Proper 27 (Year B 2021): Litany for Provision

I have been reading Robin Wall Kimmerer’s _Braiding Sweetgrass_. In it, Kimmerer discusses an Indigenous understanding of property, in which it is understood that food and provisions are meant to be shared, sacred sweetgrass cannot be purchased - only given freely; and gifts are meant to be passed on. 

So I’m interested to notice the themes of food and provision in this week’s Lectionary texts. The story of Ruth and Naomi finding provision at the feet of Boaz. The tale of Elijah miraculously aiding a widow and her child with a never-empty jar of grain. And Jesus’ observations of another widow woman offering pennies from her poverty. 

The Psalms for the week remind us of God’s centrality as Source, as ground-of-being, as the divine force from which all life springs and within which all life is held. 

We get a whiff here of the Divine economy. What is needed is freely given. There is no merit-based or capitalistic drive. God lets rain and sun shine on both the evil and the good. And nature exists in this divinely interconnected communality. No one must earn either bread or salvation (healing, wholeness). 

It makes me wonder how much Western civilization has gotten wrong in letting capitalism run amok and divesting itself from nature (hint: a lot); and what practices we might take up to help us, collectively, return home, to God, to our Source. Here I’m starting with gratitude, as I find it to be generally helpful and centering as a practice. 



God, we know we are inextricably connected to the Earth. 
From the bounty of nature pour forth life and nourishment (1): 
The waters and the soils, 
The plants and creatures - 
All part of your artistry, 
Relying on divine economy.


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

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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...

Proper 24 (Year B 2021): Litany for Power in Service

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See also “Litany for the Greatness of God” which I wrote for these texts in 2018.

This year my attention is pulled in a different direction by these selections, specifically to Jesus’ words in Mark 10, “"You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.

It’s a challenging, radical, upside down way to understand and embody power. It’s one of the colest things, in my opinion, that Jesus says. And one of the most defining characteristics of power as he demonstrates and lives it out. His kind of power comes alongside, stands rooted firmly in the ground rather than upon the backs of other people. This power leads by serving, demonstrates care and love by action and example. It is not militaristic, hyperbolic, nor imperial. It’s expansive rather than towering; winsome rather than manipulative; inviting rather than commanding.

And it comes with a healthy dose of ego-emptying.

The way Jesus imagines authority, leadership, and power, and then lives them out in the stories is honestly why I bother thinking about Jesus at all. This way is so compelling and countercultural; and it looks nothing like displays of political, governmental, and organizational power that I see happening in the world. It relieves me to know that such a way exists and finds resonance in so many spiritual traditions.

And it isn’t lost on me that the First Testament texts start off by extolling God - how high, how mighty, how solely responsible for all of creation, how far above. And then Jesus in the Gospel saying how true power comes from below, from servanthood rather than lordship. It’s a pretty stark shift in perspective, inviting us to hold two seemingly paradoxical truths in tension. Pretty juicy.


God, we have ideas about power.
Our culture teaches us that power comes from military might,
From how much wealth and resources we own,
From the number of people whose lives we control,
From what deals we make and how productive we are,
From our big guns and our big egos…

Proper 22 (Year B 2021): Litany for Inheriting All Things

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I took a few days off this week . Then this morning was reminded of the hymn _How Can I Keep From Singing_. Here are the traditional lyrics (although Audrey Assad has a lovely expanded version). But this stanza catches me: 

The peace of Christ makes fresh my heart,
a fountain ever springing!
All things are mine since I am his!
How can I keep from singing? 

These lyrics were already in my mind as I approached this week’s texts, and I see their echo and resonance in them. Particular places stand out in light of this idea:

  • Job in great suffering saying, “Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?" (Job 2:10). 

  • The Psalmist “singing aloud a song of thanksgiving, and telling all your wondrous deeds” (Psalm 26:7).

  • The Psalmic prayer: “You have given them dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under their feet…” (Psalm 8:6).

  • Christ, “whom GOD appointed heir of all things, through whom GOD also created the worlds” (Hebrews 1:2).

  • Christ’s words: “it is to such as these [little children] that the kingdom of God belongs” (Mark 10:14).

All things are mine since I am in Christ. All things are mine since I am part of God’s divine whole, my “true self, hidden with Christ in God.” All things are mine, since Christ is heir of all things and so, therefore am I.  All things are mine because I am the little child to whom the kingdom belongs. 

