Worship Leaders: Alissa Bender & Leah Harder
Additional reader: Pieter Niemeyer
Music composer/arranger and Leader: Lys Sonority
Call to Worship Written by Alissa Bender
We’re grateful to be in this space, and to be part of Beyond Binaries, and to be with you,
whether you’re sure or unsure of why you came,
whether your day started with bird song or tripping over your bedside table,
whether you’re eager to learn, excited to share, or just curious.
We begin this day with worship, which is an opportunity to notice.
To draw our attention to the sacredness beyond ourselves and yet also planted deep within.
To worship is to notice the work of God and to respond from that place within us.
We invite you to read the words that call us to worship, on the back of your order of worship.
Leader: Here is a sacred place where all are welcome. All bodies can find a seat, all questions can find an ear, all hearts can find a home.
People: We open ourselves to learn and to share, to notice and to wonder. We offer this in worship.
Leader: Now is a sacred time when all are welcome. Voices may challenge, smiles may comfort, and laughter (or even tears) may build relationship
People: We open ourselves to be moved and changed, to be truthful and trusting. We offer this in worship.
Leader: Here and now we seek God as our Source, our Friend, and our Guide, the Holy One who is ever creating, transforming, and indwelling.
People: We open ourselves to the movement of the Holy One in this place and time. We open ourselves to Love.
Prayer Written by Alissa Bender
Spirit of Love,
Weaver of rainbows and melter of binaries,
We open ourselves to you today, and we are grateful –
grateful for each person gathered around us,
grateful for the work of Pastors in Exile,
and grateful for the energy here for creating an affirming Church.
Show us your face in the people we meet today.
Teach us your path in the words we hear today.
Inspire in us your courage and your love
as we witness and celebrate the gifts that queerness creates
in the Church and in the world.
Embrace us with your creativity, fill us with your imagination,
and surround us with the diversity that you created and love so dearly.
Help us to notice you today, and we will respond from our hearts. Amen
Songs Come, Now is the Time to Worship Voices Together 29
Alternate verses by Lys Sonority
Verse 1 (inspired by Mark A. Miller, VT 174)
Christ has broken down all the walls between us.
We're accepted as we are.
Cast aside your fears and your doubts for love!
This is the Saviour's call.
Verse 2 (Inspired by Barbara Hamm, VT 461)
Christ invites us all to the table of grace.
This is God's, not yours or mine.
Peace and hope and joy are unbounded here;
in God, your colours shine.
Sing a New World into Being VT 809
A Word About Questions (Alissa Bender)
As a Rabbi, Jesus was familiar with the art of asking questions. Questions can teach and stretch, invite and sharpen. But there are other kinds of questions too. Questions can demand and assume, manipulate or tear down. We’re about to hear three stories from Jesus’ life that are told back-to-back in the gospel of Matthew, chapter 22. In these stories, Jesus is asked questions that are meant to trap or trick him. They are either/or questions that leave little room for grace.
Jesus doesn’t avoid the questions, and he also doesn’t play the questioners’ games. Jesus queers the questions. Jesus does the radical work of digging down to the presumed answers beneath the questions and then turning everything upside down. He leaves his listeners with deeper questions than they started with, questions at the heart of the matter, questions that ask something of their lives and now our lives.
In these short conversations, Jesus transforms a false binary into a prism of possibility, he turns a far-fetched hypothetical into a tangible comfort, and moves an ultimatum to an invitation.
Listen for the questions asked and answered. Listen for how Jesus queers the questions – how he upsets assumptions, breaks down walls, erases binaries, and makes new things possible.
Let’s sing as we prepare to hear the stories and some reflection on them. You can leave your hymnal open to number 585 during this time as we sing one verse at a time as printed in your order of worship.
Song Faith Begins by Letting Go, v1 VT 585
Scripture Matthew 22:15-22 (The Inclusive Bible)
Reflection Written by Alissa Bender
It was an unlikely alliance – the Pharisees and Herodians.
One group looked to Scripture and one looked to a King
One to Tradition and one to Empire
But neither trusted the Galilean,
the one who gleaned grain on the Sabbath day
and who led a mockery of a triumphal procession into the holy city.
On this they could agree.
So they held their noses
and held a meeting
and thought they held his reputation in the palm of their hands.
“Teacher (they called him),
we know you’re honest and sincere (the irony, it seems, lost on them).
Should we pay our taxes?”
