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PALM SUNDAY WORSHIP - April 5, 2020 11am (via Zoom) Message: Love and Lament; Scripture Texts: Luke 19:37-44; Zechariah 9:9-10 Communion: Please br...Palm Sunday Communion ServiceRemember Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem and his last meal with his friends in the upper room.

Click Image Above to View Worship Guide “The hardest spiritual work in the world is to love the neighbor as the self—to encounter another human being not as someone you can use, change, fix, help, save, enroll, convince or control, but simply as someone who can spring you from the prison of yourself, if you will allow it.” ~ Barbara Brown Taylor (An Altar in the World)

Click Image Above to View Worship Guide There is a voice inside me that urges caution. It tells me to be careful, to keep my head, not to go too far, not to burn my boats. I don't want to be carried away with any resolution which I shall afterward regret, for I know I shall be feeling quite different after breakfast. This is my endless recurrent temptation— to go down to that sea, which is God, and there neither to dive nor swim nor float, but only to dabble and splash, careful not to get out of my depth, and to hold onto the lifeline that connects me with my temporal things— the lifeline that proves to be my deathline." ~ C. S. Lewis (The Weight of Glory)

One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice— though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles… ~ Mary Oliver, “The Journey”

Click Image Above to View Worship Guide O Lord, who hast mercy upon all, take away from me my sins, and mercifully kindle in me the fire of thy Holy Spirit. Take away from me the heart of stone, and give me a heart of flesh, a heart to love and adore Thee, a heart to delight in Thee, to follow and enjoy Thee, for Christ's sake, Amen ~ St. Ambrose of Milan (AD 339-397)

Even with us something like that happens once in a while. The face of a man walking his child in the park, of a woman picking peas in the garden, of sometimes even the unlikeliest person listening to a concert, say, or standing barefoot in the sand watching the waves roll in, or just having a beer at a Saturday baseball game in July. Every once and so often, something so touching, so incandescent, so alive transfigures the human face that it's almost beyond bearing. Click Image Above to View Worship Guide ~ Frederich Beuchner

Click Image Above to View Worship Guide Gracious God,In your loving heart thereis room for everyone—without exception.Give us courage to be soat home in you that wedare make room for others.Let your world be a placeof delight and homecomingfor all creation.~ Congregational prayer, Grace Cathedral, San Francisco

Click Image Above to View Worship Guide “Do not think you must speak the truth to a Christian but can lie to a ‘pagan.’ You are speaking to your brother or sister, born like you from Adam and Eve: realize all the people you meet are your neighbors even before they are Christians; you have no idea how God sees them. The ones you mock for worshiping stones … may worship God more fervently than you who laughed at them…You cannot see into the future, so let every one be your neighbor.”~ Augustine of Hippo (354-430)

Click Image Above to View Worship Guide “Many churches sing the hymn, ‘There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy,’ but the church is not always generous in dispensing it. God does not dole out mercy like cookies only for good, repentant children. God’s mercy is not conditioned by our response. God is mercy. So, wide is wider than we guess.”~ David Buttrick

Click Image Above to View Worship Guide “Every time you close another door—be it the door of immediate satisfaction, the door of distracting entertainment, the door of busyness, the door of guilt and worry, or the door of self-rejection—you commit yourself to go deeper into your heart and thus deeper into the heart of God. This is a movement toward full incarnation. It leads you to become what you already are—a child of God; it lets you embody more and more the truth of your being; it makes you claim the God within you.”~ Henri J. M. Nouwen (1932-1996)

Bruce Salmon Click Image Above to View Worship Guide “Let us move now from the practical how to the theoretical why: Why should we love our enemies? The first reason is fairly obvious. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction. So when Jesus says, ‘love your enemies,’ he is setting forth a profound and ultimately inescapable admonition. Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies—or else? The chain reaction of evil—hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars—must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.”~ Martin Luther King, Jr.“Loving Your Enemies” sermon, 12/25/57