I am more and more convinced that the lesson here is to learn to live as though this is true. If I, as a person who claims follower-ship (followship, ha!) of Christ, believe this, then I cease to live in scarcity. I adopt a reality of Kin-dom abundance. And I, with even my small weight, shift the balance of power in the world by way of this non-grasping, generous, fulfilled posture. 


God, How can we keep from singing?
How can we keep our voices from echoing gratitude and wonder,
Or our hands from creating beauty and art,
Once we have come awake to your goodness; 
Which encompasses all things, 
Folding us in amongst the bounty of Christ’s riches …

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

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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….


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

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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….

Proper 13 (Year B 2021): Litany for Getting Full

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Hi friends. I’m in a particularly rough summer, dealing with some of the worst anxiety of my life and struggling to find the creative spark. It’s coming later in the week these days. I’m grateful for this weekly practice of Lectio Divina with the week’s Lectionary, and tapping into goodness that I always seem to find here, even if I’d rather post these to you on Tuesday rather than Thursday. Thanks for being here with me.

I’m noting this week’s Lectionary passages from 2 Samuel 11, Exodus 16, and John 6 most particularly today.

King David had an entire kingdom available to him, all the women and sexual pleasure he could imagine, and yet he couldn’t be satisfied; he had to steal more for himself, raping Bathsheba and murdering her husband to gain ownership of her.

The Hebrews in the Desert (Exodus 12) couldn’t get full on plain old heavenly manna. They needed more to be satisfied. More miracles were necessary to fill their bellies up.

In John 6, Jesus has just finished feeding a crowd of people a miraculous meal at which they could eat to fullness, and a little while later they are still chasing him around hoping for satisfaction. He tells them “I am the bread of life…” (John 6:35).

As my own interpretation of the sayings of Jesus has evolved, I’ve come to recognize the invitation inside of all his statements. When Jesus says, “I am the bread of life,” I interpret that to mean that I too can come to understand myself as being the bread of life; that I too can come to find satisfaction, full-bellied and abundant, with the resources innately available to me. The “true bread from heaven” is within me as well, waiting to be acknowledged and accessed.

In my own life I struggle with finding contentment, with being satisfied. Unmanaged, I tend to focus on what I regret, on the choice I didn’t make. I recognize this tendency in myself, and it’s part of why gratitude practice is so profoundly necessary for me. Appreciation for *what is* must be part of my grounding practice. It helps me remember that I *am full* and that the bread of heaven is within me.

Here is a prayer for us as we work on these skills of remembering and accessing the bread of life, as modeled by the Christ, that is already within us. Hopefully it will be good medicine for our longing. 


God, most of us go our whole lives thinking we are empty
And can only be filled by something outside of us.
We search outside of ourselves, inattentive to the Divine within,
Looking to meet our needs by inferior means;
Only to find ourselves thirsty again,
Hungry for the next junk meal.

Proper 12 (Year B): Litany for Everything We Need

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I love Paul’s poetic language in this week’s epistle from Ephesians 3. These phrases live in my head:
...Rooted and grounded in love...
...Strengthened in your inner being...
...Love of Christ that surpasses knowledge...
...Riches of God’s glory...
...Abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine…

What a blessing, drawing on the abundance of Spirit! The Psalm repeats the theme: The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food in due season… satisfying the desire of every living thing. The message: all is provided. Nothing is scarce. Abundance is our birthright.

The theme is again reinforced in the stories of Jesus feeding the five thousand, and of Elisha feeding a hundred people with a few loaves of bread. They provide something from near-to-nothing. What’s necessary is brought forth by their connection to Spirit.

I think a lot about how we might re-connect ourselves to the abundance of Spirit at this level. How we might steward our attention, so that abundance is the ground from which we live. Even inside of experiences that seem to prove scarcity, and in light of lived experiences that may have caused us trauma.

This is a prayer to that end.

God, we are learning not to be distracted by scarcity,
And led by it into fear and worry
Into anxiety and defensiveness;
Ultimately into conflict with ourselves and others…

Proper 10, Year B: Litany for the Called

In the First Testament reading from Amos 7, we encounter Amos - a “herdsman and dresser of sycamore trees” turned prophet, as he’s being rebuked by the king’s priests for prophesying doom upon the nation. They don’t want to hear it. Go away and prophesy somewhere else, they say (Amos 7:12). And Amos explains: he didn’t ask for this job. He just woke up one day and it was there for him to do. He remembered his calling; God reminded him.

