Litany for Doubt

In contemporary church-y, Jesus-y culture, we have little language to express doubt; and little room in our paradigms for sitting in the tension of it. Mostly, you are either in, or you’re out. I find that lots of people have a sophisticated (or at least wordy) theology about doubt and they know all the right answers, and usually those are the folks who have never actually traveled it. It’s easy to say, from a place of faith: you should put a lid on your doubt.

I don’t want to do that.

My personal experience with doubt has been informative and valuable. I feel that Jesus’ response to my doubt has always been a gracious “Here, touch my hands and side” (1); and “I saw you under the fig tree” (2). For better or worse, I want to explore it, to remember what it felt like when I was there, and allow it to portray my faith in relief, with depth and shadow and dimension. I feel pretty sure that to doubt is to admit that mystery is an ingredient of faith, a color in its spectrum.

This litany uses more poetic imagery than most of what I post. But I have found that regular words aren’t enough to give vent to doubt. If the entree is hard questions, it needs a side of groaning, and a chaser of silence.

Honestly, if you are in a season of doubt, and you are able to pray this (or any) prayer at all, well, good for you. And if your “sometimes” is moving toward “always,” then Blessings, Sister. Blessings, Brother.

Litany for Doubt

God, sometimes we feel as if You are not there at all.
We cannot hear You through the static of our emotions,
   the cacophony of voices,
   the fullness and the void.
We cannot see You in the fabric of the visible and scientific.
We cannot feel You in the tension and the grit.

People say “God doesn’t exist” and sometimes we believe them.

We want to believe You.
We want You to be Good. Love. True.
Help our unbelief. (3)

We have been hurt. Shattered, perhaps.
We have been disappointed, and are inclined to minimize risk.
We can say with the Psalmist: “All day long I have been afflicted,
    And every morning brings new punishments.” (4)
Let Your grace pierce the armor we set about ourselves.

Have mercy on us in our doubt, and meet us in our weakness.
Where we are skeptical, be gracious to us.
Where our expectations are unmet, be generous to us.
Where we have unanswered questions, gently teach us.

We acknowledge that doubt is an opportunity to become deeply quiet,
   To wait.

On our own we can hardly open the door for You.
We will need You to stealthily creep in.
We will need Your patience, and all the loving-kindness You can muster
To make up for our lack.

If there is any language we can understand,
Surely it is Love.
If there is any small spark our eyes can see,
Surely it is Love.

Amen
 

1. John 20:27
2. John 1:48
3. Mark 9:24
4. Psalm 73:14

Litany for Loving Those With Whom We Disagree

God of Love, fill us anew with the energy of your love
For we find ourselves in conflict and disagreement with our sisters and brothers;
But we want Your heart to move us.

We confess our tendency to cast judgement on those whose ideas differ from ours.
We confess our tendency to consider ourselves superior.
We confess our tendency to blame, call names, castigate, and demean.
We confess our tendency to speak truth in righteous indignation, and not in love.
We confess our tendency to use sarcasm as a weapon of righteousness.
We confess our tendency to obsess about being right.

Help us to have patience with those who do not share our perspective.
Help us to have grace for those we consider to be in the wrong.
Help us to extend forgiveness to those who hurt us or those close to us.

May we find, in each circumstance, those places where we are complicit.
May we attend to the log in our own eye.
May we remember that the good news of the Kingdom of God is steadily creeping in,
   That fear, defensiveness, and violence are alien to it;
   That peace, beauty, and gentleness are its hallmarks.
May we compass our movements by Love’s true north.

We relinquish our need to win arguments.
We relinquish our need to demonstrate our superior worldview.
In those opportunities we get to peaceably speak our opinion, may we do it with
    Love
    Joy
    Peace
    Patience
    Kindness
    Goodness
    Faithfulness
    Gentleness
    Self-control
And may Christ be glorified by our every word and action.

Amen

Litany for Peacemaking and Forgiveness

I have been thinking a lot lately about reconciliation and peacemaking. What difficult, humble work it is! In a 24-hour period I have sent a message of apology to a person I had fallen out with many years ago, apologized to my husband for a hurt I’d dealt him, and called and apologized to a friend for yet another hurt.

