Restlessness
Lord God,
I am restless.
Trapped & yet without a chance to rest.
My brain thinks through a millions scenarios a minute.
I have a thousand unsaid conversations on my tongue.
Lord you know.
You know, how the Holy Spirit moves through us.
Moving through us to do something, and moving through us to rest.
Lord, when I read Psalm 23 to myself, I forget that there is a journey to the still waters.
Here I am, walking through the Valley of the Shadow of death. Feeling evil’s breath on my shoulder.
I feel it in the threat of violence when you ask someone to keep social distance or wear a mask. I feel it when in the hordes of conspiracies that come out to play with our minds.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.
I shall fear no evil.
In the midst of my restless–they staff and thy rod shall comfort me: for they are the weapons of truth & trust.
I will work with the truth, I will trust on my neighbors. I will work on my own truth, and I will develop my own trust with transparency and compassion.
Lord I am restless.
Driven onward, because the time for rest has not yet arrived.
Stir me in the right way, so that I might find rest, I pray.
Amen.
1 Corinthians 13: Apocalyptic Thinking
Resources, Commentaries and Prayers by Rev. Dr. Barbara Hedges-Goettl
Rewritten 1st Corinthians 13 in light of today & pandemic
If I speak with all of the authority & power in the world, but have not love,
My voice becomes blurred and untrustworthy.
If I can move mountains, changing laws, changing history, changing minds, and have not love–my work becomes meaningless
If I proclaim victory: that we are “great” the “best” the “most” and talk about all I have done for my family and my country, but have not love. I in actuality, have gained absolutely nothing.
Love: does it’s best to wait til after the danger of disease has passed to hug a loved one.
Love does not compare leaders, all of whom are doing the best they can to keep people safe.
It does not gut medicare and ignore the vulnerable and the elderly in the nursing homes as it boasts that it is doing everything possible to save lives
It is not racist or bigoted, It is not ignorant or panic-inducing.
Love is not irritable or resentful–it wears a mask out of love, and pays the essential workers more, and understands how reliant we are on one another for survival.
Love does not rejoice in wrongdoing, it does not ignore the racial discrepencies in illness, treatment or quarantine enforcement.
Love rejoices in the truth, even when it is hard.
For it is through love we bear all things even in sickness and death, it believes all things even in joblessness and loneliness, hopes all things: even as singing is silenced the hope for the opportunity to sing again persists.
Love can endure all things.
Even when we can’t believe it especially, when we can’t believe it.
Love endures all things
Love never ends: As for prophecies: promises of the future beauty & success: it comes to the end.
Tongues: chattering gossip and lies–they too will cease.
Even knowledge: will come to an end as humans are limited and to think we know more than a grain of how the world works is hubris.
For we only know bits: facts & science serve as only the beginning, and we can foresee some other bits: arts and gospel serve to extend our knowledge beyond our own sphere and experience.
But, when the complete comes, the partial will end. God will give all knowledge to everybody. And it is up to us if we experience that knowledge as judgement or grace.
For I am but a child of God, speaking and reasoning like a child: babbling the bits of love I understand to God and other humans.
When I fully mature: when I join God, I will put away childish ways: jealousies, regrets, conspiracies, imposter syndromes, competitions and internalized bigotries and self-hate will fade into the foolishness they are.
Now, I can barely glimpse God and love: sometimes I feel it when I briefly glimpse myself in the mirror and can actually affirm, for a moment, that I am God’s beloved.
Someday I will see love, God, each other: face to face.
Now I acknowledge that even in the best of time, I can only know things in part.
Someday I will know fully, just as I am already full known by God.
Someday I will fully know myself, and I will be fully known by others, and acknowledged as belonging–not a piece or part of me, but all of me, as a created beloved piece of God’s love.
And as Faith, Hope and Love abide today.
Someday there will be no need for faith and hope.
So fully will we be bathed and punctuated by Love.
Feel free to use for sermon/worship/prayer with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta 
Holy Days & Sabbath
On the seventh Day, God decided to relieve the monotony and created Sabbath.
Have you read the studies where if there are no special or memorable days, time goes quickly? And humans remember less? Because human brains are not wired to do the same thing everyday.
How strange is that, if I were designing a creature, I would design it to do the same thing all the time.
And although we prefer a structure and not changing, in reality we do not thrive in this environment.
As evidenced by quarantine: where many are working without stopping and many are stopping without working.
So God created a different kind of day, a memorable day, a holy day.
When I’m stuck, and things seem overwhelming, sometimes I declare a random holiday, to help to bide the time. I will stop everything and turn my focus to crafts or baking or reading a (gasp) new book.
My mom has been marking the silly holidays (Bugs Bunny Day, Hoagie Day, Missing Sock Day), and it has been brightening our otherwise monotonous time.
In Middle Ages the church acted as Union insofar as they declared many, many holidays to give people appropriate rest. 12 days at Christmas, every Sunday and 7 weeks after Easter, plus weddings and funerals. They sometimes would have as much as a half a year off.
