God,
to choose unity and kinship
over the forces of division,
to choose empathy and compassion
over the forces of envy and greed,
to choose knowledge and awe at all your varied creation
over the forces of ignorance and falsehood.
Gather within your welcoming embrace, Lord, all those who seek You
and strengthen all who serve You.
Pour out the balm of your Spirit, O Holy One,
on all whose needs we now name.

Amen.

Prayer 2692: A Prayer of Hope and Renewal

God of the Rising Wave,
Ground of Our Being,
Source of All Blessing,
who dances,
and creation springs up beneath your feet
as you pass by,
we rise to meet your gift of this day.
We praise You and sing to You,
O Blessed Trinity:
Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer;
Maker, Savior, and Wisdom-Giver.

Plant your Spirit within us
that we may grow in wisdom and grace,
making each others' burdens our own
until all may share in the peace of God
and the security of the kingdom of heaven.

May we be bound in love and empathy
until the forces of division have no home,
and the bonds of love and faithfulness
are the only ones known on Earth.

May we dwell in amity and joy,
and tear down injustice within our land 
nd uproot its bitter grip in our hearts.

Create within us clean hearts and right intentions,
that we may view with joyful eye
the dawn of a new day of hope,
secure in our belovedness and purpose
as we work for the glory of your Name.

Bless us to your service, Beloved Jesus,
and place your hand of blessing
over all for whom we pray.

Amen.

Prayer 2691: On St. Columba's Day

Holy Beloved,
who gathers all that is
within the lea of thy mercy,
we offer a praise song to You,
and rest within your abundant grace .
May we go forth bearing your Name
in integrity, compassion, and humility.

You have made all that is, O Generous Spirit,
and sustain it with your breath,
nourish it with your love,
and entice all that is to fullness.

We place our hands upon our hearts,
and feel the drum You shaped, O God,
in each living being,
its cadence a call to resistance to evil,
inviting us into the dance of love
which resonates through all creation.

Burnish us and mold us, O Blessed Jesus,
Companion and Guide:
you have shown us the Way of Life.
May we embody your abundant justice and mercy,
your love for us even as we go astray:
we depend upon your forbearance and forgiveness
as we seek to walk the living road of your gospel.

Set your seal upon us, O Maker of All,
and grant your peace and comfort 
to all whom we lift before You in love as we pray.

Amen.

Prayer, day 2690

Painting of St. Columba

Almighty God,
we raise our hearts to You in thanks and praise, 
and ask your blessing upon this day. 

Bless those who labor,
that they may be blessed with rest and security
after their toil for us all. 

Bless those who seek to heal:
inspire their hands and minds;
guide their skill and reason
to bring comfort to the suffering. 

Bless those who doubt,
who engage their faith and God-given reason
to seek deeper knowledge of You. 

Bless those who take up their strength and power
to determine to use it for the common good
and love of neighbor. 

Bless those who mourn,
and may those who can bring them peace
be willing to act out of love and compassion. 

We pray to You, Lord Jesus,
for the particular needs and cares of these thy children.

Amen.

The Big Bang, the Trinity, and the Shared Life: Sermon for Trinity Sunday, June 7, 2020

In the beginning was the formless void.

One second passed.

In the first second after the universe began, the temperature was about 10 billion degrees Fahrenheit, according to NASA. There were fundamental particles such as neutrons, electrons and protons. These decayed or combined as the universe got cooler. Those that combined began the dance of creation itself, drawn by mutual attraction, spinning around each other and dwelling with each other.

Because light could not carry inside of it, this early formless, awakening mass was invisble, were anyone able to look at it. NASA has described it this way: "The free electrons would have caused light (photons) to scatter the way sunlight scatters from the water droplets in clouds." Yet over time, the free electrons met up with nuclei and created neutral atoms. This allowed light to shine through about 380,000 years after the Big Bang.

As scientist and journalist Elizabeth Howell explains, 

This early light — sometimes called the "afterglow" of the Big Bang — is more properly known as the cosmic microwave background (CMB). It was first predicted by Ralph Alpher and other scientists in 1948, but was found only by accident almost 20 years later.
Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, both of Bell Telephone Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey, were building a radio receiver in 1965 and picking up higher-than-expected temperatures, according to NASA. At first, they thought the anomaly was due to pigeons and their dung, but even after cleaning up the mess and killing pigeons that tried to roost inside the antenna, the anomaly persisted.
Simultaneously, a Princeton University team (led by Robert Dicke) was trying to find evidence of the CMB, and realized that Penzias and Wilson had stumbled upon it. The teams each published papers in the Astrophysical Journal in 1965.(1) 

God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was darkness, and there was light. What our poetic forebears, who told this story around blazing campfires thousands of years ago on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean, called “the first day.”