We have been hurt, and we have dealt out hurt. If we haven’t already, we know we will eventually. The hardest part for me about forgiveness is that it is so open-ended, such a continual journey; and that we need it on both sides: the wrong and the wronged. We can never be certain another person has forgiven us; we can only be certain of God’s forgiveness toward us. As Bonhoeffer says, “Forgiving has neither beginning nor end, it takes place daily, for ultimately it comes from God.”

It’s probably some of the hardest work we’ll do, so we’d better pray about it.  
 

God, we turn our attention now to the work of peacemaking and reconciliation.
Christ is our peace.
We remember Jesus in the throes of death, offering forgiveness and peace to those who had taunted and tormented him.
Christ is our example.
We remember Jesus after his resurrection, offering forgiveness and restoration to his disciples who had denied and forsaken him.
Christ is our leader.

We acknowledge that we have wronged others and been wronged by others,
And need forgiveness applied to both.

Help us to forgive others as we have been forgiven by You,
For in forgiving, we find peace and freedom.
Help us to have humility and courage
   To admit when we are wrong
   To confess and apologize
   To make amends to those we have hurt.

We acknowledge that forgiveness benefits the forgiver
And that we can never force others to forgive us.
We acknowledge that we may never see the results of our peacemaking
But that you see our hearts.

We thank you God, for removing our transgressions from us
Thanks be to God
We ask for hearts conformed to the way of Christ
Ready to offer peace; willing to forgive and be forgiven.

Amen

Litany for the Kingdom of God

God of peace and love,
Bring to us a new awareness of your kingdom at work in the world.
Grant that we may see and understand the small and unassuming things, which take patience and attention to notice:
    A seed.
    Yeast in bread
    Treasure buried in a field
    A net cast into water
    A baby lying in a manger.

We acknowledge that we mostly miss the signs when they are not flashy or earth-shaking,
But that your kingdom is all around us.
We acknowledge that Christ came to exhibit neither wealth nor political power,
But self-sacrificing love.
We acknowledge that the progress of the good work we do may be imperceptible to us,
And that our success is in our obedience to you.

We welcome your kingdom, in the world and in our hearts.
We seek your kingdom, trusting that we will find it.
We anticipate your kingdom,
    Working toward peace
    Providing for the poor
    Healing the sick
    Loving our enemies.

We trust in your love to provide for us in our seeking.

Whether your spirit comes to us as a wind or a whisper,
May we know your presence and be useful in your kingdom work.

Amen

Litany for Boldness (and Bonhoeffer)

Yesterday was the anniversary of the death of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German pastor and theologian who opposed the Nazi regime and was martyred in 1945.

God, we are reminded that Love is action.
As You actively love the world, we must actively love each other.
We must push past our comfort zones, reticence, and general inertia,
Allowing ourselves to be moved by the engine of Love.

We confess our tendency to withdraw.
We confess our desire to put our own safety and convenience above all.
We confess our quickness to downplay the needs of the poor, the plight of injustice.
We confess that we would often prefer to ignore the evil in our midst.
We confess that we often value our reputation above following Christ.
We confess our self-centeredness.

We ask for hearts aflame with the Love of Christ.
We ask for patience to endure suffering.
We ask for courage to pray for and love our enemies.
We ask for strength to accomplish the work of peace.

Where injustice, poverty, and wrong-doing abound,
May we do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly.
When laziness and complicity would overwhelm us,
May we be empowered by Your spirit to renew our efforts.

We look to Christ, the model of loving sacrifice,
And to those saints throughout the ages who have lived and died for the cause of Love.
May we listen and act with confidence and boldness,
And find our reward in the joy of Your presence.

Amen

Litany for Gratitude 2 + The Dark Side of Gratitude

Over on my Instagram (@franniep) this month I've been sharing a few things each day for which I'm grateful. Big or small, impactful or trivial, I'm just naming things I'm grateful for. This has had some surprising effects. For one, it's getting easier each day to put on my gratitude glasses and see things I'm thankful for. It's getting easier to sit with gratitude and allow it to change my outlook on life.

But for all I think that gratitude is an indispensable part of a healthy outlook, necessary to counteract cynicism and enlarge our picture of God, I think gratitude might have a dark side. I've caught myself several times feeling guilty for feeling gratitude. So many people don't have the privileges I have, the freedoms, their basic needs met. So many have kids who aren't in vibrant health, or family situations that are painful or difficult. Isn't it smug and prideful of me to dwell on all my blessings, list them out, take photos of them and post them on social media, acknowledge them and allow myself the pleasure of enjoying them?