One answer would tighten the political noose
The other answer would stoke the religious flames
It’s a trap!
Have you got a coin? Jesus asks. And out it comes
His pockets are empty
He lives like the birds of the air and the lilies of the field,
one who trusts in God and friends of common cause
But they, these people of high standards and strict morals, they have on their person a symbol of the currency of collusion,
the etchings of the exploitative economics of empire.
Whose face do you see there? Whose name?
Tiberius Caesar, son of the divine Augustus
Son of the divine? Pharisaic siblings, tenders of the Law, do you not call this idolatry?
Here on the temple grounds, you would call this Caesar – Creator?
You would spend your allegiance on an empire that oppresses and impoverishes?
Whose face do you see there, whose likeness
In whose image has this coin been made?
In whose image have you been made?
Whose likeness is stamped upon you, breathed within you?
Naming you, claiming you, becoming part of you
Wait, what?
We asked about taxes and now we’re thinking about creation, creator, our very breath.
We thought you were asking us who he is, on the coin,
but you’re asking who we are.
You’re asking who we give ourselves to, where we offer our allegiance.
Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s but give to God what is God’s
But, “The earth is God’s and everything in it”
All things are God’s things.
There is no division of loyalty between the political and the spiritual.
The plotters gave an either/or, but Jesus made it a both/and.
Took competing choices and created cascading possibilities
If we are made in God’s image, everything matters.
What you give is part of who you are
And who you are is God’s own child
So give to God what is God’s
Steadfast love
Faithfulness
Justice
Grace
Give to God the questions that open up the world rather than close it off.
Give to God the wonderings, the wishes, the imagination,
all the creativity that has been made in us in the image of the Creator
All God asks
is all we are
for we are loved.
Breath Prayer
As we practice this breath prayer, you may wish to place one hand on your heart and one on your belly. Take a couple of deep breaths and be aware of the breath coming in, being held, and going out. You can pray this breath prayer silently or whisper it if you wish.
Inhale: Made in God’s image
Exhale: I offer who I am
Song Faith Begins by Letting Go, v2 VT 585
Scripture Matthew 22:23-33 (The Inclusive Bible)
Reflection Written by Alissa Bender
The gospel of Matthew starts in this way:
An account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah.
The father of this, the father of that, the father of so-and-so, the father of what’s-his-name.
Jesus belongs in a family.
But the gospel of Matthew continues in another way.
“The foxes have holes, the birds in the sky have their nests,
but the Chosen One has nowhere to lie down.”
“Don’t suppose that I came to bring peace on earth. I came not to bring peace, but a sword.
I have come to turn ‘A son against his father, a daughter against her mother,
a child against their parent.
Those who love parent, child, or sibling more than me are not worthy of me.”
Jesus asks, “Who is my family?”
Here is my family, here is my kin, here are my relations.
These are the ones who have left the security of home to wander the wild with me.
These have thrown their lot in with me
These have stayed when they did not understand me,
trusted when they were a little afraid of me,
and waited even when they were impatient with me.
My kin have fed and clothed me, prayed and learned with me,
walked on water and brought healing in my name.
Whoever does the will of my Abba in heaven is my sibling and my parent.
Jesus redefines family
Family is not only born but also built,
not only inherited but always inhabited,
it is chosen, invited, gathered, and strengthened, around shared love and purpose.
Jesus disrupted normative structures
and queered the notion of family.
Once more, the disruptor has been interrupted by a question, a riddle, a false premise.
Not a query of curiosity, nor a worry that wakens them at night.
Those would be welcome.
This was a certainty disguised as a question, a proof eager to be re-proved.
How can resurrection be real if it makes marriage so complicated?
Did Jesus smile when asked?
Did he chuckle at the suggestion that resurrection could be disproved by civil ceremony?
That the power of Life was somehow restricted by human “I do’s” and “I declares”?
God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.
Of our living
Of our life together
Of our lives shared and committed and brushed up against each other
God is the God of where we come from and where we land,
who we start with and who we choose,
the families where we flourish, the communities we create, the resurrection we embody.
New life is all around us, new creation, new possibilities.
Resurrection is not merely doctrine, it is a call and an invitation, a miracle and a grace.
It is the experience of the rising of our hearts in our chests
and the breath of fresh air where all was once stale
Does it sound too strange to be true?
Maybe so
But this is not a test
New life is a gift, held out,
no need to draw a chart
or solve for x
or write a thesis.
