O Father God, the world thinks it has no need of you. I think they are wrong. For it is not really you that they reject, but the caricatures of you that are painted in black and white by some who claim to know you. I think that I know you, but only in glimpses of that inspired love I feel at times that comes upon me for no apparent reason. You know, that love that takes me out of my own selfish attitudes and desires and points me firmly toward the needs of others who suffer through this world and feel alone. I have no reason to care that can be explained by anything else but you, O God. For deep down inside, I am a selfish man. And the love that comes from you transforms me.
But O, my Father, the times call for radical changes. The biggest of which is our re-imagining of you and of your place in the world. Too often, our pictures of you become the very things which divide us rather than bind us together. Because we remember only what we were taught as little children and have forgotten to pay attention to the way you have revealed yourself to us as adults. We have not listened deeply to your call throughout our lives, but only remember the way you made us feel safe and protected when we said our prayers at night just before turning out the lights. In our homes, in our little rooms, where strangers were not welcome.
But I remember, Father, that you are not the source of our problems, but the solution to them. And that the source of the problem is not who you are, but only in the limits of our imagination to understand how you are and the ways in which you are present to us in this world which we have taken from your care. Forgive our short-sightedness and our arrogance and, please, relieve us of our blindness.
O Mother Earth, my heart is broken for you. We have forgotten you because we have disembodied you. We have dishonored you and the blessing that you provide for us. Like selfish children raiding Mother’s pocketbook, we have treated you like self-indulgent teenagers. We are made of the very stuff of you, from your very substance. And we have failed you. I wish your children would stop for a moment and remember – remember that for thousand of years of our human history we named you and recalled your blessing. And we remembered to give back to you what was yours and to take only what we needed and we always asked first.
Today, I thank you for our nourishment and your unfailing presence. And I ask for your forgiveness. We are surely remembering our dependence upon you, slow as we are and dull witted. We are on the cusp of leaving our teenage selfishness behind, but not without our moments of deep rebellion. And so, I ask your patience. I ask you to remember a Mother’s love even in the midst of your weariness.
O Sister Church, the world has grown weary of you. Not for the things you have done, but for those things that you have not done. You have not given voice to the oppressed and the outcast. You have not served, but have sought to rule. And you have sometimes taught the world that God hates on their behalf so that they might be relived of responsibility for their hating. You have raised up leaders who do not know what it means to be the least among you. And in their leading, they do not understand power and authority or how to use them rightly. And while you are finally learning, you have not understood that your people are the true ministers of the church, and that the church is not a building, but the building up of a vision for the world that could be here and now if only you could perceive it. You are meant to be the antidote for the world, not complicit in that which poisons us. And while that may sound harsh, I ask you only to take a look every time you find yourself in agreement with Caesar. Chances are, you are missing something truly important.
O my Sister, I love you even as I weep for you. I weep because you are worthy of love, and yet you do not know it. You spend more time apologizing for your Spouse than for your own behavior. But your spouse is not the problem. Jesus has never been the problem. Christ needs no apology for the fact that you have not found yourself on the same page when raising your children together.
But still I love you, for you have helped form me. You have sent me into the world as a brother, to love and to serve – even when you have not always done the same. You have given me a language and a space to search for and love my Creator. For you still have not forgotten God, nor failed to remember his Son, and for this you are blessed and still given a chance to find your voice. I bid you to remember that the Kingdom is here, within and among you, not far off in some place and time yet to come. So live as if you remember that. Remember it each time you name someone who is not worthy of your companionship – for they are the first you should serve. Feed them, wash their feet, let them heal you. Let each outcast find a place among you so that the world may be whole. For nothing is whole as long as one remains apart.
Remember your mother, the earth, for as surely as you were built up from her very substance, your duty – as any child – is to protect her. Remember your brother, Christ, as you have always done. But let him grow up. Let him become what he was meant to be, not only as you remember him from your youth, but in his glory and his power. In his wisdom and his capacity to love which is so deep that it is meant for more than you alone. Don’t be selfish with him, for if death itself could not contain his love, neither can you.
