Dear Friends, we offer this self-directed worship outline as a resource for individual, family, or small group use. It is modeled on our regular order of worship, but please adapt it freely to suit your needs and circumstances. We hope this will be a blessing to you.

Gathering in Worship

Prelude

Ain’t That Good News | arr. Phillip Roberts

Announcements, Introductions, and Birthdays

We welcome all to this virtual gathering for worship, hosted by Wilmington Friends Meeting. As you know, our regularly scheduled corporate meeting for worship has been cancelled, in light of the need to slow the spread of COVID-19 by refraining from gathering together in person. However, no virus is powerful enough to stop us from being gathered by the bond of love! Whoever you are, and wherever you’re from, we’re glad that you’re joining us. Please participate as you feel led by the Spirit.

Other ways to gather with Friends:

Emily Provance is hosting Quaker Family Devotionals on Zoom. Click here for more information and to sign up.

Barclay Press is offering daily contemplative devotionals on their website.

The Quaker Religious Education Collaborative has started a new Facebook group: Valiant Together: RE Support During COVID-19. Join to connect with religious educators and share ideas!

Powell House, a Quaker retreat center in New York, has a series of virtual workshops planned. Check them out here.

Friends United Meeting offers reflections on the spiritual journey at their Journal.

Gathering Moment

The gospel is a story — the story of Jesus. It’s not a formula; it’s not three steps or four laws. In a brief telling it’s the story of Good Friday and Easter. In a fuller telling it goes from Christmas to Pentecost. In its fullest telling it ranges from Creation to New Creation. – Brian Zahnd

Centering Silence

Please take a moment to quietly collect your thoughts and prepare your heart(s) for worship.

Opening Music

I Love to Tell the Story | First Methodist Houston

Caring in Community

Friendly Moment

Narrative Theology: The Importance of Quaker Histories and Biographies

Praises and Concerns

Praise for the ways we are still gathering.

Praise for the continuing joy of spiritual fellowship.

Praise for the lengthening days.

Praise for the ways sacrificial love is being shown.

Praise for finding new rhythms and new life.

Praise for the God-given wisdom and tenacity of scientists.

Praise for the hope that lies within us.

Praise for the unexpected blessing of time with family.

Pray for Friends facing the unexpected challenges of time with family.

Pray for those who are grieving the loss of loved ones without being able to gather.

Pray for Friends who are struggling with bitterness, especially about politics.

Pray for strength and wisdom for healthcare workers around the world.

Pray that those who help sustain us will find ways to feel renewed.

Pray that Friends will continue to find creative and effectual ways of gathering by card, phone, email, and through online options.

Pray for our political leaders – locally, nationally, and on a global scale – that they would prioritize the peace and health of all people. We pray especially for Governor Mike DeWine, for Lieutenant Governor Jon Husted, and for Dr. Amy Acton.

Pray for our seniors, both the senior citizens and the seniors in high school and college, for whom this is a particularly isolating experience.

Congregational Prayer Focus

Campus Friends Meeting

Wider Quaker Prayer Focus

Samburu Friends Mission

Personal praises and concerns can be found in our congregational email. If you would like to submit a praise or a concern, email it to julie dot rudd at wilmingtonfriendsohio dot org. All submissions will, by default, be made anonymous if shared online.

Pastoral Prayer

Living Christ, resurrect us. Fill our tired souls with your living Spirit. Through the fear, touch us with your joy.

And let your joyful kingdom come, Lord God. Let your enlivening will be done, here in our lives just as it is in your own heart. Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against, so that together we can be your restored community.

We pray for daily bread, Lord God, for ourselves… for members of our community who are struggling… for people with empty bowls all around the world. Give us the wisdom and the compassion to build a world in which no one goes hungry.

Consoling God, give each one of us your protection and your peace. We pray this in the name of Jesus, our peaceful Risen Lord, AMEN

Offering and Offertory

Be Still My Soul / Finlandia | Lyceum Philharmonic

If you wish to financially support the work of Wilmington Friends Meeting, please mail your donation to us at 66 N Mulberry St, Wilmington, OH 45177, use this link to donate online, or download the EasyTithe app and find us there. Or, as a way of embodying generosity, please make a donation to the religious organization or charity of your choice. Thank you for supporting holy work in the world through your hands and prayers and financial gifts.

