Liturgy

God of breath and bone,
remind us of the body’s wisdom.
In this moment of screens and separation,
ground us in the old song of tears and touch.

We make many temples in this life,
yet the temple you spoke of was your body.

In a Lenten season marked by physical suffering and denial,
remind us that from death comes new life:
a heartbeat humming out the eternal rhythm of your love.

We pray this in the name
of God our heartbeat,
Christ, the hands and feet of love,
and the Holy Spirit, our breath of life.
Amen.
(Catie Brewster)

Scripture Reading

We invite you to hear from the Gospel of John 2: 13-17.

13 The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus
went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple he found
people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the
money changers seated at their tables.

15 Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them
out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle.
He also poured out the coins of the money-changers
and overturned their tables.

16 He told those who were selling the doves,
“Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s
house a marketplace!” 17 His disciples remembered that
it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”

The Good News of the Lord.
Thanks be to God!

The grass withers and the flower fades,
but the Word of the Lord endures forever. Amen.

Sermon and Reflection

Sermon Podcast 03.07.21 Lent: Embodiment

How are you invited to embody disruption towards injustice this Lent?

What are the “thin places” you can explore and experiment with this Lent?

Benediction

This week, open us to the thin spaces
where heaven touches earth and sacred
enters profane, where eternal meets
temporal and where death transforms life.
Might even our own bodies be sites for this?

This week, may we see our physicality,
our temporality and fragility, not as
evidence of our failings, but of our divinity,

a gift from the God who
chose to become one of us,
who chose to become human.

Go forth this week, in the name
of our Creator God,
our Created Savior,
and the Creative Spirit, Holy in One,
amen.

Go in peace, and live the church.
May you find safety and rest this week.
(Catie Brewster)

[Photo by Matthieu Joannon]