O Brother Christ, my dearest friend, companion, soul-lover; please be with us. I carry you in my heart, too often like a private treasure. But you, my Brother, in life and in death call us to our better selves. Your words, spoken so long ago, are – as God promised – etched upon our hearts. “Love one another as I have loved you.” There are, too often, not enough words in our limited vocabulary to describe that love. And so we remain silent. Forgive us. But, of course, you will for that is in your very nature. And for that I give you unending thanks.
My Brother, call us to remembrance of a love that knows no boundaries. Inspire us to acts of kindness and justice. Above all, remind us of the dignity of every human person – made as they are in the Divine image – so that none of your beloved brothers or sisters may be left without hope. For the Reign that you call us to embody is not far off, but here and now surrounds us. And if we are not mindful of your words, then all is lost. Open our mouths to speak, and unbind our hands and feet to do the work you have called us to do. Remember your Church, which sometimes struggles still to remember who you really are. Pray for us to the God who makes all things, to our “Abba” who loves all things and who holds the Universe together, to the Creator who sings the Universe into being and whose song vibrates through every string. Pray that we may stop placing ourselves at the very center that is God’s alone, but that we may enter into that center and be whole and at peace with God who is the origin of all things.
O Christ, I love you. The remembrance of you suffuses my whole being with a longing that I cannot explain. And your gentle presence fills me with joy, and hope, and a desire to help repair the brokenness of the world. Be my companion and the light that shows me where to start. Remind me when I falter in that gentle way that you have. When I am weary, hold me up with that strength that I know is yours. And when I need rest, wrap me in the mantle of that peace which is yours alone. You are my beloved, and I am yours.
And filled with the joy of that love, my heart overflows and my spirit remembers that all will one day be well. In this place, where all hope abounds. And God is present.
Amen.
A Lamentation and A Prayer
O Father God, the world thinks it has no need of you. I think they are wrong. For it is not really you that they reject, but the caricatures of you that are painted in black and white by some who claim to know you. I think that I know you, but only in glimpses of that inspired love I feel at times that comes upon me for no apparent reason. You know, that love that takes me out of my own selfish attitudes and desires and points me firmly toward the needs of others who suffer through this world and feel alone. I have no reason to care that can be explained by anything else but you, O God. For deep down inside, I am a selfish man. And the love that comes from you transforms me.
But O, my Father, the times call for radical changes. The biggest of which is our re-imagining of you and of your place in the world. Too often, our pictures of you become the very things which divide us rather than bind us together. Because we remember only what we were taught as little children and have forgotten to pay attention to the way you have revealed yourself to us as adults. We have not listened deeply to your call throughout our lives, but only remember the way you made us feel safe and protected when we said our prayers at night just before turning out the lights. In our homes, in our little rooms, where strangers were not welcome.
But I remember, Father, that you are not the source of our problems, but the solution to them. And that the source of the problem is not who you are, but only in the limits of our imagination to understand how you are and the ways in which you are present to us in this world which we have taken from your care. Forgive our short-sightedness and our arrogance and, please, relieve us of our blindness.
O Mother Earth, my heart is broken for you. We have forgotten you because we have disembodied you. We have dishonored you and the blessing that you provide for us. Like selfish children raiding Mother’s pocketbook, we have treated you like self-indulgent teenagers. We are made of the very stuff of you, from your very substance. And we have failed you. I wish your children would stop for a moment and remember – remember that for thousand of years of our human history we named you and recalled your blessing. And we remembered to give back to you what was yours and to take only what we needed and we always asked first.
Today, I thank you for our nourishment and your unfailing presence. And I ask for your forgiveness. We are surely remembering our dependence upon you, slow as we are and dull witted. We are on the cusp of leaving our teenage selfishness behind, but not without our moments of deep rebellion. And so, I ask your patience. I ask you to remember a Mother’s love even in the midst of your weariness.
