Liturgy 10-16-2016

This blog is a record of the call to worship, Scripture readings, and prayers from our Sunday liturgies.  If you are interested in writing something for the liturgy, please email jamie@ubcwaco.org.

Call to Worship

We have gathered to worship the Living God

Bringing our whole selves:
The good and the bad,
The broken and the mended.

We are seeking to be formed by the life and empathy of Jesus,

To learn to love God,
 to love each other,
and to embrace those different from us.

Holy Spirit, who weaves every story into One,

Draw us further in
to Your redemptive work
and transform our hearts
to be like Yours

Amen

Scripture

Jeremiah 31:27-34

Look! the days are coming when I will plant anew the house of Israel and the house of Judah. I will repopulate the land with people and animals. Just as I watched over them in order to uproot and stamp out, to upend and destroy, and to bring disaster from the north, so now I will watch over them as I rebuild and replant them.

This is what I, the Eternal One, declare. In those coming days, people will no longer speak the proverb, 

    Fathers have eaten sour grapes,
       and their children’s teeth are set on edge.

No, now it will be that each one will die for his own sins. If you eat sour grapes, then it is your own teeth that will be set on edge.

Look, the days are coming when I will bring about a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors long ago when I took them by the hand and led them out of slavery in Egypt. They did not remain faithful to that covenant—even though I loved and cared for them as a husband.  This is the kind of new covenant I will make with the people of Israel when those days are over. I will put My law within them. I will write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be My people. 

No longer will people have to teach each other or encourage their family members and say, “You must know the Eternal.” For all of them will know Me intimately themselves—from the least to the greatest of society. I will be merciful when they fail and forgive their wrongs. I will never call to mind or mention their sins again.

Luke 5:8-10 

Simon’s fishing partners, James and John (two of Zebedee’s sons), along with the rest of the fishermen, see this incredible haul of fish. They’re all stunned, especially Simon. He comes close to Jesus and kneels in front of His knees.

Simon says: I can’t take this, Lord. I’m a sinful man. You shouldn’t be around the likes of me.

Jesus replies: Don’t be afraid, Simon. From now on, I’ll ask you to bring Me people instead of fish.

1 Peter 1:13-25

So get yourselves ready, prepare your minds to act, control yourselves, and look forward in hope as you focus on the grace that comes when Jesus the Anointed returns and is completely revealed to you. Be like obedient children as you put aside the desires you used to pursue when you didn’t know better. Since the One who called you is holy, be holy in all you do. For the Scripture says, “You are to be holy, for I am holy.” If you call on the Father who judges everyone without partiality according to their actions, then you should live in reverence and awe while you live out the days of your exile.

You know that a price was paid to redeem you from following the empty ways handed on to you by your ancestors; it was not paid with things that perish (like silver and gold), but with the precious blood of the Anointed, who was like a perfect and unblemished sacrificial lamb. God determined to send Him before the world began, but He came into the world in these last days for your sake. Through Him, you’ve been brought to trust in God, who raised Him from the dead and glorified Him for the very reason that your faith and hope are in Him.

Now that you have taken care to purify your souls through your submission to the truth, you can experience real love for each other. So love each other deeply from a [pure] heart. You have been reborn—not from seed that eventually dies but from seed that is eternal—through the word of God that lives and endures forever. 

For as Isaiah said,

All life is like the grass,
and its glory like a flower;
The grass will wither and die,
and the flower falls,
But the word of the Lord will endure forever. 

This is the word that has been preached to you.

Prayer

This week's prayer was from An Iona Prayer Book, and is credited as an "Australian Aboriginal Prayer."

Rainbow God,
you have created people of many different colors,
and given us different cultures.
But in you
each has its source and fulfillment.
In Jesus Christ you have made us one,
breaking down the walls we make to protect ourselves.
By your Holy Spirit you have joined us in one body,
giving to each part its special gift.
We pray that in the church and in the world,
we may experience, more and more,
the love of your Holy Spirit,
love which honors and respects each one,
which is sensitive to our hurts and hopes,
which values the gifts we bring,
and shares its own treasures with us.
And, to you, O God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
be all honor and glory, now and to ages of ages.

Amen

Liturgy 10-9-2016

This blog is a record of the call to worship, Scripture readings, and prayers from our Sunday liturgies.  If you are interested in writing something for the liturgy, please email jamie@ubcwaco.org.

Call to Worship

We have gathered to worship the Creator

The One who sees through
the masks we wear,
and loves us completely.

In gathering, we seek to be shaped and healed
by the story of Jesus,

To see our wounds replaced with hope
and our fear with love

Spirit of the Living God,

Repair what is broken in us
And teach us how to truly live.

