Day 1090: Saturday, March 11, 2023

There are no outsiders, no us and them in this Kingdom

Let's get ready to celebrate tomorrow at Knox in person or on ZOOM: Liturgy tomorrow at 3:45

Please join us tomorrow (Sunday, March 12, 2023) for our community celebration:

In Person at Knox Presbyterian / Thanksgiving Lutheran

1650 W 3rd St, 95401, Santa Rosa

Or Join us on Zoom by using this link and passcode:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/5193158573

Passcode: 1234

Or use the Meeting ID

Meeting ID: 519 315 8573

Passcode: 1234

One tap mobile (for joining by phone)

+16699006833,,5193158573# US (San Jose)

+16694449171,,5193158573# US

Emmaus Liturgical Order of Service for Sunday, March 12, 2023

Welcome: Our journey of faith may begin with a need, a thirst, or a request to be quenched. Over the journey, like the Samaritan woman in today’s gospel, we are often called to uncover the deepest thirsts of our hearts, to access another quality of water: living, breathing water. It is a birth through the waters of unconditional, divine Love, because God is love (1 John 4:8) and the Christ is the open depth within each one of us.

A spring of water gushing up to eternal life suggests that in every person there is a speck, a point of soul, a vital spark connected with the divine and with our flowing experience. At the heart of our being we carry a God-shaped hole. But we can block the flowing of these waters, as Etty Hillesum says: “One must clear the path toward You in him/herself,

God, and if only you make certain that your path to God is unblocked,

then you can keep renewing yourself at these inner sources.”

Jesus mentions the stones, the limits, or the barriers that separate the life of the Samaritan woman from the living water. What are our personal and communal barriers and divides that need to be acknowledged? (Let us take a moment in silence to reflect on our recent retreat at Enid’s.).

The good news is that even our wants, deficiencies, limits, griefs, or shadows can become passages of the Whole that exceeds our expectations, needs, and possibilities.

Divine Love deepens and expands time, world, soul; she works from within, opens us to a beyond out of our control, out of our grasp, and out of our planning. It is the gratuitous work of Grace.

Opening Song: There is a Sanctuary (Dana Couey)

Opening Prayer: (Pat) “May the nourishment of the Earth be yours, may the clarity of light be yours, may the fluency of the ocean be yours, may the protection of the ancestors be yours. And so may a slow wind work these words of love around you, an invisible cloak to mind your life.” - John O’Donohue

First reading: Exodus 17: 3-7 Jim Keck

3 But the people were thirsty for water there, and they grumbled against Moses. They said, “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst?” 4 Then Moses cried out to the Lord, “What am I to do with these people? They are almost ready to stone me.”

5 The Lord answered Moses, “Go out in front of the people. Take with you some of the elders of Israel and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. 6 I will stand there before you by the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it for the people to drink.” So Moses did this in the sight of the elders of Israel. 7 And he called the place Massah[a] and Meribah[b] because the Israelites quarreled and because they tested the Lord saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?

Responsorial Song: The Hound of Heaven by Michael Card with lyrics [2:37]

GOSPEL: John 4: 5-42 Jim McFadden

So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.

Jim (Narrator) When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her,

Ed “Will you give me a drink?”

Jim: (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

Mary: You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?”

Jim (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)

Ed “you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

Mary: Sir, you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”

Ed: Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

Mary: Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

Ed: Go, call your husband and come back.”

Mary “I have no husband,”

Ed: “You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”

Mary “Sir,” I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”

Ed “Woman, believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

Mary “I know that Messiah is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”

Ed “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”

Jim Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”

Jim: Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people,

Mary “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” Jim

Jim: They came out of the town and made their way toward him.

Jim: Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.”

Ed “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”

Jim McFadden Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him a sandwich?

Ed “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.”

Jim: Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony,

Mary “He told me everything I ever did.”

Jim: So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. And because of his words many more became believers.

Jim: They said to the woman,

ALL: “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”

Jim, Mary and Ed: A reading from the Gospel according to John.

All: Praise to you Jesus the Christ.

Homily: When people encounter someone who probes their lives, they are often adept at bringing up as a distraction some old religious chestnut, so as to avoid making a decision. When was the last time this woman worried about such theological differences or even went up the mountain to worship?