It kind of is, isn't it?

Furthermore I've been in some painful, messy places in life, and was I very good at practicing gratitude during those times? Not hardly. Isn't gratitude supposed to be a good clean feeling, black and white, no gray allowed? Isn't it mean to rub gratitude in the face of people in pain?

It kind of is. No one told me it would be so messy.

When I let my thoughts come full circle, I think it would be worse to not be grateful. It would be worse to not enjoy and participate in feasting on life whenever the opportunity arises. It would be small-hearted and cynical to not assume a posture of gratitude. It would be worse to deny the mercy of God whenever we are offered it.

This is a thing the discipline of gratitude does: it opens our eyes. Both to our blessing and to our privilege, to our undeserving and our responsibility, to our smallness and our preciousness. A posture of gratitude can illuminate that gray area between abundance and poverty, and inform our perception of them. It can illuminate joy as well as joy's pesky sidekick: suffering.

And also, gratitude gets easier. The more we do it, the more naturally we revert to it. I think we should practice it whenever we can if we hope to have any capacity for it at all when suffering comes. So to that end, I've written us a prayer to practice with, and hopefully help us wear grooves of gratitude in our hearts so that we can find them by touch, even in the dark.

I’ve kept to a simple refrain in this instance for congregational ease, but I have another Litany for Gratitude here.

Great God, You created the good earth and all its creatures, the heavens and all they contain.
We give thanks.
You give us life. You give us consciousness and choices. You give us love.
We give thanks.

For the blessings of family, friendships, and worldly provision,
We give thanks.
For the blessings of talent, aptitude, and meaningful work,
We give thanks.
For the blessings of food, wine, and good conversation, those times of feast and enjoyment,
We give thanks.
For the blessings of trivial pleasures, small gifts meant for our happiness,
We give thanks.
For the blessings of expression, song, art, human ingenuity, and creativity,
We give thanks.
For the blessings of peace that come from knowing You,
We give thanks.

When we survive mishaps
We give thanks.
When we endure consequences and pain
We give thanks.
When we must combat evil with goodness and love
We give thanks.
When we must deny ourselves, bear burdens, and obey
We give thanks.
When we must suffer loss and disappointment
We give thanks.
When me must come to the end of our physical lives
We give thanks.

When we chose violence and rebellion, you made a way to recover us.
We give thanks.
The way is Christ: the true and full, shining image of Your love.
We give thanks.
For Jesus Christ and the Kingdom he began here, in which You invite us to participate,
We give thanks.
And for the experience of living on earth, in all its paradoxes and mingling of joy and suffering,
We give thanks.

Amen.

Litany for Grief

I am hoping this prayer will be of use to those looking for resources for expressing grief and lamentation in a congregational or small group setting; but I also hope it will be helpful to some individuals experiencing personal grief. The opening lines are taken from a song I co-wrote called "I Cannot Live Without You" published by Vineyard, which can be found here.

God of Mercy, God of Tenderness, God of Nurture, God of Love
God-Provider, God-Comforter, God-Sustainer, God-with-us:
Be with us now in our mourning, and in our sadness.

We acknowledge that the only way out of our grief is through it.
We acknowledge that we must pay attention to our emotions in order to be whole persons.
We acknowledge that we would often rather avoid our sadness than pay attention to it.
We acknowledge that grief can be sticky, unpredictable, and hard to shake off.
We acknowledge that there are some mountains we cannot move under our own power.

Over and over, You have shown us that You are good, and Your love endures forever.
We know that You lovingly show us this often, because we are apt to forget.
We know that Your goodness does not necessarily safeguard us from pain. 
We know that our pain does not negate Your goodness.

Help us to walk faithfully through our pain and sadness.
Help us to engage in lamentation, in the tradition of the saints who came before us.
Help us to remember that our anger, sadness, disappointment, and grief do not put you off.
Help us to be moving forward:
     Toward growth
     Toward wisdom
     Toward emotional health
     Toward wholeness
     Toward reconciliation between our faith and our emotions.

