Sunday, January 19, 2014

Knowing our Belovedness




On third Sundays our worship experience focuses on sung prayers, silence, scripture, guided meditation, and embodied prayers.  Below is today's worship service with my text for the guided meditation inserted here into the worship bulletin.

January 19, 2014
Epiphany 2: A Service of Sung Prayers, Silence, and Scripture

PREPARATION FOR WORSHIP
As you enter, pause before the print of Pheoris West’s Baptism of Christ, 1993.  Do any aspects of the painting surprise you?  What is this image saying to you? Then be seated, quiet your spirit, and let the song “Dona Nobis Pacem” wash over you like baptismal waters.

*CHIMING THE HOUR
*PROCESSIONAL     “Lord of Life, We Come to You”    p. 53 in songbook

WELCOME AND CHILDREN’S TIME                                                                  
INVOCATION
CALL TO WORSHIP    Psalm 40: 1-10 (inclusive version)       
LEADER: 1I waited patiently for God; God inclined to me and heard my cry.
PEOPLE: 2God drew me up from the desolate pit, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure.
LEADER: 3God put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and be in awe, and put their trust in God.
PEOPLE: 4Blessed are those who put their trust in God, who do not turn to the proud, to those who go astray after false gods.
LEADER: 5You have multiplied, O God my God, your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us; none can compare with you. Were I to proclaim and tell of them, they would be more than can be counted.
PEOPLE: 6Sacrifice and offering you do not desire, but you have given me an open ear. Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required.
LEADER: 7Then I said, “Here I am; in the scroll of the book it is written of me. 8I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.”
PEOPLE: 9I have told the glad news of deliverance in the great congregation; see, I have not restrained my lips, as you know, O God.
LEADER: 10I have not hidden your saving help within my heart, I have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation; I have not concealed your steadfast love and your faithfulness from the great congregation.
PEOPLE: 11Do not, O God, withhold your mercy from me; let your steadfast love and your faithfulness keep me safe forever.
LEADER: 1I waited patiently for God; God inclined to me and heard my cry.

SUNG RESPONSE          “Wait for the Lord”                                             

WAITING IN SILENCE
EXPRESSING OUR LONGINGS AND GRATITUDE
            I am waiting for . . .
            I am thankful for . . .

SUNG RESPONSE       “On God Alone I Wait Silently”       p. 73 in songbook

HEBREW BIBLE READING               Isaiah 49:1                                                 
Listen to me, O coastlands, pay attention, you peoples from far away! God called me before I was born, while I was in my mother’s womb God named me.
SHARING OUR NAMING STORIES
Is there a story behind the name you were given—or the name you gave to another?  Does your name reflect your identity and calling? Why or why not?  There are multiple ways to interpret this idea that God calls us and names us even before we are born. What does that mean to you? Pair off and share your naming story with another.

*SONG              “Bless the Lord”                  p. 19 in songbook

*GOSPEL READING              Matthew 3: 13-17                                             
Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

GUIDED MEDIATION             “Knowing our Belovedness”                               

Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved reveals the terrible cost of forgetting our belovedness.  Sethe is a runaway slave who, though free in post-Civil War Cincinnati, lives a constricted and tormented life. In fact, she believes her home to be haunted—perhaps by the spirit of a daughter who died.  When a mysterious young woman who says her name is Beloved shows up, Sethe takes her in, believing her to be the ghost of Sethe's dead child, in part because the only word upon the dead daughter’s tombstone was “Beloved.”  Beloved is a strange and disruptive character.  She is our past that can haunt us. But she ultimately helps Sethe and others move into the future.  Sethe’s haunted past includes not only her enslavement but also her infanticide. We come to learn that shortly after escaping to the north, Sethe’s former master tracked her down and tried to bring her and her children back to the plantation.  Out of her mind with fear, Sethe runs into a toolshed where she takes a hacksaw—and kills her youngest child because, she said, "I was trying to put my babies where they would be safe." The horror of slavery and guilt of her own response to it follow Sethe and her surviving children. Beloved unhinges them in some ways and puts them back together again. And then leaves.  And eventually Sethe comes to accept the love of Paul D., a fellow former slave who sees her belovedness. 

