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    Oct 04, 2015

    World Communion: La Familia de Dios (The Family of God)

    Passage: Genesis 1:27-28

    Speaker: Rev. Vivian McCarthy, Pastor

    Category: Grace, Diversity, Unity

    Keywords: communion, diversity, grace, unity

    World Communion reminds us that God's Table is wide and open to all of God's people. We pray with the scriptures that one day "all will be one."

    Some of the inspiration for this service was inspired by an NPR interview with Juan Felipe Herrera who began his term as US Poet Laureate on October 1, 2015.

    Mr. Herrera has initiated a project entitled Casa de Colores for which he is inviting contributions from people all over the US to contribute verses to an epic poem entitled La Familia - or The Family.  This project inspired me to invite others to collaborate on a World Communion Sunday poem entitled La Familia de Dios or The Family of God.  I invited my personal Facebook friends as well as colleagues (through a FB group of pastors) to submit a verse or two, and then I pulled together what I received, using this poem as the Call to Worship:

     La Familia de Dios
    For World Communion Sunday
    Contributors:  Bryant Oskvig, David Highfield, Joye Jones, Melissa Rudolph, Sarah Schlieckert, Vicky Starnes
    Gathered and Shaped by Vivian McCarthy
     
    God’s family.
    Born of love broader than any human mind,
    Born into grace deeper than deep,
    God’s family is vast and varied, colorful and curious
    Each and every face a brush-stroke in the image of God
     
    God’s family – like a salad!
    Lettuce and tomato, celery and a radish
    Avocado, chili pepper, corn
    Onions sliced thin, carrots grated fine
    Black beans, pineapple, even garlic.
    The tossed salad of humanity –
    Bound together by the tang and sweetness – dressed by God's grace
    Each part unique, each necessary,
    each a part of the whole.
     
    God’s family – reaching back, reaching forward.
    From generation to generation to generation learning the faith –
    even from the ones we never met.
    Visions and souls. Broken and whole.
    Offering to others what they grasped at for themselves.
    Generations blessed and burdened all the same.
     
    God’s family -- wider than wide
    Wall Street, Main Street,
    Wallets full, pockets empty
    Safe, secure, huddled against fear
    Five bedroom colonial with state-of-the-art theater
    A tent under the bridge.
    Hungry, filled
    Bound, free
    Citizen, stranger
    Crises and difference threaten borders, hearts, family.
     
    God’s family – God!
    Meets us at borders
    Shapes hearts
    Speaks, nudges, persists
    Loves – full-out – never steps, halves or quarters.
    Loving the whole
    Drawing the family to the Table of grace.

    La Familia de Dios - A Message in Scripture, Creed Story, Song and Bread

    A Litany:  The Hispanic Creed[ Note1] and For Everyone Born[Note 2]

    For everyone born, a place at the table, for everyone born, clean water and bread,a shelter, a space, a safe place for growing, for everyone born, a star overhead, and God will delight when we are creators of justice and joy, compassion and peace: yes, God will delight when we are creators of justice, justice and joy!

    We believe in God, the Father Almighty. Creator of the heavens and the earth; Creator of all peoples and all cultures; Creator of all tongues and races.

    For woman and man, a place at the table, revising the roles, deciding the share, with wisdom and grace, dividing the power, for woman and man, a system that's fair, and God will delight when we are creators of justice and joy, compassion and peace:  yes, God will delight when we are creators of justice, justice and joy!

    We believe in Jesus Christ, his Son, our Lord, God made flesh in a person for all humanity; God made flesh in an age for all the ages; God made flesh in one culture for all cultures; God made flesh in love and grace for all creation.

    For young and for old, a place at the table, a voice to be heard, a part in the song, the hands of a child in hands that are wrinkled, for young and for old, the right to belong, and God will delight when we are creators of justice and joy, compassion and peace:  yes, God will delight when we are creators of justice, justice and joy!

    We believe in the Holy Spirit, through whom God incarnate in Jesus Christ makes his presence known in our peoples and our cultures; through whom, God Creator of all that exists, gives us power to become new creatures; whose infinite gifts make us one people: the Body of Christ.

     We believe in the Church universal because it is a sign of God’s Reign, whose faithfulness is shown in its many hues, where all the colors paint a single landscape, where all tongues sing the same praise.

