Category: Uncategorized

Oct 3 God’s Name is Revealed

Living into this God Given World: Helpers

Exodus 2:23-25; 3:1-15, 4:10-17

John 8:58

Psalm 46

Trickle Down Grace: A Prayer

Call to Worship (based on Psalm 46)

God says, come into the house of the Lord

We gather together, to be with God

We come to be still, and know God

Come let us worship God, exalted among nations.

Prayer of Confession: God, we confess that sometimes we are like Moses. We feel unworthy to be called upon. We are ware that we lack. We feel that the burden is too heavy. Forgive us, and call us again to be the helpers we pray. Amen.

Assurance of Pardon: God is with us, forgiving us. Know the truth: In Jesus Christ we are forgiven.

Prayer of the Day/Dedication: Let us dedicate ourselves to God, who sends his servants to free the earth. The one who promises to make wars cease. Come let love and serve the Lord. Amen.

Children: Discuss with children Mr. Roger’s famous “consider the helpers” when things are scary or bad conversation. (Keeping in mind that us grown ups are the ones who are supposed to be these helpers setting this example)

Hymns: God of Compassion in Mercy Befriend Us, God of the Ages Whose Almight Hand, Wherever I May Wander, Live Into Hope, When Israel Was in Egypt’s Land, Be Thou My Vision, Called as Partners in Christ’s Service

More Narrative Lectionary Year 4

If you find these resources useful please consider contributing to my Doctorate in Ministry in Creative Writing! I have already Successfully funded year 1, and am now working on Year 2!

Never Forget, a Prayer of Mourning

I remember staying up all night,

And waking up to the phone in my dorm

(landline, yes)

It was the 2nd week of Freshman Year.

And God, all I can remember

Is that everyone was so angry.

Because no one seemed to know

How to be sad.

Never Forget–

How to be angry I wondered?

As we marched off to war?

As I viewed the Holocaust museum in embattled Israel?*

As we became more embittered against Brown people.

And now,

After Iraq, and Afghanistan,

and a million Covid deaths later,

God, I think that maybe,

we are way more apt to get angry–

because we as a nation are not good at getting sad.

How often do I see our leaders cry?

How often do we encourage mourning?

So Today I’m glad that you are the God who weeps with those are weeping.

Today I’m glad that you affirmed

that

Jesus wept.

A tear for every life.

God does not need to get even for justice to be done.

And today, I am so thankful, for a God that weeps.

As I remember the first day,

that I realize that justice is so separate from anger–

and mourning is too.

So today, God, I think I’m going to concentrate on mourning,

and nothing else.

Please sit with me, again,

while I cry

whatever more tears

need to be cried.

Amen.

Feel free to share/adapt/use with Credit to Pastor Katy Stenta

If you enjoy my work, please consider giving to my Doctorate in Ministry in Creative Writing 

Pandemic Prayers & Resources

*The Nationally Funded motto of all the museums in Israel is also Never Forget, which I discovered upon a pilgrimage there in 2010.

Resource on modern lament

My colleague April Fiet is putting together a resource in Lament and included one of my prayers in her resource on how to lament—which makes sense a lot of my pandemic prayers are laments or psalms. Or as I like to put it “I like to write angsty prayers” which is luckily a very Biblical thing to do. Angst is Biblical.

April Fiet is really thoughtful and this is a really good resource about lament and how to do it. A lot of the Bible is about the importance of grieving and I’m excited to see more as she works on the topic.

Henri J. M. Nouwen said “I’m beginning to see that a lot of praying is grieving”

If you feel overwhelmed by everything I invite you to check her resource out.

https://aprilfiet.com/my-thoughts/how-to-grieve-in-an-unfeeling-world-resources-for-creating-space-for-lamenthttps://aprilfiet.com/my-thoughts/how-to-grieve-in-an-unfeeling-world-resources-for-creating-space-for-lament

Jonah, A Prayer

When people complain

About how hard

it is to help others.

The inconvenience to put cloth across

their face–

or that “they can’t do that to their children”

when we ask them to teach them to mask.

And I shudder when they refuse to put a highly tested medication

into their bloodstream, to bolster our bubble of protection.

I think about what happened to Jonah

When he was sent to help Ninevah.

God followed the boat with a storm

and the ocean, with a big fish.

I wonder how it feels to be

in the belly of the fish,

praying to be thrown up,

so that you can go out,

covered in vomit,

and realize,

that you are still called to help people.