O Sister Church, the world has grown weary of you. Not for the things you have done, but for those things that you have not done. You have not given voice to the oppressed and the outcast. You have not served, but have sought to rule. And you have sometimes taught the world that God hates on their behalf so that they might be relived of responsibility for their hating. You have raised up leaders who do not know what it means to be the least among you. And in their leading, they do not understand power and authority or how to use them rightly. And while you are finally learning, you have not understood that your people are the true ministers of the church, and that the church is not a building, but the building up of a vision for the world that could be here and now if only you could perceive it. You are meant to be the antidote for the world, not complicit in that which poisons us. And while that may sound harsh, I ask you only to take a look every time you find yourself in agreement with Caesar. Chances are, you are missing something truly important.
O my Sister, I love you even as I weep for you. I weep because you are worthy of love, and yet you do not know it. You spend more time apologizing for your Spouse than for your own behavior. But your spouse is not the problem. Jesus has never been the problem. Christ needs no apology for the fact that you have not found yourself on the same page when raising your children together.
But still I love you, for you have helped form me. You have sent me into the world as a brother, to love and to serve – even when you have not always done the same. You have given me a language and a space to search for and love my Creator. For you still have not forgotten God, nor failed to remember his Son, and for this you are blessed and still given a chance to find your voice. I bid you to remember that the Kingdom is here, within and among you, not far off in some place and time yet to come. So live as if you remember that. Remember it each time you name someone who is not worthy of your companionship – for they are the first you should serve. Feed them, wash their feet, let them heal you. Let each outcast find a place among you so that the world may be whole. For nothing is whole as long as one remains apart.
Remember your mother, the earth, for as surely as you were built up from her very substance, your duty – as any child – is to protect her. Remember your brother, Christ, as you have always done. But let him grow up. Let him become what he was meant to be, not only as you remember him from your youth, but in his glory and his power. In his wisdom and his capacity to love which is so deep that it is meant for more than you alone. Don’t be selfish with him, for if death itself could not contain his love, neither can you.
O Brother Christ, my dearest friend, companion, soul-lover; please be with us. I carry you in my heart, too often like a private treasure. But you, my Brother, in life and in death call us to our better selves. Your words, spoken so long ago, are – as God promised – etched upon our hearts. “Love one another as I have loved you.” There are, too often, not enough words in our limited vocabulary to describe that love. And so we remain silent. Forgive us. But, of course, you will for that is in your very nature. And for that I give you unending thanks.
My Brother, call us to remembrance of a love that knows no boundaries. Inspire us to acts of kindness and justice. Above all, remind us of the dignity of every human person – made as they are in the Divine image – so that none of your beloved brothers or sisters may be left without hope. For the Reign that you call us to embody is not far off, but here and now surrounds us. And if we are not mindful of your words, then all is lost. Open our mouths to speak, and unbind our hands and feet to do the work you have called us to do. Remember your Church, which sometimes struggles still to remember who you really are. Pray for us to the God who makes all things, to our “Abba” who loves all things and who holds the Universe together, to the Creator who sings the Universe into being and whose song vibrates through every string. Pray that we may stop placing ourselves at the very center that is God’s alone, but that we may enter into that center and be whole and at peace with God who is the origin of all things.
O Christ, I love you. The remembrance of you suffuses my whole being with a longing that I cannot explain. And your gentle presence fills me with joy, and hope, and a desire to help repair the brokenness of the world. Be my companion and the light that shows me where to start. Remind me when I falter in that gentle way that you have. When I am weary, hold me up with that strength that I know is yours. And when I need rest, wrap me in the mantle of that peace which is yours alone. You are my beloved, and I am yours.
And filled with the joy of that love, my heart overflows and my spirit remembers that all will one day be well. In this place, where all hope abounds. And God is present.
Amen.