In this week’s Gospel reading from Mark 6 we get the story of how John the Baptist was beheaded by Herod, at the request of his mistress. Another prophet down, another truth-teller silenced - John, who had been awake to his calling for much of his life.

Remember in last week’s gospel, when Jesus comments poignantly on the way prophets are routinely dishonored by their own communities? If we needed more evidence of this, here it is in these readings.

I’m thinking about us: people who are called to bring a message to the world, or a work of healing, some art, or to hold a particular space. I tend to think we are all here for a reason, that our special presence on the earth is necessary, and that part of our work here is to realize our true selves (hidden with Christ in God) and wake up to our calling. That’s my personal belief, so take it as you will.

This litany is for us. The ones who are awakening to our particular calling and authentic selves. 

(If you would rather utilize a different prayer this week, here is Litany for Dancing, written for Proper 10 in 2018. )



God, we know that living an authentic life, 
Realizing our calling 
Awakening to our True Selves, 
Is risky business. …


Proper 9 (Year B): Litany for the Powers That Be

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Here is my litany from this Lectionary cycle in 2018: Litany for the Prophets

This week’s Lectionary texts are replete with imagery of power, rulers, strongholds…. And their polarity: weakness. Vulnerability, if you will. 

The First Testament reading gives an account of the power of David during his rule, reigning over Israel from a mighty stronghold. The Psalms speak of God enthroned in the heavens, or in “his holy city,” and beseech God for mercy and victory, which is associated with love. Like: if God loves us God will give us victory over enemies.

In the epistle, Paul ruminates on the paradox of strength in weakness. And in the gospel reading, Jesus comments on the power and honor given to, and withheld from, prophets, instructing the disciples not to carry anything with them that might signify prestige, influence, honor, wealth or power. He makes sure they go about empty-handed - no supplies or weapons - powerless except for their Spirit access. 

Here Christ seems to repudiate any reliance on conventional forms of power. And Paul seems to catch his vibe, producing the iconic line so many of us can recite without thinking: “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.”

The power of Jesus here, and the kind of power his ancestor David wields, seem to be at odds. This litany leans into these themes.

God, we are watching how power plays out in this world,
How many people are hungry for it, 
How many people are utterly without worldly power, 
How many are entranced by it. …

Proper 8 (Year B): Litany for Absolute Love

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Here is my litany for Proper 8, Year B from 2018: Litany for What Ails Us

The First Testament reading in this week’s Lectionary is David’s lament for the passing of Saul and Jonathan. In David’s relationship with Jonathan, he experiences something new to him, a new frontier of love. He says of Jonathan, “your love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.” Blowing past what he’d previously experienced. Hm. 

The Psalms and Lamentations texts are meditations on the “steadfast love” of God, even in the midst of life’s most difficult experiences. St. Paul extols the generous nature of Christ’s Love in the epistle. And Christ himself epitomizes the healing and restorative nature of Love in the gospel text. 

We might read these texts with questions in mind: what is Love? What is the nature of Love? Where is Love found? Where does Love come from? 

It is such a big idea that it is unsayable. Unwriteable. But we get these hints: relationality, restoration, healing, generosity, unceasing, steadfast, eternal, abundant. 

And this: whatever we *think* love is, it is more. 

I have more hunches about Love: that it is the sum of everything. That it is the “ground of being.” That it’s that elusive thing our physicists dance around when they’re trying to figure out dark matter and dark energy. Anyway, that’s why I’m still writing prayers about it - because as trite as it might sound, I think it’s the most important thing, and in fact, it’s everything. It’s God. It’s us. It’s life. I’ll never be done writing and thinking about it. 


God, we are learning about Love,
Setting aside all our old assumptions about it, 
Practicing and playing with it, 
And re-imagining ourselves in light of it.


Proper 7, Year B: Litany for Hearts Wide Open

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Here is my previous litany from 2018, Year B, Proper 7: Litany for the Desperate

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how we are remembering. Re-membering. Putting the body of knowledge back together again. Becoming conscious members once again of a Community. We forget that we are part of the body of God. We forget that our true selves are “hidden with Christ in God.” And that DOESN’T MEAN that our true selves are hidden from us or inaccessible to us. It means we are enfolded in God, God being all around everywhere available. Waiting to be remembered.

