14  December  2000

        "How Great Thou Art"

CONGREGATIONAL PRAYER

Blessed Trinity: Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer; Lover of our souls, 

Great and mysterious is your holy name, O God! How manifold and mysterious are the works of your hands! Author of the universe, whose Word brought in to being, out of nothing, all that is, how incomprehensible is your power, how relentless is your love, how joyful is your play in the expansive pageant of Creation. 

What you have made and given to us, teaches us your pleasure. You made all of nature, and all in nature declares your delight in plurality. You gave us worlds to name, and we exhaust our languages as we find world upon world that you have left in the path of our curiosity. 

You have hidden strange creatures under the sea, in mountain crevices, even in sulfurous thermal vents, defying our expectations. The very rocks of the earth are legion in type and color and composition, each telling its eons of history. Even among things of one kind, O God, you make no two alike. Of late, our infant science discovers an instrument of diversity more marvelous still: writ deep into the fabric of Creation we stumble upon unseen systems that proliferate infinite variations on infinite themes. (And do we, O Lord, name these systems "Chaos" because we can only conceive of Order as linear uniformity?) 

In your light-shedding love sprawls this glorious panoply. We sing and dance to you all honor and glory. We thank you for setting in motion this self-elaborating universe. 

Yet, our sinful nature deadens our senses, and eclipses this light, O God, casting long, dark shadows into the world. We humbly seek your mercy and your forgiveness.

Piously, we go crushing the incandescence out of our world with our tedious, dull-witted conformity. Unlike you, O Lord, we, apparently, do not like things that dazzle: they frighten us. We prefer the presumed safety of unvarying sameness. Boredom makes no demands of us, it comforts us with the illusion that we are in control. Differences worry us. There is the danger that we might learn something and grow. 

And thus, your beautiful rainforests fall to scythe and torch, your quiet green and open spaces are devoured by matching strip malls in deserts of asphalt. We lay waste to life-giving biodiversity with agribusiness, to artistic invention with the dreariness of corporate culture and to our sacred imagination with incessant media drivel. 

Thus, likewise, we have despoiled the gift of human sexuality, isolating narrow expressions of it as the "norm" while anathematizing all others. We have used religion and --O God forgive us– your own holy name to issue decrees contrary to your will, and thus seal up our ignorance and intolerance in vaults impenetrable to impulses of compassion and understanding. 

We need now to thank you for people who are gay, who are lesbian, who are bisexual, who are transgendered. Thank you for giving us a chance to deepen our definition of love. Thank you for showing us that what really matters in sex are the same things that really matter in everything else: Faith, Hope and Love. We ask you to lead us out of homophobia, and we thank you for granting coming-out courage. 

We praise and thank you, Jesus Christ our Lord, for the blessed ambiguities of your life among us. We do not know if you were gay. But you might have been, and we thank you for that possibility, which we may not rule out. Thank you, Jesus, likewise for the all too-clear certainties of your life, which shatter every gender stereotype that traps our moral vision. 

Thank you, Jesus, for rerouting our conception of family away from biological fixations and toward the quality of relationship. Thank you for showing us a fuller sense of ‘fruitful.’ 

We praise you, God, for divine ambiguities that free us from our pretentious absolutes: For loving us all equally, confounding our assumptions of preference; for giving the light of your truth in many different ways to different tribes and cultures, confounding claims to monopoly; for coming in Christ and washing our feet, confounding our longing for rank.

We praise you, God for you own Triune Being, the One, real Absolute that rescues us from all the artificial ones. Fix our eyes on this great mystery: that within yourself you hold the diversity of Persons in unique co-equal, co-eternal union; distinct yet indivisible, truly Three, yet of one Substance. 

Holy Trinity, you who are three Persons but one God, cause us to learn from this Perfection and to mirror it within our earthly limits. May we exult in the diversity of your Creation, may it gladden our hearts as it does yours, without dividing us.

On this journey toward the light of your Trinity, we praise you and give thanks for University City Pride. 

