Covenant Church
an ecumenical liberal baptist congregation
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A Service of Worship for
the Fifth Sunday of Lent
March 29, 2020

Frequently I remember something
H. Richard Niebuhr wrote after
having spent a number years trying
to formulate a comprehensive perspective on faith.
He likens faith to a cube.
From any one angle of vision, he points out,
The observer can see and describe
 at least three sides of the cube.
But the cube has back sides, 
a bottom and insides as well.
Several angles of vision
have to be coordinated simultaneously 
to do any real justice
in a characterization of faith.
James W. Fowler
START HERE!
Bill and Laura lead education time.
Worship Order
Worship notes are also included at the bottom of this page.
With this link you can make donation to Covenant through PayPal or a credit card. 

Prelude
"Blessed Jesus, We Are Here" by J.S. Bach, Patrick Parker, organist.

​Call to Worship

Opening Sentences
Our task now is to mend our broken world;
if religion cannot do that, it is worthless. 
And what our world needs now
is not belief, not certainty,
but compassionate action
and practically expressed respect
for the sacred value of all human beings,
even our enemies. 


​Scripture Lesson: Ezekiel 37:1-14

​Time for Children

​Call to Confession
Unison Confession
Belief in Jesus is most endangered when we are anxious to preserve it. When we are afraid of changes to established customs of thinking and living; we see reforms as destructive and thus would much prefer to hide Jesus in a golden shrine - untouchable and therefore also touching no one, unchangeable and therefore never changing anyone, eternally valid and therefore as far removed as possible from our reality. 

​Special Music
Dry Bones, by the men of the Covenant Choir, recorded in 2017. (click the link below to go to the page with the recording, it will open a new window. Then play the middle audio recording titled Choir.)
https://www.covenanthouston.org/blog/march-26-2017-re-membered

​​Proclamation

​​Music

"The Call" from the Five Mystical Songs by Ralph Vaughn Williams, sung by Ryan McKinny.
​Invitation

Prayer
This day I will hallow today’s path.
            
Today I will slow 
      to press – between tennis shoe and asphalt – 
      this accumulation, yesterday’s leavings
      of pine needles and cypress spurs – no insistence
      to move-on, speed-up, or refrain from loiter.
      I will agitate, with my foot, these findings, and wait 
      for the essence to lift.
 
This day I will allow a re-sounding
       of movement, last evening, the bird’s flight just above
       my head – at dusk, and my neighbor,
       too, turning to look – then near us
       the bird’s landing – a flat-faced small owl.
       Its song, a descending tonal flutter,
       as from this bird, a perfect
      transposition, this subtle horse-like neigh.
 
I will stay, alone,
       to awe its flight, its nearness, its silhouetted
       feathered body, its quivering call, then finally
       walk out from under the trees for more sky,
       for the sunset’s smoothly hued tenacity
       of oranges and pink, holding on, till gray.
       Then turning back, and hearing, then seeing
       the other – an echo of sound, an echo
       of form – several trees removed
       from the first, another screech owl
       answering and calling.
 
Today I will spread out
       the papers, call the task do-able
       and worthy. And while I work,
       pencil in hand, with the other palm
 
I’ll stroke the oak 
      table, stained burnt-orange and coated
      again and again, its hard clear finish,
      its perfectly worn luster, the flesh
      of palm and fingers to examine
      minuscule indentations, engravings borne
      into the hard finish – 
      markings through paper – the daughter’s ciphers
      for school, their drawings, the father’s legal
      notations, and now, too, these fresh remnants
      from a young hand’s bearing down with pen
      and pencil – the newest generation, and
      from all of us, the scruffs
      of plate, fork, knife, serving dish
      and utensils.
 
I will say to this day
       hum, sing of yourself as this sizzle, this papery
       crackle, these cicadas’ electric scraping
       through mid-day heat.
 
If only for today, I will not forestall
        what might come as gift,
 
nor will I dissuade what leaks into this day
       as winged flight or emanates from scarred wood.
 
On this day, the path hallowed,
       I will notice breath
        breathed through me, and I will draw in –
        just today – what is of this day.
​
- Jeannie Gambill

​Prayer of Dedication
We shall have to develop a more dynamic understanding of God as one who accompanies creation in its evolving story like a pianist in a silent movie.

We can choose the metaphor 
of the jazz session that constantly makes new music by listening to what’s happening around it and applying the best of the tradition to the current context.
​

The genius of improvisation seems to be a metaphor for actual human experience. God invites us to join the music, to listen to one another, to keep the music flowing. 

​Affirmation of Faith
I do not think being a Christian is primarily about believing. It is not about believing in the Bible or the gospels or the Christian teachings about Jesus, but about a relationship to the One whom we see through the lens of Christian tradition as a whole.
 
Our preoccupation with believing is because many of the central teachings of Christianity have come into question in the modern world. Thinking of the Christian life as being primarily about believing in God, the Bible, and Jesus, is thus a modern mistake, with profound consequences. One can believe all the right things and remain a jerk, or worse. Saints have been heretical, and people with correct beliefs have been cruel oppressors and brutal persecutors. Rather, the Christian life is about relationship to the God to whom tradition points. What matters is the relationship, for it can and does and will transform our lives.
​

Benediction
And so, be in peace. And as you are going connect and reconnect, remember and re-member, know you are loved, breathe in the breath of divine love and then breathe it back out into the world. Amen.

Postlude
"The Swan" by Camille Saint-Saens, Susan Wegner, cellist.

Worship Notes

The worship leader is Bill Martin.

The prelude is "Blessed Jesus, We Are Here" by J.S. Bach.  

The Call to Worship is from If God Does Not Die by Bernard Martin. 

The Opening Sentences is from The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness by Karen Armstrong. 

The Unison Confession is adapted from Dorothee Soelle and Luise Schottoroff.

Ryan McKinny is singing "The Call" from Ralph Vaughan Williams' Mystical Songs.

The Prayer of Dedication is adapted from Richard Holloway’s chapter, “Ethical Jazz,” in Godless Morality: Keeping Religion Out of Ethics.

The Affirmation of Faith is adapted from the chapter, “A Vision of the Christian Life,” in The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions by Marcus Borg and N.T. Wright. 
​

The postlude is "The Swan" by Camille Saint-Saens, Susan Wegner, cellist.


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Covenant Church
4949 Caroline St., Houston, TX 77004
office@covenanthouston.org
713-668-8830
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