Liturgical elements for Pentecost 6

Call to worship (Psalm 24 with a glimpse of the prophet Amos)

Lift up the gates and open the doors that the King of glory may come in

Who is the King of glory?

The one who founded and created the world, this is the King of glory

Lift up the gates and open the doors that the King of glory may come in.

Who is the King of glory?
The one who is strong and mighty, who never passes by the people of God, but shares body and life with them, this is the King of glory.

Lift up the gates and open the doors that the King of glory may come in.

Who is the King of glory?

The one who is with all people in every place, with each person in each space breathing life in all fullness, this is the King of glory.

Prayer of praise – from Thom Shuman PCUSA

Every moment, we have the chance
to breathe in your goodness and grace;
every hour, we have opportunities
to share your love and hope;
every day, we have occasions
to rest in the comfort of your heart.
In you, we discover the fullness of time,
Delight of the Ages.

In every challenge we face,
we can find the strength to persevere;
in every person we meet,
we can find the blessing you have sent;
in every need we encounter,
we can find the help you would have us offer.
In you, we discover the fullness of life,
Companion of our days.

In every conflict of our lives,
there is your healing we can offer;
in every brokenness we experience,
there is that reconciliation we can receive;
in every difficulty which makes us stumble,
there is that dance of hope you would teach us.
In you, we discover the fullness of faith,
Promised Spirit.

God in Community, Holy in One,
in you we discover the fullness we long for

Prayer of confession

We join your dance of joy

Responding to the echo of your heartbeat

Delighting to be your people

Sometimes we get so caught up in the dance

That our focus shifts from you

We can get caught up in pleasing others

and lose sight of what it means to be fully ourselves

We can make rash promises

And get caught up in damaging and destructive patterns of behaviour

just to save face

(Thom again - from this point on)

Forgive us, Gifter of every blessing. Open our hearts and fill us with your mercy. Open our ears that we may hear the songs of grace you would teach us to share with the world. Open our eyes that we may see the hope we have in Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour, our inheritance of love and joy.

Silence is kept

Assurance of Pardon
Before the earth was shaped, God created the music of grace which sets our hearts, our souls, our feet to dancing with joy in the hope God has given to us.
It is God who has created us, it is God who has redeemed us, it is God who sends us forth to live as brothers and sisters of Christ. We are forgiven.

Thanks be to Godde. Amen.

Prayers of the people

Good Lord, hear our prayer

And let our cry come unto you

We gather as your people, good God of Grace

Who have heard and reflected on a part of your story this morning

Good Lord, hear our prayer

And let our cry come unto you

We pray for those who speak out against wrongdoing

The sometimes prickly characters who make us uncomfortable

Especially when they get too close to truth

And whose lives are in jeopardy

When truth challenges the powerful

Good Lord, hear our prayer

And let our cry come unto you

We pray for children and the adults in their lives

That praise and encouragement may be genuine and life-giving

We pray for adults and children in households and families

That relationships in all their complexities may be affirming and respectful

And family violence eliminated

Good Lord, hear our prayer

And let our cry come unto you

We pray for our nation and State

For our Prime Minister and Premiers, and all Ministers and officials

For our local and community leaders, for every citizen and resident

That we may recognise the significance of what is happening around us

And act to promote reconciliation within our nation and between nations

To preserve and protect our world and our planet

Good Lord, hear our prayer

And let our cry come unto you

We pray for ourselves – a people of God

For Kent and Rick and Lois and Bruce

Ann and Brian

.....

Good Lord, hear our prayer

And let our cry come unto you

In all domains of life, gracious Godde

Stir our hearts that we may seize every opportunity to learn from our brothers and sisters in faith, to stand with them and to carry their stories close to our hearts each day

Grant wisdom and courage to speak and act in the best interests of all, especially of the most vulnerable

Grant courage and strength to those trapped in life patterns and those in prison or treated inhumanely

When the darkness seems overwhelming grant faith that hope can be found in the darkest night

Help us to pray in the words Jesus taught us

Our Father ...

Amen

Prayers for worship - Lent 2

Adoration and confession
Godde beyond our comprehension
You brought the universe to birth and
you alone can plumb the depth of the deepest ocean
We can never know
or even begin to know
your greatness
We stand in awe

Yet you, the Godde of all that can ever be
choose to live in relationship with us
You sing us to yourself
and we respond with an echo of your song
which may be faint
but which fills us to overflowing
with praise to you

In Jesus we catch a glimpse of your likeness
and we name him Christ
fulfiller of the deepest longings of our hearts
We are oversome with your love and generosity

Yet how little we understand
In this season of Lent
we want there to be some other way
We are so quickly tempted
to believe that your anointed one
can come in power and avoid suffering and pain

We seek a comforting faith in testing times
and avoid the testing that comes with faith
Move in us by your Holy Spirit we pray
and empower us to be true followers of Jesus Christ
In whose name we pray
Amen

Prayer for ourselves and others
God of compassion
We hold your people in our hearts
and take a moment now
to name before you
those people who are held in our hearts

...