The creation of Holy Days and Holy Times is part of who God is, it’s a part of who we are. How are we blessing the ordinary days? What makes things Holy today?
May you find Sabbath, and rest!
Socially Distanced God: the struggle
God,
I’m struggling with the socially distant God.
A God that is six feet, or more, away.
A God I can’t touch.
Jesus,
I am struggling with a masked God.
One who is hard to recognize from the crowd.
It is so hard not to see you smile.
Holy Spirit
I am so tired of the enclosed God.
Trapped with me and my house and my family and my work
Sometimes the breath of the pneuma gets stuck in my throat
Source, Word & Spirit
When we are the hands and feet of Jesus, I feel isolated from your love.
So I find myself seeking you; in the the sunsets and flowers,
In the crinkles of laughter around people’s eyes and the nods of hello
In the stillness of the moments, in the sweat of the medical teams, in the stories, all the evolving stories, of good in the world
Creator, Liberator, Comforter
Remind me of all the ways you are present.
Give me the gifts of creativity, liberty and comfort in ways I’d never ask for nor expect.
And when I feel alone, tell me that even Jesus felt alone.
Creator, Lover, Sustainer
When I am overwhelmed, please speak to me that my feelings are real and legitimate.
Help me to make space for the feelings–the loneliness, the fleeting happiness, the sadness, the anger, and the thirst for change.
Then teach me new ways to be your hands and feet I pray.
Amen.
Narrative Lectionary Seeds of Prayer: Church at Corinth
Church at Corinth
Lectionary Resources & Prayers by Dr. Barb Hedges-Goettl
Call to Worship
To whom do you belong? Are you an American? A Democrate? a Republican? An Independent?
I belong to Christ
Can Christ be divided?
No, we are the body of Christ.
Call to Worship
Look who has gathered here today?
It is us, the hands and feet of Christ
It is so good you are here, we have need of each and every one of you!
Come let us worship the Lord together!
Prayer of Confession: God, too often we forget who formed us, and blessed us and sent us into the world. We think we are made of our own bootstraps, or that our merits are based on our worthiness. Bless us as children of God, we pray. Amen.
Prayer of Confession: Lord, I confess that I am desperate to belong, to fit in, to be a part of it all. And it is hard to know that I fall short, it is hard acknowledge that I can disclose others, who also want to belong. Teach me how we all belong to you I pray. Amen.
Assurance of Pardon: God’s love always leaves the light on for us, come home and know the truth: In Jesus Christ we are forgiven.
Prayer of the Day: Lord, remind us that we can find home and love in you. Especially when it’s hard to face the world. Be our soft place to land, we pray. Amen.
Communion Prayer: Lord, like a mother you nourish us. Giving Adam and Eve the Garden of Eden and all that dwelled therein. Then when we were wandering in the desert with Moses, you fed us manna. Again, when the temple was destroyed, you fed us hope. Feed us today, again, today in any way we need. Bless this food and cup with the Holy Spirit so it can be the food of Jesus Christ, communion and love. We pray in the name of Jesus Christ, your firstborn child, who adopted each of us as family. May we celebrate all of our meals with our brother Jesus we pray. Amen.
Mother’s Day Confession Prayer
Mother’s Day Litany Prayer (in light of the pandemic)
Eastertide Narrative Lectionary Resources
Pandemic Mother’s Day Prayer: Another Kind of Mother’s Day
Another Kind of Mother’s Day
Dear God we pray for all the mother’s today.
For this is a mother’s day just like every other, yet more pronounced.
For every single one that can’t safely see their children.
For the essential working mom, who is trying to do everything, we pray that they are able to receive some care themselves.
For the mothers who are ill, we pray for peace.
For the mothers who are given the duties of motherhood–the stepmothers, Godmothers, grandmother’s, adopted mother’s, aunties, mentor-mothers and the single fathers in the world, we pray that all of their work shines in their beloved children.
For the lonely mothers, we pray that they can receive moments of connection.
For the mothers who are stuck with their children at home, when it seems they should be launched into the world, we pray that you are able to be not just “mom” but your full differentiated self.
For the estranged families on this day, we pray that they can maintain safe boundaries and celebrate with their found families.
For the mothers who are pregnant–probably equal parts mixed excited and scared to be bringing a baby into the world–we pray they feel strong roots beneath them to carry on.
For the mothers who are caretaking–similar to how they always do, yet having to absorb all of the changes and be a buffer for their charges–we pray that your work is appreciated.
For the single mothers who are doing more by themselves than ever, we pray that you can receive support.
For all the mothers who feel overwhelmed, inadequate or stressed, we pray that you receive love.
On this just another mother’s day where everything is the same, but different, we pray for all the mothers, sons and daughters, for all the families Close together or far apart, let us hold each and every kind of mother in prayer today.
