Gathering Music

For Everyone Born
Words: Shirley Erena Murray
OneLicense #A-729109

For everyone born, a place at the table,
for everyone born, clean water and bread,
a shelter, a space, a safe place for growing,
for everyone born, a star overhead,

Refrain:
And God will delight when we are creators
of justice and joy, compassion and peace:
yes, God will delight when we are creators
of justice, justice and joy!

For young and for old, a place at the table,
a voice to be heard, a part in the song,
the hands of a child in hands that are wrinkled,
for young and for old, the right to belong, (Refrain)

For everyone born, a place at the table,
to live without fear, and simply to be,
to work, to speak out, to witness and worship,
for everyone born, the right to be free, (Refrain)

Trans Day of Visibility/Remembrance Moment

Rae Guthrie

Opening Song

“The Village” – Wrabel

Opening Prayer

Cam Manangan

Scripture Reading – Luke 24:13-35

Hawk Ricketts

Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, “What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?” They stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?” He asked them, “What things?” They replied, “The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place. Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, and when they did not find his body there they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but they did not see him.” Then he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.
As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. But they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.” So he went in to stay with them. When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him, and he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?” That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem, and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. They were saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!” Then they told what had happened on the road and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

Leader: The Word of God for the people of God.
All: Thanks be to God.

Sermon

Nate Roark

TDOR Creed

Rin McLaughlin

Written by Jesi Lipp (they/them), Great Plains UMC

We believe in the Creator, who made the day and the night, not separate but continually transforming into each other, and thus also gave us the dawn and the twilight, neither day nor night.

We believe in Jesus, the Child of the Creator, who is fully human and fully divine, challenging our simple understandings of biology; who before his disciples was wholly transfigured beyond their comprehension and beyond ours; who was tortured and murdered by religious authorities and the government for being who he was called to be; who was resurrected and returned to a body so changed that his dearest friends did not recognize him.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, who does not take one shape but many, coming to us in the form of a dove and of wind and of fire; who guides us into being the truest version of ourselves.

We believe in the God who revealed to Abraham and Sarah and Peter and Paul that their true name was not the one they had been assigned at birth; a God who does not make mistakes, because transgender people are not a mistake, but in their transness show us the image of a transformational and transcendent God.

We know that each of us, as the Church, is called to continual transformation so that we may transform the world. We know that, in that calling, we must work to dismantle systems that attempt to erase our beloved trans siblings from existence.

We believe in forgiveness and reconciliation, which unite us in a new understanding of what it is to be human. We believe in eternal life, in which we will all be made wonderfully and queerfully new in the Kindom where God reigns forever.

Prayers of the People

Elizabeth Monkemeier

In the midst of all that keeps our spirits frantic, overwhelmed, or troubled, we pause.

We pause to remember each other as those whose precious and precarious lives are inherently bound together.
We pause to remember the basic gifts of water, of trees, of beauty, of the land we gather upon.
We pause to remember our neighbors – distant and near.

And so to the One who is Love, we bring the prayers of our communities. Where we share in joy or concern, let us respond together, “God, hear our prayers.”

We pray…

for all the queer, trans, and intersex children and youth across the globe. For the ones who are struggling with feelings of isolation and shame. For those who have no safe place or people to retreat to. For those who must be teachers to the adults in their lives. For those who are unsafe in their communities.

God, hear our prayers.

We pray for our elders whose labor we are indebted to. For the ones who never tasted the freedom they fought for. For the ones who were forced to the fringes of their own movements. For the allies who suffered beside us, casting their lot with us in true solidarity. For the ones forgotten and betrayed.

God, hear our prayers.

We pray for all those who hunger for justice and liberation today. For the ones who lay down their lives for their friends. For the ones who tell the truth. For the ones who take risks, who dream, who feed and pray, who fight for bread and roses, both. For the ones who are eager to learn and grow and offer their gifts to the work of enfleshing your dreams.

God, hear our prayers.

We pray for all who are suffering in the church and the world at the hands of white supremacy. For those imprisoned by the state. For those whose land has been taken. For the earth that groans beneath us. For those without food or housing. For those who have yet to repent.

God, hear our prayers.

We pray in gratitude for all that nourishes and sustains us. For the gifts of beauty and friendship, shared meals, and art, and love. For laughter. For pleasure. For the friends, lovers, and comrades who lift our spirits, always by our side when the days are heavy. For the freedom we have in Christ.

God, hear our prayers.

For your presence within and around us, in our highs and lows, our hope and our despair, God, we give you thanks. Hear our prayers and deepen our willingness to show up with and for one another, sharing in each other’s burdens and working for one another’s protection and care.
Amen.

Musical Response

“Child of God”
Words & Music: Mark A. Miller, OneLicense #A-729109

No matter what people say
Say, or think about me
I am a child, I am a child of God!

No matter what people say
Say, or think about you
You are a child,
You are a child of God!

And there is no thing
Or no one who can separate
They can’t separate
You from the truth that
You’re someone you are family
You are meant to be
A child, a child of God

No matter what the world says
Says, or think about me
I am a child, I am a child of God!

