National Indigenous Peoples Day & World Refugee Day: Sunday, June 25, 2017
CALL TO WORSHIP
By Bobbi Salkeld
Today we join with those who worshiped and honoured the Creator for generations
I invite you to join with me in this responsive reading as an invitation to worship.
Let us give thanks to our Creator,
for the Creator is always with us.
Creator and creating God,
You have given life to all around us.
You call us to be with You
whether we are inside in the shelter of these walls
or outside in the shelter of Your trees.
God is with us when we gather together
and when we are alone.
We are here to answer that call.
We will sing joyfully
and we will listen attentively for Your whispering voice.
Amen.
(From “Prayer Service for Healing and Reconciliation” at First Baptist Church Vancouver, Adapted from “The Dancing Sun Vol. VIII,” Anglican Church of Canada and United Church of Canada,
1992).
MUSIC
Hillsong Worship - Love So Great
How Great Thou Art
Hillsong Worship - Oceans
Hillsong Worship - Cornerstone
EUCHARIST INITATION
By Bobbi Salkeld
This week held markers of two important days:
World Refugee Day was on June 20;
National Indigenous Peoples Day was on June 21.
We’ve chosen to gather around the table with these markers in our minds and hearts.
As a community, Commons believes that we are invited to live and move and have our being in the world that God loves. As such, places of brokenness and longing are the very places where Jesus invites us to listen, learn, and respond. We may also say that these places are the exact places Jesus is hiding out and waiting to meet with us.
This season holds important efforts by Commons in refugee resettlement.
In the last year and a half the first family we sponsored has been launched.
We are currently in a waiting process for a second family.
In addition, our volunteers have supported and loved 9 additional Syrian families making their homes here in Calgary.
This brings us to the Eucharist meal, a meal of thanksgiving for the work of God among us:
The Eucharist table is a place where we not only gather to encounter the risen Christ;
it’s also the place from which we’re sent.
Having eaten the meal that was handed down to us from the very hands of Jesus,
we turn to feed one another, and this sharing and partaking doesn’t stop there.
We turn with our bread and our wine,
the body and blood of Christ,
and we seek to participate in reconciliation and radical welcome. Today, may you hear the invitation to the sacred meal as people gathered to encounter Jesus in the elements of the earth and sent by Jesus to share God’s love for the world.
Here is the table of the Lord,
We are gathered to Jesus’ last supper,
A foretaste of things eternal.
Come, when you are fearful, to be made new in love.
Come, when you are doubtful, to be made strong in faith.
Come, when you are regretful, to be made whole.
Come, old and young,
There is room for all.
Let us pray:
We engage our imaginations with your spirit, Loving God.
On the night of Jesus’ arrest,
He took bread and the wine, gave thanks, broke it and poured it out saying:
This is my body and blood. It is for you. Remember me.
Jesus, you are the bread that feeds us for the work of reconciliation,
May you be blessed forever.
Jesus, you are the true vine that makes our hearts glad and our lives safe,
May you be blessed forever.
Here at the table, all are welcome. For this encounter with you and with one another,
we give you thanks God.
Amen.
PRAYER
Paraphrased from Covenant Book of Worship
O God, you are our only true refuge, our steadfast shelter.
We seek you and need you God.
Even when we run from you; even when we wander long and far from your heart,
you continue to call us home.
May we remain in the resting place of your love.
Amen.
TEACHING & DISCUSSION NOTES
Anxiety
