A Service of Worship for
World Communion Sunday
October 4, 2020
Gracious God, who made the covenant promise with our ancestors, we gather here today a rebellious people. We want to act out your intentions for us, but we keep getting mixed up by all the glitter of the world around us. You tell us to honor creation, and we use other people and animals and plant life only to meet our wants. You offer daily bread to every living creature, and we steal that bread from our brothers and sisters in the name of our greed. You promise us new life, and we shrink back from it in fear. Heal us, God, lest we destroy ourselves. We need your presence among us. Amen. from the U.N. Environmental Sabbat |
Adult Education - TODAY, 9AM
This Sunday at 9AM Rice Sociology Professor Stephen Klineberg will speak to the adult education class. He will be talking about his book, Prophetic City: Houston on the Cusp of a Changing America as reflected in 35 years of the Houston Area Surveys. He is a great speaker and one of the best-known Rice professors in the city. 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 and discuss the elements of worship we find particularly meaningful and then transition into “rooms" for coffee time. Log in details on the Online Gatherings page. With this link you can make a donation to Covenant through PayPal or a credit card.
Worship notes are included at the bottom of this page and in the Worship Order located at the link below.
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Prelude
“Just As I Am" arranged by Anthony Burger; adapted by Patrick Parker; Patrick Parker, piano. Call to Worship Opening Prayer Creator, open our hearts to peace and healing between all people Creator, open our hearts to provide and protect for all children of the earth. Creator, open our hearts to respect for the earth, and all the gifts of the earth. Creator, open our hearts to end exclusion, violence, and fear among all. Thank you for the gifts of this day and every day. Scripture Lesson: Isaiah 58:6-12 Time for Children Casey Okabayashi has recorded a stunning rendition of "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands." Enjoy!
You will notice that Casey sometimes sings He and sometimes She. In the Bible, God is imagined as love, as a mother, as a father, as a bird, as a path, and more. There are many ways to understand God.
The below video will show your kids the hand motions to this beautiful song. Confession Unison Confession
O God of great faithfulness, we confess that sometimes we feel like giving up in a world where it seems poverty and violence will always be with us. Our hope succumbs to despair. We confess that denial and distraction are sometimes less painful than vision and commitment. We confess that often we lose our vision - your vision - of a world where righteousness and peace will kiss each other. We plod through our work and don't dare to dream your dream of a world made new. Invitation
Prayer of Dedication Let us offer the world the best flowers and fruits of our practice: lucidity, solidity, brotherhood and sisterhood, understanding, and compassion. Let us give rise to the determination to look deeply into the nature of fear, anger, hatred, and violence and to give rise to the eyes of compassion. Breathing in, we are aware of violence within ourselves and within the world. Breathing out, we are determined to look with the eyes of compassion at the violence within ourselves and the world. We know that with the energy of mindfulness, concentration, and awakened wisdom, we can lessen violence every day. We know that responding to violence with compassion is our only path. |
THE CELEBRATION OF COMMUNION
Communion Prayer
TABLE BLESSING To your table you bid us come. You have set the places, you have poured the wine, and there is always room, you say, for one more. And so we come. From the streets and from the alleys we come. From the deserts and from the hills we come. From the ravages of poverty and from the palaces of privilege we come. Running, limping, carried, we come. We are bloodied with our wars, we are wearied with our wounds, we carry our dead within us, and we reckon with their ghosts. We hold the seeds of healing, we dream of a new creation, we know the things that make for peace, and we struggle to give them wings. And yet, to your table we come. Hungering for your bread, we come; thirsting for your wine, we come; singing your song in every language, speaking your name in every tongue, in conflict and in communion, in discord and in desire, we come, O God of Wisdom, we come. —Jan Richardson from In Wisdom's Path: Discovering the Sacred in Every Season The Invitation to the Table
Sharing the Bread and the Cup
Communion Music “Draw Us In the Spirit's Tether,” sung by the Covenant Singers. You are welcome to use whatever elements you have for communion this Sunday. Affirmation of Faith Let no one be discouraged by the belief that there is nothing one man or one woman can do against the enormous array of the world’s ills—against misery and ignorance, injustice and violence. Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation. It is from the numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a person stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, that person sends a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance. Benediction Postlude “Sweet Hour of Prayer/Trust and Obey” arranged by Anthony Burger; adapted by Patrick Parker; Patrick Parker, piano. |
Worship Notes
The worship leader is Jim Wallace.