Hearing the Scriptures

Scripture Reading: Matthew 28:8-15

So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them. “Greetings,” he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”

While the women were on their way, some of the guards went into the city and reported to the chief priests everything that had happened. When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, telling them, “You are to say, ‘His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.’ If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.” So the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day.

Children’s Message

Faith & Play Stories | Flat Fox and Fell

Special Music

Audrey Assad | I Heard The Voice of Jesus Say

(Lyrics available in the video.)

Sermon: The Stories We Tell

Each Easter, recently, I’ve returned to a quote from Peter Rollins, a Northern Irish writer and theologian. Perhaps you’ve read this little piece before, but it’s one that has stuck with me, so I hope you won’t mind hearing it again. Here it is:

“Without equivocation or hesitation I fully and completely admit that I deny the resurrection of Christ. This is something that anyone who knows me could tell you, and I am not afraid to say it publicly, no matter what some people may think…

I deny the resurrection of Christ every time I do not serve at the feet of the oppressed, each day that I turn my back on the poor; I deny the resurrection of Christ when I close my ears to the cries of the downtrodden and lend my support to an unjust and corrupt system.

However there are moments when I affirm that resurrection, few and far between as they are. I affirm it when I stand up for those who are forced to live on their knees, when I speak for those who have had their tongues torn out, when I cry for those who have no more tears left to shed.”

I love the stark way that little piece begins, because no matter how many times I hear it, I always want to argue. Rollins says that he denies the resurrection, and I already have my boots on and I’m running out the door to join the fight.

And then, he turns it around. Denying the resurrection isn’t just sitting in your house and saying that Jesus is still dead. Denying the resurrection — denying that the power that raised Jesus from the dead could even exist — is accepting this unjust world as it is.

But if some love powerful enough to raise Jesus from the grave exists — if love really won out over the forces of fear and oppression — then we affirm that truth not by reciting it in a creed, but by embedding it in our lives.

We affirm the resurrection when we stand on the side of life. We affirm the resurrection when we choose love over safety or comfort, when we choose justice over profit or security, when we choose mercy over revenge or judgment.

Easter isn’t just one day in spring. It’s a lifestyle.

Here’s our Scripture reading, from the Gospel of Matthew:

-Matthew 28:8-15

Bear in mind that angels are fearsome. Bear in mind that you might not want to meet one. We have these cutesy versions that we decorate with, at Christmas. That’s not what you should be picturing, in the story of Easter morning when the Marys went out to the tomb:

There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.

The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.’ Now I have told you.”

Tally it up. An earthquake, and a violent one. There was an angel, one so fearsome that the guards at the tomb had seizures or strokes. This very angel, like so many of its angelic brethren, says do not be afraid.

The angel invites the women in to see the empty tomb, then gives them a storytelling mission: go tell the disciples that Christ is risen.

So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples.

That’s Matthew 28:8. If you want to memorize a Bible verse, this week, consider this one. It’s not a classic, like John 3:16. It doesn’t offer a quick synopsis of truth, like so many memory verses are framed to do.

It does, though, give us a model for how we should faithfully react, when we run across a resurrection. The women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples.

The women did what the angel told them — that’s why they were hurrying, They were running to tell the disciples what had happened. It’s their emotional state that interests me, though: afraid yet filled with joy.

I love this verse because it’s so easy for me to think that everyone else in Christendom greets resurrection with unmixed and unbridled joy. It’s Easter, right? We’re celebrating new life: new shoots from brown branches, and new lambs being born, and why would you be afraid?

To be afraid, I’m afraid, is seen as like admitting that new life doesn’t bring joy.

That’s wrong-headed, though, because new life is always scarily alive.

New shoots from brown branches have to poke their way out into the sun. New lambs are cute, but the process isn’t easy for either sheep or shepherd. If you’ve driven home from the hospital with a new baby in the car, then you know exactly what I mean. Afraid, yet filled with joy.

