narrative lectionary – Page 20

Easter Unfolding: Narrative Lectionary Seeds of Faith Resources

Remember: Easter didn’t happen in one day. It started at dawn with a few women and slowly unfolded. Next the disciples were stuck in a room for 50 days til Pentecost. Then Pentecost Easter started to be shared with the public. We have been unfurling Easter for the 2,000 years since. Every Sunday is a piece of Easter, Easter, the resurrection, the promise that Christ will return is still taking place today. Easter never was a one day event. That’s why Mark ends so abruptly, it was the beginning.

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April 19th: Acts 1 and Mark 6 You Shall Be My Witness/Acts(ion)

Bulletin & Sermonby Dr. Barb Hedges-Goettl

I Want Answers: Confession about the God I want & the Grace I Need

Grief: Missing the Big & Small Things

Looking to Heaven (for answers)

Apr. 26, 2020

Peter Heals in Jerusalem Prayers: Call to Confession, etc

Acts 3:1-10

(Mark 6:53-56)

Psalm 6

Bulletin & Sermon by Dr. Barb Hedges-Goettl

Prayer:Healing Touch

Prayer/Meditation: Standing in the Breach

Body of Christ

May 3, 2020

Church at Thessalonica

Acts 17:1-9

1 Thessolonians 1:1-10

Mark 13:9-11

With Ref to Amos 5:24

May 10th, 2020

May 17th, 2020

Faith, Hope, and Love: Resources, Commentaries and Prayers by Rev. Dr. Barbara Hedges-Goettl

1 Corinthians 13: Rewritten for the Pandemic

1 Cor. 13:1-3

(Mark 12:28-31)

Body of Christ Litany

Mother’s Day Confession Prayer

Mother’s Day Litany Prayer (in light of the pandemic)

May 24, 2020

Death Swallowed in Life

1 Cor 15:1-26, 51- 57

(Mark 12:26-27a)

May 31, 2020

Pentecost

Gifts of the Spirit

Acts 2:1-4; 1 Cor 12:1-13

(Mark 1:4-8)

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Virtual Communion Resources

Pandemic Resources

I want Answers: a prayer

Lord, I confess that it would be a heck of a lot easier to throw up my hands and say God will provide.

It’s easy to look to heaven for answers, instead of grace. I’m a practically minded person, somedays solutions are all I want. Not hints or insights or learning journeys, a neon sign pointing to what I should do and how I should fix it seems easier.

Though I know this is easier, I also know you are a God who loves me and teaches me exactly the way I am. You do not force my hand, nor my choices. And the truth is, sometimes even when the solution is made obvious, I have trouble recognizing it until afterwards.

You have foresight, I am only blessed with hindsight.

Like Thomas, we think the solution is seeing to believe, and instead he ignore’s the wounds and give Jesus a hug.

This is why Acts is so important, because it’s only after the fact of Jesus’s Resurrection that they start to understand what it’s all about.

This is why Easter is not one day, because we need time and hindsight to truly act upon the commandments that Christ has given us.

Remind me Lord that this Unfolding Easter, this grace in action, this time to practice the kingdom over and over is a gift. And that solutions wouldn’t have helped me understand anyway.

For God is about love and grace and forgiveness, not solutions.

Because we are not a problem, we are the part of the relationship.

Remind me of this I pray.

Amen.

Acts(ion): April 19th Narrative Lectionary Seeds of Faith Prayers

Mark 6:7-13

Acts 1:1-14

Call to Worship
This is the day that the Lord has made

Let us Rejoice and Be glad in it

The Lord calls us together from all the ends of the earth

Come let us pray together in whatever way we can

Call to Worship

There is a time for everything?

A time to dance and a time to sing, a time to mourn and a time to rejoice

There is a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing. There is a time to look to the heavens and time to look to earth.

Let us pray and act together on earth! Alleluia, Amen

Prayer of Confession: Lord we confess that this baptism by fire is not the one we envisioned. Never did we imagine we would stand so close to poverty and death. We confess that we did not understand how fragile our human structures are. We did not imagine how dependent we are for one another in prayer and support. You would think after reading Acts every year, we would have had a better inkling of what it means to enact community on earth. But we have forgotten or lost sight of it. Help us to reclaim community of work and prayer that helps us to love and serve one another as Christ commanded on Maundy Thursday, we pray. Amen.