Amen.

Scripture

Psalm 66:1-11

Be joyful in God, all you lands;
sing the glory of his Name;
sing the glory of his praise.
Say to God, "How awesome are your deeds!
because of your great strength your enemies cringe before you.

All the earth bows down before you,
sings to you, sings out your Name."
Come now and see the works of God,
how wonderful he is in his doing toward all people.

He turned the sea into dry land,
so that they went through the water on foot,
and there we rejoiced in him.
In his might he rules for ever;
his eyes keep watch over the nations;
let no rebel rise up against him.

Bless our God, you peoples;
make the voice of his praise to be heard;
Who holds our souls in life,
and will not allow our feet to slip.
For you, O God, have proved us;
you have tried us just as silver is tried.

You brought us into the snare;
you laid heavy burdens upon our backs.
You let enemies ride over our heads;
we went through fire and water;
but you brought us out into a place of refreshment.

Luke 17:11-19

On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, they called out, saying, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!" When he saw them, he said to them, "Go and show yourselves to the priests." And as they went, they were made clean. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan.

Then Jesus asked, "Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?" Then he said to him, "Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well."

Prayer

This week's prayer was from the Iona Community Worship Book:

O God, gladly we live and move and have our being in you.
Yet always in the midst of this creation-glory,
We see sin's shadow and feel death's darkness:
Around us in the earth, sea and sky, the abuse of matter;
Beside us in the broken, the hungry and the poor,
The betrayal of one another;
And often, deep within us, a striving against your Spirit.
O Trinity of love,
Forgive us that we may forgive one another,
Heal us that we may be people of healing,
And renew us that we also may be makers of peace.

Amen.

Liturgy 10-2-2016

This blog is a record of the call to worship, Scripture readings, and prayers from our Sunday liturgies.  If you are interested in writing something for the liturgy, please email jamie@ubcwaco.org.

Call to Worship

We have gathered to worship the One in Whom all things hold together

Seeking, ourselves,
to be held together

In our gathering, we hope to be more fully formed in the way of Christ

That narrow way
of loving God
and loving the Other

In all of this, we seek the transformation of the Holy Spirit

that we might be made into collaborators
in the movement of the Kingdom.

Amen.

Scripture

Psalm 137

By the rivers of Babylon—
    there we sat down and there we wept
    when we remembered Zion.
On the willows there
    we hung up our harps.
For there our captors
    asked us for songs,
and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying,
    “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!” 

How could we sing the Lord’s song
    in a foreign land?
If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
    let my right hand wither! 
Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth,
    if I do not remember you,
if I do not set Jerusalem
   above my highest joy.

 Remember, O Lord, against the Edomites
    the day of Jerusalem’s fall,
how they said, “Tear it down! Tear it down!
    Down to its foundations!”
O daughter Babylon, you devastator!
    Happy shall they be who pay you back
    what you have done to us! 
Happy shall they be who take your little ones
    and dash them against the rock!

Luke 17:5-10

The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!" The Lord replied, "If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, `Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it would obey you.

"Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, `Come here at once and take your place at the table'? Would you not rather say to him, `Prepare supper for me, put on your apron and serve me while I eat and drink; later you may eat and drink'? Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, `We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!’"

Prayer

This week's prayer was read by David Wilhite, and it was written by St. Basil the Great

We bless Thee, O most high God and Lord of mercy, Who art ever doing numberless great and inscrutable things with us, glorious and wonderful; Who grantest to us sleep for rest from our infirmities, and repose from the burdens of our much toiling flesh.We thank Thee that Thou hast not destroyed us with our sins, but hast loved us as ever, and though we are sunk in despair, Thou hast raised us up to glorify Thy power. Therefore we implore Thy incomparable goodness, enlighten the eyes of our understanding and raise up our mind from the heavy sleep of indolence; open our mouth and fill it with Thy praise, that we may be able undistracted to sing and confess Thee, Who art God glorified in all and by all, the eternal Father, with Thy only-begotten Son, and Thy all-holy and good and life-giving Spirit, now and ever, and to the ages of ages.

Amen.

Liturgy 9-25-2016

This blog is a record of the call to worship, Scripture readings, and prayers from our Sunday liturgies.  If you are interested in writing something for the liturgy, please email jamie@ubcwaco.org.

Call to Worship

Holy God, we have come to learn to trust in Your protection

Teach us to find rest
under Your wings

We have come to learn to have faith in Your promises

Teach us that fields
from which we will not reap
are not a sunk cost

We have come to learn to live in Your provision

Teach us to open our hands
so that we may take hold of the life
that really is life.