Worship in spirit and truth is an experience of union and openness in love with the divine Mystery within our souls and within the heart of the Universe. “Divine love,” says the Franciscan theologian Ilia Delio, “is not a river of stagnant water but a fountain full of overflowing love, love that is forever awakening to new life. God is ever newness in love and the power of everything new in love.” Jesus, in his extreme gesture of self-giving love, the cross, will become a source of blood and water, embodying the deep waters of God’s mystery, whose Love loves us first. The more deeply we enter into this living water, the more deeply we enter into the heart of the divine Source, who radiates through all the Universe, who supports the vast and expanding web of life.

Today we are at a tipping point finding ourselves in the midst of vast destruction from earthquakes, a war raging out of control, displaced refugees out of sync with sanity, that is at the same time a moment of profound creativity. We have confidence that between tension and opposing forces the creative Spirit that moves and breathes within and in the Universe will inspire us and guide us into the living waters of the future.

So, for our dialogue homily, let us ponder these two questions.

(1) How do you find true and lasting refreshment for your soul?

(2) How do you fix a dehydrated heart or quench your spiritual thirst?

Liturgy of the Eucharist

Offertory Song: You Can’t Resist it (Lyle Lovett w/Leo Kottke) [1:20 - 5:02]

What do we bring to the table

Eucharistic Prayer:

John: I know you ARE the well.

YOU are the Divine Well of compassion, extravagant love and understanding that I desperately need.

All: May it be so.

Dan You are the healing water overflowing, unlimited to shore up my weakness.

You are the calm I needin the storms of my life. You are the patience, the courage to risk,

the faithfulness,the wholeness, the gracious presence to others I so deeply desire.

All: We lift up this awareness into the Mystery.

John: Let us be thankful for the water that inhabits our flesh, circulates through our veins, and drenches our tissues as it also flows through and vivifies our planet Earth.

All: It is good to be grateful.

Dan: We break and share this bread as Jesus did the night before he died, and we give it to one another as our pledge of openness to the Spirit of Love in our midst as we recall the words He spoke to His friends:

ALL: (Extend Hands) This is my body given up for you.

John: Then He took the cup, gave thanks, and shared it with them, saying:

ALL: (Extend hands) This is the cup of my blood, poured out for all of you. Do this in memory of me.

And so, with all creation we join in a hymn of praise: WE REMEMBER (Sung)

We remember how you loved us to your death, and still we celebrate,

for you are with us here; and we believe that we will see you when you come in your

glory, Lord. We remember, we celebrate, we believe.

Let us pray: All: O God, Mother and Father of Us All,…. Like your son, Jesus of Nazareth, who blessed a variety of human relationships rooted in love, may we have the wisdom and grace to foster, strengthen, and support all loving relationships and all families. May your command to love one another as you have loved us, O God, cause us to pay heed to the movement of your Holy Spirit, who calls us in the here and now to embrace the rainbow of loving human relationships that reflect your love for all of humanity in its wonderful diversity. May we speak out courageously when others try to pass laws that exclude, diminish, or demonize other persons and their families because of who they are and whom they love. May we take to heart what we know to be true: that where love and charity prevail, you are to be found. We ask this, as always, through your Many Holy Names. Amen. Bernard Schlager

Dan: Kiss of Peace

John: Everyone is invited to this table. The Spirit, whom the Universe cannot contain is present to us in this bread. She who redeems us and calls us by name now meets us in this cup. So, come, take this bread, Drink this wine, In them, the Spirit comes to us, so that we may become one with the Spirit.

John and Dan: We invite everyone now on Zoom to partake of this communion we share while we listen to our Communion Song,

Jesus, Draw Me Ever Nearer (Song by Keith and Kristy Getty) picture of a lighthouse on YouTube [4:52]

Closing Prayer: Dan

At noon, on the cross, the Son of Humanity will also ask for water: I am thirsty (John 19:28) You are continually thirsty for our love, God that we may become the waters of your compassionate and relational heart That we may receive the Spirit of a new human consciousness That binds all beings and manifestations of existence. That we may be your radiance at the heart of the Universe.

And the people of this beloved Emmaus community say: Amen.

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