The Call to Worship is From Flames of the Spirit, edited by Ruth C. Duck.
The Opening Prayer is from the Native American, Micmac (Mi'kmaq) Tribe, by Alicia Longriver.
"He's Got the Whole World in His Hands" sung by Casey Okabayashi was inspired by Nina Simone's arrangement.
The Unison Confession is developed from the Children's Defense Fund for a Children's Sabbath service.
The Prayer of Dedication is adapted from Creating True Peace: Ending Violence in Yourself, Your Family, Your Community, and the World by Thich Nhat Hanh.
The Communion Prayer is "Table Blessing" by Jan Richardson.
"Draw Us In the Spirit's Tether" is sung by The Covenant Singers.
The Affirmation of Faith is adapted from Robert Kennedy, as quoted by Jeffrey Sachs in The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time.
The banner in the photo at the top of the page was created by Nancy Henry.
The worship leader is Jim Wallace.
The Call to Worship is From Flames of the Spirit, edited by Ruth C. Duck.
The Opening Prayer is from the Native American, Micmac (Mi'kmaq) Tribe, by Alicia Longriver.
"He's Got the Whole World in His Hands" sung by Casey Okabayashi was inspired by Nina Simone's arrangement.
The Unison Confession is developed from the Children's Defense Fund for a Children's Sabbath service.
The Prayer of Dedication is adapted from Creating True Peace: Ending Violence in Yourself, Your Family, Your Community, and the World by Thich Nhat Hanh.
The Communion Prayer is "Table Blessing" by Jan Richardson.
"Draw Us In the Spirit's Tether" is sung by The Covenant Singers.
The Affirmation of Faith is adapted from Robert Kennedy, as quoted by Jeffrey Sachs in The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time.
The banner in the photo at the top of the page was created by Nancy Henry.
More About Selected Authors from Today:
Alycia Longriver was a participant in the "Sunbow 5 Walk" in which a small coalition of Native Americans walked from Cape Cod, Massachusetts to California on a journey that covered more than 3,000 miles and took more than seven months to complete. Ms. Longriver states, “In 1995 I walked with a group across the US, speaking to other groups, and praying all the way (15 million steps) for the healing of people and the earth. I prayed asking Creator 'to bring', but after the walk realized we already have these things. It is a matter of opening our hearts to the gifts within.” She is a member of the Mi’kmaq tribe.
Thich Nhat Hanh is a Vietnamese Buddhist monk and peace activist. He lives in Plum Village spiritual community in the South of France and travels extensively giving talks on peace and spiritual values. He has been a lifelong peace-activist dedicated to finding peaceful solutions to conflicts. Thich Nhat Hanh has also written extensively on ways to find inner peace and inner happiness. He is credited with coining the term ‘Engaged Buddhism’ – a series of teachings which seek to bring practical Buddhist wisdom into daily life.
Alycia Longriver was a participant in the "Sunbow 5 Walk" in which a small coalition of Native Americans walked from Cape Cod, Massachusetts to California on a journey that covered more than 3,000 miles and took more than seven months to complete. Ms. Longriver states, “In 1995 I walked with a group across the US, speaking to other groups, and praying all the way (15 million steps) for the healing of people and the earth. I prayed asking Creator 'to bring', but after the walk realized we already have these things. It is a matter of opening our hearts to the gifts within.” She is a member of the Mi’kmaq tribe.
Thich Nhat Hanh is a Vietnamese Buddhist monk and peace activist. He lives in Plum Village spiritual community in the South of France and travels extensively giving talks on peace and spiritual values. He has been a lifelong peace-activist dedicated to finding peaceful solutions to conflicts. Thich Nhat Hanh has also written extensively on ways to find inner peace and inner happiness. He is credited with coining the term ‘Engaged Buddhism’ – a series of teachings which seek to bring practical Buddhist wisdom into daily life.
Sunday schedule for September 27:
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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