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2019 National Gathering Closing Worship

Opening Song: “Come and Let Us Sing” by Israel & New Breed

Welcome, Census, and Remembering

We come from every corner of God’s creation,
We have brought our whole selves to this place,
Our bodies
Our hearts
Our souls
Our worries
Our doubts
Our dreams
Our questions
Our anger
Our fear
Our frustration
Our joy
We have come in our particularities
And in our communal stories
To be present
To be counted
To be celebrated
And to celebrate the love of the one who names and claim us:
And we name those who we want to remember, and bring into this sacred place:
We come to worship God.

Song: “Who You Say I Am” by Hillsong

Speaking Our Truth

Song: “Hungry” by Kathryn Scott

Filling the Font

From all the corners of our coming and going we bring our water:
Sacred
Ordinary
Life-giving water:
From taps
And snow caps
From seas
And ponds
Rainwater
And drinking water
Waters of life… we have migrated with this water
to this time and this place,
to pour into the common and sacred font,
to remember
and to be re-membered
to renew our covenant
with the God of the migrant and the exiled
with the God of water and life
with the God of mercy and grace.

Song: “All Who Are Thirsty” by Brenton Brown and Glenn Roberston

Invitation to the Offering

Song: “Good Good Father/Friend of God” by Trey McLaughlin

The Story

Spoken by Glenn McCray

Sermon

Rev. Eliana Maxim

Blessing & Sending

We remember the stories of our hearts
We listen to the stories of our siblings
We treasure that which unites us.
Our struggles
Our dreams
Our uncertainties
Our faithfulness
Our faithlessness
Our hopes
Our brokenness.

Yet at the font
We reclaim our name: ha’adam and place: adamah– human from earth.
We recommit to one another in our baptism;
Named, called, held by the One who created us
Strengthened, sustained, convicted by the One who loves us still

I am because we are
My story is incomplete without yours
And our story goes on still in
Caracas
Lagos
Flint
Yemen
Ferguson

Pyongyang
Tijuana
Kashmir
Washington DC

We came from across the map
We leave as children of the Triune God.
Come, remember your baptism.
Take a strip of fabric, proclaim the name of a child of God
and go from this place to live into our story,
and together we be the church.

Song:”Psalm 23 (I Am Not Alone)” by People & Songs

2019 National Gathering Tuesday Worship

Call to Worship

The things of our hearts, our society and our world do not sit nicely together.
They don’t well fit into the small compartments we imagine.
Sometimes, the dissonant chords we strike are the only thing that will shock us and wake us up.
These holy sounds will remind us that all is not well, and God desires to work through us.
May we allow the notes to strike without rushing to find resolution.
May we understand the gift of being uncomfortable,
And know that though the valley seems unbearable,
God does God’s best work in the dark, and cultivates seeds of healing in lament.
May the essence of our being be enough, and
May we see the glinting of possibility along our journey.

Hymn: Lead Me, Guide Me

Prayer of Confession

For those of us who live at the shoreline
standing upon the constant edges of decision
crucial and alone
for those of us who cannot indulge
the passing dreams of choice

who love in doorways coming and going
in the hours between dawns
looking inward and outward
at once before and after
seeking a now that can breed
futures
like bread in our children’s mouths
so their dreams will not reflect
the death of ours;

For those of us
who were imprinted with fear
like a faint line in the center of our foreheads
learning to be afraid with our mother’s milk
for by this weapon
this illusion of some safety to be found
the heavy-footed hoped to silence us
For all of us
this instant and this triumph
We were never meant to survive.

And when the sun rises we are afraid
it might not remain
when the sun sets we are afraid
it might not rise in the morning

when our stomachs are full we are afraid
of indigestion
when our stomachs are empty we are afraid
we may never eat again

when we are loved we are afraid
love will vanish
when we are alone we are afraid
love will never return

and when we speak we are afraid
our words will not be heard
nor welcomed
but when we are silent
we are still afraid…

Assurance of Grace

Our lives are full in the hands of a tender God,
The One who is more concerned with the thriving of God’s people than their surviving.
So it is better to speak
remembering
we were never meant to survive.

Wild Geese

by Mary Oliver

Scripture: Matthew 15:21-28 (MSG)

From there Jesus took a trip to Tyre and Sidon. They had hardly arrived when a Canaanite woman came down from the hills and pleaded, “Mercy, sir, Son of David! My daughter is cruelly afflicted by an evil spirit.” Jesus ignored her. The disciples came and complained, “Now she’s bothering us. Would you please take care of her? She’s driving us crazy.” Jesus refused, telling them, “I’ve got my hands full dealing with the lost sheep of Israel.” Then the woman came back to Jesus, went to her knees, and begged. “Sir, help me.” He said, “It’s not right to take bread out of children’s mouths and throw it to dogs.” She was quick: “You’re right, sir, but beggar dogs do get scraps from the provider’s table.” Jesus gave in. “Oh, woman, your faith is something else. What you want is what you get!” Right then her daughter became well.