(I’m using words to try to express a fairly profound spiritual truth, which is always tricky business.)

My point is: I’m thinking (and learning from many spiritual teachers) that it is our work here to re-member ourselves as parts of Christ/God on earth. And then to live out that essential truth in our thoughts, words, and actions.

And then Saint Paul speaks so beautifully about the paradoxes we are muddling through here on earth, and how we are learning to recognize our true selves among all this contrast. He says: “Our hearts are wide open.” Which I take as a shorthand way of expressing that our hearts are mirroring God’s heart as part of God’s heart. We assume the wide-open-hearted posture of God toward all beings, toward ourselves, toward each other. When we can do this, we’ve come home to our true nature and the world will reverberate with our home-coming.

God, we are here in this realm of contrast, relativity, and duality,
Learning to recognize ourselves -
You in us, us in you.
You flung open your heart to us!

Proper 6 (Year B): Litany for Perceiving Beyond Appearance



As I read through this week’s Lectionary passages, I’m reflecting on God’s advice to Samuel as he has to pick yet another king for the fractious Hebrew nation, after Saul’s kingship turns disastrous: "Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the LORD does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart." (1 Samuel 16:7).

This theme of perceiving beyond appearance is reinforced in the Ezekiel: “I bring low the high tree, I make high the low tree…” and in the 2 Corinthians: “we regard no one from a human point of view”. And finally it’s there in the words of Christ in Mark 4 regarding the Mustard Seed: “smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs…”

Jesus says in the beatitudes: don’t judge. These texts bring us back to that non-judgement, that call to humility. Remember: you have no idea what you’re looking at. You have no idea the true nature of the person you’re talking to, beyond the fact that they are innately beloved and part of the Imago Dei. You have no idea what this seed can become. You have no idea what diamonds lie behind these wounds.

God, we look at tiny seeds,
Which appear insignificant, easily lost,
With no notion of the potential they hold, or what they might become,
Given the right nurturing:
Soil, water, sunlight,
A recipe for greatness (1).

Easter 3, (Year B 2021): Litany for Peace Be With You

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I find that, occasionally, it makes sense to offer a prayer or liturgy with a simple refrain. It offers a place to mentally land for a few moments, especially in a litany dealing with heavy topics. This week, given the news, feels like one of those weeks. Also, sometimes we need to say a thing aloud a bunch of times to get it into our thick skulls :)

Sunday I preached a sermon about inner peace being an inside job and a choice that we get to make out of our free will about whether to take Christ up on the invitation into let "Peace be with you" regardless of what's happening around us.

And then we are confronted with news of more killings, more injustice, more police violence. (RIP Duante Wright, Lord have mercy.)

I even got news from my best friend that she is suddenly in hospital having emergency surgery.

Bad news is another opportunity for me to practice this lesson. To practice the Peace Within (John 20: 19) regardless of how the world, events, other people, etc are behaving or feeling.

I'm reminded of the hymn lyrics: "Thou wilt keep [them] in perfect peace / whose mind is stayed on Thee."

And I'm convinced that keeping that inner peace fire stoked, we are able to access more empathy, more compassion, and more right action. When we are not spinning our wheels in worry, anxiety, and emotional turbulence (here is the growth edge for me) we are better problem solvers and justice-doers. Today I'm even more sure that Inner Peace is an important Fulcrum of Transformation.

This is difficult spiritual work. Inner peace is not apathy. It's a radical restructuring of our way of being in the world.

We hear the voice of Christ speaking:
Peace be with you (1).
Right now these words seem impossible, mind-boggling,
Even, at times, annoying….

Easter 2 (Year B 2021): Litany for Our Mission

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Helloooooo! This is me, back in real time after my Lenten rest. Thank you all for your prayers, and thanks and welcome to new patrons who have come on board during that time. I offer this litany today with renewed strength.

This week’s Lectionary gospel selection is one of my absolute favorites in scripture, second only to the Beatitudes. In John 20, Jesus, freshly risen from a tomb preceded by unimaginable trauma, speaks some of the most revolutionary and radical ideas of his career. I rarely preach a sermon or give a talk without mentioning them. In fact, I was assigned this weekend to preach at my church and when I discovered that this was the text I got a shiver of rightness. I honestly can’t get over this account of Jesus’ statements.