No matter what the government says
Decisions, pronouncements on you
You are a child,
You are a child of God!

And there is no thing
Or no one who can separate
They can’t separate
You from the truth that
You’re someone you are family
You are meant to be
A child, a child of God

Sacrament of Holy Communion

Rev. Dr. Dorothee Benz
Servers: Pam Faatz, Nate Roark

From Celebrating Life: Progressive Liturgy that Transforms 2009, Church within a Church, Edited by Vernice Thorn

The Eucharist, Communion, the Lord’s Supper. It goes by many names, and its interpretation is as varied as the movements and cultures of the Christian faith. But the sacrament of Holy Communion is a ritual that all Christians value and practice to one degree or another. For many, if not most, it is the very center of the Christian worship experience. It involves receiving bread or a wafer and wine or grape juice as a recollection of what the Bible says was an action of Jesus. The Biblical story says that on the night before his crucifixion Jesus was sharing a final meal – very likely a Seder-like meal – with his followers. That meal on the first night of Passover would evolve in a later time into the Seder, the ritual meal shared at the beginning of Passover, the Jewish commemoration of liberation from Egyptian slavery at the time of Moses. In the midst of that celebratory meal, Jesus is described as interrupting the proceedings with the institution of the
sacrament.

From the earliest times, Christians have remembered that ritual using a variety of liturgies or interpretations. What follows is a contribution to that variety.

The Invitation
Let’s be clear. It is Christ who is host at this table. It is God who provides the elements. When we understand that truth we understand who is to be included at this meal. Any child of God – anyone who has known the power of brokenness and the hope of new life – that person is invited. No church or authority dare deny access to one of God’s children. Every expression of the diverse image of God created in humanity – every age, every size, every color, every sex, every gender, every sexual orientation – is welcome here. You don’t qualify because you understand. Who really understands this mystery? You qualify because you choose to respond, not because you belong to a particular church or have a particular understanding. Come to the feast!

The Words of Institution
Even from the scriptural accounts, it doesn’t seem like Jesus wanted to start a new religious ritual when he first lifted the bread and cup. It’s more like he wanted to help his friends understand something about what was going to happen the next day, something about life beyond that next day, something about all of life, and something about God.
He lifted the bread – that normal, most basic of foods – he held it up in order that all those sisters and brothers who had followed him off and on for the three years of his ministry might see. He wanted them to see the beauty of the bread. Bread in its wholeness is beautiful. It is an expression of the harmony of a wonderfully diverse creation coming together like a symphony. It is sunlight and rain, seed and soil, patience, impatience, human sweat and toil, an oven’s searing heat, and nature’s cooling breezes – all working, playing together. It is a wonder.

And then he broke it. He tore it apart and said, “This is the way it is, the way it has been, the way it will be. The beauty that God creates is broken. It will be broken on that cross tomorrow but it is broken again and again in your lives and in history. Every injustice, every act of bigotry, every rampaging disease, every famine, every abuse of human life or creation’s balance is the brokenness of my body, this loaf, all of the cosmos, again and again.”

And then he said, “Take and eat.” That’s right, eat. Know that you can eat; you can be fed, even when you’re broken, even when the world is broken. God sets it up that way. You’re not alone, not even there. You don’t need to run from the brokenness; you can enter it, you can live even there. Take, receive, eat.

We hold that brokenness, weep over it, rage at it. And even as we do, Jesus lifts the cup. And he says, “This is the way it can be. This is the cup of the new covenant, a new promise. It is my very life energy – my blood, and it is poured out for you! Why? Because God won’t let the brokenness have the last word. The wild, intoxicating cup of life has the last word: resurrection not crucifixion. See how, even now – as you dip the jagged edges of that morsel of bread into the cup – the healing begins. The promise surrounds and begins the transformation of the wounds. Take and drink this cup poured out for you and for many for the healing of the brokenness – which is what the forgiveness of sin is really all about.”

The statistical odds aren’t with the cup, they’re with the brokenness. But be assured, God is with the cup. And every small victory for justice, every new birth of hope against the odds, every healing moment, is a declaration that God won’t leave it alone – won’t leave us alone – until love and life get the victory.
So, now, come to the banquet!

Choir Anthem

Blessing

Cassie Montelongo

Sending Song

Draw the Circle Wide

Words: Gordon Light, Music: Mark Miller, OneLicense #A-729109

Draw the circle, draw the circle wide.
Draw the circle, draw the circle wide.
No one stands alone,
we’ll stand side by side.
Draw the circle, draw the circle wide

Draw the circle wide, draw it wider still.
Let this be our song: no one stands alone. Standing side by side,
Draw the circle, draw the circle wide

In your sadness and in your grief
From all the pain
It seems there’s no relief
We will hold you
Until the storm subsides
We’ll draw the circle,
draw the circle wide!

Draw the circle wide, draw it wider still.
Let this be our song: no one stands alone. Standing side by side,
Draw the circle, draw the circle wide.
Draw the circle, draw the circle wide.