Proper 25 (Year B, 2021): Litany for Consolation

October 22, 2021 Fran Pratt

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Psalm 126 gets me in my feelings. “May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy,” it says.

These ancient words can give us solace if we let them - thousands of years of humans looking at the world saying: “yep this looks bad right now, but even so, we can perceive a Divine force in the world that is good and full of love and creativity; and even though we and our fellow humans have made a bunch of bad choices, we trust that force for good.”

My foremothers and forefathers in faith trusted the Divine to console them, even in suffering and hardship - Job, Bartimaeus, and many others. And the Christ gives us a story of overcoming the worst of humanity’s bloodthirstiness, of grace and mercy amidst cruelty, and of life and compassion enduring and renewing against all odds.

This is some of the best stuff that Christianity has to offer, in concert with its ancestor Judaism. This tenacious clinging to hope even when the world is burning or collapsing around it. This steadfast trust in a loving, Divine Source who is both within us and at work in the world. This stubborn hold on goodness. It’s good medicine for us today. May we have soft hearts to receive it.

God, each of us in our lives have endured suffering,
None of us immune to loss or hardship;
Most of us are acquainted with grief.
Pain is part of our experience here...

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Proper 15 (Year B, 2021): Litany for Going Out and Coming In

August 12, 2021 Fran Pratt

In this week’s reading from 1 Kings 2, Solomon speaks to God in a dream. God asks Solomon what he wants, and Solomon explains that he is (or feels like he is?) “only a little child; I do not know how to go out or come in…” and asks for “an understanding mind to govern your people, able to discern between good and evil…”

Scholars believe that Solomon was only 12 when he became king of Israel; a young child faced with a vast responsibility. I read that frank admission of young Solomon’s: I’m just a whippersnapper who doesn’t know hardly anything; and I feel such resonance with him.

Especially in Covid days, when cases are increasing and ICU’s are at capacity in the area where I live. Especially when I consider that my kids are starting school in a red zone in which the local authorities have left us with virtually no ways to ensure their protection. Especially on weeks when the UN releases a devastating climate report calling it a “code red” for humanity. Especially when the political divide is a veritable chasm of difference.

I am disheartened. And I am praying to God: I am a little child. I don’t even know how to go out or come in. I need wisdom for how to do life in a way that makes any sense in these trying days.

So this week, in light of these scriptures and this life situation, I’m translating that prayer into something I hope will be useful congregationally. If this more raw version is not up your alley for this week, I invite you to check out Litany for Wisdom, which I wrote for Proper 15 in 2018.

God, in this time of pandemic,
Political extremes,
And global unrest,
We are overwhelmed….

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Proper 14 (Year B 2021): Litany for Re-Training Ourselves

August 4, 2021 Fran Pratt

In the First Testament readings, we glimpse Elijah and David in unique moments of deep grief. David weeps for the loss of his son Absalom. Elijah is in despair, such that he longs for death, and running for his life into the wilderness, where receives miraculous provision: bread.

In this week’s gospel text from John 6, Jesus continues his thoughts on being bread. I’m particularly struck (again) by him saying: “whoever believes has eternal life.” It’s so radical! It’s not “whoever behaves.” It’s not “whoever gives assent to this list of theological doctrines.” It’s whoever believes. In other words, whoever is willing to assume the consciousness of eternal life, eternity, the eternal NOW… whoever is convinced that God’s Community (Kingdom, Kin-dom) is right now. Whoever can perceive their own self in light of Love. Whoever knows in their bones that they have, they ARE, the bread!

The whole gamut of human emotions is present in this week’s texts, and here is Jesus saying (my paraphrase, obviously): Don’t complain. I’m the living bread and so are you. Be satisfied and live as though it is so. Live in this eternal satisfaction.

It's safe to say I get pretty jazzed about this. It’s safe to say my understanding of these kinds of statements made by The Christ has come a LONG way. Here is Jesus understanding his own true identity: God in flesh, the character of God made tangible here in 3D; and offering that shared identity, inheritance, belonging, to anyone willing to take it on too.

The text from Ephesians gives us a glimpse into how Paul imagines people who have taken on this consciousness might behave: truthful, able to be angry yet self-controlled, kind, tenderhearted, forgiving, focused on and magnetizing beauty rather than evil. It’s a really lovely vision of how to live that we get here from him.

What if we could re-train how we think about ourselves? What if we could learn to live as though we have access to everything that Christ has access to? I think the world would inevitably be different and better. I think we would come into spiritual power that would spill over into all aspects of our lives. We would start to live Saint Paul’s glorious and lovely description of us as “imitators of God.”

God, we want so much to be able to shift our consciousness
Into the consciousness that Christ shares:
But our beliefs about ourselves so often hold us back.
We have trouble remembering Christ in us….

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Litany for Wisdom (Proper 15, Year B)

August 14, 2018 Fran Pratt

This week’s Lectionary selections center around Wisdom, and the search for Wisdom. We see Wisdom personified as a Divine Feminine aspect in Proverbs; we hear God’s pleasure in Solomon’s request for Wisdom in 1 Kings; and we are exhorted to live “not as unwise people, but wise” in Ephesians 5. In the Proverbs, we are invited to eat the bread at Wisdom's table, and later in John 6, Christ identifies himself as that bread.

God, as Solomon asked for Wisdom of old,
So we ask for insight and understanding.

We hear Wisdom calling (1);
Let us answer her.
Come, let us commune with Wisdom:
Let us enter her house,
Eat of her table,
And enjoy her delights.

For you have offered yourself, oh God:
Wisdom, Word, and Bread -
Different facets of yourself, different metaphors;
Same loving Spirit.

Give us hearts that hunger and thirst for Wisdom,
For true wisdom and understanding:
That we may lay aside immaturity, and live,
That we may and walk in the way of insight (2).
That we may depart from evil, and do good;
That we may seek peace, and pursue it (3);
Making for ourselves and the generations to come,
A world rich in spirit, and rich in peace.

Amen

1) Proverbs 9:3
2) Proverbs 9:6
3) Psalm 34:14