Contemporary Voice: Rev. Dr. Katie Geneva Cannon

Video 1: 0 to min. 1; 9:17 to 9:37
Video 2: all

Scripture: Ruth 1: 19-22 (MSG)

And so the two of them traveled on together to Bethlehem. When they arrived in Bethlehem the whole town was soon buzzing: “Is this really our Naomi? And after all this time!” But she said, “Don’t call me Naomi; call me Bitter. The Strong One has dealt me a bitter blow. I left here full of life, and God has brought me back with nothing but the clothes on my back. Why would you call me Naomi? God certainly doesn’t. The Strong One ruined me.” And so Naomi was back, and Ruth the foreigner with her, back from the country of Moab. They arrived in Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.

Anthem: Total Praise

Sermon: Bitter

Song: Joyful Joyful

Communion

Invitation to the Table

#SayHerName is a justice movement to increase awareness for Black womxn victims of police brutality and anti-Black violence in the United States. The movement exists to address the consistent invisibilization of Black womxn within mainstream media.

Words of Institution

Sharing of the Bread and Cup

Prayer of Thanksgiving

Out of your great abundance and grace you have fed us, Holy One, sparing none the delight of your gifts and presence in Jesus Christ. Thank you, O God, for one more time! One more time to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with you. Now, may we live as you taught us to pray:

Our Parent, who is among us, blessed be your Creation.
May your loving presence be a reality here on earth.
May we become more interested in building your kin-dom here and now than in waiting for it to come down from above.
Let us share our bread with those who hunger.
Let us learn to forgive as well as to receive forgiveness.
Help us through the time of temptation, delivering us from all evil.
For ours are the eternal blessings that you pour upon the earth.
Amen.

Closing Song: Great Is Your Faithfulness

Embracing Mara

Each month, we post a series of blogs around a common topic. This month, Jessica Tate and Jen James are curating a series featuring videos from National Gatherings and suggestions for how they might serve as resources for ministry. We’re revisiting speakers from this most recent National Gathering in Seattle as well as speakers from previous years. Our hope is that inviting you to engage (or reengage) their work might invite deeper reflection and possibly yield more fruit. What is taking root and bearing fruit in your own life and ministry? We invite you to join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter!

In her sermon at the 2019 National Gathering in Seattle, Rev. Dr. Kelle Brown preaches on the subject “Bitter,” referring to the name Naomi claims for herself in the book of Ruth. Attending to the truth told in this sermon might be a practice to consider this Holy Week as an individual practice of devotion, or with a small group.

Dr. Brown calls the church to take time for lament, viewing lament as a gift from God and a way to connect to God. Lament offers “the chance to weep bitterly at the state of the world, the circumstances and challenges that affect us all. Our neglect of lament has somehow changed us and thwarted our spiritual lives.” Dr. Brown challenges our desire to jump over Good Fridays and right to Easter. She contends that resisting the dissonance of lament and holding pain, prevents us from getting to the sacrifice or the liberation.

Take time in lament over the state of the world without trying to find a silver lining or a solution. Be present to the pain.

Naomi and Ruth are two of the first womanist theologians, Dr. Brown argues. When Naomi names herself Mara, she didn’t worry about comforting anyone else, but claimed her own space. She told her own truth. Dr. Brown exhorts the church to call her by her chosen name —

Honor her trauma.
Prioritize her.
Hear the words she is saying in between the words she does say.
Co-conspire with her.
Check our salaries and compare them with hers for equity’s sake.

Dr. Brown says there will be no forward movement if we do not embrace mara.

What is one way you can embrace mara this week, as Dr. Brown suggests?

Dr. Brown believes Ruth came from a womanist society “where she knew that being by yourself in the African context is the same as being dead. If she went back, Naomi would be alone. She knew Mara needed to have somebody to have her back.” Dr. Brown turns to the present day and says we need to learn how to have one another’s backs, to build trust, and to support the most vulnerable among us. The story of Naomi/Mara and Ruth is a story of redemption, but not for them, she says. “It is a story of redemption for the people who did not know how to welcome and listen to them. Solidarily is the order of the day.”

Reflect on the ways in which you turn toward individualism rather than solidarity.

A theme throughout the sermon is that we cannot be church together if we can’t tell the truth. Dr. Brown concludes that sermon by saying, she wants the church to be a place where nobody has to worry about what they have on or whether they have a degree or not or whether they walked up or drove up. She wants a church “that has a pastor that looks like me sometimes.” Her final line is, “I am loving you by telling my truth.”

Reflect on what defense mechanisms you use when someone else’s truth conflicts with your own. How do you overcome those defenses? How do you create the space to hear another’s truth and be changed by it?