We are helpless, and require Christ’s assistance.
We are undone, and require re-making.
We are brokenhearted, and require healing.
We are poor in spirit, and in need of the kingdom of Heaven.

Amen

Litany for Our Enemies + That Time I Accidentally Told My Kid About ISIS

*I'm sharing a story along with a litany today. I usually try to keep strictly to the prayers, but maybe sometimes a story will give context for how a litany can be a useful place to go, a useful tool in a kit for coping with the reality of evil and posturing ourselves towards Jesus.

I accidentally told my 5 year old daughter about ISIS. Oops.

The conversation started at bedtime, as many of our deep conversations do, in those still moments when mostly I’m feeling antsy and ready to be done parenting for the day but am trying to remain present and sing songs, talk quietly, help them decompress for sleep. I don’t even really remember how we got started, but I was caught off guard and unprepared for the line of questioning, and ISIS has been on my mind so therefore I let the ISIS cat out of the bag. I also have this pesky value for telling my kids the truth that sometimes trips me up.

I think we were talking about kindness, and in the context of that I said the word “violence.”

What’s violence?
It’s doing things that hurt people.
Like being mean?
Yes. We want to be kind, not violent.
But some people are violent?
Yes, some people are.
You mean some people are mean?
Yes.
Where do they live?
Well, there are mean people everywhere, but I don’t think you know any.
(My kid just learned that mean people exist. Hallelujah. Christ, have mercy.)
But WHERE ARE THEY?
Well, there are some mean people in a place far away called the Middle East, they call themselves ISIS.
(Oh I have done it now. Instant regret. No turning back now.)
What do they do? Do they kill people?
Yes, they do. They do violence.
How do they do it? With bow and arrows? With guns?
(Here is where my head is finally on straight and I refuse to mention bombs. I deflect, for better or worse.)
Why do they do it?
I think they are confused about what God’s way is. God’s way is love, peace, and beauty.
Do they have neighbors and friends? Do they try to hurt them?
They have neighbors; I don’t know if they have friends.
Are they sad and lonely?
I think they might be.
What do the neighbors do?
I think some try to help them change, and some try to move away to a safer place.
THAT MAKES ME SO SAD. I’M GONNA CRY NOW, MAMA.

You and me both, sister. Now, let me pause here and say that this is an abbreviated version of the conversation, and that my mind was churning with how best to respond. There were a lot of other questions. (Do they wear red and black clothes? They wear regular clothes.) (How do you know about them? I read the news.) She is a very empathetic soul, and I don’t want her up in the night worrying about terrorists and refugees at age 5. But I do want to give her a place to go with the sorrow. So I say:

Jesus tells us to “love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.”
What’s persecute?
Be mean to. Would you like to pray for ISIS and their neighbors?
Yes!
Jesus please bless the people of ISIS. Please show them your way of love, peace, and beauty. Please change their hearts and show them kindness. Help them not to be confused about God’s way.
AND HELP THEIR NEIGHBORS MOVE!
Help their neighbors find a safe place. Help the mean people become kind.
AMEN.

I held hands with my sweet little daughter, lying in her little bed, and prayed for the redemption of ISIS. This is the story of how my parenting gaffe made possible a moment of impossible beauty and sadness. My head is still swimming with it. And isn’t this typical of Jesus? To hide a core of beauty within apparent sadness? Isn’t this exactly what happened on Resurrection Day? So, there is sadness that my child must eventually have the knowledge of good and evil, and that other children live in the lap of evil daily; but there is beauty that THERE IS ALWAYS PRAYER. There is always a beautiful way to follow. There is always hope. And there is always, always forgiveness and redemption.

I invite you to pray now:

Resurrected Jesus, we call upon your mercy now.
We ask you to turn your attention to our enemies, those who do violence and terror, who kill and destroy.
Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.
We ask you to bless, love, and redeem them; to show them the kindness of your heart.
We ask you to lovingly clear up their misunderstanding of God’s way.
We ask you to care for and protect those innocents around them.
We ask you to bring them all, violent and innocent, into the safety of your kingdom.
Amen
 

Litany for a Terrorized City

*I originally wrote this litany as a response to the attack on Brussels on March 22, 2016. I later learned that many other places in the world were attacked by ISIS during the surrounding time period, attacks that never made headline news. This litany can be used to pray for folks in any location that has experienced terrorism. I wish it weren't true that we might have use for a general prayer for terrorized cities. Christ, have mercy.

