18 February 2025 – Chapel – Drew Theo Chapel

Processional

“We’re Marching for Freedom”
(Words: Anonymous, Tune: Robert Lowry, UMH 733)

Come, we anxious ones, And let our groans be heard.
We’re Children of the Greatest One, We’re Children of the Loving One;
Who calls us to be one, Who calls us to be one.

Chorus: We’re marching for freedom; Wonderful, flowing and free;
We’re marching onward to freedom, In hope and revelry.

Sing against all fear; And raise your spirits high!
As Children of the Greatest One; As Children of the Loving One,
We’ll sing our cause aloud, We’ll sing our cause aloud.

Chorus: We’re marching for our Truth, adamant, clear and strong.
We’re marching for Truth-telling, Proclaiming all day long.

The goal for which we aim, Makes sacred our tears.
The nurturing breasts of the Greater One, The strong hands of the Loving One,
Will turn our tears to joy, Will turn our tears to joy.

Chorus: We’re stomping for victory; Hopeful, persistent, and bold,
We’re stomping forward for victory, No longer out in the cold.

So let us all abound, And wipe each other’s eyes.
We’re moving through Immanuel’s ground, We’re moving through Immanuel’s ground
To a just world on earth. A more just world on earth.

Chorus: We’re creating our God’s world; A just and loving Kin-dom;
Co-creators of God’s world; As beautiful Children of God

Introduction

The Intercultural Committee (ICC) welcomes all persons to Chapel today. The ICC’s mandate, by faculty consensus, is a project to decenter US-Eurocentrism and address its extension around the globe. This mandate informs today’s Chapel service.We invite all members of the Theo School community to gather in solidarity with vulnerable ones in our midst and with all our vulnerabilities. We gather as a multicultural collective of responders to the current environment in the US, and also concerned for the global impact of developments here. In today’s worship we will “Groan”, “Condemn”, “Resist and Hope”.

We invite our online worshippers to have handy: a small blank bit of paper for writing and a small container of water nearby.

Also, we welcome special visitors from the United Methodist Church today. We hope your time among us at Drew will be successful and your worship time with us be deeply meaningful.

One more announcement, tomorrow Wednesday, February 19, we continue to mourn Mercy Oduori in a memorialization ceremony. Her sister Grace Oduori will be with us and together we will honor Mercy, Grace and the Oduori family. It begins at 12:00 pm in the atrium where we invite all the community to gather for a ceremony of blessing and then to the DUTS garden for a planting ceremony. After chapel today there will be memorial ribbons available in the atrium. Please take a ribbon, write a message on it ahead of taking it to the garden tomorrow.

We Groan

Invocation

Selections from Psalms 122 and 123.

ONE: I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord!”

ALL: Our feet are standing within your gates, O Jerusalem.

ONE: To it the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord. For there the thrones for judgement were set up., the thrones of the House of David.

ALL: Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy upon us, for we have had more than enough of contempt. Our souls have had more than its fill of the scorn of those who are at ease, of the contempt of the proud.

Moment of Quiet

Contributed Reading:

Daesung Jang – Korean Poem “Prologue” by Yun Dong-ju

Opening Prayer

Selected Verses from Lamentations
ALL: Those who are against us without cause have hunted us like birds; they flung us alive into a pit and hurled stones at us; water closed over our heads; We said, “We are lost.”

ONE: We call on your name, O Lord. Make your Spirit known among us! Do not, Oh please! Do not close your ear to our plea.
You have heard their taunts, their boasts. You have seen their plots. The blovations of our assailants are against us all day long! Their malicious taunts are ever present.

ALL: Moment of pained breathing!

ONE: You have come near, O Lord. We called on you and you said, “Do not fear! Do not fear!

ALL: Moment of quiet, deep breathing.

Musical Expression

“Arirang” – Yeongrok Choi/Hayoung Kim

Contributed Readings

Jey Sanyangore (Shona) – Ps. 23:1-6
Elliot J. Weidenaar (Dutch) – The Lukan Beatitudes Reimagined
Francis Osuji – The Lord’s Prayer

We Condemn

Exodus 23:1-6

(Selected Verses) – Katherine Brown
You shall not spread a false report, join with the wicked to act as a malicious witness, pervert justice, kill the innocent and those in the right. You shall not oppress a resident alien; you know the heart of an alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.

Contributed Readings

Cam Manangan (Philippines) – Micah 6:8
Aun Lin – A Prayer for Land by Thich Nhat Hanh
Imam Saffet Catovic – Qur’an 49:13

We Resist

Congregational Song

“Wade in the Water,” FWS 2107
Words/Music: Negro Spiritual

Wade in the water, wade in the water, children,
wade in the water, God’s a-gonna trouble the water.
Wade in the water, wade in the water, children,
wade in the water, God’s a-gonna trouble the water.

Contributed Readings:

América written and read by Maria Caronila Alderete

Let Your Resistance Begin with Release

Now we invite you to write your concern, fear, hope, commitments on the sheets provided. As soon as you finish writing, go to a calabash gourd station where there is a bowl of water. With a prayer in your heart, leave your page (whole or torn) to mingle with other prayers pages in the water. “Water is not your enemy. Rather, it is your life.”