Dr. Brown says, “The gift of the black sacred tradition is that you don’t want joy all the time. God will be the one to push you through to the otherside.” May it be so.

2019 National Gathering Keynote: Tali Hairston

Tali Hairston, Senior Advisor for Community Engagement at the Seattle Presbytery, gives a keynote presentation on community at the 2019 NEXT Church National Gathering in Seattle.

2019 National Gathering Monday Opening Worship

Welcome & Opening Prayer

Song: All Creatures of Our God and King

Song: We Worship You

Scripture: Ruth 1:1-19

Sermon Part 1: The Story Behind the Story

Response: Holding the Threads of Our Story

Sermon Part 2: Memories Long Held

Kriah: Tearing of Cloth

Video available here.

Confession & Assurance

Song: From the Depths of Woe

Scripture: Hebrews 12:12-16

Read in Spanish from the NTV translation.

Sermon Part 3: Aspiring to be Community

Weaving Our Stories Together: Tying of Cloth

Song: 10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord)

Song: I Then Shall Live

Benediction

2019 National Gathering Bible Study Worksheet

This is the worksheet bible study leader Becky Purcell put together for the 2019 National Gathering. The sheet is intended to be folded in thirds. The back is largely empty for use in taking notes.

From These Roots: Finding the Herstory in the History

At St. Mark Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach, CA, pastor Mark Davis and his congregation are following a theme during Advent called “From These Roots.” Each week, they focus on a different #herstory about Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba, the four women named in Matthew’s genealogy. Here is Mark’s explanation of the series.

Matthew begins his gospel with a genealogy of forty-two generations, from Abraham to Jesus. Some of the names in that genealogy offer glimpse of who Jesus is, even before the birth narrative itself. There are some obvious candidates, starting with Abraham, with whom God made the covenant (Genesis 12:1-3). There’s also Judah, called a “lion” and a “lioness” by his father Israel, from whose tribe one would emerge bearing a scepter and staff (Genesis 49:8-12). And while King David’s stock has a lot of meaning in itself, the genealogy identifies David as the son of Jesse, bringing to mind Isaiah’s great promise, “A shoot shall come out of the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots” (Isaiah 11:1-3) In the end, the point of Matthew’s genealogy is less about history and more about theology, bringing to life the storied promises of the past.

There are some names in the genealogy whose stories may be less well known, but worth remembering during the season of Advent. Within the genealogy of forty-two males, there are also four women, three of whom are named and one of whom is not. One idea for Advent would be to devote one Sunday to each of these women, to hear their backstories, and to listen for how their stories also shape the theological identity of the one who is born out of this lineage.

First, there’s Tamar. The genealogy reads that Judah was “the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar.” At first glance, it reads like a wholesome nuclear family of Daddy, Mommy, and the twins. The backstory, in Genesis 28, presents quite a different portrait, since Tamar is not Judah’s spouse but his daughter-in-law. In the end, Tamar’s story is a tragic and valiant story of a woman who is caught in a patriarchal system, denied justice by Judah on whom she is dependent within that system, blamed for the deaths of her first two husbands even though the narrator clearly lays the blame on their own sinfulness and God’s punishment, and who must exact her own bit of justice by risking her life and selling her body.

Next there is Rahab, the Mata Hari of the ancient near east. Rahab’s backstory begins in the 2nd chapter of Joshua and is completed in the 6th chapter. She was a sex trade worker living in the city of Jericho when Israel sent two spies to scope out the city before attacking it. She lied, she betrayed her own people, and she hid the spies before helping them escape – because she recognized God’s hand in it. Now viewed as a paragon of faith, Rahab survived the battle of Jericho and returns in Matthew’s genealogy as the great-great grandmother of King David.

Then, there’s Ruth. As the great-grandmother of King David, Ruth has an entire book devoted to her story. It begins with tragedy and turns when Ruth makes the compassionate decision not to abandon her mother-in-law to survive widowhood on her own. Compassionate, beautiful, and clever, Ruth becomes the second foreigner to become part of this family tree.

And then there’s the unnamed woman, described in the line, “David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah.” Raped by King David, who then has her husband murdered and takes her into his palace to display his royal chivalry, Bathsheba’s story is the ultimate #metoo story. Even in the genealogy, her name is omitted and her identity absorbed into the three men who shaped her life. Yet, Bathsheba survives and ultimately ensures that her son becomes the next king after David’s death. Bathsheba’s story is a story of survival and power.

Imagine the difference it makes to remember that when Jesus is born he has Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba’s DNA running through his veins. Imagine the difference it makes to let the story of these women shape the theological identity of who this Messiah is, what the represents, and how he comes to save us.

In addition, Mark’s church put up an art installation to accompany the series and season (pictured here). A photo of the installation is on the bulletin cover each week. Mark also wrote a song called “From These Roots” that they’ve used as the prayer of illumination each week.