He does 3 radical, amazing, mind-bending things in this passage: 

1) He speaks peace, like a magic word, like a balm, like a miracle, to the disciples as they cower in fear in a locked room. “Peace be with you” he says. Which is even more crazy when you consider all the things he did NOT say in this moment. Wow. 

2) He breathes on them saying, “receive the holy spirit.” What? Just like that? Breathe it in? It was right here all along like the air? Whoooooosh and there you have it. Everything you ever needed. 

3) He tells them that if they “forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” …. Wait like, us? Like we are the ones who have this power? Not just you, not just God? 

In this moment, the disciples are given access to all the power in the world: the power of peace, the power of the Spirit, and the power of forgiveness. This moment tells me everything I need to know about how to live a life of following Jesus and what I am to embody and spread: peace, spriit, forgiveness. Three fulcrums of transformation. And they are presented so briefly here that we might miss them if we aren’t looking for them. 

Look, go back and read and contemplate it. I hope it will give you chills like it gives me every time. 



God we lay hold of the power you have shared with us
The Peace Christ speaks out over us
The Spirit Christ breathes upon us
The Forgiveness Christ invites us to spread ….


Lent 3, Year B 2021: Litany for the Inner Sanctuary

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When Christ turned over the tables of the sellers and money-changers in the temple, he declared that productivity culture has no business in the inner sanctuary of God. God is not about consumption or production. The inner life is a closed-loop: we are divinely resourced and divinely Allowed. We can turn our attention away from pressure to Do, and Produce, and toward the opportunity to Rest, Be, Dwell. There is nothing to prove, nothing to win, nothing to achieve, nothing to earn. All we need has been achieved for us. Cycles of sacrifice ended with Christ’s work - he completed them and we no longer need to play them out.

This theme also comes to us in the Exodus passage. The people are instructed to observe a Sabbath, to remember it, and “keep it holy.” One day out of every seven is reserved for rest and resistance to productivity culture, resistance to exhaustion, to remind them (and us) that our worth is not our work. Even resting, accomplishing nothing, producing nothing, only receiving and allowing, we are worthy, beloved, whole. 


This doesn’t mean we don’t participate in economies and systems while we are here on earth. It means we don’t identify ourselves with them. They are not us. Our work, our doing, is not us. And it means that the Inner Sanctuary is always available to us - the place of rest and peace, of acceptance and being.



God, we feel the pull of the Inner Sanctuary
We are drawn in by your love and beauty, 
Into the welcome and peace of Spirit.
The true temple, the dwelling place of God, is within us …


Lent 2, Year B 2021: Litany for Lenten Cycles

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I’m a firm believer that Lent, practiced consciously, is a guardrail against spiritual bypassing. The regular observance of seasons of austerity, lament, and penance, which we Christians get in Lent and Advent, guide us to enter into aspects of the human experience we’d rather not endure.

Other spiritual traditions have similar seasons: Jews have Yom Kippur; Muslims have Ramadan; Hindus have Navaratri; and so forth. These rhythms keep us pain-avoidant human beings honest: they take us into the shadow so that we have an opportunity to alchemize - or if you prefer a Christianese word: redeem - what we find there: the uncomfortable feelings, the limiting beliefs, patterns of harm, the losses we didn’t have time to grieve, traumas we didn’t have resources to heal before. These seasons offer us the opportunity to make meaning of the human condition and to accept it as it is, to accept ourselves as we are. In Lent we are invited to stop judging our pain and instead feel it and allow it to teach us. It is part of a cycle: we don’t stay in Lent forever. Death comes, and then Resurrection. Weeping comes in the soul’s night, then joy in the morning. We sow in tears, we reap in joy. If we never accept the rhythm of sowing in tears, we have little appreciation, much less gratitude, for joy. We know light by its contrast to darkness.

In Western culture we make very little space for weakness, pain, mourning, lament, sadness. We are taught early on that excessive feeling that doesn’t fall in the category of anger or excitement is unwelcome, and that sadness is a pathology. But the rhythms of the Christian faith tradition offer a different paradigm: one that welcomes the mourner, blesses the weak, and gives space and voice to lament. It assigns value to loneliness and suffering even as it assures us that we are never alone in suffering.