Jesus met these women on their path. They had heard the angel’s word, at the tomb, telling them that Jesus had risen. As they ran to tell the story, though, Jesus met them on that journey.

Jesus himself told the women not to be afraid. Maybe they listened, and maybe they didn’t. The angel told them not to be afraid, after all, and they were still living in this mixture of fear and joy.

But here’s the thing: they were filled with joy, and they were afraid, but they moved in the direction of joy. They didn’t stay waiting at the tomb for another sign. They got ready to share the joy.

Compare that with the reaction of the authorities:

Meanwhile, the guards had scattered, but a few of them went into the city and told the high priests everything that had happened. They called a meeting of the religious leaders and came up with a plan: They took a large sum of money and gave it to the soldiers, bribing them to say, “His disciples came in the night and stole the body while we were sleeping.” They assured them, “If the governor hears about your sleeping on duty, we will make sure you don’t get blamed.” The soldiers took the bribe and did as they were told. That story, cooked up in the Jewish High Council, is still going around.

The Marys at the tomb were afraid, yet filled with joy. These folks, on the other hand, are acting out of simple fear. They’re planning the tale of a different kind of story, one that undercuts the message of salvation.

Money is traded in bribes. People are given excuses to weld. A story is concocted.

That’s how fear works. It clamps down. It tries to remove risk.

But the stories we tell, Friends, are resurrection stories. We tell them in spite of the guards, who would rather cook up some other story.

We may be afraid, Friends. The women who were the first witnesses to the resurrection were afraid. But here’s the question, once we see the possibility of new life, and once we know we are afraid: will we choose to be just afraid, or will we choose to be afraid yet filled with joy?

Joy is a liberating force — a resurrecting force. It doesn’t run counter to fear, as an antidote… it runs alongside fear. Joy is what makes fear livable.

The second letter of Timothy, written to a young pastor by an experienced spiritual leader, starts off with the author reminding the reader of how much he is loved. The mentor constantly remembers Timothy in his prayers, and longs to see him again. The mentor has known Timothy’s mother and grandmother, and is blessed to see their faith rooted in him.

Then, the mentor writes:

For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline. So do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner.

Rather, join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God. He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.

Fan into flame the gift of God. God’s spirit does not make us timid, but gives us power, love, and self-discipline. That self-discipline part is important, because this isn’t about being reckless, or public displays of puffed-up bravado, or endangering anyone. That’s not the power in which Jesus lived, so we know it’s not what we’re called to, either.

Rather, we’re being invited to live under the care of our Savior, who has destroyed death and brought us the light of the Gospel. We’re to live holy lives, which is living as though death does not have the final word. We’re called to embody this hope in the choices we make and the stories we tell.

The front windows of many of our local shops, in Wilmington, are painted in beautiful colors and bear encouraging messages. We’re doing the same thing at our meetinghouse. Families are coming in shifts to decorate windows with flowers, rainbows, geometric patterns, and possibly a rocket ship or two.

It seems like just a fun activity for bored kids, but I’m convinced it’s something more. It’s offering them a discipleship opportunity — a practical way to live a resurrection story, to recognize that there is much to fear and choose to point toward hope and joy anyway. It’s giving them an opportunity to live like Jesus.

What about you? What’s your new life story? How are you living into resurrection? How are you fanning the flames of hope, and living in Easter power?

Sharing in Silence

Waiting Worship

During waiting worship, we listen together for God’s voice. As a virtual participant in this service, this may mean a time of waiting worship with those gathered in your family or small group. It could also be an individual experience. These breath prayers may be helpful to you, as you wait for God’s presence. If you want an online experience, you can join the Ben Lomond Quaker Center Online Meeting.

Blessing and Sending

Close of Waiting Worship

Thank you, Friends, for blessing us with your mindful and loving presence here. As we move toward the end of our time of worship, join us again in song.

Closing Music

King’s College Choir | Thine Is The Glory

(Lyrics available at the link.)

Closing Words

Thank you for sharing this virtual space with us! This week, as you follow in the steps of the first disciples, may you tell your honest stories of fear and hope and joy. And may the Risen Christ carry you as you go. And may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with us now and always. AMEN.

The Stories We Tell: Virtual Worship for Friends