Prayer of Confession: Lord we confess, we would rather look towards heaven, than earth. How easy it is as humans to skip to the end. We want the kingdom to come right now, and have trouble learning that there is work to be done in the in-between. We confess that we though humans would stop being human and suddenly just all be the same, or get along, or all believe the same things. You know better Lord. Remind us how to eat, pray and live in harmony, even when we cannot see and touch one another. We pray in Christ’s name Amen.

Assurance of Pardon: Christ sends no one out alone! He sends the Holy Spirit before us, companions along the way, and Christ promises to return once again. Be comforted by the ever present grace & forgiveness of God. Tell one another the truth: In Jesus Christ we are forgiven.

Assurance of Pardon: God sends us nowhere where we cannot be touched by grace. Know the truth In Jesus Christ we are forgiven.

Prayer of the Day/Dedication: Lord please send everything we have out in the world. Remind us to pray, encourage us to be in relationship with one another, and focus us upon the needs of the here and now, and help us to address the realities here on earth we pray. Amen.

I Want Answers: A Confession/Prayer about God of Grace

Easter is the beginning

I hate waiting (Saturday)

Lord,

I’ve never been good at waiting. I am impatient and like to keep my hands busy.

Were the women keeping their hands busy when they mixed the spices on Holy Saturday for God? Didn’t they know that Joseph of Arimathea, along with Zaccheus? The high falutin politicians had already moved and covered Jesus with spices?

Was it common to do it more than once? Did the women decide to do it anyway to make sure it was done right?

Did they just need to see & touch dead Jesus with their own hands?

Or were they just keeping their hands busy, choosing and blending the spices, grinding them up with olive oil. Putting them into vessels suitable to journey to Jesus.

Or were they plotting to steal the body of Jesus? Ready to run the risk of the wrath of Herod to make Jesus’ resurrection real in their own way?

If I were them I would not have slept much, I would go at dawn because once I figured out what I was going to do I’d work all night doing it, planning to leave at first light.

I’ve never been good at waiting Lord, and my bet is neither were Mary and Mary Magdalene.

How am I going to keep busy this Saturday?

Help God, help me to do what needs to be done, so that I can do the waiting that needs to be waited, I pray. Amen.

More Pandemic Prayers

Can You Hear Easter (the good news)

Can you hear Easter?

It’s ringing in the stilled bells, the empty chapels, creeping up with the quiet growth of spring

It’s on the lips of exhausted doctors and nurses—too tired to murmur

It’s in the silent wave between neighbors, keeping too far away to talk, but close enough for company

It’s in the silent hug between family members stuck together; where entire conversations flow through the body

It’s on the breath of the sick, in that place between waking and sleeping

It’s in the angel’s nod of greeting to the women, the absence of guards and the rolling away of the stone

If s a stone rolls away and nobody hears it; does it make a sound?

It booms like the rise thunderous sun, bedecked in glory, shining out the news wordless in its proclamation

Can you hear Easter?

Say Nothing Easter

Here we are Jesus, at our say nothing Easter.

And the truth is, I really don’t know what to say. An angel told us you’re alive, but what does that really mean?

Your angels are frightening God, full of life & death; we cannot fully understand who or what they are. We are blinded by the angels eyes, and need some holy shade to think. And we are not exactly filled with hope.

Where is Jesus? He promised to return, but here we are and Mark leaves us with a rolled back stone, one angel and bunch of women. Who would believe what they had to say anyway?

Would Peter and the disciples really hear what needed to be done?

This is a say nothing Easter, where we are alone with ourselves and think, what can we say.

What will you say?

More Pandemic Prayers & Resources

Thank God it’s Friday? Psalm 22

My God, My God why have you abandoned us?

The churches are empty, The offices, the schools, the streets are laid bare.

and demons are everywhere.

The diseases hide in plain sight, and surround us.

And we are stuck, alone, in our own personal pit left with only with our anxieties and depressions.

The powers that be are useless, stuck running around in circles, contradictions abound.

We are stuck in the mire. Things suck, and for those who have to watch their beloved ones die alone this is the shitstorm that never ends.

And God, you know I do not say shitstorm lightly.

