OUTREACH participating in ministries of compassion, justice, and advocacy

{Outward}

FEBRUARY IS FOR HEART HAVENS, for Heart Havens homes across Virginia. Heart Havens, with help from congregations like Boulevard, empowers adults with intellectual disabilities to find their places at tables both at church and in the community. We are collecting financial gifts and

supplies (paper products, cleaning supplies, art supplies). Look for the blue bin.

WITNESS telling our stories, offering expressions of faith, being Christ-like

{Together}

AN ASH WEDNESDAY SERVICE might be thought of as an inward thing and therefore as belonging under the Nurture heading. The imposition of ashes makes it equally a ministry of Witness. Let your forehead speak: Wednesday, February 10, 12:30 – 12:45, in our chapel.

UNITED METHODIST CHURCH

We make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world (Matthew 28).

Bou levard United Method i s t

Church

“Invite in imaginative lovers, lunatics, and poets to give us visions of new selves and new heavens and earths. God knows, we need them if we are to be God’s partners in transfiguring ourselves and the world.”

- Bruce Epperly

February 7, 2016

321 N Boulevard Richmond, Virginia 23220 www.boulevardumc.org

An Order of Worship for Transiguration Sunday

(UMH) - The United Methodist Hymnal (TFWS) - The Faith We Sing

* Please stand, as able.

Gathering

Introit Christ Upon the Mountain Peak

Call to Worship Something drew us together this morning Something we can’t name but which we experience in worship Some holy mystery we call God Some sacred calling we hear in the life of Jesus

Some indescribable hope we feel when we gather in the Spirit May our experience of the Divine transform our doubts and fear and prepare us to love the world.

Rev. Dr. David Bahr, Park Hill Congregational UCC

*Hymn Be Thou My Vision UMH 451

Words of Welcome

Prayer

Proclamation and Response

Time with Children

First Lesson Exodus 34:29-35

*Hymn Holy Ground TFWS 2272

*Gospel Lesson Luke 9:28-43a

Sermon Rev. Alexa Slonin

Invitation The heavenly banquet is open to everyone! Sisters and brothers, Let us keep the feast! Because God’s welcome and love are never ceasing. Here, everyone has a place at the Table!

Thanksgiving and Communion

Our service continues with a liturgy for celebrating the Lord’s Supper. You are invited to offer tithes and gifts as you come forward to celebrate the sacrament by intinction.

Offertory For Everyone Born

Prayer

Sending Forth

*Hymn O Thou Who This Mysterious Bread UMH 613

*Dismissal with Blessing

NURTURE caring for one another, for our space, and for our growth as disciples

{Inward}

WE ARE PRAYING for Casey Bowman Mile, Heart Havens residents and staff, Maria, persons suffering because of addiction, the working poor, and incarcerated residents of metropolitan Richmond. Wish to add or restore a name? Say so via the offering plate or the church’s e-mail address.

REVISED COMMON LECTIONARY READINGS typically shape our order of service, including the sermon. Next Sunday:

Lent 1 Deuteronomy 26:1-11 Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16 Romans 10:8b-13 Luke 4:1-13

GIVING GROWS YOU and us.

Ministry Costs Your Gifts January 2016 $17,808 $6,529

Crossing Boulevard with Rev. Rachel

32 A GOD-REVEALING LIGHT Luke 2

Whoever commissioned “The Presentation at the Temple” asked that the subjects be painted in the likeness of the Bellini family. OR, the artist, Giovanni Bellini decided to have a little fun with the fact that no one had actually seen these biblical characters.

Alas, meet Joseph, in the front. He doubles as a portrait of Bellini's father. The two men on the right are most likely the artist and his brother. Giovanni’s sister and mother (a.k.a. Anna) stand stage left.

The Christ child is wrapped in gauze. Actually, these are the long strips of cloth commonly used, then, to swaddle newborns. Bellini may be inviting us to see at the same time, grave clothes. Corpses too were wrapped in strips of cloth.

A man taking the Venetian art scene by storm depicted Simeon seeing the light. And you know what? I’m not mad at him. I will not call Giovanni Bellini an egomaniac for drawing himself and his world into the scene. Finding ourselves in God’s story: Is that not exactly what we are called to do?

Today (Tuesday February 2) is Candlemas. Some congregations keep this feast by blessing all of the candles that are used over the course of the year. They recall the bittersweet moment Simeon recognizes both light for the world and the pain that would pierce she who birthed the light.

Simeon had long hoped fervently, feverishly, for the lifting up of his nation. It had not occurred to him that God could answer that prayer by coming for all people. “My eyes have seen your salvation (v.30),” and I am seeing salvation differently.

What would it take for us to rejoice in what God is doing for other lives—lives we don’t tend to regard as tied up with our own? A renewed mind? Prayer? Time spent in the presence of a different crowd? Celebrating Candlemas? I do not know.

I do know that God’s story is still being written and that there are Simeons among us catching glimpses of the next chapter and daring to say that what they see is good. You don’t have to be a renaissance man and you don’t have to amass candles to celebrate God’s expansive grace. Look for It. Name it. The praise will follow.

Luke 2:25-32

Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; this man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested on him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. Guided by the Spirit, Simeon came into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him what was customary under the law, Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying,

“Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.”

CELEBRATING THE LORD’S SUPPER ON HEART HAVENS SUNDAY

The Lord be with you. And also with you. Lift up your hearts. We lift them up to the Lord. Let us give thanks to the Lord our God. It is right to give our thanks and praise.

It is right, and a good and joyful thing, always and everywhere, to give thanks to you, God Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth. From the dust you created us, each one individually, and granted each of us unique gifts to use to glorify you and to bless one another.

Even when we fail to celebrate abilities that are unlike our own, your love for each and every one of us, your children, remains strong and unchanging. And so, With your people on earth And all the company of heaven, We praise your name and join their unending hymn: Holy, holy, holy lord, God of power and might; Heaven and earth are full of your glory. Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is the One who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest.

Holy are you, and blessed is… Celebrants recall the gracious acts of God in Jesus; also, the events of the Last Supper.

So, in remembrance of your transfiguring love embodied in Jesus Christ, We offer ourselves in praise and thanksgiving As we proclaim the mystery of faith:

Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.

Pour out your Holy Spirit on us gathered here and on these gifts of bread and wine. Make Christ known to us in the sharing of this meal that the light of Christ might shine through us and into the world, until all people find their place at your beautiful table. Through your Son Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit in your holy church, all honor and glory is yours, almighty God, now and forever.