Ingredients for Worship in Holy Week

Though I’ve continued to write liturgy throughout the season of Lent for my lovely church here in Texas, I have completely failed to pepper my blog with any of those prayers. I managed to share semi-regular posts during Epiphany but it seems that my writing project which has long since surpassed 70,000 words has taken up all of my head space. Or perhaps I’ve been cooking up other things. I’m honestly not sure.

Nonetheless, Holy Week is here. On Sunday, we’ll wave palms and find ourselves in the midst of a confusing celebration before we find ourselves washing feet and weeping at the foot of the cross later in the week. Pastors and musicians are busy creating meaningful worship moments for this holy season of transformation and change.

These particular prayers pick up on theme of stones and hard places as you may have found in the liturgy I wrote for Ash Wednesday. On Palm Sunday, we pay particular attention to the stones shouting out and focus our devotion on Easter on the stone being rolled away.

Poetry plays heavily into the style of worship at my lovely church and so I’ve included a selection of poems we shall be hearing in these holy days, plus a few that I found just yesterday from the beautiful offerings of my sisters in the RevGals community.

Poetry for Holy Week

States of Being by Luci Shaw

Sweet Darkness by David Whyte

Who Baked the Bread by Katherine Dale Makus

Like The Water by Wendell Berry 

Roll Away the Stone by Janet Morley 

It’s All About Her by Liz Crumlish

If These Were Silent by Rosalind C. Hughes

Ingredients for Palm Sunday

Call to Worship

One: We begin here, together,
waiting and wondering
what could happen.
Many: What will happen when
Jesus enters through those gates.
We wonder what will change
and how it might change us.
One: Hosanna! We chant with the whole crowd
for we need saving. We need for things to change.
Many: Blessed is the one who comes
in the name of the Lord.
Hosanna in the highest!
One: We begin this holy week
pushing through the crowd
kicking at the stones
and hoping that this year will be different.
Many: We begin waving our palms
and hoping that God’s steadfast love
really does endure forever.

Benediction

One: Go into this holy week
raising your voice:
shouting for justice,
speaking your questions,
naming even your doubts aloud.
Many: We will ask for God’s salvation.
One: Dare to hope and dream
that change can come. Change will come.
Love will endure again.
Many: May love find us when we are silent.

Ingredients for Maundy Thursday

Call to Confession

On this holy night, when we remember
friends gathered in an upper room,
we step into the sweet darkness ourselves.
We wonder if this new commandment includes us,
and we lament all of the ways we already fall short.

Prayer of Confession (unison)

Holy One, our worlds have been small.
We have settled. We have made exceptions. We haven’t felt like we could
ever be enough. We have felt way beyond love, even your love.
So we have wondered where we fit, believing that someone else could
bake the bread. Someone else could make the wine. Someone else could clean up
the fragments left behind. Someone else could mop up the spilled water
on the floor. We are thirsty for your love. Forgive us
for all the ways that we have allowed ourselves to believe
that we are beyond your love.
A time of silent meditation and personal prayer follows.

Assurance of Grace

One: Lift up your heads, dear ones, to hear the good news:
It is a new commandment, that you love one another.
Just as Christ has loved you, and will love you to the end,
we are to love each other but do not miss out on the fact
that God in Christ has loved you from the very beginning
and will love you to the end of the age.
Many: Thanks be to God!

Ingredients for Resurrection Sunday

Call to Worship

One: No more shall there be in it an infant
that lives but a few days, or an old person
who does not live out a lifetime.
Many: No more shall the sound of weeping be heard
or even a cry of distress.
One: They found the stone rolled away from the tomb.
Roll away the stone from your hearts.
Remove the rocks from your eyes
and dare to see the new heavens and new earth
that God has created.
Many: Create joy in us, O God.
Fill our hardened hearts
with your delight.

Benediction

One: Roll away the stone.
Dare to be perplexed, even amazed.
Many: We will look for new life.
We’ll try not to expect death.
One: Roll it away! Let the former things
not even come to mind,
but go into this world be glad.
Go and rejoice in what God is still creating.
Many: God is doing a new thing. Alleluia!

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.