12 September 2024 – Chapel – Drew Theo Chapel

Gathering Music

“When There’s Trust in the Room”

Centering Litany

Nyasha Jeche

Adapted from Katherine Hawker, Liturgy Outside

Leader: The vine emerges from the earth,
All: nourished and nourishing.
Leader: Rises without visible connection;
All: roots hidden, promise unknown.
Leader: Strong to withstand storms,
All: fragile when plucked too soon.
Leader: So it is that we grow, nourished by invisible connections to the living God,
All: called to nourish that which is seen and that which is yet buried within.

Opening Song. “Help Us Accept Each Other”

Reading

Excerpt from “The Council of Pecans,” Robin Wall Kimmerer

For mast fruiting to succeed in generating new forests, each tree has to make lots and lots of nuts—so many that it overwhelms the would-be seed predators. If a tree just plodded along making a few nuts every year, they’d all get eaten and there would be no next generation of pecans. But given the high caloric value of nuts, the trees can’t afford this outpouring every year—they have to save up for it, as a family saves up for a special event. Mast-fruiting trees spend years making sugar, and rather than spending it little by little, they stick it under the proverbial mattress, banking calories as starch in their roots.
When the account has a surplus, only then could my Grandpa bring
home pounds of nuts. This boom and bust cycle remains a playground of hypotheses
for tree physiologists and evolutionary biologists. Forest ecologists hypothesize that mast fruiting is the simple outcome of this energetic equation: make fruit only when you can afford it. That makes sense.
But trees grow and accumulate calories at different rates depending on their habitats. So, like the settlers who got the fertile farmland, the fortunate ones would get rich quickly and fruit often, while their shaded neighbors would struggle and only rarely have an abundance, waiting for years to reproduce. If this were true, each tree would fruit on its own schedule, predictable by the size of its reserves of stored starch. But they don’t. If one tree fruits, they all fruit—there are no soloists. Not one tree in a grove, but the whole grove; not one grove in the forest, but every grove; all across the county and all across the state. The trees act not as individuals, but somehow as a collective. Exactly how they do this, we don’t yet know. But what we see is the power of unity. What happens to one happens to us all. We can starve together or feast together. All flourishing is mutual.

Scripture Reading – John 15:1-8

Camille Bianca Sumera Manangan

15‘I am the true vine, and God, my parent, is the vine-grower. 2God removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit God prunes to make it bear more fruit. 3You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. 4Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. 5I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. 6Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. 7If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8God, my parent, is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.

Anthem

Seminary Choir

Sermon

“Eat Light”

Dr. Melanie Johnson-DeBaufre

Musical Response

Sacrament of Holy Communion

Dr. Melanie Johnson-DeBaufre
Communion Servers: Alison Johnson, Priscille Hassa Malandji

Liturgy adapted from Thom M. Shuman, Lectionary Liturgies

May the God of the Vineyard be with you.
And also with you.
Bring your hearts to the One who loves you.
We offer them so God may plant fruit-bearing seeds in them.
Lift songs of praise to our God.
We join our hearts and voices in praise.

Your Word, your Spirit called forth life out of chaos,
planting seeds that branched into vines,
pouring clear water into earth’s hollows,
crafting us in your imaginative image.
You showed all of this to us, with delight in your heart,
but we did not understand what we were seeing,
and so chose a way of desolation and despair.
Though we loved you last, you loved us first,
sending your prophets to declare all you had done,
but we continued to abide
in the tangled briars of temptation.
So you sent Jesus to us,
One who would bear your fruit
of salvation and hope for all your children.

With all those seeking to understand your hopes,
we lift our songs of thanksgiving to you.

Holy, holy, holy are you, God of Vine and Branches.
All creation bears fruit in glorifying you.
Hosanna in the highest!
Blessed is the One who comes to abide in us.
Hosanna in the highest!

Love is your language of holiness, Branch-weaving God,
And Jesus Christ, our Savior is the true Vine of your heart.
When we were wandering lost and alone,
trying to understand what we were doing,
he crossed over glory to join us
in this journey we know as life.

On the night in which Jesus was betrayed,
he took bread, grain from the field, gave thanks to you, broke the bread,
gave it to his disciples, and said:
“Take, eat; this is my body which is given for you.
Do this in remembrance of me.”

When the supper was over, Jesus took the cup, fruit of the vine,
gave thanks to you, gave it to his disciples, and said:
“Drink from this, all of you;
this is my cup of the new covenant,
poured out for you and for many
for the forgiveness of sins.
Do this, as often as you drink it,
in remembrance of me.”

As we seek to abide in Jesus,
as we long to bear fruit in the kingdom,
we speak of the mystery known as faith:

Christ died, that we might live through him;
Christ was raised, that he might live through you;
Christ will come, that all might live through eternity with you.

Abide in us at this Table,
as you pour out your Spirit
on the gifts of the bread and cup,
and on your children gathered in this place.
Then, when we are gathered around your Table
with our siblings across all time and places,
we will join in singing with one voice and heart,
“You have done it, God in Community, Holy in One.”
Amen.

The broken bread reminds us
that you loved us first so that,
we might put the needs
of the hungry, the searching,
the hurting, the lonely before our own.
The cup of grace nourishes us
so we join the oppressed and the lonely,
intertwining our branches with theirs,
so we all become part
of the Vine of justice and of hope.
Amen.

Sharing in the Bread and Cup

Hymns During Communion
“Come to the Table of Grace” – Mark Miller

Come to the table of grace.
Come to the table of grace.
This is God’s table; it’s not yours or mine.
Come to the table of grace.
Come to the table of peace.
Come to the table of peace.
This is God’s table; it’s not yours or mine.
Come to the table of peace.
Come to the table of love.
Come to the table of love.
This is God’s table; it’s not yours or mine.
Come to the table of love.
Come to the table of joy.
Come to the table of joy.
This is God’s table; it’s not yours or mine.

Come to the table of joy.

“Can Anything Anywhere Hinder God’s Love” – Words: David Bjorlin, Music: Mark Miller