Worship at Home for the
Happy Mothering Sunday!
&
Fourth Sunday of Easter
Good Shepherd Sunday
May 8, 2022
Due to the spread of Covid-19, we are taking a sabbatical from our normal Sunday morning gathering, but unity and community are more important than ever before in this season of uncertainty. To help facilitate this, we are providing an online service so that, one in heart, we can worship together even as we maintain distance out of love for our neighbors. This is designed to be used on your own or together as a family or community. We hope this resource is a blessing to you. Remember to check in on friends and neighbors with calls or text, especially the elderly among us and others who are particularly vulnerable.
Join us for Prayers of the People on Zoom informally at 10:00am and formally at 10:30am!
Opening Hymn for Children of All Ages
(Great site for more Child-Friendly Youtube Videos)
Opening Prayer
Loving Shepherd,
you know our names;
you care for us.
When we face darkness and death,
walk beside us.
When we hunger for your love,
fill us with your presence.
When we are fearful,
feed us at your table.
May we dwell in the house of goodness and mercy
all the days of our lives. Amen.
written by Mary Petrina Boyd, and posted on Ministry Matters. http://www.ministrymatters.com
Centering Hymn
Kendall Brown
Call to Worship
Siblings in Christ,
If you lift your net and it is empty,
Come here!
We’ll cast it out again into Christ’s abundance.
If you open your eyes but do not recognize the Holy One,
Come here!
We’ll find the Risen Christ here among us.
If your life is filled with mourning,
Come here!
Christ is leading a dance of joy.
Come here, siblings in Christ!
To give blessing and honor and glory to God!
Hymns of Adoration & Liturgical Dance
Seeking the Shalom of the City
Remembering Mothers in Prison On Mother’s Day
There is so much to say about women in prison and the plight of their children. Last week Chris Hedges mentioned just some of the issues. Many children are put in foster care and others are given up for adoption. Often family members, especially gathers, don’t bring the children to prisons to bisit their mothers.
One of the members of The Church of Gethsemane wrote the poem Red or White for a publication of poems called Breaking Silence, written by women in prison. Gail died in 2001, but her poem, which was written for her daughter Nikki in the 90s, was still read at her church on Mother’s Day when I served there from 2001-2010.
Go to www.prisonpolicy.org to learn about mothers who are in prisons and jails this Mother’s Day, May8, 2022.
To learn more about the Church of Gethsemane and it’s unique congregation founded by men and women who were incarcerated and their families go to www.churchofgethsemane.org
Rev. Liz Alexander
ANTIRACIST ADJUSTMENT
FOR THE WEEK OF 5/2/2022
“What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God” Micah 6:8
“What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God” Micah 6:8
In his book “White Racial Frame”, author Joe R. Feagin explores how United States society was built from its beginning with racial oppression as a foundational part of its societal house. This structural metaphor captures the reality of our past and contemporary times and the lasting legacies of racial domination by our forbearers. This toxic bedrock has tainted our country’s racial beliefs, narratives, images, language, emotions, institutional actions and historical rememberings.
The “white frame” is a white-generated worldview that positions whites as superior and virtuous, and racial “others” as inferior and un-virtuous. People of all backgrounds are indoctrinated into this dominant racial frame to some extent. Systemic racism includes the well-institutionalized, society-wide array of white anti-others practices, of unjustly gained white societal power embedded in racial hierarchy, of huge resource inequalities along racial lines, and of a dominant white racial frame rationalizing unfairly gained white privilege and power. Conducted in 2011, the following interview speaks to many of this country’s ongoing issues. The White Racial Frame--on TruthToTell - YouTube
In the third edition of his book published in 2020, Feagin has added revisions, updates, and data from recent research studies on racial framing. He has also expanded points on counter-frames, white character structure, collective memory and collective forgetting. Counter-frames provide alternative perspectives to the dominant white frame. Resistance framing by African Americans and other Americans of color has been central to this country’s history. From our founding days, African Americans have created and sustained a critical home-culture that incorporated important features from their African roots. This home-culture has been refined and shaped by their everyday experiences with North American racism. In spite of intense pressures to abandon African customs, the diverse enslaved groups developed a home-culture that imbedded traditional values with moral and spiritual elements from numerous African traditions. These everyday-humanity elements provided understandings and values that facilitated everyday life, interactions and support in family and community settings. In addition, they reworked aspects of European culture including Christian teachings which accented the ideas of freedom from enslavement.
Native American protests of white subordination have also been substantial over the centuries. There has been an insistent critique of the theft of Native American lands, of the destruction of Native American societies and cultures, of the use of white racist stereotyping and narratives and of Western materialism and lack of spirituality. Their counter frame has provided a positive assertion of Native American humanity and of Native American traditions accenting freedom, justice and respect for the natural world.
Within the broad umbrella groups of Asian Americans and Latin Americans there are strong home-culture frames as well. Elements of resistance are slowly moving toward well-developed and assertive antiracist counter-frames as new immigrants and their first and second generation children oppose the white dominant frame.
Antiracist counter-frames have provided important tool kits enabling individuals and groups to effectively oppose recurring white hostility and discrimination. Some key dimensions include a strong critique of white oppression, a firm positive stress on humanity, an accent on authentic liberty and justice for all, an understanding of how to deal with white discriminators, and insights into whites’ unjust wealth enrichment at the expense of other citizens of color.
Daily morning intention:
Open my heart Loving Presence so that I may feel your Divine guidance to greater awareness of racial inequity and to my antiracist role this day.
Pat Deeney
Call to Confession & Reconciliation Emily “Z” Zinsitz
It is in our confession where we realize our desire for God and our hope for God’s mercy. It is in admitting the truth of our lives that we take the first step toward wholeness and healing. So let us make our confession
God of all the saints, God of all the sinners, hear our prayer.
We would be saintlike – holy, good, patient, loving.
But we end up feeling more like sinners – full of failures of morality, selfish, mean.
Perhaps You see us simply as human – as beloved, and flawed, and trying, and failing, and succeeding.
In all of this, forgive the wrong that we have done, and the bless the good we have accomplished.
Keep on loving us, and helping us, and molding us more and more into the image of Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.
Written by Beth Merrill Neel
Silent Confession
Assurance of Pardon
Friends, hear this Good News: the love of God is beyond measure, and you are
included in that love. Know that you are forgiven and thus freed to love and serve.
Prayer for Illumination
Scripture Psalm 23: Connor Gardner
Hymn of Response
The Lord’s Prayer
Our Father in heaven
Hallowed be Your name
Your kingdom come
Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven
Give us today our daily bread
And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil
For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever
Amen.
Offering
Even as we are unable to gather for our Sunday morning worship services, many of the church’s expenses remain the same, and now more than ever we want to have the resources to bless the community around us. Your gracious donation will ensure that Westminster continues to Seek the Shalom of the Capital City of Trenton and beyond.
Westminster can receive donations via a simple text:
Text to 609-438-8828 the word “Give”
Westminster’s online giving number will respond asking how much you’d like to give, and steps to follow
Westminster can receive donations online:
Westminster can receive donations by check:
Westminster Presbyterian Church
PO Box 3719
Trenton, NJ 08629
Prayer of Dedication
Giver of all good things,
let your grace flow through us;
a generous stream,
unstoppable, refreshing, abundant.
We release these gifts into your river of love,
flowing out to all the world. Amen.
Hymn of Dedication
Benediction & Passing the Peace
The Lord be with you
And also with you
La paz de Dios sea con-ti-go
Y tam-bien con-ti-go
Sa-wa-bona
Si-ko-na
Pyeong-hwa
Pyeong-hwa