Prayers of the People: May 10th, 2020

Pamela Collins led us in this prayer on 2nd Sunday.

We exalt you, O God our King. We bless your name forever and ever.

We exalt you, O God our King. We bless your name forever and ever.

Every day will we bless you and praise your name forever and ever.

Great are you Lord and greatly to be praised. There is no end to your greatness.

You, almighty God, invite us to ask for what we need and to receive it from you-- to be direct, honest. You invite us to search and find, knock and enter. When we falter, remind us that the resurrection life we have received from you is not a timid, grave-tending life. It’s adventurously expectant, greeting you with the innocence and excitement of children asking “What’s next, Dad?” Your spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who you are, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we can pray and believe.

We can ask and expect that you will act, so that you are glorified.

Remind us, daily, that when we welcome you, you dwell in us, and even though we still experience all the limitations of sin—we now experience life on your terms. That means we can risk believing that you mean what you say when you promise us that you hear us, that you will respond.

Lord, sometimes we doubt your willingness to answer our prayers. Yet if we, with all of our imperfections and mixed motives and downright selfishness—if we know how to love our children, our relatives, our friends—that’s nothing compared to how much you love us and want to give good things to us. We know that you do not even withhold yourself from us.

So, Father, we come to you asking for your powerful act of healing for our world. We ask for an end to the coronavirus pandemic. We ask, Lord, that you avert new infections. We ask that you restore those who are ill.

Father, we pray for our nation. We pray that the unity that your Holy Spirit brings be felt in our country. Lord lead us not into the temptation to divide ourselves into teams of us against them based on our theories about the virus or about the economy or according to our political affiliations, race, ethnicity, gender—or anything that can be manipulated to divide us. Lord, keep us from this insidious evil.

Father we pray for our city and our state and our nation. This epidemic has shown a spotlight on our sins: those forces that drive health disparities, those things we allow that unfairly put people at risk of illness, death, violence, and hardship. Heal our hearts. Lord, give our leaders wisdom and mercy, Give us wisdom and mercy and courage to help build back a healthier and more just society. Heal our economy. All power is yours, dear Lord.

Lord forgive us and keep us forgiving each other. Teach us rely on your grace to do this, help us to choose to live bold resurrection lives in your kingdom. Help us to walk through that open door.

Lord, I pray for our Union family and the concerns on each person’s heart. You know what these are. I pray that each us of would know deeply your tender motherly love.

We bless your holy name. Amen.

Eco-Act 002: Climate Change & What We Eat

Eat more plant-based

(at least before 6 pm!)

Relax. This post is NOT about going vegetarian or vegan. But it IS about the way many people eat.

Reflect for a moment on the last part of some popular advice from writer Michael Pollan:

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

Not only plants; mostly plants. Maybe this could even be stretched to more plants? Would we consider enjoying a plant-based meal in place of a meat entrée occasionally? And what’s the point?

Well, Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming ranks “plant-rich diet” # 4 on its list of most impactful steps to attack climate change. Estimates cited in the book and elsewhere suggest that raising livestock accounts for 15% or more of annual greenhouse gas emissions. The Drawdown authors further note that “If cattle were their own nation, they would be the world’s third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases.”* Yikes!

Obviously, the efforts of the Union family alone won’t measurably reduce greenhouse gases or global warming. So why make the effort? Because, as Pollan says, it will begin “to heal the split between what you think and what you do….”** It’s acting with hope and purpose.

And it can be delicious. Here’s a recipe from Mark Bittman’s book VB6 (vegan before 6 PM) to consider.

This might also be a great time to add some plant-based meals to the weekly menu if meat availability or prices become an issue. Whatever your motivation, let us know if you decide to try a plant-based meal for lunch or dinner!

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* Drawdown, page 39

** Drawdown, page 53

We #RunwithMaud

Dear friends,

We grieve with the family and friends of Ahmaud Arbery of Brunswick, Georgia who would have turned 26 today. We join in solidarity with those who hunger and thirst after righteousness across this nation to lament and to pray. Many people are running 2.23 miles to bring recognition to his life and the injustice of his death. Join in prayer for the wisdom and courage to be a part of a new day where the hatred and ugliness of racism is overwhelmed by the love and beauty of God’s Reign.

Living God and Lover of all humanity,

As we seek to abide by social distancing and live in more isolation from one another, do not let our hearts become hardened to the pain and suffering that is palatable around us.

Keep us attentive to where there is injustice in our land.

