“At the center of the Christmas story is hope…hope which comes to us in the form of a vulnerable, poor baby. A child, not a king, changes the world. God appears to us as a marginalized, Afro-Semitic, Jewish child from Nazareth in Palestine. A child who grows up to teach us to welcome the stranger. How would our world be different if we loved our neighbors as ourselves?” asks the Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis, senior minister of Middle Collegiate Church.

  PENTECOST Here's a call to worship, rooted in the Christian past, but open to the global voices, and celebrating an Earth-based liturgy.

After searching for an opening Easter Acclamation that is progressive and cosmic in nature, and finding nothing that went where I'd like to take the congregation, I decided I'd just have to write one. This acclamation/invocation draws on themes found in the Gospel of Thomas, Meister Eckhart, Hildegard von Bingen, Teilhard de Chardin, and Thomas Berry. I also hope is has some of the poetic flare of that great earth mystic, Saint John (Muir) of the Mountains.

Reinhold Niebuhr's brother, H. Richard, argued for faithfulness to the example of Jesus's nonviolence, while Reinhold believed this was naive and unrealistic in an imperfect world. H. Richard was the purist to the Christian faith, believing that following the Golden Rule, no matter the consequences, is what Jesus and God called us to do -- the success of the mission being in God's hands rather than our own. Reinhold, however, looked at the more practical side of things, substituting his or the world's idea of what was possible and changing his ethics accordingly. H. Richard thus trusted more in the providential moral arc of history as M.L. King, Jr. , would call it rather than a realist's version of what humans believe is attainable given their corrupt nature. In essence, H. Richard focused on the power of God's grace to transform our spirits and the world for the better, while Reinhold accepted a more cynical view of our ability to be radically changed as a specie.

Oh Dear One, may these scraps of paper and bits of metal serve as symbols of our deep desire for your Love to transform our time, effort, and substance into works of creative compassion for each other,

Hungry for meaning? Welcome home. Thirsty for purpose? Welcome home.

We are here to praise and enjoy God with body and soul, mind and heart, with song and word, with hands and feet. We are here to give because of the abundance God has given us, to share with each other, and to receive, because God has created us to depend on each other. We are here to celebrate the differences that otherwise might divide us: differences of age, of body, of culture, of opinion, of ability, of religious conviction. We are here to put things in perspective: to celebrate what matters, to laugh about things we take too seriously, to cry about things that truly touch our hearts. So may it be this morning: Amen!

"you who delight me" is in two parts: poems of love—secular and spirited writing about people, places and events; and words of spirit and faith—inclusive language, contemporary liturgies for individual contemplation and progressive faith communities.

Born to a poor uneducated carpenter and his partner All: Jesus was one with oppressed humankind

Come, let us walk the road that Mary walked the challenging road from Nazareth to Bethlehem not knowing what the future holds.

We are community Embraced by the mystery of God’s love for all creation

One What is the sound that calls us? Listen carefully. Many The beating of our own hearts calls us to ourselves. It calls us to be our true selves, our best selves. Calls us to be what we might become.

Leader: The presence of God is surely in this place. People: The presence of God is everywhere.

Leader: In this Advent season, we honor a time in history when people anticipated the birth of a child. People: The child grew to be a man who gave hope to his people.

"Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est." A Taize chant is incorporated into a opening invocation