     For just and unjust, a place at the table, abuser, abused, with need to forgive, in anger, in hurt, a mindset of mercy, for just and unjust, a new way to live, and God will delight when we are creators of justice and joy, compassion and peace: yes, God will delight when we are creators of justice, justice and joy!

    We believe in the Reign of God—the day of the Great Fiesta, when all the colors of creation will form a harmonious rainbow, when all peoples will join in joyful banquet, when all tongues of the universe will sing the same song.

    And because we believe, we commit ourselves: to believe for those who do not believe, to love for those who do not love, to dream for those who do not dream, until the day when hope becomes reality.

    For everyone born, a place at the table, to live without fear, and simply to be, to work, to speak out, to witness and worship, for everyone born, the right to be free, and God will delight when we are creators of justice and joy, compassion and peace:  yes, God will delight when we are creators of justice, justice and joy!

    Scripture - Psalm 46:10-11

    10 "Be still, and know that I am God! I am exalted among the nations, I am exalted in the earth." 11 The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.

    The  "Bread” - Sticky Rice

    A Story from Vietnam [Note 3]

    During the Vietnam War, U.S. bombing missions wiped out entire mountain villages in Laos, killing many people.  Survivors were airlifted by U. S. planes to refugee camps in the hot valleys.  After the war, the people returned to their villages to rebuild their lives.  They were like pioneers needing to start from scratch.  But their land was neither virgin nor empty.  Bombs the size of tennis balls were buried in the fields where the people wished to plant rice, prepare gardens, and build homes.  They first had to clear the land of the “bombies” as they came to be called.

    Twelve years after the end of the war, a peacemaking team from the United States visited one of these mountain villages name Ban Ponsovan.  The villagers graciously prepared a feast for their guests.  The hosts served food on banana leaves and gave each guest a large soup spoon crafted from metal salvaged from a crashed U.S. plane.  One large common soup bowl served every four people; a common bowl of sticky rice was between every two people.  Everyone reached and ate from meats and hot sauces in the middle of the table.

    A government official commented to the U. S. team, “Look at those men down there eating with you people from America.  They could be very angry with you for what your country did to them in the war, but instead they receive you in friendship and eat with you.  They accept you as people just as you are – people who want peace and friendship in the world so we can all live together.”

    Scripture - Genesis 1:27-28a

    27 So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. 28 And God blessed them.

    The Bread - Tortillas

    A Story from El Salvador [Note 4]

    [Some people in our world] are “eating manna” and finding ways to multiply the few grains that they have.  They hope against hope and survive against great odds.  Kori Leaman-Miller wrote from El Salvador that people who have lived through house-to-house searches, death threats, torture, and war can say, “Isn’t God good!” and know it to be true.  “Old Lucia was one who said it.  With tears in her eyes, she told of fleeing army repression seven years earlier.  An old woman, she went without food or companionship for seventeen days.  She recalled her fear and hunger, but then added that somehow she had been able to sleep soundly every night.  “Isn’t God good!” she said.

    Scripture - Galatians 3:28

    28 There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.

    The Bread - Pita

    A Story from Palestine [Note 5]

    During special meals in Palestinian homes, the host frequently stands over the guests and keeps filling their plates – if they have plates – or piling the choice pieces of meat in front of them.  The only way to stop this generosity is to simply stop eating, amid protests of too much food and compliments of how good everything tastes.  Food left on the plate means one has had enough.  A clean plate indicates one is still hungry.

    Scripture - John 17:20-21

    Jesus said, "I ask…on behalf of those who will believe in me through [the word of the disciples], 21 that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 

    Acknowledgements:

    [1 From Fiesta Cristiana, Recursos para la Adoración: Resources for Worship by Joel Raquel Martinez.  Published by Abingdon Press.

    [2] For Everyone Born, a Place at the Table by Shirley Erena Murray.  Used by permission.  CCLI # 1011499

    [3] Martha Zimmerly in Extending the Table: A World Community Cookbook  (Revised Edition), page 57, by Joeta Handrich Schlabach and Kristina Mast Burnett. Commissioned by Mennonite Central Committee. Published by Herald Press, Harrisonburg, Virginia, 2014.  Copyright © 2014 by Herald Press.

    [4] Extending the Table, page 47.

    [5] Extending the Table, page 313.