We grieve in solidarity with our brothers and sisters across this nation over the heartless, racist shooting in Georgia of Ahmaud Arbery while he was out jogging. We cannot fathom the hatred that leads to such an act of violence but we acknowledge that for too long hatred, rooted in prejudice and privilege, has taken the lives of too many of our Black and brown brothers and sisters.

Help us to name this horror for what it is: white supremacy. And, to keep naming this atrocity. Help us to call out everyday micro-aggressions, appropriations, and our own complicity in oppressive systems now -- while our Black brothers and sisters are still living. We cannot only be allies once they're gone, for that is too late. Give us courage to not stay silent, to not turn away and become absorbed in our personal worlds. Do not allow us to hide. Keep us steadfast in the pursuit of a justice that stops hate crimes and protects the dignity of all your people.

May it be on earth as it is in heaven. With every breath we take, may we live for your justice, your righteousness and your peace.

O Lord, awaken your people.

Email Truth & Justice for ways to learn, advocate, and act if you did not receive their installment from today!

T&J Edition 4: Ways to Address Injustice During COVID-19

Hello T&J Community,

In light of the news about the death and unjust handling of the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, our hearts are burdened. It is unfathomable to think that a young man can be gunned down while going for a jog, yet this is as much a reality in 2020 as it would have been in 1920. The belief that life is valuable is not a shared foundation in our country, a country that at its foundation was built on the belief that white bodies are more valuable than black or brown bodies. So we lament and grieve with the Arbery family. We also ask that you would take the time to assess how you can best respond to this tragedy: through learning about our country's history of white supremacy, advocating for justice to be brought in this case, and acting in solidarity with our brothers and sisters who live in fear for the simple fact that they have black and brown skin.

Below, there are different links that can take you to articles and action items for learning, advocating and acting. Not all of the material is directly related to Ahmaud Arbery, but rather the larger systems of injustice that are evident in our country. 

LEARN

• Learn, grieve, and act in response to the news of Ahmaud Arbery's death on February 23rd that did not result in the arrest and charging of the men involved until May 7th. 

• Racial disparities in healthcare that have always existed, are evident in the impact that COVID-19 is having on communities of color. Read this: "King County has big racial disparities in coronavirus cases and deaths". For further understanding of why this is happening, google "fundamental causes of racial disparities" and take a deep dive into this history.

• Homelessness in Seattle continues to be a challenge, for both those experiencing it and the government to know how to best respond. How is the city meeting this challenge? Here are a couple of articles to read: "Coronavirus pushed Seattle to treat homelessness differently: Will those changes last?" and "Seattle officials clear Ballard encampment"

• How are our Native Tribes handling the pandemic? A few articles were recently in the Seattle Times: "Makah tribe fights coronavirus with self-reliance and extreme isolation", "Lummi Nation has its first coronavirus cases in weeks"

ADVOCATE

• Demand justice for Ahmaud Arbery. Visit #RunWithMaud to sign the petition and make calls to elected officials to demand that hate crime charges be brought, and that an independent special council would be selected for this case.

• Advocate with the Native American community to receive federal funding needed to meet economic, health, and social concerns related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Read this article as a place to start.

• Release individuals being held in jail awaiting trial. Northwest Community Bail Fund is asking you to contact your city, state and county executives to support our call for the immediate release of all pre-trial non-violent detainees from all King County and WA state detention facilities, a halt to new arrests and bookings and wealth based detention, and the release of other vulnerable jailed neighbors based on health risk.

  • Governor Jay Inslee: 360-902-4111/email
    County Executive Dow Constantine: (206) 263-9600/ email
    Seattle City Attorney Dan Satterberg: 206-477-1200/ email 
    Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkin: 206-684-4000/ email
    SPD Chief Carmen Best: 206-625-5011/ email
    
    For information on contacting State legislators, click here.
    For Pierce County Executive Bruce Dammeier click here.
    For Snohomish County Executive Dave Somers email

    What to say:
    Hi, my name is _____, and I am a Washington resident who is concerned about the impact of Coronavirus on people who are detained.  We are calling for the immediate release of all non-violent pretrial detainees as well as detainees with at-risk health conditions.  We further call for a moratorium on new arrests, bookings and cash bail for all crimes that do not have immediate impact on public safety. Public safety includes those we choose to lock up in close quarters.
    Can we count on you to prevent detained people from dying during this pandemic by taking these actions?

ACT

• Join Union in attending the Poor People’s Campaign March on June 20, 2020 in a virtual march that will be the largest digital and social media gathering of poor and low-wealth people, moral and religious leaders, advocates, and people of conscience in the nation's history. A global pandemic is exposing even more the already existing crisis of systemic racism, poverty, ecological devastation, the war economy and militarism, and the distorted moral narrative of religious nationalism. On June 20, the 140 million poor and low-income people across the nation will be heard!  

