When the Israelites saw it, they said to one another, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was. Moses said to them, “It is the bread that the LORD has given you to eat.” The house of Israel called it manna…
Toward Sunday
We begin a new three-week worship series called Ekklesia this Sunday at The Table. Our worship will be rooted in Galatians 3.23-29. Here is a link to the text. Do you remember your own Baptism? Who was there? What happened? What, if any, is the significance of Baptism in your own life today? In turning to the text for this week, what does it mean to be “baptized into Christ”? What is the significance to you? In your understanding, what…
Prayers of the People
We begin a new worship series at The Table this week called Ekklesia. We’ll reflect together on what it means to be church, to be community. We’ll begin with Baptism on June 5 and then explore confirmation on June 12. Our final week, June 19, will focus on Ordination. As we move into further study of what it means to be ekklesia, for what do the people of God pray? For what do we give thanks? Who do we lift…
Active Listening
“My worry is that music, as an art form, is now so prevalent, we have forgotten how to listen actively. The music in the liturgy can all to easily become part of that..tapestry of sound that our culture creates in the malls, elevator, dentist office, iPhone, etc…I suppose it’s also part of the push in postVatican 2-life toward full, active, and conscious participation-which most often gets interpreted as of necessity moving one’s mouth. In reality, do we categorically comprehend music…
Music and Worship
Thomas H. Troeger writes: “A worshipping congregation is a different context from a secular concert. Just as changing the context in which we read the same words can lead us to see different meanings, so too hearing music as an act of prayer can bring out depths and possibilities that we miss when we listen to it purely as concert music” (Wonder Reborn). In what settings do you most often experience music? What might it be like for you to…
Jazz and Faith
Cornel West writes, Jazz is not just a music but “a mode of being in the world,” It is “an improvisational mode,”suspicious of “either/or” viewpoints, dogmatic pronouncements, or supremacist ideologies. . . . The interplay of individuality and unity is not one of uniformity and unanimity imposed from above but rather of conflict among diverse groupings that reach a dynamic consensus subject to questioning and criticism. As with a soloist with a jazz band, individuality is promoted in order to…
Playing Together
Author and musician Tom Piazza writes in The Guide to Classic Recorded Jazz: In a jazz group, as in any community, certain roles need to be filled. Someone has to play the melody, someone has to keep time, someone has to suggest the harmonic context. In jazz, each instrumentalist has to understand his or her role in the group well enough so that he or she can improvise on it and not just follow directions. Playing in a jazz group…
Toward Sunday
We’ll be led in worship this Sunday by The Harley White Jr. Orchestra. Join us at 10:30 am in the Sanctuary for Jazz Jubilee Worship at The Table. We’ll be rooting worship in the sounds of jazz and reading Psalm 66.8-20. Here is a link to the full text. The Psalmist begins with an invitation to praise God. What does praising God look like in your life? What role, if any, does music play for you in offering praise? The…
Called and Empowered
Below is an interview with Alexie Torres-Fleming in which she briefly tells her call story and outlines how her community began to reclaim their own neighborhood in the South Bronx. Where might God be calling you? How will you take a next step in moving toward that calling? [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgWagaZSjNo]
Hidden True Lives
“Ask Me” by William Stafford Some time when the river is ice ask me mistakes I have made. Ask me whether what I have done is my life. Others have come in their slow way into my thought, and some have tried to help or to hurt; ask me what difference their strongest love or hate has made. I will listen to what you say. You and I can turn and look at the silent river and wait. We know the…
Living into Our Callings
Marilyn was a speaker to Brian Mahan’s class. As a result of an epiphany of recruitment in her life she had served in Sri Llanka with the Peace Brigades but was now back teaching and writing. Mahan writes, An epiphany of recruitment is not an end in itself, it is an invitation to a different kind of life. It’s no use trying to extend the moment, or to recreate it. Nor need we flatten it out into some banal and…
Clarifying Steps
Parker Palmer writes, Within our denial of death lurks fear of another sort: the fear of failure. In most organizations, failure means a pink slip in your box, even if that failure, that “little death,” was suffered in the service of high purpose. It is interesting that science, so honored in our culture, seems to have transcended this particular fear. A good scientist does not fear the death of a hypothesis, because that “failure” clarifies the steps that need to…
Toward Sunday
Our worship on Sunday will be rooted in Psalm 31.1-5, 15-16. Read the full text here. Where are you feeling trapped? By desires? By loneliness? By fear? Like the Psalmist, when have you felt joy both ebb and flow in your relationship with God? Spend time reflecting on the text and these questions. For those involved in Kitchen Tables with a focus on searching the scriptures, what other questions emerged in your conversations?