Welp, here we are God,

Covered in Vomit,

help us to take those steps–

in flood and fire, in hurricane and disease,

in senseless war, horrific evictions and systematic racism

even when things are completely overwhelming help us

to pick ourselves up, and remember that even cover in goo

we are still called, to be the helpers

and maybe take a nap under a tree now and then

when we need one,

so that we can look back,

and see the work that we have been doing,

counts.

It all counts, help us to see how it all counts

I pray.

Amen.

Hungry, A Prayer

Jesus,

Sometimes I shuffle around the house

hungry for company.

So I turn on the TV

or talk to myself.

Some days, I’m stumbling in the depths of despair

so I take my 2,000 IUs of Vitamin D (I don’t even know what that means)

and turn on all the lights, and sit in the windows

to soak up the pieces of joy we like to call sunshine

And sometimes,

I can’t breathe,

And the world collapses in,

in such a way that my inhaler can’t help

because the enormity of a world coming to the end

is just too much to bear.

And so, when you promised–

When you promise that you will be my bread

and I will never thirst

These are the kinds of hungers

These are the kinds of thirst you are talking about

The deep pangs and aches of being human.

The empty spots.

That there are places, that need to be filled.

And healed.

“This is my body, broken for you”

And that sometimes we skip over those places.

Ignoring them until they scream into every corner of our being.

Ignoring them, until they demand to be healed, hungry to be healthy again.

Because, in the end, you know.

We humans are hungry.

To be noticed, to be fed, to be warm, to be healed, to be loved.

Sometimes I’m hungry God.

Sometimes, I’m so hungry that it hurts.

“This is my body, broken for you”

Feed us.

And help us also, to feed one another.

Isn’t that why you sat with us, your disciples at the table?

“This is my body, broken for you”

Teach us to feed, and be fed.

Restore us to the ministry of communion I pray.

Amen.

Feel Free to Use/Share/Adapt with Credit to Pastor Katy Stenta

Enough, A Prayer of Olympic Boundaries

God, I stand in awe today.

Of those Black women.

The ones who stood up

and once again said…

enough.

Proudly.

With the Strength on their Ancestors,

and with the Radiance of their Daughters.

They pushed the limits of everything,

Body, Brain, Spirit, Heart

Including Fame, and when enough

was enough

They said enough.

I thank you

for the eloquence

of their embodied

passion

the quivering, vibrancy of life

that streamed out of Simone Biles* and Naomi Osaka’s Very Being

The Self-Evaluation that Let Them

Tell Themselves,

And the World

To Have Limits

To Set Boundaries

To Say No

To Own Your Own Body

and to Say

I am Enough

I Have Done Enough

I am Beautifully and Fiercely Made

I am God’s Beloved Image Bearer

Enough

And The Stars will Sing Out

And and Angels will Sing Out

And the Universe will Sing Out

For we Are All Important Parts of It

And It is Enough

Thank You For All You Have Done

Simone Biles*

Naomi Osaka

Never Doubt

You are Enough

I thank God for you

Thank you

For Giving Your All

Physically and Mentally

For All Your Yeses

And All of Your Nos

Thank you

May You Feel God’s Blessings Roll Down

And May You Feel That You Too

Are Enough

Amen.

Feel free to use/share/adapt with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta

* with apologies with the wrong name before. I have a real issue (perhaps disability) with names which means that even though I double checked the name online my brain typed it wrong.

Please Check out #BlackLiturgies: https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/blackliturgies and The Nap Ministry: https://thenapministry.wordpress.com for more resources not by a white person

Birds & Plagues

My breath caught God,

When I heard again,

the report of the plague

that was striking

the little birds

and the recommendations

to keep the birds six feet apart

I suppressed a messy sob when I thought about

How your eye is on the sparrows

just like its been on ours, as we fumble

on the bird feeders, on the masks, on the vaccines.

Bird by Bird,

Piece by piece.

God, your eye is on the sparrow.

And I think for a while, mine will be too.

Even though it’s sad, and hard to watch

A bird plague is much more manageable right now.

And if I can manage a that,

Then I know you can manage ours.

Even if the light seems to be farther away.

Even if Olympics and uneven vaccine distributions and delta variations

and one step forward and two steps back seem to be the norm

even then, maybe I’ll remember that you know how

…to take down the bird feeders

so….

In your Eye. I think I’ll rest a while God.

and leave this half unfinishished prayer in your lap

while I fidget with the birdseed, and watch the birds….

Amen.