We are stuck in the pit. Are very bodies are disturbed. I feel like not eating, then eating everything. I cannot sleep, but neither can I stay awake.

My God, My God. Why would you send your only son on earth to suffer with us.

To see those who are falling through the cracks: the maligned: Zacchaeus, the ignored: the woman by the well, the ones with long term diseases: the lepers and those living with disabilities: the lame and the blind.

Then to see friends die of disease. First Jairus’ daughter, then his beloved friend Lazarus.

Thank God it’s Friday, Good Friday. A day to cry out, a day to admit that not everything is alright. The kids are not alright, neither are their parents or grandparents. The doctors and nurses are not alright, nor the grocery and retail and mail workers. The teachers are not alright, nor the aunties or the uncles. Those who live with abusers, those who are not yet out to their family aren’t alright, those who are lonely and have no one to call are not alright. The thousands and thousands of people on unemployment are not alright.

Lord, why have you abandoned us? We are not alright. If it’s possible, please let this cup pass.

But your will be done.

We are not alright, and Jesus is not alright with us.

We are vulnerable, he made himself vulnerable. We are cold, sick, naked, alone, uncertain and unsafe.

We are face to face with the cross and we do not like it.

Lord hear our prayer! Be with those who are not alright, be with us for we are not alright. Help us. Hosanna in the highest.

Amen.

More Pandemic Prayers & Resources

Virtual Communion

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We are forever practicing virtual communion.

Recalling you, re-membering you. Virtually recalibrating ourselves to be the body of Christ until it becomes a physical reality.

We celebrate with all those saints who have come before us, and all those who have yet to come as a part of your kingdom. It is a virtual party, a foretaste, a glimpse of what is to come.

We worry about the rules a lot: who is truly welcome at the table, does Jesus really mean every single person can be a part of the body of Christ?

We worry about what together means: does communion mean at the same time, does it mean being in the same place? Does it mean the same loaf? Does it mean it all has to be wine? Do chips & grape soda count? What is the food of the people?

In our anxiety to be together, sometimes we do the opposite and make a lot of walls to keep each other apart.

But I’m happy for the gift of virtual communion. To remember that not everyone who is supposed to be there is there, and yet somehow it’s still communion and they are still included.

I am grateful for the celebration of it–for the solemn moment when we realize that we are a part of God’s family, and that Jesus welcomed especially those who are forgotten or overlooked, I remember that Jesus often called those who had no other access by NAME to him.

Because this virtual communion is also a real communion. Somehow, miraculously it’s always both. We are both the unbaked bread beginning to rise, and the crusty bake, dipped in the cup, and no matter what stage we are at we can taste it on our tongue.

However we classify and codify this communion, Lord I pray you make us a part of it.

May we be blessed, broken and consumed, until Jesus comes again.

We pray. Amen.

More Pandemic Prayers & Resources

Essential Workers at the Cross

Who was essential at the cross?

Not Peter or John, Matthew or Mark.

Simon was essential: when Jesus could no longer carry the cross, Simon, a common laborer, with the strength to do the manual labor, the construction, the carrying of an essential item to where it needed to be. Simon was essential.

So were the two criminals who hung by the cross. Worthless and killed for being heretics, these two were essential for having the existential and theological conversation about who was saved and who wasn’t, and when was it too late to be saved.

The Centurion, and the common prison guards, were essential, they were the first to realize Jesus was the Son of God after he died. These workers in prison were essential.

Joseph of Arimathea, was essential. He gave up his own burial place, and risked his own death by the officials, boldly asking Pilate for the body, revealing what he believed and why. Then Joseph and Nicodemus polluted themselves–wrapping the dead body with their own hands, and using Nicodemus own mixed spices to move Jesus to the tomb. These men who put down politics to work with the dead were essential.

The women were essential. The women were sent, because they were thought to be harmless. Women prepared Jesus for the tomb with the wrappings and the spices to hide the bad smell. They entered the grave, where the guards watched–socially distant–to make certain no mischief was done. Women were the worthless but essential workers of the day.

Who was essential at the cross? Who did the work that needed to done? Who carried, cleaned, buried, wept, wrapped and worshipped?

Help us to pray and remember and rejoice in all of the essential workers we pray. Amen.

Pandemic Prayers