Date: May 29, 2022

Bible Text: Revelation 22:10-17, John 17:9-11, 20-26 |

This has been another hard week in America. The mass shootings in Buffalo,NY, and in Uvalde, TX, are heartbreaking and gut wrenching. The inability of our leaders and our culture in general to make any substantive changes to stop the shootings one way or another is just as heartbreaking and gut wrenching. We will spend our prayer time lamenting and calling on the Lord to help us.

As for the scripture and sermon, this is the last Sunday in the season of Easter. In the John passage, Jesus prays for his disciples, then and now, to experience the unity that he has with God. Sounds wonderful, really. The Revelation passage is from the end of the book where the Risen Christ wraps things up, welcoming the righteous into peace at last. Sounds good, too.

 

Notes from the Preacher

Here is the John Donne (1572-1631) quote by way of quoting Frederick Buechner in The Hungering Dark (1968):

"NO MAN IS AN Island," Dr. Donne wrote, "intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a Clod be washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee."

The litany from the service was:

Remembering All Who Have Been Affected By Gun Violence
(Adapted from Moral Call: a Vermont Interfaith Prayer and Remembrance Vigil)

which I got from colleague Jim Nenninger.

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