M3M: October 16, 2008 Harvesting Thanksgiving
OPENING: #43 My soul Magnified You 1
PRAYER: #41 My Spirit Rests in You Alone
TABLE: #57 Reveal Yourself to Us, O Christ
SANCTUS: #34 Holy, Holy, Holy One 4
CLOSING: #59 Rise Up, Rejoicing
A Reading from the Christian Gospel John 4:31-38
Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.” But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” So the disciples said to one another, “Has anyone brought him something to eat?” Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest. Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”
Reader: Hear what the Spirit is saying to the church.
People: Thanks be to God.
A Reading from the Native American Tradition Mary Fallahay, Soul Weavings, Bear Tribe Medicine Society, p. 23
Creator, Earth Mother, we thank you for our lives and this beautiful day!
Thank you for the bright sun and the rain we received last night.
Thank you for this circle of friends and the opportunity to be together.
We want to thank you especially at this time for the giveaway of their lives
made by the chickens, beets, carrots, grains, and lettuce.
We thank them for giving of their lives so we may continue our lives through this great blessing.
Please help us honor them through how we live our lives.
Reader: Hear what the Spirit is saying to the church.
People: Thanks be to God.
A Reading from the Continuing Revelation of God to People of Faith
Matthew Fox, The Reinvention of Work, p. 126
Meister Eckhart equates creativity with gratitude when he declares that “becoming fruitful as a result of the gift is the only gratitude for the gift.” God actually becomes “fruitful” within us in our work. Our work is a bearing of the divine fruit, a coming to fruition through God’s collaboration with us. Just as lovers express their gratitude for one another when they give birth to children, so too our creativity shows our gratitude. Authentic work comes from a deep place of gratitude. Indeed, work is about gratitude; it is the expression of our gratitude for being here. If we have no work it is likely that we have no way to express that gratitude.
What is this fruit that we bear? “The fruit is of good size. It is no less nor more than God’s self.” The fruit of our work is the bringing forth of Divinity. How often do we engage in such divine birthing? Is it once in a lifetime? Hardly. According to0 Eckhart, this work is more common than we imagine. “Every day the soul bears fruit a hundred times or a thousand times or countless times, giving birth and becoming fruitful out of the most noble foundation of all.” This “noble foundation” is the key to all our work, the source and origin of it all. Once again, we see why returning to our origins is so important for authentic work. For here is the origin of the divine Word as well. “Indeed, the soul bears out of the same foundation from which the Father begets his eternal Word.” There is only one work in the universe because there is only one origin, one foundation.
The key to carrying on this one work of the universe is returning to the one origin of the universe. To do this we must work from inside out. We must go within.
Reader: Hear what the Spirit is saying to the church.
People: Thanks be to God.
