This Sunday (Feb 8th), my church is going to celebrate the love we have for our God and another by having an Intercultural music service. We are going to sing the following songs in many different languages.
Draw the Circle Wide - More Voices 145
We are Marching in the Light of God (in English and Zulu) - Voices United 646
Senzeni Na? - MV 66
Know that God is Good (in English and French) - MV 104
We Give our Thanks (in English and Tswana) - MV 187
Sent Out in Jesus' Name (in English) - MV 212 ... It has a Spanish verse, as it is originated in Cuba
May the Love of the Lord (in English and Chinese) - MV 218
I wrote Call to Worship. I hope that it can give the worshippers a sense of what brings us together to sing in different languages: the love that lures, is persuasive and calls us all to know that we are be-loved, deeply loved. The affirmation that all of us, without divides, are the God's beloveds.
(This picture was taken at my son's daycare. At the moment, seeing the cloud moving , I was relieved and sensed that I was where I should be. In the dense movement of the cloud, under the cover of the 'infinity', I felt the blessed completeness of a 'finitude' and was drawn into the sense of wonder and pause. There is always something beyond the knowable: the deep and opaque presence, gleamed with an unlikely light.)
Call to Worship
In the cloud of multiplicity that diversifies, enfolds and unfolds
The seeds of new possibilities
The droplets of infinite dreams
We sing songs that celebrate our common humanity and one another’s uniqueness.
We initiate a question today of what it is like to become an intercultural worshipping community;
How we can worship God with new songs,
sing in different languages.
We wonder, “what new story are we going to make today, by singing together?”
Bring a question of love
The opaque love,
The dense love,
The love that surpasses understanding
Love isn’t a magic tool that fixes our world for us.
We may well ask, “Is Love all we need, all the time?”
Yet, love is still a profound calling God reserves for us.
Our desire to love one another takes us to a journey
where we enter
A beloved uncertainty
A tender curiosity
A ‘strange wonder’
We praise You, O God. Blessed Be, Holy One.
Make us whole as we become a community of beloveds.
Let us worship with new songs,
and speak in diverse languages that all loves provide. Amen.
Sing: We Are Marching in the Light of God (in English and Zulu)
Blessed Silence
Friends, now I invite you to a silence.
Pausing to reflect is one part of a deepening dialogue; contemplative silence is an integral part of prayer.
In Exodus, God says,
“I am going to come to you, in a dense cloud.”
(Pause)
This inspires me to think
Faith may be the opposite not of doubt,
but of certainty.
Keeping faith is the capacity to exist in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts.
In a mass of opacity, of impossibility, God shines a light on unlikely, blessed possibilities.
What is the uncertainty that most matters, to you, now?
(Silence)
Passing the Peace
May the peace of Christ be with you.
Also with you.
If you are asked to pass the peace in silence, without words, how would you deliver the peace to one another?
Using your body, without words, how will you show your respect and love in Christ for each other?
In January, I learned that, in the Philippines, people use “mano po.”
Mano means hands. Po means ‘please. Respect.’
(A younger person asks an elder to extend his or her hand, then gently pull her hand to touch it on the forehead. This is mano-po.
(Do mano-po to Gordon. Then Gordon to me.)
There are many ways to show respect and honour and share peace.
We can bow to one another, shake hands, gently hug each other. Hold our hands together in front of our chest.
You can gently hold another person’s hand.
The most important thing is to make good eye contact with everyone you greet and share Peace with.
Now, let us pass the peace, wordlessly, creatively and honourably, to show our respect and honour one another’s presence and uniqueness.
Our sung response is Senzeni Na? ("What have we done?")
MV 66. A song from the struggle for freedom in South Africa.
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