Gathering Our Spirit with God's Spirit

The room has bright colored lights and colored ribbons/table runners in the ceiling. It feels as if we're all connected, and not only to each other. The room feels safe.

• "I'm Not Worried At All" by Moby plays
• A Journeyer steps up to light the lamp and another rings the bell
• A Journeyer makes announcements

Worshiping with Our Children

• A Journeyer leads our children in talking about how no matter what happens -- we lose a toy or something that is special to us, or someone gets sick, or our families have difficult times, or someone hurts our feelings -- even when it feels like the hardest thing we can imagine, God is always with us, no matter what. That's what God is: love that never ends and never leaves us.

Welcome and Breathe

• A Journeyer welcomes us, talks about series
• Take a breath...

God’s Spirit and Our Spirit

• Renee and others lead us in singing "Dwell" and "Let the Journey Unfold"
• Four Journeyers read from the Jewish Scripture called “Leaving Slavery” (Exodus)

Reader One: The Israelites had trusted God and had left slavery. They came to the edge of the sea. But the armies of the King of the World approached. The Israelites looked back, and saw the powerful Egyptian forces marching after them. They were terrified. They had no army. They had no weapons. All they had was faith – and that seemed useless. They cried out to God for help. They said to their leader, Moses, “Why did you drag us out here?? What, there weren’t enough places to be buried back in Egypt? We’re all going to die! What have you done to us by bringing us out of where we felt safe?? We told you, back before we left, ‘Leave us alone! Let us serve the Empire! Let us buy and sell, and work, and spend, and invest in stocks and securities, and horde more than we need, and make plans, and be sure we’re secure’? Yes, it was slavery! But it was what we knew, and we’d always lived like that! It would have been better for us to serve the system than to leave and go to a wild place where we don’t know what’s going to happen and all we have to rely on is God!”

Reader Two:  Moses said to the people, “Here is what God wants you to do: DO NOT GIVE IN TO YOUR FEARS! Stand strong! You will see God set you free! Today! Right now! The terrible thing you are afraid of behind you? God can make it disappear! God will fight for you! All you need to do, is to be still. Breathe. Wait. Trust!”

Moses said to God, “Help me with these people! They are terrified. I’m terrified. What do we do?” And God said to Moses, “Stop complaining to me. Don’t be stuck. Tell the people not to be afraid to trust me. Raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the ocean. I will divide the water and the Israelites will be able to walk through the sea on dry ground. I will do what you think is impossible. Trust me.” 

Reader Three:  The angel of God had been traveling in front of Israel’s tribe to guide them. Now it moved behind them, to protect them. The huge tower of clouds that had been in front of them to guide them now moved from in front of them, and stood behind the Israelites, between the Israelites and the forces of the King of the World. And the night came, and the armies of the King of the World were in darkness from the cloud, but the Israelites realized that there was a gigantic light, fire like a tower, on their side of the cloud. They weren’t alone after all. 

And Moses raised his hand over the sea, and a strong wind blew all night long. It began to move the ocean backwards. The impossible. The people had thought they had no way out, that there was no escape from all the things that the Empire had used to enslave them. But here was God, doing the miraculous, just for them. The bottom of the sea turned into dry ground. The ocean divided into two walls on either side of them. 

And the Israelites walked through, willing to step into the impossible, to the possibility of freedom. 

Reader Four:  But the armies of the King of the World began to chase the Israelites. The horses and chariot and warriors, the bills and the errands and the car repairs and the worries and the house payments and the doctor’s appointments and the school assignments and the sales quotas, breathed down on the Israelites’ necks. But God looked down from the tower of fire and cloud, and threw the Egyptian army into absolute confusion. The chariot wheels got stuck in the mud, under their own weight, and the wheels fell off. 

The Egyptians began to panic. “Let’s get away from these people!” they shouted. “God is fighting for them against us! We don’t stand a chance! They’ve left slavery and aren’t coming back! We can't hold them anymore!”

• One minute silence, then recorded music (Rick will provide) slowly builds
• A Journeyer reads from 14th century German theologian, philosopher and mystic Meister Eckhart

“When I Was the Forest”

When I was the stream, when I was the
forest, when I was still the field,
when I was every hoof, foot,
fin and wing, when I
was the sky
itself,

no one ever asked me did I have a purpose, no one ever
wondered was there anything I might need,
for there was nothing
I could not
love.

It was when I left all we once were that
the agony began, the fear and questions came,
and I wept, I wept. And tears
I had never known
before.

So I returned to the river, I returned to
the mountains. I asked 
for their hand in marriage again,
I begged—I begged to wed every object
and creature,

and when they accepted,
God was ever present in my arms.
And God did not say,
“Where have you
been?”

For then I knew my soul—every soul—
has always held
God.

Giving -- To Help God Do God's Work in This World  

• Renee and others lead us in singing "Let the River Flow"
• A Journeyer leads us in saying Psalm 23 as an offertory prayer
• "We're Alright Down Here" video (Rick will provide) plays as the ushers pass the baskets and then take them to the foot of the cross

Telling The Story and Our Story

• A Journeyer reads the Communion story

When Jesus had gathered his friends for their last meal together on the night before he would be arrested and executed, he knew they were scared. He knew they were sad because he would be leaving them and they knew something was happening. It had been a long three years. It had been a long three months. It had been a long and difficult week. 

Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. I have been praying to God on your behalf. I am asking God to assure you that God and I are one, and you and I are one. My prayer to God is not that God will remove you from this world, but that God will protect you and comfort you. God’s work is truth. Live in this truth.

“I am telling you all of this so that you will feel peaceful. You live in the real world. You will have troubles. But God is greater than anything in this world. Trust me. Trust God. It is alright. Be at peace.”

And then Jesus gave himself to them, just as God is continuously giving God’s self, God’s love, God’s comfort, and God’s presence to all of us and all of creation. In this moment, we receive Christ’s body, Christ’s life, Christ’s presence. We are not alone. We are part of the creation of the God in whose image we are created. 

This is the body of Christ, which God gives to us every day, the blessings of life and plenty and love. This is the blood of Christ, which God pours out for us every day, the blessings of joy and hope and courage. 

Come and hear these words: “It is alright.” Even when we are scared, even when we are backed up to the sea, even when we can't see any hope, we are created in the image of the God who created all things and who is in all things and has been with us and will be with us. 

Come to the table. It is alright.

• We share Communion: 3 or 4 stations, servers hold bread, hold cups of juice, say to people "it is alright" as they dip bread in juice
• Renee and others play quiet music

Go Out to Serve with Courage and Grace

• Silence [Reader Four waits until room is very quiet]
• A Journeyer invites us to sit with open hands and open hearts as we listen to prayer, then reads prayer very slowly

Please sit with your feet on the floor, and your hands turned up on your lap or knees. This is our closing prayer today. It is a poem by Meister Eckhart. Breathe, and listen, in silence, and I will lead this prayer. 

All beings
are words of God,
God’s music, God’s
art.

Sacred books we are, for the infinite camps
in our
souls.

Every act reveals God and expands God’s being.
I know that may be hard
to comprehend.

All creatures are doing their best
to help God in God’s birth
of God’s self.

Enough talk for the night.
God is laboring in me;
I need to be silent
for a while,

worlds are forming
in my heart.
Amen.

• Same reader dismisses us 
• "I'm Not Worried At All" by Moby plays again as folks depart