For the Simple Gifts Service of Thanksgiving and Remembrance

Christian Readings, pgs. 1 & 2: Choose one or two of these readings, or some other 1

READINGS

for the Simple Gifts Service of Thanksgiving and Remembrance

Choose one or two readings from pages 1 2; and one to two readings from pages 3 & 4.

On the mountainthe Lord our God is preparing a banquet of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of fine wines, of succulent food, of wines strained clear. On this mountain he has destroyed the veil which used to veil all peoples, the pall enveloping all nations; he has destroyed death forever. The Lord has wiped away the tears from every cheek; he has taken his people’s shame away everywhere on earth, for the Lord has spoken. And on that day it will be said, “Look, this is our God, in him we put our hope that he should save us. This is our Lord, we put our hope in him. Let us exult and rejoice, since he has saved us.”

Isaiah 25:6–9

Surely God’s mercies are not over, his deeds of faithful love not exhausted. Every morning they are renewed; great is his faithfulness. “The Lord is all I have,” I say to myself, “and so I shall put my hope in him.” God is good to those who trust him, to all who search for him. It is good to wait in silence for God to save. For he will not reject anyone forever. If he brings grief, he will have pity out of the fullness of his faithful love, for he does not willingly afflict or grieve the human race.

Lamentations 3:22–26, 31–33

Jesus said, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You trust in God, trust also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling-places; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. After I have gone and prepared you a place, I shall return to take you to myself, so that you may be with me where I am.”

John 14:1–3

Jesus said, “In all truth I tell you, unless a wheat grain falls into the earth and dies, it remains only a single grain; but if it dies it yields a rich harvest.”

John 12:24

Someone may ask: How are dead people raised, and what sort of body do they have when they come? How foolish! What you sow must die before it is given new life; and what you sow is not the body that is to be, but only a bare grain, perhaps of wheat, or some other kind; it is God who gives it the sort of body that he has chosen for it, and for each kind of seed its own kind of body.

Not all flesh is the same flesh: there is human flesh; animals have another kind of flesh, birds another and fish yet another. Then there are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies; the heavenly have a splendor of their own, and the earthly a different splendor. The sun has its own splendor, the moon another splendor, and the stars yet another splendor; and the stars differ among themselves in splendor. It is the same too with the resurrection of the dead: what is sown is perishable, but what is raised is imperishable; what is sown is inglorious, but what is raised is glorious; what is sown is weak, but what is raised is powerful; what is sown is a natural body, and what is raised is a spiritual body.

And after this perishable nature has put on imperishability and this mortal nature has put on immortality, then will the words of scripture come true: Death is swallowed up in victory. O Death, where is your victory? O Death, where is your sting?

1 Corinthians 15:35–44, 54–55

Christian Readings, pgs. 1 & 2: Choose one or two of these readings, or some other 1

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; the first heaven and the first earth had vanished, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. Then I heard a voice call from the throne, “Look, here God lives among human beings. He will make his home among them; they will be his people, and he will be their God, and God himself will be with them. He will wipe away all tears from their eyes; there will be no more death, and no more mourning or sadness or pain. The old order has passed away.”

Then the One sitting on the throne spoke. “Look, I am making all things new. Write this down. What I am saying is trustworthy and will come true. Indeed, it has already happened. I am the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give water from the wellsprings of life free to anybody who is thirsty; anyone who proves victorious will inherit these things; and I will be his God and he shall be my child.”

Revelation 21:1–7

In spite of our poor choices and spiritual blindness in this life, our courteous Lord continues to love us. We will bring him the most pleasure if we rejoice with him and in him.

When the end comes and we are taken for judgment above, we will then clearly understand in God the mysteries that puzzle us now. Not one of us will think to say, “Lord, if it had been some other way, all would be well.”

We shall all say in unison, “Lord, bless you because it is all the way it is. It is well. Now we can honestly see that everything is done as you intended; you planned it before anything was ever made.”

What is the meaning of it all? Listen carefully. Love is the Lord’s meaning. Who reveals it? Love. Why does he reveal it? For love.

This is the only lesson there is. You will never learn another. Never. We began in love, and we shall see all of this in God forever.

Julian of Norwich: Showings(14th Century)

God will always help those who are in trouble if they understand that he is the only help available. This knowledge removes fear during natural catastrophes. The faithful are confident when the earth shakes, the surf pounds the shore, and things are being washed away. In spite of all these frightening disasters, God steadies those who trust in him. There are visible evidences of divine assistance. We may trust the goodness of God.

Peter Vermigli: Sacred Prayers from the Psalms (16th Century)

The captain of a ship uses the North Star to guide his way upon the sea. In the same way we, who are passengers and strangers in this world, must keep our eyes on God. Then no tempest will capsize us. We will be guided past dangers and will arrive safely in our haven of rest.

Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” This is our rule of faith. Without this our faith is mere fantasy.

Pray for knowledge of God’s word. Show me your ways, O Lord, teach me your paths; guide me in your truth and teach me.

John Jewell: Of the Holy Scriptures(16th Century)

Readings from Other Traditions, pgs. 3 & 4: Choose one or two of these readings, or some other 1

Our real nature is primarily spiritual life, which weaves its threads of mind to build a cocoon of flesh, encloses its own soul in the cocoon, and, for the first time, the spirit becomes flesh. Understand this very clearly: the cocoon is not the silkworm. In the same way, the physical body is not the person but merely the person’s cocoon. Just as the silkworm will break out of its cocoon and fly free, so, too, will each person break out of his body-coco0n and ascend to the spiritual world when his time is come.

Never think that the death of the physical body is the death of the person. The person is life and will never know death.

Seicho-no-le: Nectarean Shower of Holy Doctrines

You prefer this life, although the life to come is better and more enduring. All this is written in earlier scriptures; the scriptures of Abraham and Moses.

Islam: Qur’an 87.16-19

Who is whose mother? Who the father? All relationships are nominal, false. Ignorant man! Why do you babble as in a dream? Know, by conjunction made by God, by His Ordinance, you have come into the world. All from one clay are made; in all one Light shines. One breath pervades all.

What point is any weeping over another? Man wails over the loss of what he calls his. Know this: the Self is not perishable.

Sikhism: AdiGranth,

Gauri, M.5, p. 88

One man believes he is the slayer, another believes he is the slain. Both are ignorant; there is neither slayer nor slain. You were never born; you will never die. You have never changed; you can never change. Unborn, eternal, immutable, immemorial, you do not die when the body dies. Realizing that which is indestructible, eternal, unborn, and unchanging, how can you slay or cause another to be slain?

The Self cannot be pierced with weapons or burned with fire; water cannot wet it, nor can the wind dry it. The Self cannot be pierced or burned, made wet or dry. It is everlasting and infinite, standing on the motionless foundation of eternity. The Self is unmanifested, beyond all thought, beyond all change. Knowing this, you should not grieve.

Hinduism: Bhagavad Gita 2.19-25

The world beyond is as different from this world as this world is different from that of the child while still in the womb of its mother. When the soul attains the Presence of God, it will assume the form that best befits its immortality and is worthy of its celestial habitation.

Baha’i Faith: Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u’llah 81

Birth is not a beginning; death is not an end. There is existence without limitation; there is continuity without a starting point. Existence without limitation is space. Continuity without a starting point is time. There is birth, there is death, there is issuing forth, there is entering in. That through which one passes in and out without seeing its form, that is the Portal of God.

Taoism: Chuang Tzu 23

The Self, having in dreams enjoyed the pleasures of sense, gone hither and thither, experienced good and evil, hastens back to the state of waking from which he started. As a man passes from dream to wakefulness, so does he pass from this life to the next.

When a man is about to die, the subtle body, mounted by the intelligent self, groans—as a heavily laden cart groans under its burden. When his body becomes thin through old age or disease, the dying man separates himself from his limbs, even as a mango or a fig or a banyan fruit separates itself from its stalk, and by the same way that he came he hastens to his new abode, and there assumes another body, in which to begin a new life.

When his body grows weak and he becomes apparently unconscious, the dying man gathers his senses about him and, completely withdrawing their powers, descends into his heart. No more does he see form or color without.

He neither sees, nor smells, nor tastes. He does not speak, he does not hear. He does not think, he does not know. For all the organs, detaching themselves from his physical body, unite with his subtle body. Then the point of his heart, where the nerves join, is lighted by the light of the Self, and by that light he departs either through the eye, or through the gate of the skull, or through some other aperture of the body. When he thus departs, life departs; and when life departs, all the functions of the vital principle depart. The Self remains conscious, and, conscious, the dying man goes to his abode. The deeds of this life, and the impressions they leave behind, follow him.

As a caterpillar, having reached the end of a blade of grass, takes hold of another blade and draws itself to it, so the Self, having left behind it [a body] unconscious, takes hold of another body and draws himself to it.

As a goldsmith, taking an old gold ornament, molds it into another, newer and more beautiful, so the Self, having given up the body and left it unconscious, takes on a new and better form, either that of the Fathers, or that of the Celestial Singers, or that of the gods, or that of other beings, heavenly or earthly.

Hinduism:Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 4.3.34-4.4.4

Chuang Tzu said, “Were I to prevail upon God to allow your body to be born again, and your bones and flesh to be renewed, so that you could return to your parents, to your wife, and to the friends of your youth, would you be willing?”

At this the skull opened its eyes wide and knitted its brows and said, “How should I cast aside happiness greater than that of a king, and mingle once again in the toils and troubles of mortality?”

Taoism: Chuang Tzu 18