Amen

Scripture

Amos 8:4-7

Hear this, you that trample on the needy,
and bring to ruin the poor of the land,
saying, "When will the new moon be over
so that we may sell grain;
and the sabbath,
so that we may offer wheat for sale?

We will make the ephah small and the shekel great,
and practice deceit with false balances,
buying the poor for silver
and the needy for a pair of sandals,
and selling the sweepings of the wheat."

The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob:
Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.

Luke 16:1-16

Jesus said to the disciples, "There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. So he summoned him and said to him, `What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.' Then the manager said to himself, `What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.'

So, summoning his master's debtors one by one, he asked the first, `How much do you owe my master?' He answered, `A hundred jugs of olive oil.' He said to him, `Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.' Then he asked another, `And how much do you owe?' He replied, `A hundred containers of wheat.' He said to him, `Take your bill and make it eighty.' And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.

"Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth."

The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all this, and they ridiculed him. So he said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of others; but God knows your hearts; for what is prized by human beings is an abomination in the sight of God.

Prayer

This week's prayer was written by Val Fisk:

Lord God, you are Mother of our souls, Giver of our passions, Forgiver of our sins, Healer of our hurts. 

Teach us to be dangerously vulnerable. 

Forgive us for our refusal to show our brokenness to one another. Forgive us for our refusal to see the brokenness that lies behind the eyes of those across the table, across the aisle, and across the room from us. Forgive us for our refusal to acknowledge the brokenness that looks back at us from the mirror. Forgive us our failure to ask for help, and our failure to ask how we can be helping. 

Mother God, teach us to be dangerously vulnerable with you and with your people. Teach us to admit our failings, our pain, and our fears, to you and to those in this community whom you have placed as vessels of your loving care. Teach us to shout, “I’m not okay!” so that someone else can catch us as we fall. Teach us to catch the weight of brokenness tenderly, with the willingness to sooth one another’s tears the way a parent soothes the cries of their young child. 

Our souls are tired, Lord. Tired of pretending “No, really, I’m fine.” Tired of pretending that we have it all handled. Tired of the death, the destruction, and the insensitivity of the world surrounding us. Tired of hearing human lives compared to inanimate objects like poisoned candy, tired of seeing men murdered because of the color of their skin, tired of seeing children’s broken bodies in ambulances after bombs rip through their homes, tired of hearing women shout “I SAID NO” while others ask “But what were you wearing?” Teach us to lament for and with these people, breaking our hearts for each broken person, each made in your image. 

My soul is tired, Lord. My heart is broken. I feel wobbly. On days when I feel wobbly, teach me to trust you. Show me your presence through your people – these people of UBC. Teach me to be dangerously vulnerable with my hurt, my anger, my frustration, my brokenness, and my sin. Teach me to stand for you by standing alongside of your community, shoulder to shoulder, arm in arm, holding one another up with tender care. If I stand, let me stand on the promise that you will pull me through. If I can’t, let me fall on the grace that first brought me to you. And teach me to give that grace to each person I meet, each soul I encounter, and each broken heart that is entrusted to me by you. 

Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Teach us to embrace the beauty of brokenness today by embracing one another. 

Amen. 

Liturgy 9-18-2016

This blog is a record of the call to worship, Scripture readings, and prayers from our Sunday liturgies.  If you are interested in writing something for the liturgy, please email jamie@ubcwaco.org.

Call to Worship

We have gathered seeking a Healer,

One who might mend
the most broken parts of us
And restore our failing loves

So that we can fully love God and all people

And spread our healing beyond ourselves

Though it may take a lifetime,

We have come today
to learn to follow Christ
And to be formed in his way

Amen.

Scripture

Amos 8:4-7

Hear this, you that trample on the needy,
and bring to ruin the poor of the land,
saying, "When will the new moon be over
so that we may sell grain;
and the sabbath,
so that we may offer wheat for sale?

We will make the ephah small and the shekel great,
and practice deceit with false balances,
buying the poor for silver
and the needy for a pair of sandals,
and selling the sweepings of the wheat."

The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob:
Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.

Luke 16:1-16

Jesus said to the disciples, "There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. So he summoned him and said to him, `What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.' Then the manager said to himself, `What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.'

So, summoning his master's debtors one by one, he asked the first, `How much do you owe my master?' He answered, `A hundred jugs of olive oil.' He said to him, `Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.' Then he asked another, `And how much do you owe?' He replied, `A hundred containers of wheat.' He said to him, `Take your bill and make it eighty.' And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes.

"Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own? No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth."

The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all this, and they ridiculed him. So he said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of others; but God knows your hearts; for what is prized by human beings is an abomination in the sight of God.

“The law and the prophets were in effect until John came; since then the good news of the kingdom of God is proclaimed, and everyone tries to enter it by force.”

Prayer

This week's prayer was:

God, in the midst of uncertainty, teach us to cling to You.

In a world afflicted with various kinds of violence, teach us to mourn with those who mourn and to love our enemies.

When we find ourselves hemmed in by darkness, tune our eyes to see the beauty that You have woven into the world, and teach us to embrace it and lift it up.

And as the tides of life threaten to wear us thin, we ask that Your Spirit would renew us that we might learn to live fully.

Amen.

Liturgy 9-11-2016

This blog is a record of the call to worship, Scripture readings, and prayers from our Sunday liturgies.  If you are interested in writing something for the liturgy, please email jamie@ubcwaco.org.

Call to Worship

Create clean hearts in us, and renew our spirits,

You who are quick to forgive
and slow to anger.

Make us into new creatures

With eyes calibrated with compassion
And tongues tuned to Your song.

Shine Your love on us

teach us to reflect it
toward one another
and back to You,
until nothing is the same.

Amen

Scripture

Exodus 32:7-14

The Lord said to Moses, "Go down at once! Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely; they have been quick to turn aside from the way that I commanded them; they have cast for themselves an image of a calf, and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it, and said, `These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!'" The Lord said to Moses, "I have seen this people, how stiff-necked they are. Now let me alone, so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them; and of you I will make a great nation."

But Moses implored the Lord his God, and said, "O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say, `It was with evil intent that he brought them out to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth'? Turn from your fierce wrath; change your mind and do not bring disaster on your people.

Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, how you swore to them by your own self, saying to them, `I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.'" And the Lord changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people.

Luke 15:1-10

All the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to Jesus. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, "This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them."

So he told them this parable: "Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, `Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.' Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.

"Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, `Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.' Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents."

Prayer

This week's prayer was written by Mike Robinson:

Lord, on this 15th anniversary of the 9-11 attacks, we pause to remember, mourn, and plead.  We pause to remember those thousands of innocents who died on this day so long ago (as well as those not so innocent); we pause to remember that they were more than names or even faces on computer screens, or televisions, or printed pages; like us, they were living, breathing, laughing, hoping, seeking human beings—women and men, girls and boys, who died because of tainted ideologies and disregard for human life.    We also remember the thousands upon thousands who have died since that time for similar reasons, in the Middle East and beyond—and for those who have been and continue to be injured, displaced, disenfranchised, ignored, and hated.  Lord, we remember them this day.  Forgive us when we forget.

We also pause to mourn—to mourn for those who died or who continue to suffer.  Lord, at UBC, we seek to love you, to embrace beauty, and to live life to the fullest; yet we lament our own failure and the failure of others to love; we grieve over the ugliness that often scars your world; and we cry out against the brokenness that interrupts abundant living—the hatred, selfishness, obsessions, and violence within ourselves and others.  Lord, help us grieve as you grieve for this world you love. 

God, we also plead; we plead for your salvation, your healing, your forgiveness, your peace, your righteousness, your justice.  We petition you for our own redemption, and the redemption of our communities, our nation, our world.  We even pray for our enemies—the perpetrators of these crimes in the past and in the present.  (God, these words are not easy to say and even harder to mean; but we say them and seek to mean them for your glory).  Redeem our enemies from their own violence, their selfishness, fear, poverty, and hopelessness—even as you are redeeming us from these sins and their consequences.  May our enemies come to love you (and others), embrace beauty, and live life to the fullest!  And may we do the same.  Amen!

Liturgy 9-4-2016

This blog is a record of the call to worship, Scripture readings, and prayers from our Sunday liturgies.  If you are interested in writing something for the liturgy, please email jamie@ubcwaco.org.

Call to Worship

Today we have gathered to worship the Creator

the One who is before all things
yet casts care on the smallest of creatures

hoping to better understand what it is to follow Christ

the One who shows us
that real power is made perfect
in weakness

seeking to be formed into Kingdom people

people who place others before ourselves
and find strength in vulnerability

Amen.

Scripture

Jeremiah 18:1-11

The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: "Come, go down to the potter's house, and there I will let you hear my words." So I went down to the potter's house, and there he was working at his wheel. The vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter's hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as seemed good to him.

Then the word of the Lord came to me: Can I not do with you, O house of Israel, just as this potter has done? says the Lord. Just like the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. At one moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, but if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will change my mind about the disaster that I intended to bring on it.