From the beginning of creation, even as the universe has expanded and continues to accelerate, nonetheless, laws of attraction and combination have formed constellations, galaxies, stars, planets, moons, asteroids and other heavenly bodies. Light became the measuring stick for distances and speeds and time, even as those ancestors counted the turning of the new day not with the rising of the sun but with its setting- perhaps so that they could look up around those campfires into the depths of creation and time itself. There was evening, there was morning, and another day’s work and wonder would begin.

The very lessons of our universe remind us that beginnings lie in darkness, but that the darkness gives way to the light, and both become visible, present to the naked eye. Yet the other lesson from the resonant and wondrous tale of the universe’s beginning—whether expressed by astronomers and astrophysicists or by ancient holy men and women—is that all that we know, all that is good, as God declares in our account from Genesis, comes about through things combining. This mutual dependence enables all that is to become stronger, to expand, to flourish. Those elemental particles that failed to respond to the pull of attraction decayed and died. 

Even as the spaces between the objects in space continue to increase, nonetheless they are tied together by their common origin. The space between doesn’t undermine or diminish the original unity, energy, and essential commonality that existed in that first moment and continues onward.

This is a lesson we forget at our own peril. And that’s why I give thanks for us to have this opportunity today to ponder the mystery and the gift of the reality of the Trinity. This doctrine—described in various places in scripture, even as the term “Trinity” never appears—reminds us that the very God we worship relates to itself and to us only in community. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; Abba, Christ, and Paraclete; Source, Word, and Advocate; Earth-Maker, Pain-bearer, Life-Giver. All distinct, and yet all one.

Early Greek theologians proposed an important word to explain how the persons within the Trinity related to each other in unity: perichoresis, which, roughly translated, means rotation, to describe the mutual indwelling, mutual existing, and mutual penetration of each person within the Godhead. English theologian Alister McGrath describes perichoresis as allowing “the individuality of the persons [within the Trinity] to be maintained, while insisting that each person shares in the life of the other two.” Yet, a more poetic description of perichoresis, inspired that it shares a root with the word “choreography, perhaps, is “the dance of the Trinity.” Yet this kind of dancing is not like ballroom dancing, where the two partners move largely only in response to each other. This kind of dancing is the kind that invites others to join in.

A few years ago, in Barcelona, my dear friends Joe and Joanie, my daughter Katie, and I were in the town square, watching people from all over the city come together to perform traditional Catalan national songs and join together in folk dances. All around the square, groups of people from four to forty or more would gather around mounds of flowers and form circles by joining hands. Yet those on the outside of the circle were not mere observers—soon the dancers invited others into their circles and move their feet together as a display of their pride in their culture and home. 

And yet, they invited strangers, including my daughter and my myself, to learn the steps and dance with them in their celebration. Even those who were not Catalan were welcomed into the circle, taught the steps and encouraged, and then celebrated as all joined together in celebrating essential unity in diversity, in beautifully expressing the vitality and resilience and mutual bonds of community.

As English priest and poet John Donne insisted four centuries ago, no person is an island, separate from others. And that truth is rooted in the nature of God Godself, and in the nature of our essential relationship to God.

We worship a God who exists in community. We worship a God who creates form from formlessness and light from darkness, a beautiful and necessary darkness because it allows us to see light. We worship a God who calls us into community—and more astoundingly, through Jesus, who is both God and human—invites humanity into God Godself and invites us into the dance. A dance that is the basis of life itself, a shared life that cannot exist without each other. 

By taking on our humanity, God invites us into the dance of divinity. God indwells in us, and we indwell in God. What a wonder! What a blessing! It’s as our psalm today wonders, in the Common English Bible translation, 

3 When I look up at your skies, 
     at what your fingers made— 
     the moon and the stars 
     that you set firmly in place— 
4       what are human beings 
             that you think about them; 
         what are human beings 
             that you pay attention to them? 
5 You’ve made them only slightly less than divine,
   crowning them with glory and grandeur.
6 You’ve let them rule over your handiwork,
   putting everything under their feet— 
7     all sheep and all cattle, 
       the wild animals too, 
8        the birds in the sky, 
          the fish of the ocean, 
              everything that travels the pathways of the sea. (2)

Some have looked at that last claim of dominion over creation and misrepresented and misused it. We have been given the gift of freedom, but that freedom comes with a responsibility and duty to the rest of creation to care for it, to serve it, to realize our indwelling within it, our literal dance within creation, upon which our very existence depends. We are tied together with everything from the smallest honeybee to the most humble laborer halfway around the world who harvested the cotton that made the clothes you are wearing. We are tied together to the man gasping for breath in the street and suffocated by contempt as much as we are tied to familiar friends and family.

