This Sunday the Narrative Lectionary leads us into the words of Psalm 40:1-10 as we continue to focus on the Psalms offered by Working Preacher. There is another reading to pair this one in Luke 17:11-19 but it seems I can’t get excited about these alternate readings as I’ve skipped them every week.
This particular psalm seems like it could be paired just as well with the Revised Common Lectionary readings. It has that sense of joy and relief that comes after healing has come. It has that mysterious trust that comes with faith — this overwhelming sense that there is a bigger picture, or at least a desire for a larger story to exist. It could be what the woman healed from 12 years could sing after Jesus calls her his daughter. Or it could be a song to itself — a song that lifts up the hope and certainty of salvation even before healing has come.
Healing, however, doesn’t feel quite right. Because it was only a few days ago that this happened. There may be forgiveness but there is work to be done especially in white churches. So I want to hold on to what the Rev. Norvel Goff Sr. said at Mother Emanuel on Sunday: “We have some difficult days ahead, but the only way evil can triumph is for good folk to sit down and do nothing.” To begin this Sunday, I’m using words inspired by my seminary professor Dr. James H. Cone so that those of us in white churches might especially open our hearts and minds to the power of black theology. If his work is unfamiliar to you, I encourage you to listen to this podcast.
These will be difficult words to pray and may even put the words of the oppressed on the wrong lips — but in saying these words aloud — perhaps we will learn more about the oppressive system that we hold more powerful than God.
Call to Worship (Responsive)
Inspired by James H. Cone’s God of the Oppressed
We come together as a community to worship and to praise.
We come together on this day because God has done so many things.
Nothing compares to our God.
We are a community that knows this truth.
We know God’s wonderful deeds and even what God plans.
We have seen it spoken and lived by the people around us.
God has done so many things.
Nothing compares to our God.
We come to worship and praise
because we want to always be that kind of community —
the kind of community that will freely become oppressed.
Because we know the truth of Jesus Christ.
God has done so many things.
Nothing compares to our God.
We are a community seeking a Jesus-encounter
that will claim us for liberation.
Nothing compares to our God.
Prayer of Invocation
Inspired by James H. Cone’s A Black Theology of Liberation
O God, there is no perfect guide
for discerning your movement in the world.
There is no way for our hearts and minds to
fully understand your hope and your help,
but we want to do your will.
We gather here as a community of Jesus Christ
that wants nothing more than to tell of your good news.
Open our hearts and minds to see you as the God of the Oppressed
so that wherever there is humiliation and suffering
that is where we will find you, O God.
For we know — deep in our hearts — that there is no use for a God
who loves white oppressors the same as oppressed blacks.
There is too much white love in our world, O God.
What we need is the divine love as expressed in black power.
May we find such a force working in our world.
May we find it even with ourselves so that we are so caught up in this
holy activity that we can truly see that righteousness is not just for me and mine
but for the great assembly you always dreamed to be.
Guide us in this way here in this community of Christ today. Amen.
I would love to hear what you’ve go planned for worship on Sunday. Please share your comments and ideas below. And, if you happen to use the prayers I’ve written in your worship, and I hope you will, please do offer me credit with as follows:
The prayers in our worship this morning were written by/adapted from Liturgical Lights for Sunday June 28, 2015 by the Rev. Elsa Anders Peters. Elsa is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ who blogs at revelsaanderspeters.com.
Cooking with Elsa 