Embrace the gift.
Embrace new life when it sneaks past your defences and fills you up.
Be curious, but also, love the mystery.
Prayer (Leah leads; written by Alissa Bender)
I invite you to begin this prayer with your hands open in your lap or in front of you. You may wish to move your hands throughout the prayer to match the words that I pray.
God of the living,
We hold the mystery of new life before us.
You have promised that life comes out of death
and beginnings come out of endings
but we’re not sure how that works.
Some of us, sometimes, might wish to hold the mystery tight,
keeping control.
But gently, gently, you undo our tight grip and breathe again into our open hands.
Some of us, sometimes, might want to drop the weight of the faith we have inherited,
leaving it behind.
But patiently, patiently, you lift our hands again and we find that your burden is light.
Hold our hand, Holy One.
Squeeze it encouragingly,
So that even as we reach beyond ourselves,
we know that we are always held in your care. Amen
Song Faith Begins by Letting Go, v3 VT 585
Reflection & Response Written by Leah Harder
I remember the specific moment when I realized rules were there to keep me or others safe. I was sitting in my childhood bed, looking out across the street as cars went by. I remember seeing them go by and realizing that the reason I’m supposed to look both ways before I cross the street is so I don’t get hit by a car. Then I started thinking about other rules, like don’t hit your sister or no running with sharp objects in your hands. I realized in that moment that rules weren’t there to be annoying or stop me from having fun. They were set to keep myself and others safe. I always knew that rules were important, but I didn’t realize why until that moment. It occurred to me then that the only rule I really needed was to do my best to keep myself safe and keep those around me safe. If I kept these two things in mind, I’d probably be pretty good. This is exactly what Jesus was doing. Commandments like thou shall not murder are obvious if your goal is to love God, your neighbours, and yourself. Once again, Jesus turns the question that the Pharisees ask on its head. By distilling down the commandments, Jesus takes the rules and blows them wide open. This simultaneously expands all commandments into this huge idea, and also pares it down to the simplest of concepts. To love.
We all express love in unique ways. We love different people, we love different things and we show that love in different ways. Despite anything you may have been told, your unique brand of love is pure, beautiful, and gifted to you by the Divine.
We are told by Jesus that we need to do 3 things: to love God, to love our neighbour (which could mean friend, stranger, enemy, community, partner) and to love ourselves (this last one being implied in the loving neighbour as yourself). In fact, not only are we guided to do these 3 things, but these are the most important things we can do. Finding a way to love God, others, and self in a genuine way to you will lead you to living a life where you don’t have to worry about the rules – because they will fall into place naturally.
To reflect on this, I want to guide us through a short activity. On your tables there are pieces of coloured paper. Choose one – maybe there is a certain colour that is speaking to you today.
On this paper, I want you to write down one way you show love. Keep it broad – maybe it’s by listening, or by being vulnerable, or through action. Maybe this expression of love is something that comes naturally to you, or maybe it’s something you’d like to work to be more intentional at.
Pick a word or short phrase to express how you show love and write it down. I’m going to play a song, it’s #731 in your hymnals if you want to follow along.
What I’ll ask you to do during this song is to think about how you can use this specific expression of love in three ways: by showing love to God, by showing love to your neighbour, and by showing love to yourself. You don’t have to write these all down, but feel free to if that’s helpful. I’d then like to invite you to bring your offerings of love forward (to the altar). Remember that this expression of love is one way to abolish the need for commandments. So this offering of love is a commitment to loving God, your neighbour, and yourself in the best way you know how.
I’ll play the song and you can feel free to bring your offerings of love up at any point during the recording. You can feel free to sing along too if you'd like.
Open My Heart VT 731
(recording performed by Harc)
Prayer to close response time
Expansive God,
Accept our offerings of love as a token of our commitment to living and loving as our genuine selves. May we cast this love wide, helping to create a world of acceptance, gratitude, and grace. Amen.
Closing song Ask the Complicated Questions VT 440
(Intro) Rabbi Abraham Heschel once wrote: “We are closer to God when we are asking questions than when we think we have the answers.” Questions that come from the heart are also offerings of love for God and for our neighbours and for ourselves.
Benediction Written by Alissa Bender
Love God, for you are made in the image of their love.
Love your neighbour, for in our living, we receive new life.
Love yourself, for you and all of your questions are holy and beloved.
May we bring all of this love into this day before us. Amen.