Friends, we have all been named “Beloved.” Here’s one way of understanding today’s Gospel story. When we follow Jesus in baptism, we, too, hear a voice naming us by our true name:  “This is my beloved Son/Daughter.  In you I am well pleased.”  And engraved on each of our tombstones, at least figuratively, will be the single word, “Beloved” –no matter what we’ve done or endured. Through baptism we enter into a naming rite—and an understanding of God that should follow us all our days: God loves us.  But from time to time we may need to pause and rehear that voice from heaven or from deep within or from the vastness of the universe saying, “You are my beloved daughter (or son). With you I am well pleased.”

Recall moments in your life for which you are proud:  You accomplished a goal.  You maintained your integrity though others did not.  You spoke tenderly to someone who was troubled.  You gave your money or time selflessly.  You were honest when truth needed to be spoken. 

Was there people in your life to tell you they were “well pleased” with you?  Was there someone beaming a smile your way or applauding at your piano recital or basketball game? Was someone embracing you in ways that said the equivalent of “You are beloved!”?  I hope so.  Give thanks for those in your life who affirmed you.  

SILENCE

If you did not feel affirmed, acknowledge to yourself that you feel hurt. Try to find a gracious place in your heart to forgive those who did not support you as you’d hoped.  And know that something larger than the moment of your great need, larger than any human support team here and now, is sweeping you forward in grace and luring you toward a fuller realization of your belovedness.     

SILENCE

Reflect now on the parts of your life that are not so praiseworthy.  While you did not commit infanticide, you have at times, if you’re human,  hurt those you loved.  But consider this. The Spirit of God present at Jesus’s baptism did not say, “This is my Son. The Perfect One.  The one who has succeeded in every attempt and who has never failed at anything.”  Certainly the writer of Matthew might have described the Spirit’s voice as confirming Jesus’s perfection.  Instead what we are to know about Jesus and about ourselves is this: God sees Beloved children.  In these moments let that sink in.  Let us accept God’s love—and the love of friends and family—knowing that we don’t have to be perfect to be worthy of love.

SILENCE

One important spiritual task for us is to love and forgive ourselves because, as Richard Rohr reminds us, “Wounded people wound others.  If we do not transform our hurt we will transmit it.”  Or as another has put it more succinctly: “Hurt people hurt people.”  We see that in the story of Sethe, a young mother so badly damaged by the brutality of slavery that she killed her own daughter.

Accepting our belovedness is not about ignoring our stupid and mean mistakes.  It’s about accepting who God is.  It’s about helping to form the “beloved community” preached by Martin Luther King, Jr., whose birthday we celebrate tomorrow.  It’s about seeing one another as beloved sisters and brothers.  Amen

EMBODIED PRAYERS
1.    SEEING OURSELVES IN BAPTISMAL WATERS
Walk back to the baptismal font and look into those waters as you prayerfully “see” yourself as a beloved child of God. A common myth features a character seeing his or her future or understanding his or her past by gazing into a reflective pool of water.  The baptismal waters for Jesus disclosed his identity to others—and perhaps to himself as well.  At our baptism we were also “named” beloved son or daughter.  If you wish, place your hands in the water and prayerfully, symbolically, and joyfully wash away any harmful names the world has named you.  Know yourself as Beloved.
2.    NAMING OURSELVES ANEW
Write a new name for yourself on a name tag provided and let it represent something that is already developing in you or that you hope will develop in your life.  This new name could, like some Native American names, tell a story.  (Remember some of the characters from the movie Dances With Wolves—like the title character, and Stands With A Fist and Kicking Bird?)  Or you might adopt the name of someone you admire.  Or a name representing your aspiration or a formative event in your life or a longing.  Place your name tag on the display board as you offer a silent prayer that you will live up to and into this new name.  You may later share your name with us if you wish.
3.    GIVING AND RECEIVING AS BELOVED MEMBERS OF GOD’S FAMILY
As beloved children, we participate in the family of God as receivers and givers.  Come to the family table now where all people are welcomed and loved.  Receive the bread of new life and the cup overflowing with love. Give as you are able with thanksgiving.  As you do, recall the story of the life, death, and life again of Jesus the Christ.  Prayerfully hear Christ speaking your name with love.  Remember that to participate in the life of the Christ requires us to work toward building up the body of Christ.

SHARING

PRAYER
Beloved One, who calls us “beloved,” our minds yearn to comprehend more of your vastness; our spirits aim to live into our belovedness.  Grateful people everywhere say: Amen.  Amen.  Amen.
ANNOUNCEMENTS    
BENEDICTION

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