A Service of Worship for
August 30, 2020


Remember me?
I am the girl with the dark skin
whose shoes are thin.
I am the girl with rotted teeth.
I am the dark rotten-toothed girl
with the wounded eye and the melted ear.
 
I am the girl
holding their babies
cooking their meals
sweeping their yards
washing their clothes.
Dark and rotting and wounded, wounded.
 
I would give
to the human race only hope.
I am the woman
with the blessed dark skin.
I am the woman
with the teeth repaired.
I am the woman
with the healing eye the ear that hears.
 
 I am the woman: Dark repaired, healed.
Listening to you. 
I would give
to the human race only hope.
 
I am the woman offering two flowers
whose roots are twin Justice and Hope
Let us begin.

Alice Walker
Full worship service video for August 30. 
Adult Education - TODAY,  10AM
Meheryar Rivetna, a member of Houston’s Zoroastrian community will present Zoroastrian theology/principles giving the audience an understanding of Zarathustra’s basic teachings. The second part will cover the influence of the Zoroastrian religion on Judaism/Christianity and on Western thought. In the last part, the talk will be about role Zoroastrians played in India seeking refuge from religious persecution in Iran. This portion will be non-religious mainly covering their contributions.
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​Zoom links are available on the Online Gatherings page on our website: https://www.covenanthouston.org/covenant-gatherings.html
Worship notes are included at the bottom of this page.
With this link you can make a donation to Covenant through PayPal or a credit card. 
Prelude
Toccata in G Major - Girolamo Frescobaldi, Patrick Parker, organ.

​Call to Worship

Opening Prayer
Eternal God of all peoples and races, 
may all your children learn to live together 
in peace and friendship. 
​
Let the day come when oppression, terrorism, 
discrimination and prejudice will be forgotten, 
and all the world filled with your spirit.
 
May that day come soon, O God; 
the day foretold by the prophets and sages, 
the day for which we long, 
when all humanity will recognize that it is one family.

​Scripture Lesson: Exodus 1:8-2:10

​Hymn
"When Israel Was in Egypt's Land" African-American Spiritual, arranged Melva W. Costen
The Covenant Singers with Patrick Parker, Piano. 

​Time for Children
Back to School Blessings

​Call to Confession
Unison Confession
Forgive us when we live vicariously, O God,
when we let others show our outrage,
let others experience what should be
our own excitement and fear,
let others pay the price of loving while we watch.
 
For all the ways in which we think knowing about something is enough, forgive us.
For all the ways in which we let glib and radical talk suffice rather than exploring the pain and grief
in our hearts and in our world with integrity, forgive us.
            
For all the ways in which we burden our sisters and brothers with our curiosity and deny them our concern, forgive us.
 
We pray through him who always not only saw but also moved out in passion to the lonely and the pained--and healed them.  Amen.

​Music
"Dear Lord, Lead Me Day By Day" Filipino folk tune, words by Francisca Asuncion, arranged by Jane Marshall. Joyce Courtois, alto with Carl McAliley, piano.
Proclamation
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​Prayer
​Loving and healing God,

We have so much more to pray about than we have words.

This week we witnessed even more violence against people of color that has driven the people in our country further apart. This violence is stoked by lies, gaslighting, and partisanship at the highest levels of our leadership. We pray for wisdom and dedicate ourselves to reconciliation.

More than 180,000 people have died of COVID-19 in the United States, and many others are suffering from this and other illnesses throughout the world. We pray for the ill, for healthcare workers, and for medical researchers and technicians, and dedicate ourselves to taking care of ourselves and others by social distancing and mask-wearing when possible.

The economic harm caused by job losses has touched many of us, our family, our friends, and millions of people in our country and our world. But the stock market is booming because there is so much wealth in our country. We pray for the distress that these conditions are causing for ourselves, people we love, and so many others. We pray for the wise use and investment of our nation’s resources to provide benefits and assistance where they are needed most. We pray for our leaders to reach agreement on doing the right thing for the people who need help.

With Bill Hamilton, we celebrate Charliene’s move into Avalon Memory Care, adaptation to her new home and the overall care she is receiving. We also celebrate Bill’s move into Embark, located within two miles of Avalon.

In a moment of silence, we share the celebrations and concerns of our congregation that go unspoken.

Amen.
​-Jeff Nobles
​​Invitation

​Prayer of Dedication
May I be at peace, more patient with myself.
Let me live within the questions that promise no answers
but only signal the mystery that gave them birth.

Let me turn from every pettiness of the heart,
willing to see and accept that the world does not revolve around me.           

Let the grief, the pain, and the nameless trouble that overcomes me also open me to feel what others have felt.

​Affirmation of Faith
You're thinking of revolution
as a great all-or-nothing.
I think of it as one more morning
in a muggy cotton field,
checking the undersides of leaves
to see what's been there,
figuring out what to do
that won't clear a path
for worse problems next week.

Right now that's what I do.
You ask why I'm not afraid
of loving and losing,
and that's my answer.

The daily work--that goes on, it adds up.
It goes into the ground, into crops,
into children's bellies
and their bright eyes.
Good things don't get lost.

Here's what I've decided:
the very least you can do in your life
is to figure out what you hope for.
And the most you can do
is live inside that hope.

Not admire it from a distance
but live right in it, under its roof.
What I want is so simple
I almost can't say it:
elementary kindness.
Enough to eat,
enough to go around.
The possibility that kids
might one day grow up
to be neither the destroyer
nor the destroyed.

​Benediction

Postlude
"Lamb of God" by Johann Sebastian Bach, Patrick Parker, organ.
Worship Notes

The worship leader is Jeff Nobles.

The Call to Worship is “Kindness” by Naomi Shihab Nye.

The Opening Prayer is adapted from Gates of Prayer, The New Union Prayer Book, Central Conference of American Rabbis.

The Unison Confession is from a Covenant Order of Worship, November 12, 1978.

“Dear Lord, Lead Me Day by Day” is sung by Joyce Courtois, alto; Carl McAliley, piano.

The Prayer of Dedication is by George Kimmich Beach in the 1997 Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association Worship Materials Collection.
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The Affirmation of Faith is from Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver.

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