Reminding each of member of the family that we are each a child of God, and that God longs to hug us under her wings–caring for us, feeding us and sheltering us like a Mother Hen cares for her brood. We pray for this God to shelter us in her loving arms this particular Mother’s Day through the power of the Holy Spirit we pray. Amen.
Feel free to use with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta
Love One Another: Gospel Work
How can I tell you about the value of caring for one another?
You aren’t creating anything that can be sold, when you go to take care of a human being. There’s no plastic product or multiplying dividend. After all (mostly) we can’t buy and sell people–becuase when we do, the abuse is horrendous. To take care of someone, is in fact the counter of making money off of them.
I read that the more you chose to take care of the people who work for you, the less money you are going to make, because it takes time and money to take care of people and the rewards are not quantifiable in market terms.
It’s also hard work to take care of people. The babies, the elderly, the sick, the disabled need help because they are the least capable among us. We are taking care of them because they are worthy, and it does not matter if they can produce anything.
Our value is not defined by our productivity.
Our value is not defined by our productivity, but to take care of someone is a lot of work–the cleaning, the bathing, the feeding, the lifting, the entertaining, the shepherding. And yet, we pay those who take care of people, from the personal assistants to the home care attendants to the nurses to the childcare workers, the least amount of money, because after all they can’t produce anything.
Even in church the Associate Pastor or the the Christian Ed Coordinator has the least amount of pay and the least amount of power in the church.
We don’t value caring for one another much.
And yet, and yet Christ said love one another. Christ’s primary and often repeated and initiated commandment was to serve one another. Love and serve together seems a lot like caring for one another. Christ who found Zaccheus in the tree, talked to the lonesome woman at the well, who embraced an individual even as he was hanging on the cross itself, never wasted time on productivity.
Jesus wasted all of his time caring for the least of these. He welcomed the children who didn’t even count as people yet, he helped the widows who were a burden on society to be noticed, he took extra care to touch and heal the sick and the disabled who were outcast from society, and he always had time for the poor who society deemed invisible.
Jesus’s work brought in no money, he told his disciples not to fuss about what they had and didn’t have, and to just go and do the work that needed to be done. He told them not to worry too much about how they looked or sounded, but to love and care for each other, no matter what the cost and sacrifice meant for them.
In the Gospel world, the work of caring is the most essential–because it is the most essential. Making sure everyone has food and shelter and clothing and community are the essentials of love. Jesus knew that to feel love, first one had to have the essentials, and then love follows.
Tell the Good News! Jesus commands, be witnesses, tell the truth of it. We are supposed to love each other so much, we are willing to die ourselves then let anyone feel left out.
God loves you.
Exactly as you are.
God does not demand perfection or taken or productivity.
You are a child a God, you are beloved, you are a part of the family–no ifs, ands or buts.
You belong.
Show one another how you value each other.
Love your neighbor as yourself.
It’s that simple and that hard.
Jesus taught us the value of caring for one another. Lord hear our prayer, help us to get through this pandemic through love and care. We pray this n the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Preparing for Worship 2
Preparing the family doesn’t look the same. I no longer have to dress my kids up–which ironically they love to be dressed up because it elicits so much positive attention. We can go to church in our pajamas now.
Instead of the Panera bribe, I mean stop, we make every Sunday like clockwork for the last 6 plus years (before that we hadn’t committed but still went out for breakfast), we eat piecemeal at home. Now I just buy the ultra sweet supermarket muffins and make some chai pods for the morning. We may even still be eating them during worship.
Instead of hauling all of the kids to the car, usually one is still half asleep and the other two are bickering, we bicker at home and argue over whether or not we can use electronics before church (no)
During worship, attention is scarce, wiggling is paramount, and we try to get my eldest to be responsive. The music is also just not the same. We miss singing together with the booming organ overwhelming our flubs.
But, it’s still time for Dad and the boys to sit together. It’s still the time we are a family. I’m still “leading” up front and the boys are watching/listening/imagining/being bored.
Lord help us to practice worship as a family in whatever way we can, we pray. Amen
Preparing for Worship
Lord, these days preparing for worship looks different.
I no longer prep the sanctuary, or listen to the choir rehearsing, or spend moments in my office opening myself to the Holy Spirit.
I don’t look around for the people in the halls and the pews, trying to greet them all by name.
These days, I wash my hands thoroughly and solemnly put on a mask, fully aware that my signature smile is hidden.
I place the video and sound equipment around me, making sure everyone can see and hear what is going on.
I put on gloves before I hand the order of worship to anyone, and make certain there are more than six feet between myself and the musicians.
And whenever I do all of this, I think of God. I think of my hope to serve. I think of my congregation and how much I miss them.
And I feel your blessing, as these movements of 6 plus weeks, have become a ritual of love and care and preparation.
Then I take a deep breath, like I always do, in every setting, send a quick prayer up to the Holy Spirit, and begin….
Thank you God for teaching me new ways to prepare for worship. Amen.
Preparing for Worship 2 Family Edition
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