• Make an extra meal for families at Compass House, or unite with a friend or another family and make 40 sack lunches that can be distributed to Immanuel Community Services, Lake Union Village, or Street Youth Ministries. Contact Adrienne if you would like to serve in this way.

• Look at the list of other ways to engage that is attached to this email!

Thank you, friends! The only way to get through this is to stick together.

With love and gratitude.

-- 
Truth & Justice Studio MISSION STATEMENT :: Truth & Justice creates space to educate and mobilize people by lifting up marginalized voices as catalyst for social change. We are a community within Union Church in Seattle, WA. 

Eco-Act 001: Re-growing Scallions

This is our first *official* eco-faith action invitation to our community. We will be posting other ideas from our community weekly on this page.

grow your own scallions in a jar

the surprisingly simple way to re-use food scraps

You can use the root end (white part) of your scallions to grow some more! After using the green stalks, simply place root ends in a jar of water and refresh the water every day. Keep the water level about halfway up the scallion roots — they will drown if submerged.

Though this practice has found popularity during quarantine, my Japanese side of the family (Adrienne speaking), along with other communities, have been saving and reusing veggie scraps like this for generations. This is a great project to do with kiddos (and adults!). Use something normally discarded to generate new life, save money, grow local, and never buy scallions again!

Growing Deeper

We invite you to consider some of the “food waste, labor, & scarcity” implications of this simple act as discussed in this Eater article:

“‘Green onions are something we take for granted, and I think in a time when we’re looking at food waste more closely, and thinking about who grows our food and the sacrifices they have to make to do it, this might make a good starting point for a lot of people to really understand what it takes,’ says [Noah] Cho. Keeping a green onion alive may be as simple as giving it sunlight and changing its water every day, but it still requires attention, consistency, care; produce doesn’t just magically materialize for our consumption. For individuals like Cho, that reminder is small, but significant: ‘There’s a different appreciation I have for something as simple as a green onion, because of this.’”

— Jenny G. Zhang

Why We Sing

We are so grateful to our worship band for creatively inviting us to worship through music…from home, our physically distanced walks, during essential work commutes. This reflection is from our Music Worship Lead, Jeff Fisher.

“In Your unfailing love you will lead the people you have redeemed.
In Your strength You will guide them to Your holy dwelling…
You will bring them in and plant them on the mountain of Your inheritance –
The place, LORD, You made for Your dwelling,
The sanctuary, Lord, Your hands established.
The LORD reigns for ever and ever.
— Exodus 15:13, 17-18”

The above passage comes from the Song of the Sea, the first recorded song in the Bible. The rest of the song tells the story of how God delivered the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt and defeated the army of Pharaoh. Like a choir leader, Moses led the people in singing this song to commemorate the moment.

I often think of this song and how much it must have meant to the people of Israel, not just in that moment but through the generations. The mere presence of it in the book of Exodus testifies to this, as it is likely that decades passed between the events described in the song and the moment they were finally put down on parchment. This means that the Song of the Sea became part of the liturgy of life for the people of Israel, passed on from Moses to those who followed him out of bondage, from those people to their children and grandchildren, and so on through the ages.

Do the songs we sing today carry the same weight in our lives? The words speak to the everlasting faithfulness of God in our lives, but do we actually allow them to teach this reality to us, or are they just rote? I hope that at least sometimes the answer to those questions is yes, that the Spirit of God really can bring us peace and hope as we sing them week after week.

In this age of coronavirus we have largely lost the ability to sing our songs together in community like Moses and the Israelites did. Despite this devastating fact, I do believe it is more important than ever to keep singing, to keep practicing the liturgy of life until the words of these songs convey their meaning not just to our head, but to our heart and soul.

Part of the beauty of singing is that the songs not only remind us of our need for God, but also of our need for those with whom we typically sing. Your worship band has worked tirelessly to keep bringing you music even while living in quarantine, overcoming numerous obstacles and technological challenges to make this happen. I have never been more thankful for those who help keep us singing.

For Megan Simmons, whose workhorse attitude has let me tap her on a (sometimes more than) weekly basis so we can keep hearing her beautiful voice.

For Jeff Hu, who has mastered the art of harmonizing with himself.

For Pat and Sarah Rhoads, who traded vocal parts to accommodate my choice of key.

For Mark Mitchell, who is always ready to help at a moment’s notice, even if it means joining Facebook so he and his family can bring us live music.