Click Image Above to View Worship Guide As swimmers dare to lie face to the sky and water bears them, as hawks rest upon air and air sustains them, so would I learn to attain freefall, and float into Creator Spirit's deep embrace, knowing no effort earns that all-surrounding grace. ~ Denise Levertov “The Avowal”

Click Image Above to View Worship Guide “God did not just start talking to us with the Bible or the church or the prophets…The radiance of the Divine Presence has been glowing and expanding since the beginning of time, before there were any human eyes to see or know about it.” ~ Richard Rohr

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Click Image Above to View Worship Guide “In his teaching and preaching, Jesus was forever calling our attention to the seemingly trivial, the small, and the insignificant—like lost children, lost coins, lost sheep, a mustard seed. The kingdom involves the ability to see God within those people and experiences that the world regards as little and of no account, ordinary.” ~ Stanley Hauerwas & William Willimon

Click Image Above to View Worship Guide “I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round, as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.” ~ Charles Dickens (1812-1870) A Christmas Carol

Click Image Above to View Worship Guide "Whenever we look to Mary, we come to believe once again in the revolutionary nature of love and tenderness. In her we see that humility and tenderness are not virtues of the weak but of the strong who need not treat others poorly in order to feel important themselves." ~ Pope Francis

Forever at his door I gave my heart and soul. My fortune, too.I’ve no flock anymore,No other work in view.My occupation: Love. It’s all I do.~ St. John of the Cross (1542-1591) Click Image Above to View Worship Guide

A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes...and is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the outside, is not a bad picture of Advent. Click Image Above to View Worship Guide ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906 - 1945)

If the only prayeryou ever say in your entire life isThank You,it will be enough.~ Meister Eckhart Click Image Above to View Worship Guide

Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime;therefore, we must be saved by hope.Nothing true or beautiful makes complete sensein any immediate context of history;therefore, we must be saved by faith.Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone;therefore, we are saved by love. Click Image Above to View Worship Guide ~ Reinhold Niebuhr

O God, teach me to see You, and reveal Yourself to me when I seek you,For I cannot seek You unless You first teach me,Nor find You unless You first reveal Yourself to me.Let me seek You in longing, and long for You in seeking.Let me find You in love, and love You in finding.~ Ambrose of Milan Click Image Above to View Worship Guide

For those who walked with us, this is a prayer.For those who have gone ahead, this is a blessing.For those who touched and tended us, who lingered with us while they lived, Click Image Above to View Worship Guide this is a thanksgiving.For those who journey still with us in the shadows of awareness, in the crevices of memory, in the landscape of our dreams, this is a benediction. ~ Jan Richardson, “For Those Who Walked With Us”

There is often more wisdom to be found at the edges of life than in its middle. A life-threatening illness, for instance, may shuffle our values like a deck of cards. Sometimes a card that has been on the bottom of the deck for most of our lives turns out to be the top card, the thing that really matters. Having watched people sort their cards and play their hands in the presence of death for many years, I would say that most often the top card is love.~ Rachel Remen, My Grandfather’s Blessings Click Image Above to View Worship Guide

Click Image Above to View Worship Guide Traditionally, the two marks of the saint are joy and penitence: joy because one knows that one is not God, and yet with God all things are possible. The saint knows that perfection rests in divinity and not in the ability of the believer to negotiate reality so that one "comes off best." The saint knows that he or she is not God, and yet knows how easily one can forget this simple fact. The saint knows about darknesses and shadows that cloud judgment. ~ Alan Jones

Click Image Above to View Worship Guide There is…a voice inside me that urges caution. It tells me to be careful, to keep my head, not to go too far, not to burn my boats… I don’t want to be carried away into any resolution which I shall afterwards regret, for I know I shall be feeling quite different after breakfast… This is my endlessly recurrent temptation: to go down to that Sea [which is God], and there neither to dive nor swim nor float, but only to dabble and splash, careful not to get out of my depth, and holding on to the lifeline which connects me with my things temporal… Of course, that lifeline is really a death line.~ C. S. Lewis