Jesus heading out to the desert wilderness for a period of solitude and austerity sets the precedent for Lenten practice. Jesus accepts all parts of human experience, entering into the full spectrum of emotion. He rejects no parts of the whole.

In week 2 of Lent, Year B, we are invited along with the disciples to “deny” ourselves, take up the instrument of our suffering, and follow him into the totality of embodied adventure, and to do this willingly, without judgement or resistance, trusting that the way out is the way through.

God, our culture teaches us to avoid pain, And to suppress emotion; But in the wisdom tradition that Christ practiced, We find space for pain, emotion, and much more.

Epiphany 5: Litany for Healing and Renewal

In light of my own state of exhaustion, and the exhausting times we have endured together, I offer this prayer based on this week’s Lectionary selections. 


Have you not known? 
Have you not heard? 
Yahweh is the everlasting God, 
The Creator of the ends of the earth (1)
Yet, in our weariness, we often forget
The lovingkindness of Spirit to us when we falter. …


Epiphany 4, Year B (2021): Litany for Caring for Each Other

Here is this week's litany from 2018: Litany for Unclean Spirits, which focuses on the text from Mark 1 in which Christ casts out the unclean spirit in Capernaum.

This time around, I'm dealing primarily with the text of 1 Corinthians 8, in which Saint Paul discusses what was apparently an issue: whether or not to eat food sacrificed to idols. He points out that all things have their existence in God as represented by Christ: “through whom are all things and through whom we exist.” Rather than splitting hairs about doctrine and correctness, he invites the Corinthian church to see all their decisions and actions first through a lens of love for others, urging them to “ take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak.

We too are invited into this tension: we live in liberation from dogma, yet we can choose to center our right action in Love for Neighbor. This litany leans into those themes. 

 

God, you have given all things to us,
Things in heaven and things on earth;
Placed the land under our stewardship,
And the people under one another’s mutual care…

Epiphany 2, Year B 2021: Litany for Truth-Tellers

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Y’all. I can’t make this up. This is the lectionary for this week.

Synopsis of 1 Samuel 3 and the preceding events:

Eli the priest has scoundrels for sons. His sons are, by their lineage, also priests; they are thieving and lying and raping - doing immeasurable damage to the priesthood and the nation - and Eli, though he pleads with them, cannot (will not?) control nor contain them. They are allowed to wreak havoc. A “man of God” gives Eli a message that his sons have doomed their whole family to destruction and penury.

Young Samuel is Eli’s acolyte. God isn’t often heard from, but one night Samuel hears a voice, which he and Eli figure out to be the voice of God. God gives Samuel a message: Eli’s family will be punished for the iniquity of the scoundrel sons - they’ll lose everything, confirming the other, earlier message.

Samuel is hesitant to tell his mentor the bad news - that injustice will and must be held accountable, if not by the priesthood, if not by the society, then by God; that the ones who have lied and thieved and assaulted WILL be held responsible. But he tells Eli the truth of the prophecy God has given him. Eli meets it with acceptance, and Samuel gains a reputation as a Truth-Teller.

Flip to the Gospel reading from John 1….

Jesus is in the process of gathering disciples. He’s got Philip, Andrew, and Peter. And from a distance he sees Nathanael. Jesus immediately identifies Nathanael as “an Israelite in whom there is no deceit,” as a Truth-Teller. Nathanael is a Truth-Teller and Jesus wants him.

Aaaand relate it to today...

Last week we had a mob, incited by the lies of political leaders and conspiracy theories, ransack the US Capitol, killing 5 humans, endangering countless others, and proving that years of lies and deceit are bearing evil fruit and that, like the sons of Eli, those responsible must be contained and held accountable lest they bring the whole country down into their eventual destruction. OK!

I wait to see what will be done. I pray that faith communities will awaken to their duty as Truth-Tellers. And that we, as individuals, will be those “in whom there is no deceit.” Our theology matters, and conflating the message and work of Christ with deceitful narratives of Christian Nationalism, Christo-fascism, White Supremacy, and violence is bad theology that leads to harm.

This litany is inspired by these texts, but I have thrown a lot of other references in.



God, we pray for our faith community,
As a whole and as individuals,
That we will have the courage to hold fast to truth,
Even when truth is inconvenient,
Even when truth convicts us,
Even when truth is difficult,
Even when truth is not what we’d hoped,
Even when truth is hard to tell …