Window in St. Gabriel of the Sorrowful Mother, Avondale, PA

In being invited into the dance and life of the Triune God, we are also repeatedly called to celebrate and give thanks for our dependence upon unity with each other. From the simplest perspective, this is one of the most important commandments we repeatedly receive from God, the message given to prophets and sages throughout the ages. Our gospel reminds us of our anointing to each other, our responsibility to share the Good News of salvation to all the ends of the earth, to invite ever more people into the dance of love that shapes, sustains, and blesses us. To invite everyone into life abundant. To stand alongside the oppressed and the exploited and to love them with the same breath given to each and every one of us by God at our birth. To proclaim boldly and joyfully our common humanity, our common dignity, our common loveliness and belovedness in the eyes of God.

This drawing together into mutuality and interdependence flies in the face of those who worship self over community. As we watch people all over the world pour into the streets animated by concern for a man they have never met whose life was taken in a slow, torturous, lynching played out before our very lives, we are called to join in that dance too—this is, in fact, what we are made for. To love one another as much as we love ourselves, and to be willing to lay our breath and movement alongside the vulnerable in reverence to the life and love that calls us into the dance of God, the dance of the Trinity, the dance of the universe. To realize that we are all diminished by even one person’s suffering, and that we are given a holy charge to resist anything that would divide us, to repudiate it as being unholy, death-dealing, and evil.

This is why the doctrine of the Trinity matters. It matters, because it affirms that life abundant is not found through self-centeredness, but through community and mutual aid and unity with one another, with no exceptions. Our task—no, that’s too negative a word. Our joy, our honor, our privilege and gift from God Godself—is to make sure that everyone and everything hears the call to join in, too, and has the ease and the freedom from anxiety, pain, suffering, and fear to take each other’s hands and learn the steps. To be welcomed into a dance that starts in the testimony of astrophysics and the testimony of scripture that love, the saying yes to the pull of attraction between bodies that are all equally treasured and honored regardless of difference. This love and unity is the force that binds the universe together and allows it to flourish, and draws us into life eternal and abundant.

Margie Thompson, Dance of the Trinity

This is how we participate in the life of God—a God who could take no notice of us, as our psalm reminds us, but instead chooses to lift us up into the divine life itself. A God who reaches out to us in love repeatedly, despite our circumstances or flaws, despite our sin and willfulness and tendency to cruelty when we give in to fear. As we join in the dance, we find that those things that we clutch to ourselves, like hatred, racism, violence, exploitation, contempt, hard-heartedness, fall away, spun off in the beauty of the dance of love that God has knit into creation from its very first bursting forth from the womb.

This day is a new beginning. May we clasp hands in love and hope, and join in the dance that unites us with God and unites ourselves with one another.

Amen.



Preached at the 10:30 am online service from St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville, on June 7, 2020.


Readings:
Genesis 1:1-2:4a
2 Corinthians 13:11-13
Psalm 8
Matthew 28:16-20


Sources:
1) Elizabeth Howell, “What Is The Big Bang Theory?” November 7, 2017, at Space.com, https://www.space.com/25126-big-bang-theory.html
2) Alister McGrath, Christian Theology: An Introduction, p. 325, cited in “Perichoresis,” in Theopedia, https://www.theopedia.com/Perichoresis.
3) Psalm 8:4-8, from the Common English Bible.

Prayer, day 2689: Trinity Sunday

Almighty, Life-Giving God,
we gather before your altars
in cathedrals and in temples,
in cities, towns, and woodlands,
proclaiming our thanks
for your abundant blessings in our lives.

Fill us, we pray, with the love of God,
that calls us and all creation into unity,
that we may be filled with compassion.
Mold us, we pray, into imitators of Jesus,
embodying the healing and reconciling power
of God in human flesh.
Imbue us, we pray, with the power of the Holy Spirit:
may we welcome her wisdom and fire in our lives
and be transformed as true disciples,
witnessing to your glory in the world.

Holy Trinity, draw us into your dance of love,
and pour out your blessing and grace
upon all who seek You.
Grant rest and comfort to the weary,
solace to the bereft,
and peace to those for whom we pray.

Amen.

Prayer 2688: Inspired by Amos 5

O Creator of the Universe, 
Fashioner of the Pleiades and Orion, 
who formed us from the dust of stars and galaxies,
we turn to you in awe and wonder:
many and great are your works, O God.

Let justice roll down like a freshening river
 and righteousness rise within us
like an ever-flowing stream
that we may care for our neighbors in your Name. 

Turn our deep darkness into morning, O Savior,
and open our ears to the prophetic voices
that call us to repentance and renewal in love.

May we turn our backs on those 
who glorify hatred
and crush the defenseless beneath their knee;
may we live instead in charity and peace
founded on equality
as You have commanded us, O God of Compassion.
May we stand in solidarity against injustice,
against the exploitation of the vulnerable
and the trampling of the oppressed.