If you love Jesus Christ more than you fear human judgment, then you will not only speak of compassion, Click Image Above to View Worship Guide but act with it. Compassion means seeing your friend and your enemy in equal need and helping both equally. It demands that you seek and find the stranger, the broken, the prisoner, and comfort him and offer him your help. Herein lies the holy compassion of God that causes the devil much distress.~ Meditations of Mechthild of Magdeburg (1207-1294)

Jon Singletary Click Image Above to View Worship Guide “The pace of our lives in western culture, along with our exterior focus, lead us to a place where we easily lose the abilityto observe the imbalance in our lives and lose touch with the value of the soul.”~ Carl Jung

Click Image Above to View Worship Guide “We must learn that passively to accept an unjust system is to cooperate with that system, and thereby to become a participant in its evil.” ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Click Image Above to View Worship Guide Your true identity is as a child of God.This is the identity you have to accept.Once you have claimed it and settled in it,you can live in a world that gives youmuch joy as well as pain.You can receive the praise as well asthe blame that comes to you as anopportunity for strengthening your basic identity, because the identity that makes you freeis anchored beyond all human praise and blame.You belong to God,and it is as a child of Godthat you are sent into the world.~ Henri J. M. Nouwen

Do you wish to rise? Begin by descending.You plan a tower that will pierce the clouds? Lay first the foundation of humility. ~ St. Augustine Click Image Above to View Worship Guide

Any theology that is indifferent to the theme of liberation is not Christian theology.~ James H. Cone Click Image Above to View Worship Guide

"Covenant holds the key to the identity and distinctiveness of Israel and church. The term 'covenant' was consciously applied by the Israelites to their relationship with Yahweh from the earliest times, and this theological orientation was passed down to Jesus and early Christians. Covenant is found in every critical moment of God’s dispensation and all major turning points in biblical history, such as creation, Noah’s flood, Abraham, Exodus, David, Exile, and Jesus. Throughout the Bible, covenant is central to God’s reign." ~ Hak Joon Lee Click Image Above to View Worship Guide Fuller Theological Seminary

Click Image Above to View Worship Guide The movement of the Spirit of God in the hearts of men and women often calls them to act against the spirit of their times or causes them to anticipate a spirit which is yet in the making. In a moment of dedication they are given wisdom and courage to dare a deed that challenges and to kindle a hope that inspires.~ Howard Thurman

Click Image Above to View Worship Guide “When it's over, I want to say: all my lifeI was a bride married to amazement.I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.When it is over, I don't want to wonderif I have made of my life something particular, and real.I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,or full of argument.I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.~ Mary Oliver

Click Image Above to View Worship Guide "Dear Lord, bring me through darkness into light. Bring me through pain into peace. Bring me through death into life. Be with me wherever I go, and with everyone I love. In Christ's name I ask it. Amen.”~ A prayer by Frederick Buechner, written at the request of his brother, Jamie, as he was dying of cancer.Source: The Eyes of the Heart

Click Image Above to View Worship Guide “Community can be a terrible place because it is a place of relationship; it is the revelation of our wounded emotions and of how painful it can be to live with others, especially with ‘some people.’ It is so much easier to live with books and objects, television, or dogs and cats! It is so much easier to live alone and just do things for others, when one feels like it…. While we are alone, we could believe we loved everyone.” ~ Jean Vanier (1928-2019)

Click Image Above to View Worship Guide “Every time you close another door—be it the door of immediate satisfaction, the door of distracting entertainment, the door of busyness, the door of guilt and worry, or the door of self-rejection—you commit yourself to go deeper into your heart and thus deeper into the heart of God. This is a movement toward full incarnation. It leads you to become what you already are—a child of God; it lets you embody more and more the truth of your being; it makes you claim the God within you.” ~ Henri J. M. Nouwen (1932-1996)

Click Image Above to View Worship Guide “What we hunger for perhaps more than anything else is to be known in our full humanness, and yet that is often just what we also fear more than anything else. It is important to tell at least from time to time the secret of who we truly and fully are . . . because otherwise we run the risk of losing track of who we truly and fully are and little by little come to accept instead the highly edited version which we put forth in hope that the world will find it more acceptable than the real thing. It is important to tell our secrets too because it makes it easier . . . for other people to tell us a secret or two of their own . . . ” ~ Frederick Buechner, Telling Secrets”

