A Service of Worship for
Evolution & Transfiguration Sunday
February 14, 2021
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Adult Education - TODAY, 9AM
This Sunday, Bill Kline will present "Pumps & Pipes: How I came to discover Houston, love my neighbors, and have more fun than the law allows." Zoom link is available on the Online Gatherings page on our website: https://www.covenanthouston.org/covenant-gatherings.html Full worship service video:
COFFEE TIME Gathering on Zoom
Today, 11AM We will begin as a large group before we transition into “rooms" for coffee time. Log in details on the Online Gatherings page. |
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Prelude
"Praise to the Lord, the Almighty" by Johann Gottfried Walther; Andrew Bowen, organ. Call to Worship Opening Sentences Our task, like Thomas Aquinas’s, Thomas Jefferson’s, or Martin Luther King’s, is to take the many parts of a complicated social and conceptual inheritance and stitch them together into a pattern that meets the needs of the moment. It has never been otherwise. Scripture Lesson: Mark 9:2-10
Hymn "O Wondrous Sight, O Vision Fair”; Translation by John Mason Neale; led by Karen Kline, piano and The Covenant Singers. Time for Children Confession Unison Confession
I can't reconcile the way that the world is jolted by events that are wonderful and terrible, the gorgeous and the tragic. Except that I am beginning to believe that these opposites do not cancel each other out. I see a middle aged woman in the waiting room of the cancer clinic, her arms wrapped around the frail frame of her son. She squeezes him tightly, oblivious to the way he looks down at her sheepishly. He laughs after a minute, a hostage to her impervious love. Joy persists somehow and I soak it in. The horror of cancer has made everything seem like it is painted in bright colors. I think the same thoughts again and again. Life is so beautiful. Life is so hard. |
Music
"Gavotte I” from Suite No. 1 in C Minor by J. S. Bach; Susan Wegner, cello.
Proclamation
Prayer Boundless Sea of Love and Energy, our God, may all your dreams for us come true: your motherly imaginings, and your fatherly hopes, your creative purposes everywhere in nature. Guide us to our truest selves, co-creators of this environment. Make us worthy inheritors of the astonishing evolutionary reality in which we live. May it be so. Prayer by William Cleary and Diarmuid O’Murchu from Prayers to an Evolutionary God. Invitation
Prayer of Dedication Blessed be the tie that binds. It anchors us. We are embedded in the great evolutionary story of planet Earth, the spare, elegant process of mutation and selection, and bricolage. And this means that we are anything but alone. Doxology
Affirmation of Faith Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. When we recognize our place in an immensity of light-years and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty, and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is surely spiritual. The notion that science and spirituality are somehow mutually exclusive does a disservice to both. Benediction Postlude "Praise to the Lord” Lobe Den Herron, arr. Vernon Charter; Karen Kline, piano. |
Worship Notes
The worship leader is Laura Mayo.
The guest proclaimer is Kristy Kyle.
The prelude is played by Andrew Bowen, organ.
The Call to Worship is from The Great Partnership: Science, Religion, and the Search for Meaning by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks.
The Opening Sentences are from Ethics After Babel: The Languages of Morals and Their Discontents by Jeffery Stout.
The Unison Confession is from Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I've Loved by Kate Bowler.
"Gavotte I" from Suite No. 5 in C minor is played by Susan Wegner, cello.
The Prayer of Dedication is by Carl Sagan.
The postlude is played by Karen Kline, piano.
Honoring Ash Wednesday, February 17, 2021, with Covenant Church
Covenant is offering two ways to participate in marking Ash Wednesday, February 17, 2021:
Noon - 1:00PM in the color garden at Covenant ashes will be available in individual cups. You are invited to come by yourself or with your household and place ashes on your own forehead or on each other’s foreheads if you come with your household. There will be members of the Worship Committee present. They will be masked and at a physical distance. If you come alone, these members will offer the ritual words of Ash Wednesday: “From ashes you have come and to ashes you will go.” Please wear a mask and maintain 6ft of physical distance from everyone not in your household. If you arrive and there are many other people already present, please feel free to make use of the labyrinth or walk among the vegetable garden while you wait.
7:00PM - 8:00PM Zoom Ash Wednesday Service and small group discussion (using Zoom rooms). We will begin and end our time together with a ringing of the Buddhist singing bowl. We will hear scripture and poetry. We will all be invited to impose ashes on ourselves and/or on our households. Please use anything you have as “ashes” (you might use glitter, a washable marker, lipstick, dirt, etc). After the service we will transition into small groups using Zoom rooms. In our groups we will be asked to reflect on our experiences of Ash Wednesday in a pandemic and to simply be together. We will return to the large group for a final blessing. The Zoom information is on our online gatherings page: https://www.covenanthouston.org/covenant-gatherings.html. You will need a password to open this webpage. Please let the office know if you need help with the password.
The worship leader is Laura Mayo.
The guest proclaimer is Kristy Kyle.
The prelude is played by Andrew Bowen, organ.
The Call to Worship is from The Great Partnership: Science, Religion, and the Search for Meaning by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks.
The Opening Sentences are from Ethics After Babel: The Languages of Morals and Their Discontents by Jeffery Stout.
The Unison Confession is from Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I've Loved by Kate Bowler.
"Gavotte I" from Suite No. 5 in C minor is played by Susan Wegner, cello.
The Prayer of Dedication is by Carl Sagan.
The postlude is played by Karen Kline, piano.
Honoring Ash Wednesday, February 17, 2021, with Covenant Church
Covenant is offering two ways to participate in marking Ash Wednesday, February 17, 2021:
Noon - 1:00PM in the color garden at Covenant ashes will be available in individual cups. You are invited to come by yourself or with your household and place ashes on your own forehead or on each other’s foreheads if you come with your household. There will be members of the Worship Committee present. They will be masked and at a physical distance. If you come alone, these members will offer the ritual words of Ash Wednesday: “From ashes you have come and to ashes you will go.” Please wear a mask and maintain 6ft of physical distance from everyone not in your household. If you arrive and there are many other people already present, please feel free to make use of the labyrinth or walk among the vegetable garden while you wait.
7:00PM - 8:00PM Zoom Ash Wednesday Service and small group discussion (using Zoom rooms). We will begin and end our time together with a ringing of the Buddhist singing bowl. We will hear scripture and poetry. We will all be invited to impose ashes on ourselves and/or on our households. Please use anything you have as “ashes” (you might use glitter, a washable marker, lipstick, dirt, etc). After the service we will transition into small groups using Zoom rooms. In our groups we will be asked to reflect on our experiences of Ash Wednesday in a pandemic and to simply be together. We will return to the large group for a final blessing. The Zoom information is on our online gatherings page: https://www.covenanthouston.org/covenant-gatherings.html. You will need a password to open this webpage. Please let the office know if you need help with the password.
Sunday schedule for today:
9:00 - Adult Education with Zoom
10:00 - Worship via videos on the Worship Page
11:00 - Transition from worship to coffee time with Zoom
9:00 - Adult Education with Zoom
10:00 - Worship via videos on the Worship Page
11:00 - Transition from worship to coffee time with Zoom
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