For the loving good will that brought it to be, thank you God. For unity and diversity, and strength in both, thank you God. For their commitment to justice and equity, thank you God. For their visibility and activism, thank you God. For the good times they have together, thank you God. You have made them teachers, advocates, friends to this community and to this City, and we thank you God. 

Work through them now, Jesus, Friend and Brother. Let them seize the day. Help them to meet the needs they need to meet. Send your Holy Spirit into their midst, infusing energy and inspiration. Be at work in this neighborhood, drawing into University City Pride the many who need to be a part of its fellowship, and let your purposes be accomplished through their camaraderie. 

You who love us and seek our contentment, we ask you to prosper and keep them, in the name of Jesus, to whom we kneel and whom we call Lord, yet who raised us up and called us "friends."      Amen.

" 1. For the success of Domestic Partnership legislation for the City of Philadelphia. Energize those most directly affected so that they can push for passage. Move the hearts of our elected officials. Awaken the conscience of voting public. Deliver us from hostile propaganda posing as piety. 

2. That same sex unions will come to enjoy the same sanctification by the Church and the same acceptance by society as heterosexual unions have always enjoyed. 

3. For couples, that gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered persons may find and keep partners in committed, loving relationships in a social context that deprives us of cultural and religious support for such commitment.

4. That gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people will strive together for higher moral ground: that our suffering under discrimination and bigotry will make us more determined to fight all forms of prejudice, so that we may be more comfort and refuge to one another and so that we may be better witnesses for justice to all.

5. For the survival and growth of University City Pride; For individuals to step forward to assume leadership roles; For successful outreach to those who are isolated and in need of support: to find them and to minister effectively to them. 

6. For more women to join with University City Pride. 

7. Thanks that, as a result of the experience of oppression, there comes from both within and outside of the gay community that special intensity of support for us. "

SCRIPTURE

A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink." (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.)

The Samaritan woman said to him, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?" (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water." The woman said to him, "Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?" Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life."

The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water." Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come back." The woman answered him, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You are right in saying, 'I have no husband'; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!"

The woman said to him, "Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem." Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." The woman said to him, "I know that Messiah is coming" (who is called Christ). "When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us." Jesus said to her, "I am he, the one who is speaking to you."
                                                                                                    John 4: 7 - 26

        "Let Us Break Bread Together"
 

PASSING OF THE PEACE

BENEDICTION

To help gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered neighbors in University City get to know each other. 

To let lesbian and gay people considering moving to University City know that other lesbian and gay (etc.) people live here. 

To advocate and educate for causes that affect gay and lesbian people in University City. 

In addition to its monthly potluck suppers, UCPride enjoys other gatherings and special events. Potluck suppers are held here, at Calvary United Methodist Church, on the first or second Sunday evening of the month. Events are almost always free of charge, and all are welcome.

The Calvary United Methodist Church is located at in the heart of West Philadelphia at 48th St. and Baltimore Ave. Most of the members of our small and diverse congregation live within walking distance of the church. 

We are committed witnesses to the presence of the Living Christ and to a vision of a just and inclusive world. 

As a Reconciling Congregation we welcome all persons regardless of sexual orientation. 

Each Sunday we gather around our table to celebrate the Eucharist as a sign of our oneness with the Living God, each other, and with the world. 

All are truly welcomed to join us each Sunday at 11:00 A.M. 

Calvary is also a center for community life. Several community groups call Calvary their home. And the newly created Calvary Center for Culture and Community is committed to sharing our vision of a just and inclusive world through the arts and other community activities.

 

The Alethia Foundation is an ecumenical, scholarly organization, dedicated to a Christian synthesis for a new age. The Alethia Foundation draws from classical Christian theology in order to provide a Christian interpretation of the paradigm shift now taking place in human understanding. The Alethia Foundation seeks to make heard a voice of Christian enlightenment.

K. Brian Anderson
Rebecca Carr
the Rev. Eugene Devers
the Rev. Dr. Sandra Ellis-Killian
Lynn C. Jaeger
the Rev. Dr. Peter C. Wool

 Service and Congregational prayer composed by Sandra Ellis-Killian
 ©Copyright 2000 The Alethia Foundation.