We are gathered today on the occupied territory of the Sana and Tonkawa People who have stewarded this land for generations.
Taizé Worship
Welcome to worship at Treehouse. Tonight we will worship in the style of the Taize Community in France, an ecumenical monastic community committed to peace. This style of worship is quiet and contemplative, with a “grand silence” in the middle for your own prayer, meditation, or reflection. Allow your spirits to settle into the mystery and stillness of this worship. God welcomes you here tonight.
Deep Peace
Nothing can Trouble
Christ, Our Peace
Give us, Lord, a New Heart
Reading Psalm 8
Lord, our Lord, how majestic
is your name throughout the earth!
You made your glory higher than heaven!
2 From the mouths of nursing babies
you have laid a strong foundation
because of your foes,
in order to stop vengeful enemies.
3 When I look up at your skies,
at what your fingers made—
the moon and the stars
that you set firmly in place—
4 what are human beings
that you think about them;
what are human beings
that you pay attention to them?
5 You’ve made them only slightly less than divine,
crowning them with glory and grandeur.
6 You’ve let them rule over your handiwork,
putting everything under their feet—
7 all sheep and all cattle,
the wild animals too,
8 the birds in the sky,
the fish of the ocean,
everything that travels the pathways of the sea.
9 Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name throughout the earth!
Reading Hebrews 1:1-4, 2:5-12
In the past, God spoke through the prophets to our ancestors in many times and many ways. 2 In these final days, though, he spoke to us through a Son. God made his Son the heir of everything and created the world through him. 3 The Son is the light of God’s glory and the imprint of God’s being. He maintains everything with his powerful message. After he carried out the cleansing of people from their sins, he sat down at the right side of the highest majesty. 4 And the Son became so much greater than the other messengers, such as angels, that he received a more important title than theirs.
5 God didn’t put the world that is coming (the world we are talking about) under the angels’ control. 6 Instead, someone declared somewhere, What is humanity that you think about them? Or what are the human beings that you care about them? 7For a while you made them lower than angels. You crowned the human beings with glory and honor. 8 You put everything under their control. When he puts everything under their control, he doesn’t leave anything out of control. But right now, we don’t see everything under their control yet. 9 However, we do see the one who was made lower in order than the angels for a little while—it’s Jesus! He’s the one who is now crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of his death. He suffered death so that he could taste death for everyone through God’s grace. 10 It was appropriate for God, for whom and through whom everything exists, to use experiences of suffering to make perfect the pioneer of salvation. This salvation belongs to many sons and daughters whom he’s leading to glory. 11 This is because the one who makes people holy and the people who are being made holy all come from one source. That is why Jesus isn’t ashamed to call them brothers and sisters when he says, 12 I will publicly announce your name to my brothers and sisters. I will praise you in the middle of the assembly.
The Grand Silence
You are invited to enter into a time of silence, prayer, and contemplation. If you are unsure how to do this, you might a) try speaking to God as if speaking to a friend; b) quiet your mind by slowly repeat a phrase from one of the songs or readings from tonight; or c) allow your mind to wander back over your day, asking yourself where you felt most full of life and where you felt most drained, then considering how God was present in both of those experiences.
Prayers
In these early days after the resurrection, we wonder what it all means.
We can relate to the women who fled the tomb with terror and amazement.
We understand Thomas and his need for proof that would come
only by touching the wounds and seeing the nail marks.
We understand the fear and confusion that kept the disciples in the shadow cast by closed doors.
We also keep company with the travelers on the Emmaus road
who felt the strange burning of the truth and hope and love
weaving into the sadness that consumed them on their walk.
We find ourselves in the eternal movement
between fear and faith, doubt and conviction, wonder and worry,
and we trust that you are present with us, O God.
We trust that like the disciples we will be able to stand
and tell the whole message about this life that:
Love is stronger than hate
Life has the final word over death
Beyond what we can see with our eyes,
there is a bond of humanness that draws and keeps us together.
In the midst there are also voices of reason and peace;
perhaps they speak in whispers, but they speak nonetheless.
May those whispers rise to shouts
that proclaim the way forward with words and not weapons.
As the machines of greed and war trample the world and its peoples,
we remember that there are seeds of justice and love and goodness and grace
that are planted and watered every moment of every day.
We give thanks for those who:
– rise early in the morning to prepare food at countless soup kitchens around the world;
– search the night streets for lost children and shepherd them to places of safety;
– keep watch amidst the sick and dying in countless hospitals and in countless places;
– speak words of compassion in the face of hate.
It is a complicated and frightening world.
Strengthen us as we stand and bear witness to this whole life,
the life of the Risen One,
even Jesus Christ Our Lord. Amen.
Final Prayer –
If the God who raised Jesus from the dead is for us, who dare be against us?
We can do all things through Christ who strengthens us.
Step out into the world in humble confidence:
there is nothing about to happen that God has not foreseen,
and no situation where Christ will not be there ahead of you,
preparing a place and an opportunity for you.
Thanks be to God.
The peace of God, which goes beyond all understanding,
keep your hearts and minds
in the knowledge of God, and of Jesus Christ, God’s Son.
And the blessing of God all-loving,
the Creator, Redeemer and Counsellor,
will be with you now and always. Amen!
Final song – In Silence We Wait
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