God, we cry out to You on behalf of the people of [Brussels, Belgium].
     For the families and friends of those killed in the attacks, we cry.
     For those wounded, we cry.
     For the bystanders, those shocked and terrified, we cry.
     For the emergency workers, giving tirelessly of themselves, we cry.
     For those in government and law enforcement, we cry.
     For the residents of the city, stranded and immobilized, we cry.
     For a world beset by evil, we cry.

We commend the souls lost into Your care,
And ask for healing and comfort for those that remain.

These events bring us into a place of questioning:
     Of Your goodness
     Of Your sovereignty
     Of the nature of humanity
     Of the future of the world
     Of how we might move forward.

We commend those questions into Your care,
     Asking You for wisdom
     Asking You for hope
     Asking You for courage to continue on in good work
     Asking You for help in overcoming
     Asking You for comfort in trouble
     Asking You for a heart of love toward our enemies
     Asking You for justice.

We acknowledge that our lives are precious, vulnerable, and often short.
We acknowledge that safety is never guaranteed.
We acknowledge our inability to perfectly follow Jesus’ example
     of meekness, forgiveness, and peacemaking.
We acknowledge that when Jesus took upon himself the wrongdoing of the world,
he took terrorism also.

We look toward the completion of Jesus’ work.
We look toward the fullness of Your kingdom come,
And Your will done on earth as it is in heaven. 
We look toward the day when the whole world is aligned with the law of love.

Be near to the brokenhearted, close in Your compassion and lovingkindness, Generous in Your giving of understanding.

Amen

Litany: A Meditation on Love

Oh God, open our hearts now;
Grant that we may become a people fragrant and suffused with LOVE
     The unforgettable Love of God.
We set aside our own agendas in favor of Love’s agenda,
And desire that the Love of God may live and move within and among us
     Saturating us so that excess spills out wherever we go.

Re-orient us around LOVE
Our God is LOVE.
Refashion us to LOVE’s image;
Our way is LOVE.

By love, Christ came into the earth.
By love, Christ humbled himself to become human.
By love, Christ preached God’s kingdom.
By love, Christ healed and fed multitudes.
By love, Christ was led, a lamb to slaughter
By love, Christ absorbed within himself the wrongdoing of all people.
By love, Christ shortened the distance between ourselves and God
By love, Christ absolved his tormentors.
By love, Christ put death to rest.
By love, Christ rose up into glorified life.
By love, Christ commissioned the spreading of the Good News of Love.
By love, Christ re-imagined humankind.
By love, Christ ascended into heaven, promising to be with us always.
By love, Christ gave the Holy Spirit as our helper.

The Love of God became fulfilled in Christ Jesus.
The Love of God floods out over the earth, over His kingdom.
The Love of God is the new order, our paradigm for living.
The Love of God fills our hearts, changes our lives, remakes our beings.

May Love shatter us and rebuild us anew.
May Love encompass us and protect us.
May Love reform us from violence and power-seeking.
May Love make us compassionate.
May Love teach us to walk in the new way, the beautiful way.

May we be liberated from expectations placed on us by religions, societies, empires, cultures;
And delivered into Love’s hands,
    Following Love’s direction,
    Under Love’s authority,
    Helpless to but to fall under Love’s sway.

Litany for the Disqualified

Gracious, Loving God:
We whose hearts desire to serve You, to minister in Your kingdom,
     and to follow the loving example of leadership that Christ set forth;
We look now to You.

Many of us have been told, in various ways, by ourselves and by others
That we are disqualified from service.
Some of us have been told that we are
     the wrong gender
     the wrong age
     the wrong race
     the wrong class
     not holy enough
     not experienced enough
     not enough.

We seek now to have our minds transformed;
To have our presumptions set right;
Our slates wiped clean.

Give us courage
     to walk in the calling You have placed on us,
     to overcome those forces that would have us be ineffective,
     to listen to Your voice above the voices that would have us disqualified.

May we take our example from the meekness of Christ, His gentleness
     but also His assertiveness and steadfastness of purpose.
For he too was disdained, regarded as weak,
     not enough of a warrior to be a King.