For Caroline Lu, a true leader who has been invaluable in helping arrange music and providing us with decadent piano runs.

For Heather Juul, whose wise and vulnerable writing has helped launch the Union Music Discovery group
on Facebook.

For Jim Ramsey, who helped bring the funk on Easter morning.

For Deirdre Curle, who continues to be our utility player, Swiss army knife, etc. in her endless versatility.

For John McLean, who conquered computer difficulties to make sure that our singing will never be without accompaniment.

For John Garrett, who has kept his quips to a minimum.

For Bronwyn Margrave, whose violin reminds us of the finer things in life even in the darkest times.

For Garrett Disco, who wouldn’t let social distancing derail his dream of a brass ensemble for Easter Sunday.

Live from the Living Room

We’ve ben blessed to sing together on Saturday nights! This week, join Sarah & Pat Rhoads at 7:30 pm, link here.

As you sing in your home during Sunday worship or throughout the week, I hope that you feel loved and cared for by these people. I hope that the words you sing will ever draw you back to the heart of the God who loves you even when that is a difficult truth to accept. And most of all I hope that before too long we can gather together and sing these songs in the same space and the same air as we lift our voices to the same God who will never stop delivering us from the slavery of sin and sorrow.

You can access the worship band music online here. If interested in discussing music in community, join the Union Music Discovery group on Facebook!

Jesus was Known in the Breaking of the Bread

This is a reflection from Adrienne, whose work for Union includes Communications and these days, helping out with our food ministries.

Last Sunday, the Gospel Lectionary reading was Luke 24:13-35 — the story of the two disciples heading to Emmaus. Their world had just been turned upside-down, much like our own. Though they took time walking and speaking with Jesus, “he had [only!] been made known to them in the breaking of the bread” (v. 35). I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what it means to truly see and know Jesus, broken open in something as common as a shared meal, a source of sustenance. This feels especially poignant in the Church’s current season of fasting from gathering and sharing in the Eucharist together.

In the midst of this pandemic, I see Christ resurrected in the embodied and relational gifts of Union: broken open abundantly for our community. Eastertide or not, it is clear that we care deeply about (yummy & nutritious) food accessibility and the interrelated communal web that we get to practice food justice with.

Though we aren’t able to do our usual 4th Sunday SCCA brunch or provide the chicken fingers and egg rolls at snack time for Compass House’s Café Club kiddos, we are finding ways to play to our strengths and tangibly feed our neighborhood:

• People are packing dozens of sack lunches every week that we distribute to LUV & ICS. Others are cooking one or a few extra meals for those in our community and for Compass House by carefully preparing, labeling, and dropping off. Last week, we estimate there were about 80 main meals, with a few desserts and baked goods thrown in!

• Other exchanges touch all corners of our web, like our legendary burritos! On Fridays, Theo and I visit the U-District Food Bank to see what produce or prepared foods we can rescue from the hundreds of pounds of excess they have had lately. We have lowered costs and reduced food waste by using lots of veggies for burritos (and soup!), in addition to sending many boxes of great quality fruits, colorful veggies, prepared foods, and bread to Compass House. (I love food waste & reclamation patterns of resurrection!)

• After we purchase the remaining burrito supplies, our famed 4th Sunday kitchen crew (Ian, Kelly, & Jeff) cook up the goods and so far, a different group each week shows up — masked, gloved, and far apart — to roll upwards of 175 burritos every Saturday. Theo then delivers these to Compass House, LUV, and ICS later in the week.

• Theo also heats up coffee pots and more burritos on Wednesdays for Street Youth Ministries to pick up and distribute…along with snacks, sandwiches, underwear, all types of hygiene products, and a hand-washing station that their ministry delivers twice-weekly to those without shelter in the U-District. We will start delivering burritos to New Horizons starting this week as well.

Theo & Andy at ICS (before masks were recommended)

Like any ecological system, we are enmeshed in a web of relations and mutually affect/are affected by our community partners. In this uncertain and disruptive time, we all have different capacities and for some, they must cook, or shop, or pray, or do nothing. And all of that is good and necessary.

It has been wonderful to experience the way Union has channeled all of its energy, prayers, resources (read: worship in action) with abundance. For me personally, this has been a gift and source of hope to see all the ways our partner relationships — which have taken time, care, and trust to build — are blossoming this spring. We are relying on our network to feed our network. And, we are reclaiming excess food that would otherwise be wasted! As we are broken open by the tangible needs of our community, may we continue to see and know Jesus and the power of his resurrection.

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Eco-faith Action Invitation:

Practice food re-distribution by making an extra meal this week for someone…bonus points for using items from your garden!