Beloved community,
Though we remain separated by physical space,
the Spirit who transcends walls and borders gathers us together.
We come as a community on a journey
Still learning how to show up for each other
And how to live into God’s Kin(g)dom.
We come with minds buzzing with questions,
or burdened by mental illness;
We come with spirits heavy with loneliness, grief, or dread;
We come with bodies weary with pain, sickness, or fatigue
To worship a God who hears, feels, and responds.
OPENING PRAYER
Oh you who are Holy Other and God With Us,
You choose to enter our daily lives,
to share our burdens with us.
You pervade space, time, and all the divisions we devise:
You who came to Moses and liberated an enslaved people,
You who came to them in fire and in darkness
to carry them through the wilderness
truly are the same God here in our midst today.
We have come to worship you, strange and steadfast God
Who makes a way out of no way.
I wrote this for a virtual service on September 27, 2020 (21A Proper) centered around trauma and community’s role in the journey to recovery; an affirmation of protest is also woven throughout the liturgy. My sermon was based around Exodus 17:1-7, looking at the wilderness wandering through a lens of generational trauma and applying it to the collective and individual traumas we are facing today, from those caused by pandemic and police violence to personal struggles.
Watch or read my sermon here.
Binary-Breaking Worship 