Creating promise-keeping Godde
We seek to stand with you
in protecting and saving your world

We thank you for our brothers and sisters
who rebuke our consumption
and call us to reduce
our carbon use
who lead the way
in living more lightly
with greater respect
for your creation

Help us to encourage and sustain them
to stand with them
as they help us understand what we know
and what we don't know
about the universe
and to respond appropriately

We pray today for those
who are being rebuked inappropriately
For pastors in the Philippines
imprisoned unjustly
For political prisoners around the planet
For every hurt caused by
harsh words or hasty action

Help us to advocate for change
and as we respond to your testing
to find out what we are capable of

We pray for our country Godde
For the First Australians
Guardians of the land

and keepers of tradition
And for settlers from migrations
in more recent centuries

We pray for our governments and institutions
at this time of economic testing
Guide us all to make wise decisions
that protect the vulnerable
and empower the weak

(Lent Event prayer written by Kerry Enright, Director, UnitingWorld)
We look north to the nation of Timor Leste
a country emerging from pain and foreign rule
a people in whose culture and life you, deep God,
have invested yourself.

We invite you to remember them,
their yearning for peace toughened through Dili fires,
their desire for security deepened by homelessness,
their hope for a positive future shaken
as a wounded leader struggled for life,
and faith so evidently present.

We pray for cooperation between clans,
medicines for healing,
staff to listen and respond and
international solidarity that sustains the spirit.

We pray for our partner Igreja Protestante iha Timor Lorosa’e
(the Protestant Church in Timor-Leste)−
for sound and responsive leadership,
openness to all people
and a life shaped by your Word,
Jesus Christ himself,
through whom we pray.

Amen.

Prayer for Advent

Wondrous Creator

You break forth

In the midst of darkness

Your light shines

Without regard for boundaries

Of space and time

Light of the world

In a world

of fractured relationships

You were born as one of us

Challenging global powers

That compete for our allegiance

Spirit of light and truth

You illumine our lives

You illumine our world

Showing clearly

What is and what can be

We come to you in wonder and in praise

We seek your light

that we may turn from

attitudes and actions that destroy

We seek your wisdom

that we may rightly discern

and live for justice and in love

We seek your life-giving breath

that we may truly live

Amen

These are the words we can trust:

When a person recognises that the most important truth is that there is one and only one God, and that human purpose is to love God with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbour as oneself

Jesus says to that person, ‘You are not far from the kingdom of God.’

Filicide and faith ...

I'm rostered as liturgist for end of the month. I see that the lection includes Genesis 22 - Abraham offering his son Isaac as a sacrifice on God's command. It's a story I'd rather ignore. I remember one sermon suggesting that Abraham was psychotic. And a psychiatrist pointing out that there is no record of Isaac ever speaking to his father again after the incident (I don't know if that is true). Brueggemann and colleagues are quite helpful - noting that the point of the story is God's generosity in providing what is needed. This commentary does not seek to explain away the story, but rather to accept the narrative at face value (i.e. a test of whether allegiance is to the giver or the gift) and to ignore the family violence dimensions.

I am working on a review of literature about parents who kill their children. It is the worst of family violence and a blatant indictment on rich countries that we tolerate the destruction of so many young lives. American pediatrician Jeffrey Goldhagen puts it like this:

As nations, the United States and the United Kingdom venerate and romanticize childhood, while at the same time, we abuse, molest, incarcerate, subjugate, segregate, and exploit our children. Although glorifying the developmental state that we call childhood in the abstract, we have as societies done much to eliminate it as a reality for many communities of children in our countries. As a result, gross inequities and disparities define the epidemiology of child health in both the United States and the United Kingdom.

Preventing abuse and neglect of children is a fundamental responsibility of every society. Every country, except Somalia and the USA, has ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and explicitly accepted the responsibility to ensure that all children enjoy safety, nurture, opportunity, health and that they actively participate in decisions that concern them. Child protection is a key issue in all countries - there is extensive and complex debate about the best approach to achieve safe outcomes. But the bottom line is that children must be secure and separated from perpetrators of abuse.

Yet here in our sacred scriptures we have a perpetrator of abuse held up as a model in faith. You may say that Isaac suffered no wound. But I say being tied up and placed on a pyre and having a knife held to you is an extremely damaging act that is likely to have long-term emotional and psychological consequences. How do I craft prayers and find music to go alongside this?

Wikipedia has some interesting information - including:

• Many commentators think Isaac was an adult in this story (as indeed most historical artists depict him - see 1418 sculpture by Donatello at top of post
  
• The equivalent story in the Quran has Abraham's son as a fully consenting participant
• In a time when child sacrifice was "rife" - this story is a clear statement that such practices are abhorent to God

In a comment on a past blog on Liberal Jesus, Richard Beck said...

I've been reading some midrash on the Akedah. This doesn't answer anything and may actually sharpen your moral concerns, but a lot of midrash on this subject deals with the fact that Isaac doesn't (overtly in the text) return back home with Abraham. The issue for the rabbis is why?

Interestingly, some rabbis have suggested that this whole incident was so psychically traumatic to Isaac that he had to go away for a time to heal, psychologically speaking

Richard is a Psych Professor and his comments very like the ones I remember from long ago. Maybe this story is one of the motifs for psychology/ psychiatry training????

Now I'm sufficiently orthodox to want to check these ideas out in some more conventional theological places, but it was helpful to take a look at this cyberspace emporium of information. Maybe it's a bit like "an eye for an eye" - an exhortation to moderation rather than unmitigated revenge out of proportion to the original wrongdoing.

Given the pressing public health importance of family violence, and the often complicit role of religion in keeping women and children in positions of oppression and danger, I feel that this must be investigated and addressed in some way. There is work to be done ....

And blogging this has helped me to move from a position of seeking to avoid the text to wanting to explore it fully. The lamenting Psalm 13 ties in well with the consequences of child maltreatment.