Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Commemoration of John Donne, 1631, and Joseph, Patriarch
WORSHIP: 12 NOON

Glory to You!
You built your cross as a bridge over death, so that departed souls might pass from the realm of death to the realm of life.
Your murderers handled your life like farmers: they sowed it like grain deep in the earth, for it to spring up and raise with itself a multitude of people.
Come, let us offer Christ the great, universal sacrifice of our love, and pour out before him our richest hymns and prayers.

Ephrem the Syrian (307-363)

• PRAY FOR SOMEONE IN DISTRESS. SEND THEM A CARD.

Monday, March 30, 2015

WORSHIP: 12 NOON
Reading: Mark 11:1-11

"Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut."   (Mark 11:8)

Jesus chose the way of the prophet Zechariah for entering into Jerusalem, on the back of an unridden colt. "Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall command peace to the nations; his dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth."

God of peace, we enter now with Christ into Jerusalem. May we have the same mind among ourselves that was in Christ Jesus. Amen

• PLACE THE PALMS FROM THE PALM SUNDAY LITURGY ON YOUR ALTAR.

Sunday, March 29, 2015 - SUNDAY OF THE PASSION/ PALM SUNDAY

Sunday, March 29, 2015 - SUNDAY OF THE PASSION/ PALM SUNDAY
WORSHIP: 8 & 10:45 AM
Mt. 21:1-11; Is. 50:4-9a; Ps. 31:9-16;Phil. 2:5-11;
Mt. 26:14—27:66

Christ humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death -
even death on a cross.
Therefore God has also highly exalted him
and gave him the name that is above every name.
GOSPEL ACCLAMATION FOR SUNDAY OF THE PASSION (Phil. 2:8-9)

There in God's garden stands the Tree of Wisdom,
Whose leaves hold forth the healing of the nations;
Tree of all knowledge, Tree of all compassion,
Tree of all beauty.

Its name is Jesus, name that says, "Our Savior!"
There on its branches see the scars of suff'ring;
See there the tendrils of our human selfhood
Feed on its lifeblood.

Thorns not its own are tangled in its foliage;
Our greed has starved it, our despite has choked it.
Yet, look! it lives! its grief has not destroyed it,
Nor fire consumed it.

See how its branches reach to us in welcome;
Hear what the Voice says, "Come to me, ye weary!
Give me your sickness, give me all your sorrow,
I will give blessing."

This is my ending, this my resurrection;
Into your hands, Lord, I commit my spirit.
This have I searched for; now I can possess it.
This ground is holy.

All heav'n is singing, "Thanks to Christ whose passion
Offers in mercy healing strength and pardon.
Peoples and nations, take it, take it freely!"
Amen! My Master!
Kiralyi Imre von Pecselyi (1590-1641), tr. Eric Routley

Saturday, March 28, 2015

Reading: Philippians 2:5-11

"Let this same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,…"  
(Philippians 2:5)

Martin Luther described sin as a person's being "curved in on itself", incurvatus in se, concerned only with one's own needs, desires, one's own puny little world. As Jesus approaches Jerusalem, where reaction to his world-upturning teachings and life is building to a deathly confrontation, we see clearly how absolutely faithful he is to his identity as the Christ the Anointed One, Christ the Compassionate One, open and vulnerable to the world. He set his face "like a flint" (Is. 50:7) and turned not backward. How simple it would have been to disappear into the wilderness ravines east of the city. How difficult, to ignore the deep human instinct toward self-preservation and to continue on the road, in spite of risk, in spite of threat.

Merciful God, may we never turn backward from our calling as people of your heart. Amen

 TAKE BIT OF PURE OLIVE OIL. ANOINT YOUR HANDS, YOUR EYES, YOUR LIPS, YOUR EARS, YOUR HEART.

Friday, March 27, 2015

Reading: Psalm 31:9-16

"Into your hand I commend my spirit:
you have redeemed me, O LORD God of truth."   (Psalm 31:5)

The antiphon chosen for the psalm on the approaching Sunday of the Passion is from verse 5, not from among the verses chosen for chanting on this day. But we sing this phrase from Psalm 31:5 every time we use the office of Compline, or Prayer At the Close of Day. It is a beautiful prayer to use to end the day, before lying down to rest: "Into your hand, O LORD, I commend my spirit." Only in the Gospel of Luke do we hear these words from Jesus on the cross at the end of his life, contrary to what composites like the Seven Last Words would lead us to think. In the passion account according to Mark, which we will hear in two days' time, Jesus cries out using words from Psalm 22, as he does also in Matthew's account. Why, we could wonder, did Luke choose Psalm 31:5?

Merciful God, into your hands we commend our spirits Amen

• EAT NO MEAT OR OIL TODAY.

Thursday, March 26, 2015

Reading: Isaiah 50:4-9a

"The LORD God helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced;
 therefore I have set my face like flint,
 and I know I will not be put to shame."   (Isaiah 50:7)

The Hebrew scriptures do not generally use specific words for emotions, but rather use descriptive words related to the effects on the human body, especially the face. When Jesus overthrew the tables of the moneychangers in the Temple, Psalm 69:9 was quoted: "Zeal for your house has consumed me." The word for "zeal" actually means "intensively red", as "to be red in the face". The word generally translated as anger is to be "short of nose", for the way the nose crinkles short and the nostrils flare in anger. In the Ash Wednesday reading Joel 2:13, where God is said to be "slow to anger" (KJV "longsuffering"), the Hebrew says God is "long of nose", that is, calm and not riled up with a face scrunched in wrath. In this third song of the suffering servant from the prophet Isaiah, which is often associated by Christians with Jesus the Christ, God's servant sets his "face like flint", that is, with absolute confidence and resolve (see Ezekiel 3:8-9) for, "my vindicator is near".  God is there, God is present. God is not a God far-off. As followers of the Incarnate Christ, this we know to be true.
And we can set our faces like flint.

Help us, O God, and may we always know that you are near. Amen

 MAKE A DRAWING, PAINTING, OR POEM IN YOUR JOURNAL.

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

FEAST OF THE ANNUNCIATION, Is. 7:10-14, Ps. 45; Heb 10:4-10; Luke 1:26-38
Reading: Isaiah 58:5

"Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?"

It is not totally out of character on this Feast of the Annunciation to talk about almsgiving, or acts of justice, or acts of compassion, one of the disciplines of Lent. Mary's great hymn of praise, the Magnificat (pronounced not at the Annunciation, but, rather, at the Visitation to Elizabeth…), has at its center the raising up of those of low degree. "Those of low degree" can include any one of us at any time as well as the stranger. Those who are in poverty as well as those who are in a state of spiritual impoverishment. Those who who are homeless as well as those who are seeking, seeking, seeking. Those on the brink of despair as well as those of "low degree" known only to God. There is no "they."  During Lent,  may the taking on of these disciplines of fasting, prayer, and acts of compassion awaken us to the Christs we meet each day and all those in need of assistance, both friend and stranger.

Loving God, may our hearts be open to all whom we encounter in life. Amen

 SPEAK TO SOMEONE AT CHURCH YOU’VE NEVER SPOKEN TO BEFORE.
 IF YOU HAVE FASTED FOR SOME MEALS DURING LENT, DECIDE WHAT TO DO WITH THE MONEY SAVED.