Day 832: Sunday, June 26, 2022

Please join us today for:

Emmaus Liturgy for June 26, 2022: ACTIVE HOPE

How to Face the Mess We’re In Without Going Crazy

Today at Emmaus: June 26, 2022

We begin at 4:45

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ACTIVE HOPE

How to Face the Mess We’re In Without Going Crazy

Here's the liturgy in WORD and PDF formats for downloading.

Alice: Welcome

David: Active Hope Video What is Active Hope https://youtu.be/VEXAbX1f3Nc

Steve: Welcome/Introduction

Today’s liturgy takes a look at how we view hope in a world that is unraveling before our very eyes. Active Hope as presented by Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone in their book and training curricula give us a new way to view hope, not a world of wishful thinking but a hope based on action and engagement.

As we see in this image, the work revolves around a continuous spiral. We begin by “Coming from a Place of Gratitude. All the major spiritual traditions are grounded in this premise. The second phase of the work is “Honoring Our Pain for the World.” This is done through deep listening and with genuine intention.

We feel the grief and pain for our destruction of the environment or the breaking of relations with other people or things of our world. It is how we become conscious of our belonging. We have an opportunity to look at why that hurts you. Joanna says, “the whole world is tied to how your heart feels. You’re as big as the world.”

It is a movement from the head to the heart. This heart work then allows us to “See with New Eyes.” It gives us the ability to see outside our selves and realize we are a part of the Greater whole.

We see the world as a living organism that can self regulate and we are part of that self regulating system. The final stage of the spiral is moving into action, taking it into the world, “Going Forth.” We will explore this further in our shared homily.

The Gospel: The Cleaning Out of the Temple Matthew 21: 12-17

John Poole

Jesus entered the temple precincts and drove out all those engaged there in buying and selling. He overturned the money changers tables and the stalls of the dove-sellers, saying to them:

“Scripture has it, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you are turning it into a den of thieves.”

The blind and the lame came to him inside the temple area and he cured them. The chief priests and the scribes became indignant when they observed the wonders he worked and how the children were shouting out in the temple precincts, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” Do you hear what they are saying?” they asked him.

Jesus said to them, “Of course I do! Did you never read this: “From the speech of infants and children you have framed a hymn of praise’?” With that he left them and went out of the city to Bethany, where he spent the night.

John:

This is the Gospel according to Matthew.

All: Alleluia

Responsorial Psalm: taken from Psalm 8 Kay:

O God, O God, how glorious is your name over all the earth! You have exalted your majesty above the heavens.

All: Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings you have fashioned praise because of your foes, to silence the hostile and the vengeful.

Kay:

When I behold your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you set in place, I sing a hymn of praise.

All: Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings you have fashioned praise because of your foes, to silence the hostile and the vengeful.

Kay:

What is man that you should be mindful of him, or the son of man that you should care for him? You have made him little less than the angels and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him rule over the works of your hands, putting all things under his feet.

All: Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings you have fashioned praise because of your foes, to silence the hostile and the vengeful.

Kay:

All sheep and oxen, yes, and the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, the fishes of the sea. O God, O God, how glorious is your name over all the earth!

All: Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings you have fashioned praise because of your foes, to silence the hostile and the vengeful.

Kay: In our Gospel reading, Jesus not only calls us to deep listening, but to action.

In this next video, Joanna Macy shares a teaching she received from her best friend and spiritual teacher that seems fitting for us in this time. Joanna channels that same message of Jesus for us. Let’s watch.

David: Video - Joanna Macy on The Shambala Prophecy Note: David start at the 1 minute mark.

https://youtu.be/Y2Y10cdOE3M

Alice: This is the Gospel according to Joanna Macy.

All: Thanks be to the Divine Spirit that dwells in everyone here!

SHARED HOMILY: Steve and Alice will lead in and read the starter questions.

Alice:

“Few will have the greatness to bend history; but each of us can work to change a small portion

of the events, and in the total of all these acts will be written the history of this generation.”

Robert Kennedy - Nov. 20, 1925 to June 6, 1968

Steve: Earlier this year, our liturgy committee adopted an overall theme for this year of “Listening.” As we can see in the videos listening is essential to right action. Listening to our heart, to our breath, to nature, to our friends and our adversaries.

One small piece of the Active Hope Training encourages us to find a place in nature where you can go and just quietly Listen to what nature is telling us at that moment. This is called a Gaia spot or nature spot.

However, we cannot just stop at listening. We must hear the call of what is our small part to do and move into action. Jesus calls us to action in today’s Gospel. Joanna Macy calls us into action as well, a call to become a Warrior.

What does it mean for you to hear from your inner warrior. How do we become a warrior? How do you move from your heart, from honoring your pain for the world, to action?

Alice: In our opening, many of you expressed a lot of pain for the world. You might want to expound and deepen your expression of your feelings. What do you grieve? What is your pain for the world?

Steve: What do we bring to the table this evening? What do you want to pray for?

David: Song: Bridge Over Troubled Waters

https://youtu.be/nNq3c0NVhzA?t=3(end at 4:53)

Eucharistic Prayer:

Steve: O Great Spirit, we ask for the desire and grace to listen deeply. Help us to quiet our minds. Be with us, guide us, and reveal to each one of us what our special part is in the transformation of our world. We each have a unique part to play, may we hear your call.

Consecration:

Alice: On the night before He died, Jesus was at table with His friends, He said listen closely. Then He took bread, he gave thanks to the Creator, He blessed it, He broke it, and shared it with his friends and said,

All: “This is my body, shared with you.”

Steve: As supper was ending, Jesus took the cup of wine. Again He said listen closely. He gave thanks to the Creator, gave it to his friends and said, This is the cup of my love for you and for all creation. Going forward, you will be my hands and my feet and my Warriors.

Steve: Let us proclaim the Mystery of Faith

For, it is “Through You, With You, and In You, In Unity of the Great and Holy Spirit, that all glory and honor is yours Forever and Ever. All: Amen

Alice: Now together, as one community, we offer to you O Creator, our prayer, received from our brother Jesus:

Our Mother, Our Father Holy and blessed is your true name. We pray for your reign of peace to come. We pray that your good will be done.

Let heaven and earth become one. Give us this day the bread we need.

Give it to those who have none.

Let forgiveness flow like a river between us, from each one to each one.

Lead us to holy innocence beyond the evil of our days.

Come swiftly Mother, Father, come.

For yours is the power and the glory and the mercy:

Forever your name is All in One.

The Kiss of Peace:

Alice: Now give a gesture of peace to all in our beloved community.

Invitation to Eucharist:

Steve: So through this Eucharist, and in the spirit of our Beloved Community, we extend the invitation of Jesus to each and everyone of us to take and eat this bread, to take and drink from this cup. Each of us brings our unique and God given gifts to this table. This table of the Risen Jesus where all are welcome.

COMMUNION:

Steve: Active Hope Training; Acknowledging our community members

THE CLOSING BLESSING: Blessing of Hope - Jan Richardson Alice:

So may we know the hope that is not just for someday but for this day— here, now, in this moment that opens to us:

hope not made of wishes but of substance,

hope made of sinew and muscle and bone,

hope that has breath and a beating heart,

hope that will not keep quiet and be polite, hope that knows how to holler when it is called for,

hope that knows how to sing when there seems little cause,

hope that raises us from the dead—

not someday but this day, every day, again and again and again.

David: CLOSING SONG: The Active Hope Song from the Active Hope Training https://youtu.be/MbaMFz2NLLQ