Teach us the ways of Your kingdom
     the way of peace
     the way of love
     the way of beauty.
Empower us by Your Holy Spirit.
Provide for us with the abundance that is the hallmark of Your generosity.

May we know deeply that You have qualified us in Christ Jesus,
     and that, in Him, we are enough.

Amen

Resurrection Sunday: "Life"

God, your works are marvelous
Your power, amazing.

We are astonished at what You have done:
You have raised Jesus
Who was put to death at the hands of an angry multitude
Who was beaten, nailed, and pierced;
You have raised him to glorious Life.
We are astonished at this gospel.

We stand now silent before you, too surprised for words.
(pause)

And now we raise a shout:
(All:) HALLELUJAH!

That Jesus Christ, put to death on a cross
Is now alive and ruler of the world!
Again we raise our voices:
(All:) HALLELUJAH!

For death has lost its sting.
The grave has been overtaken by life.
The new Kingdom has begun.
The way of love is victorious.

And this gospel fills our hearts, and all the earth:
All: Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.

Hallelujah!

Lent Series: Litany for Good Friday, "Death"

Great God, we acknowledge that we are not always able to recognize Your ways as good
We confess that we are, at times, confounded;
As on Good Friday, when we commemorate the death of one so dear to us
The Savior, Christ the King.

As a seed must pass through death to sprout new life,
So Jesus Christ has passed into death.
Taking the nature of a human, a servant
He made himself nothing
He humbled himself by becoming obedient to death
Even death on a cross!

For three days, we wait with him, for death to accomplish its purpose;
For Christ’s sacrifice to be made meaningful;
For Christ to re-imagine death.
We grieve, even while we are hopeful.

We wait, and as the stones seal Christ’s body in the tomb, even then we say:
“Oh Death, Where is Your sting? O Grave, Where is your victory?”
And we acknowledge Your good way, the confounding way of obedience to death
That brings us toward Life and Hope.

Amen

Lent Series: Litany for Palm Sunday, "Fulfillment"

"Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord" comes directly from John 12, the instance for which Palm Sunday derives its name; in which the people of Jerusalem pave the streets with palm branches and garments, an ancient version of a red carpet, for Jesus and the donkey colt he rides upon. Earlier in the text, Mary pours a pint of expensive nard, a costly essential oil, on Jesus feet.

Hosanna!
Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!

The One we have long awaited, the Messiah, has come.
Hosanna!
Riding into Jerusalem, not on a warhorse, but on a young donkey,
Hosanna!
The Prince of Peace has come, the one who heals our wounds.
Hosanna!

Everything that was foretold, Christ has fulfilled.
We offer a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving.
We set up a banquet, and pour costly perfume at His feet.
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

This is Jesus
Whose name is glorified
This is Jesus
High and lifted up

Hosanna!
Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!

Lent Series: Litany for Lent, Week 5 "Waiting"

God, in this season of Lent
We quiet our souls
That we may see more clearly the one our hearts long for
We ask, seek, and knock
That our prayers may be answered
And our longing fulfilled

We acknowledge that so much of faith-life involves waiting
     for the voice of God to speak
     for the Spirit of God to move
     for the fullness of Your kingdom to come
     for Christ’s return
     for the world to be made new
     for justice and peace to become ordinary
     for love to become the world’s motivation

We acknowledge that even as we wait, you are working
     redeeming the earth
     redeeming people
     confirming Your love.

As Christ waited three days in a tomb
So do we wait for resurrection life.
We wait in faith,
That You are even now giving us new life.
We wait in hope for the Lord.
All creation waits for the Lord.

Amen

Lent Series: Litany for Lent, Week 4 "Thirst"

This prayer in the Lent Series is written for the fourth Sunday in Lent (this year March 6). I re-used lyrics from one of my songs for this one. You can find the prayers for the first Sunday in Lent (February 14, 2016) here, the second Sunday (Feb 21, 2016) here, and the third Sunday (February 28, 2016 ) here.

God, in this season of Lent we reflect upon our emptiness, and Your fullness
Our souls thirst for You.
We come to You, Wellspring of Life
Our flesh longs for you.
You graciously offer us a fountain of water, springing up to eternal life
In a dry and weary land, where there is no water.

