Proper 21 (Year B 2021): Litany for Getting Real

This week’s texts are *gritty* - we get two heavy hitter First testament stories: Queen Esther going to bat for her people against evil Haman and winning like a boss. And Moses having an emotional breakdown because he just.can’t.handle.these complainy-pants people anymore. 

Then in the Gospel reading, we get Jesus laying down some real talk to John, et al. He says (using some striking metaphors involving intentional amputation of troublesome body parts) get rid of your ego. It’s holding you back and keeping you mired in suffering - in “hell” as the text puts it.  

Seriously, Jesus is not pulling any punches here: you’re better off drowning yourself than letting your gate-keepy ego create all these hierarchies and cliques (Mark 9:42). It’s enough to make a reader sweat. Harsh. 

Now, I don’t *actually* think that Jesus wants anyone to hack off their foot or gouge out their eye. I tend to think he’s using a rhetorical device, which is something most humans I know do fairly frequently. I also hear the humor in it. Like, dude, go ahead and maim yourself before you decide to create more hell on earth. 

Regardless of how you read it, it’s a pretty stark warning. Get rid of that which holds you back from life everlasting, and also harms others. And that which holds you back is usually your attachment to ego and hierarchy. Jesus is getting real. 

And Queen Esther is getting real, risking everything to save the literal necks of her marginalized community/family (Esther 7:2). It’s life or death and she is using every tool she has.

Moses is also getting real, admitting his exhaustion and consternation with the Hebrew people to God - he says he’d rather die than go on alone, as sole leader of a fractious and difficult group of people. Moses is STRESSED. And, in the story, God gives him an out, deciding to share the load of leadership with some 70 other elders (Numbers 11:25). 

I wonder what we need to get real about in our communities. I wonder if we might use these stories to inspire us to deeper authenticity and wholeness, honesty and humility. Here’s a prayerful place to start:


God, we are getting real with you:
Admitting our weaknesses, 
Our needs, 
Our discouragements, 
Our problems, 
Our exhaustion. …


Proper 20 (Year B 2021): Litany for Virtuous Living

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I wrote LITANY FOR AN EMPOWERED WOMAN for proper 20 of Year B in 2018. You can still find it here. 

This year I’m focusing on another theme present in the Lectionary texts, that of virtue. In this prayer, I’m taking all the virtues traditionally reserved for the “Proverbs 31 woman” and applying them to everyone. Which seems to me to be resonant with the overall message of the text, no exclusions or gender double-standards apply. 

The scriptures for this week offer us a blatant pathway to the good life: “happy are those…” it says. James wants his audience to “Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom.” (James 3:13). And the Wisdom of Solomon text offers a contrasting example of a life of wickedness and injustice. 

In the gospel reading, Jesus gently rebukes the disciples for their ego-centered one-upmanship. He pulls them toward a more humble, heart-centered way: "Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all."

So, without shame or apology, we admit that we want that good good life. That drawn-near-to-God life. That happy and delightful life. So we embrace these virtues as part of our true, God-imaged nature. 


God, we notice the virtues extolled in the sacred texts:
Wisdom (1), 
Kindness (1)
Generosity (2), 
Diligence (3)
Strength (4)...

Epiphany 6, Transfiguration, Year B (2021): Litany for our Highest Spiritual Selves

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Here is the litany for Transfiguration Sunday, Year B, which I wrote in 2018. I still like it a lot.

I looked up the dictionary definition of transfiguration: "a complete change of form or appearance into a more beautiful or spiritual state" (citation). Over the years I've come to interpret most of the actions and experiences of Christ as invitations. E.g. Jesus resurrects; we are invited into resurrection. Jesus is embodied; we are invited to embrace our embodiment. Jesus heals; we are invited into healing. Jesus is baptized; we are invited into baptism. Jesus undergoes transfiguration; we are invited to undergo transfiguration, etc.

Speaking of baptism, I've also come to understand baptism as a precursor to the transfiguration; almost as though baptism is a ritual signaling our consent to the ongoing process of transfiguration. Every culture has its rituals of symbolic purification in preparation for transformation and higher spiritual awareness. I had never noticed this connection until I started learning more about other spiritual traditions.

This week's gospel text comes from Mark 9. Jesus's baptism is recounted in Mark 1. The life of Christ is full of these kinds of symbols, laced with layers of meaning. Embodiment > purification > transfiguration > death > resurrection > ascension. They are both actual and symbolic, inviting us to perceive our own lives in this multidimensional way.

And here we are at Lent's doorway, with this opportunity to ask ourselves: What rituals of purification do I need to engage in to prepare for and give consent to a higher way of being, a personal transfiguration?

Lent: a time of fasting, preparation, re-focusing. It begins, in the church calendar, with this picture, the example, of what we, too, are to become: the image of Christ shining gloriously, full of embodied light. He is fully become; he is his own true self - even before Good Friday. Even before resurrection. He even tells the disciples that they don’t have to die physically in order to see the kingdom of God come in power (Mark 9:1)! And we are invited to follow that path toward “a complete change of form...into a more spiritual state,” even as we live these homely, challenging lives here on earth.

God, we celebrate the transfiguration of Christ -
Christ, shining gloriously with heaven’s light,
Embodying his True Self, even while on earth.
He is fully Become, fully realized.