“Well-schooled in a false sense of control, we usually cling to the illusion of power as we struggle with the paradoxes of life. Each of us knows those times when we dig in our feet, stiffen our body, tighten our jaw and demand rational explanations for unexplainable events… As we encounter experiences for which there are no answers, no rational explanations or solutions, we arrive at a point where, in faith, we are asked to stand in a Mystery that far exceeds our human understanding.” ~ Doris Klein Click Image Above to View Worship Guide

Click Image Above to View Worship Guide “Coming together for worship, individuals may release their fragile hold on ‘my truth’ for an hour or two in order to explore the timetraveling, ego-rattling, neighbor-loving dimensions of ‘our truth’ instead. As anyone who has ever been part of a congregation knows, this has less to do with being of one mind than it does with being of one body. The deepest truth any congregation has to tell is that those who do not agree on much of anything can still care for one another through almost everything, thanks to the ministering Spirit in their midst.”~ Barbara Brown Taylor

Click Image Above to View Worship Guide Celtic PrayerYou are the peace of all things calmYou are the place to hide from harmYou are the light that shines in darkYou are the heart’s eternal sparkYou are the door that’s open wideYou are the guest who waits insideYou are the stranger at the doorYou are the calling of the poorYou are my Lord and with me stillYou are my love, keep me from illYou are the light, the truth, the wayYou are my Savior this very day.~ Celtic Oral Tradition

Holy Spirit, giving life to all life, moving all creatures,root of all things, washing them clean,wiping out their mistakes, healing their wounds,you are our true life, luminous, wonderful,awakening the heart from its ancient sleep.Hildegard of Bingen (1098 –1179) Click Image Above to View Worship Guide 

We can make our minds so like still waterthat beings gather about us that they may see,it may be, their own images,and so live for a moment with a clearer,perhaps even with a fiercer lifebecause of our quiet.~ William Butler Yeats Click Image Above to View Worship Guide

I beg you, Lord,let the fiery, gentle power of your lovetake possession of my soul,and snatch it awayfrom everything under heaven,that I may die for love of your loveas you saw fit to die for love of mine.~ Francis of Assisi (1182-1226) Click Image Above to View Worship Guide

Kara Suggs and Abigail Adigun prepare for Youth Sunday Sermon Click Image Above to View Worship Guide “Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.”~ Mary Oliver

Charlie Fuller Click Image Above to View Worship Guide The final secret, I think, is this: that the words “You shall love the Lord your God” become in the end less a command than a promise. And the promise is that, yes, on the weary feet of faith and the fragile wings of hope, we will come to love him at last as from the first he has loved us—loved us even in the wilderness, especially in the wilderness, because he has been in the wilderness with us. He has been in the wilderness for us. He has been acquainted with our grief. And, loving him, we will come at last to love each other too…~Frederick Buechner

“It feels so insignificant, and yet this is the liberating secret: I am precisely the gift God wants—in my full and humble surrender to my ordinariness—which ironically is my eternal specialness. All I can give back to God is who I really and fully am! That is all God wants. Yet this seems so boring and pedestrian to us, if we want to be high flyers.”~ Richard Rohr Click Image Above to View Worship Guide

The crowning evidence that Jesus was alive was not a vacant grave, but a spirit-filled fellowship.Not a rolled-away stone, but a carried-away church. Click Image Above to View Worship Guide ~ Clarence Jordan (1912-1969)

“Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and Hallelujahis our song.” ~ POPE JOHN PAUL II Click Image Above to View Worship Guide (1920 – 2005)

“Well-schooled in a false sense of control, we usually cling to the illusion of power as we struggle with the paradoxes of life. Each of us knows those times when we dig in our feet, stiffen our body, tighten our jaw and demand rational explanations for unexplainable events…. As we encounter experiences for which there are no answers, no rational explanations or solutions, we arrive at a point where, in faith, we are asked to stand in a Mystery that far exceeds our human understanding.” Click Image Above to View Worship Guide ~ Doris Klein, Journey of the Soul