Pandemic Prayers for Proper 12

I get the honor of preaching this Sunday so that one of my dear friends can get a break from the delicate dance of pastoring and parenting. I’m so thrilled I can offer her this blessing and so I’ll be sharing a little more than words this week.

You are welcome to use anything here in any fashion that makes sense. They are here because I know you too are juggling so much. Your summer doesn’t look like you had hoped and if you have kids the school year ahead doesn’t look any easier. Still, I know that your faith can be seen in that mustard seed even if every bit of you feels as though its been through the fiery furnace.

Gathering Together

I wanted to use poetry to gather together and I decided on one of my favorite poems. I’m thinking a lot about the conversations that were being had three months ago where we were talking about what would emerge from this time. There was determined hope back then that sounds a whole lot like the “yes” Jesus gets to these parables. We will begin worship with this video.

Prayer of Confession and Assurance of Grace

I’m not yet sure if I will offer these words of prayer as anything more than a slide. In case you haven’t noticed, I intend to be on screen as little as possible. However, I might have to model this so I might have to appear on screen though I’m considering how creepy these sound files might sound. Check back later this week and you just might see a video.

Call to Confession

We come together to worship and praise
while the infectious diseases like racism and COVID-19 rage.
We are weak with fear for our neighbors, for our children,
for whatever world might be possible. We do not know how to pray
and so we come together with sighs too deep for words.
Let us lament our hope and fears
with each breath —
breathing in and breathing out
breathing in and breathing out
all that won’t be
all that isn’t possible
and all that we still dream to be.
Let pray into the depth of our sighs.

Allow for time to breathe.

Assurance of Grace

Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
As you catch your breath, may you be so convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

Gospel Lesson

I really just wanted to see if I could do this and so this is how these videos started. I wanted to illustrate the Gospel Lesson with stock videos and photos. It’s not perfect by any stretch and I realized I actually changed a preposition when I read the Gospel. Oops. Still, here is an attempt at proclaiming this good news.

Gathering Around the Table

Communion will be shared in this online gathering as it is every week for Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) congregations and so there will need to be words to gather us together. I have only received the gifts of God in this pandemic season so this is my first time trying to write something. I am opting for less formal though I really do like a good Sanctus.

Invitation to Table

We gather together between
breakfast tables and coffee tables
with computers and tablets
placed on top of the crumbs
still leftover from breakfast.
While the dishes still await
in the sink, we prepare to feast again
partaking this time of holy food
to increase our faith.
God meets us in the ordinary
to reveal the extraordinary.
Beloved, let us feast.
Let us wonder. Let us imagine
another world is possible in sharing
these sacred gifts.

That’s all I’ve got for this week. Many thanks to Traci Smith and her wonderful Treasure Box Tuesday finds that allowed me to find this online resource to create videos. You can subscribe to Traci’s weekly email here and click on over to Climpchamp to see just how good Traci’s recommendations are.

Dear pastors, liturgists and musicians, I’m praying for you, as always.