I am blessed and honored to continue to cook up liturgical elements for worship at the United Christian Church in Austin. Admittedly, it feels like I haven’t been in the kitchen in a very long time. I’m editing more. I’m pulling more books off the shelf.
I don’t have the familiar recipe of these liturgical words memorized anymore. It’s not a part of my breathing as it once was when I led worship every Sunday. I am shocked that Epiphany has been so short in years past and I don’t have anything in my folders from past worship services, but it’s forcing me to be creative.
Our church is in the midst of transition. The Senior Pastor left for another call just before Advent and so the first set of prayers reveals a bit of that angst and struggle. (Honestly, I don’t think that this church is struggling at all.) Having done work with churches in transition most recently, it felt right with the Gospel.
The second set of prayers for the Sixth Sunday of Epiphany pick up with the Beatitudes. As we are a congregation in transition, I pushed myself to write something that wasn’t a unison prayer following the Call to Worship. And so, the second ingredient for that Sunday is something to spice up our prayer time. This will be shared after the congregation shares their spoken prayers and just before the Prayer of our Savior.
Prayers for Epiphany 5C
Call to Worship
Adapted from a poem by the Persian poet Rumi
One: Come, come, whoever you are.
Many: Wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving — it doesn’t matter,
One: Ours is not a caravan of despair.
Many: Come, even if you have broken your vow a hundred times,
One: Come, come again, come.
Prayer for the Weary in Transition (unison)
We come tired, weary and worn.
We have already done so much work, so much heavy lifting.
We long to hear assurances or maybe even “a job well done,”
but instead we are invited again to roll up our sleeves.
We must haul out the boats and put in another hour, maybe two.
There is more to be done. There is always more to be done.
We wade together into the deep water, dragging the boat out of the sand,
wondering what could change. What will one more hour do?
We let down our nets, just as we are told.
We wait for what will catch us. O Holy One, catch our tired bodies today.
Prayers for Epiphany 6C
Call to Worship
One: We have come to this level place.
Many: We have come to look each other in the eye.
One: No one will stand above or below,
Many: but we will turn to each other
and call each other blessed.
One: We have sorrows and woes, God knows,
but we have come to rejoice.
Many: And so, we will leap into blessing.
Holy One, be with us in this praise.
Praying Our Blessing and Woes
One: There in that level place,
Christ looked upon his disciples and said,
Woe to you who are rich.
Many: Remove from us the lust for power.
Let greed not enter our hearts, O Christ.
One: Woe to you who are full now.
Many: Remind us that our full pantries offer no guarantees.
Make us aware of how very vulnerable we are, O Christ.
One: Woe to you who are laughing now.
Many: Forgive us for every sarcastic comment.
Empty us of snark, O Christ.
One: Woe to you all speak well of you,
Many: O Christ, heal us of our arrogance.
Call to us with your words of blessing.
One: Here in this level place, Christ heals us, saying,
Blessed are you who are hungry now.
Many: Blessed are we who believe justice has not yet come,
for we will be filled.
One: Blessed are you who weep now,
Many: Blessed are we when life just feels much too hard, for we will laugh.
One: Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you,
revile you, and defame you.
Many: Blessed are we who feel we haven’t done enough and know we
could do more. Blessed are we no matter what other names we’ve
been called, for in this level place there is healing.
One: There is reason to leap for joy. We’ve been cured of our evil spirits. We’ve been touched with grace and love. We are children raised in blessing, who dare to pray:
The Prayer of Our Savior
If you use these prayers as one of your Ingredients for Worship, please give credit to Elsa Anders Cook. I would love to hear about any adaptations you make for your context and hear how it goes.
Cooking with Elsa 