Make us abundant in grace, mercy, and unity,
living by your precepts, O Holy One,
watered by compassion and charity
like green olive trees in the courtyards of God.

May we worship You, Merciful God,
by living out our words or worship with action,
in lending aid for any in need or peril,
by offering You lives of integrity and righteous love.

May we live lives of grace and blessing.
by seeking good for the needy,
food for the hungry,
and shelter for the refugee.

Place your benevolent hand upon us
and anoint us with a Spirit of Truth, O Lord.
Grant your favor and peace
to those who call upon You
as we pray.

Amen.

Prayer, day 2687

Lord, we are your children:
accept our prayers and praises
as we lift them before you.

Spirit of Life and Light,
move over our hearts and our souls
as you moved over the waters of creation.
Blessed Jesus,
trace a message of love upon us with your fingertips,
inscribe upon us the gospel of love,
that all who sees us know the beauty of You.

May we let your love heal us,
may we relax into the embrace of your Eternal Compassion,
grateful and content like a child sleeping
on her mother’s shoulder.

Protect all those in the path of storms,
those that rampage within and without,
and gather beneath your sheltering wing
all those for whom we pray.

Amen.

Prayer 2686: Justice In Time of Protest

God of Mercy,
we bow before You,
grateful for your guidance and lovingkindness.

May we pray for your kingdom to come, O God,
not by rote, as empty words,
but from our hearts and souls,
and may we put our shoulders to the wheel of justice.

Teach us, Blessed Jesus, to let go of our fear
that we may walk in amity rather than enmity,
to work for inclusion rather division.

May we reject those who seek
to divide us that they may lead us astray
from paths of charity and engagement
that is your holy will for us 
that we may flourish, together in love and hope. 

May we grow straight and true in faith, 
according to your generous will for us.

Spirit of the Living God,
pour out your power upon us and strengthen us
in integrity and open-heartedness,
that we may serve You and each other.

Bend near to hear the whispered prayers of your children,
O God of Grace,
and grant your comfort to those we now name.

Amen.

Prayer, day 2685

O Great Provider,
Beneficent and Compassionate One,
we lift up our hearts in prayer,
seeking to center ourselves in your mercy,
that we may be a blessing to others this day. 
You are the Ground of Our Being
and Source of Our Hearts:
we give thanks for your blessing and love. 

Merciful God, strengthen the helpers today: 
those who work for healing; 
those who seek to ease suffering and pain; 
those who comfort the lonely 
and stand alongside the abandoned; 
those who work for true peace 
founded on justice and equality; 
those who welcome the stranger and refugee;
those who live out their lives as love in action. 
And then, O Wisdom,
make us helpers, too.
For this is true worship:
to serve You and serve each other.

Each breath we take is a gift from you, 
O Creator and Redeemer. 
As faithful people, 
may we turn our intentions toward compassion. 
May we reflect hope against despair,
light against darkness,
and enlightenment against division and prejudice,
O Light of the World.

Holy One,
we know that you are with us and alongside us
in joy as well as in sorrow or pain:
grant that the blessing of your peace and presence
may be made visible to all,
especially as we lift up these beloveds to You.

Amen.

Prayer, day 2684

Holy, Holy, Holy Lord,
we sing a song of thanksgiving before You,
recalling the comforting weight of your hand
shielding and guarding us through the night:
O God, we lift our hearts to You.

God of Compassion, grant us wisdom,
that we may study your Word,
and never stray from the heart of your law:
to love You in word and deed,
and to love our neighbors as our own selves.
Almighty One, you command us to relieve suffering,
to stand alongside the oppressed,
to welcome the homeless,
remembering that your law is grounded in love,
for we are ourselves upheld
only through your grace and mercy.

Blessed Savior,
strengthen us in integrity and compassion,
that we may we do justice,
love mercy,
and walk humbly and honorably with You in every moment.
May we tear down the edifices of cruelty and injustice,
remembering we are each other's keeper
as Christ's hands and heart in the world.

Accept now, we pray,
our intercessions and our cares which we place before You,
O Merciful God,
Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer,
that your blessing may cover these beloveds
in a cloud of comfort and peace.

Amen.

Prayer 2683: Feast of the Visitation of Mary

Almighty One, 
God of Mary and Elizabeth, 
bend near to us 
and accept our praises and prayers. 

Blessed One, 
 help us center ourselves in your wisdom, 
and work toward justice and freedom for the oppressed. 
May we stand against violence done in our name, 
and see the face of Christ
in the suffering and dehumanized among us.
May we sing a praise song to You, O God, 
extolling your mighty arm and righteous power 
against evil and exploitation. 

Beloved Savior,
grant us a spirit of justice 
and power to stand alongside the downtrodden 
and work to bring your kingdom on Earth. 
Give your angels charge over those who weep, worry, or mourn, 
and grant your blessing upon these for whom we pray.

Amen.