Jesus, You are the Living Water, the holy spring
You satisfy our deepest needs.
Whoever drinks of the water You give
Need never thirst again.

We acknowledge the miracle, mystery, and kindness of Your provision
We were thirsty, and you gave us a drink.
Fulfill now Your promise to us:
That those who thirst for righteousness will be filled.

May our hunger, thirst, and need always lead us to You
Let all who are thirsty come to Jesus and drink of living water.

Amen

Lent Series: Litany for Lent, Week 3 "Hunger"

This prayer in the Lent Series is written for the third Sunday in Lent (this year February 28). You can find the prayer for the first Sunday in Lent (February 14, 2016) here, and the second Sunday (Feb 21, 2016) here.

God, in this season of Lenten fasting we set our eyes toward You.
We turn our hearts in Your direction.
We acknowledge our great need for you, and our great hunger.
Give us food from Your hand, oh God.
We confess that we often seek to fill a void inside us with frivolous things, spiritual junk food.
Forgive us, and bless us with manna from heaven.

We set aside the expectation that our hunger might be satisfied by anything but Your Spirit.
Nourish our souls, oh God.
We rely upon Your promise of provision.
They that hunger for righteousness will be filled.
Where we are empty
Fill us up, Oh God.

Jesus said: “I am the bread of Life. Those who come to me will not hunger.”
We come to You, Jesus.
We do not live by bread alone
But by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

Amen

Lent Series: Litany for Lent, Week 2 "Mercy"

This prayer in the Lent Series is written for the second Sunday in Lent (this year February 21). You can find the prayer for the first Sunday in Lent (this year February 14) here.

Hear, Oh God, when we call to You
Have mercy on us and answer us.

In our vulnerability
Have mercy on us, oh God
In our forgetfulness
Have mercy on us, oh God
In our anxiety
Have mercy on us, oh God
In our wrongdoing
Have mercy on us, oh God
In our hard-heartedness
Have mercy on us, oh God
In our blindness,
Have mercy on us, oh God

In your mercy, you rescue us from our enemies.
In your mercy, you remove our transgressions from us.
In your mercy, you made a way for us to be reconciled to You.
In your mercy, you sent your Son, Jesus Christ, to heal our brokenness.

Grant that in this season of Lent, our hearts may be devoted to You,
That we may see Your mercies new each day.
Grant that we may be always ready to offer mercy to those in need of it,
For mercy triumphs over judgement.

Amen

Litany for Ash Wednesday

Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, which marks the beginning of Lent. Congregants wear a smudge of ash on their foreheads to symbolize repentance and fasting, and commence the season of preparation for Easter.

Oh God, we are reminded this day of the temporality of our lives here on the earth.
We are dust and to dust we will return.
It is by your Spirit and your power that we are given life.
You are the source of all hope and life.

We enter now a season of repentance.
That we may turn from selfishness.
We set aside some comforts
That we may turn our attention to Your holiness.
Cast now our transgressions far from us
As far is the east is from the west.

We mourn the profound disconnection from You that happened at the dawn of humankind.
Bring us back into Your presence.
We rejoice in the perfect work of Christ on earth.
Christ reconciles us to You.

Prepare our hearts, Oh God, for Resurrection life.
You bring beauty from ashes.
Prepare our hearts for the joy of Your coming.
You bring gladness from mourning.
Prepare our hearts for the fullness of Your presence.
You bring forth praise from despair.

Amen

Litany for Fat Tuesday

This litany was originally posted at Godspace. Happy Mardi Gras!

God,
We revel in your expansive grace;
We bask in your boundless love;
We delight in the excess of your blessings to us.

As Christ turned water to wine at Cana,
So You are spreading out a bountiful feast for Your people.

We acknowledge that your kingdom is
    always expanding
    always welcoming
    always inviting
    always growing  
    always blessing
    always filling.

We acknowledge that in Your presence there is always
    a joyful song
    a chorus of worship
    a fountain of life.

We acknowledge that your attitude toward us is always
    joyful celebration
    unconditional love
    wholehearted acceptance.

The universe is bursting, drunk with Your love.
Our hearts are plump, satisfied with Your love.
Our lives are filled up, ripe with Your blessing.

May we live our lives in the fullness of joy.
Amen