And at another moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, but if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will change my mind about the good that I had intended to do to it. Now, therefore, say to the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: Thus says the Lord: Look, I am a potter shaping evil against you and devising a plan against you. Turn now, all of you from your evil way, and amend your ways and your doings.

Revelation 13

And I saw a beast rising out of the sea, having ten horns and seven heads; and on its horns were ten diadems, and on its heads were blasphemous names.  And the beast that I saw was like a leopard, its feet were like a bear’s, and its mouth was like a lion’s mouth. And the dragon gave it his power and his throne and great authority.  

 One of its heads seemed to have received a death-blow, but its mortal wound had been healed. In amazement the whole earth followed the beast.  They worshiped the dragon, for he had given his authority to the beast, and they worshiped the beast, saying, “Who is like the beast, and who can fight against it?”

The beast was given a mouth uttering haughty and blasphemous words, and it was allowed to exercise authority for forty-two months.  It opened its mouth to utter blasphemies against God, blaspheming his name and his dwelling, that is, those who dwell in heaven.  Also it was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them. It was given authority over every tribe and people and language and nation, and all the inhabitants of the earth will worship it, everyone whose name has not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb that was slaughtered.

Let anyone who has an ear listen:

If you are to be taken captive,
    into captivity you go;
if you kill with the sword,
    with the sword you must be killed.

Here is a call for the endurance and faith of the saints.

Then I saw another beast that rose out of the earth; it had two horns like a lamb and it spoke like a dragon.  It exercises all the authority of the first beast on its behalf, and it makes the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose mortal wound had been healed.  

 It performs great signs, even making fire come down from heaven to earth in the sight of all; and by the signs that it is allowed to perform on behalf of the beast, it deceives the inhabitants of earth, telling them to make an image for the beast that had been wounded by the sword and yet lived; and it was allowed to give breath to the image of the beast so that the image of the beast could even speak and cause those who would not worship the image of the beast to be killed.  

 Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell who does not have the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name. This calls for wisdom: let anyone with understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a person. Its number is six hundred sixty-six.

Prayer

This week's prayer was written by Emily Mosher:

Creator God,

Some of us looked around at your world this morning and felt excitement at its beauty and possibility.

Others of us woke up feeling the pain of its brokenness and wondering, "How much longer?"

Some of us walked into this space eager to speak and serve and praise.

Others came desperately needing just a space to sit in silence and catch a glimpse of Your grace. 

Whatever brought us, we have all come longing to find something more than a building, expecting to find your presence in a unique way. 

Thank you for being the God who is always here, the One who both rejoices and mourns with us. 

I pray you will continue shaping us into a people where all are welcome and where all are needed. 

A people who have the courage to be vulnerable, to share our pain, to do the uncomfortable task of asking for help. 

A people who have the compassion to listen quietly to the gift of another person's story, to be present in times of heartache, and to act when help when needed. 

Please whisper hope into all of our hearts this mornings and form us into a community that makes your love known to one another and throughout the world. 

Amen.

Liturgy 8-28-2016

This blog is a record of the call to worship, Scripture readings, and prayers from our Sunday liturgies.  If you are interested in writing something for the liturgy, please email jamie@ubcwaco.org.

Call to Worship

we have gathered to worship the Most High God,

Whose image we bear;
in Whom we live, and move, and have our being.

seeking to be formed by the story of Jesus,

so that we might mirror Him
in our living, loving, rejoicing,
and mourning

through the power of the Holy Spirit,

that secret Pulse
Who is within and around us,
weaving our stories into One.

Amen.

Scripture

Jeremiah 2:4-13

Hear the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob, and all the families of the house of Israel. Thus says the Lord:

What wrong did your ancestors find in me
that they went far from me,
and went after worthless things, and became worthless themselves?

They did not say, "Where is the Lord
who brought us up from the land of Egypt,
who led us in the wilderness,
in a land of deserts and pits,
in a land of drought and deep darkness,
in a land that no one passes through,
where no one lives?"

I brought you into a plentiful land
to eat its fruits and its good things.

But when you entered you defiled my land,
and made my heritage an abomination.

The priests did not say, "Where is the Lord?"
Those who handle the law did not know me;
the rulers transgressed against me;
the prophets prophesied by Baal, 
and went after things that do not profit.

Therefore once more I accuse you, says the Lord,
and I accuse your children's children.

Cross to the coasts of Cyprus and look,
send to Kedar and examine with care;
see if there has ever been such a thing.
Has a nation changed its gods,
even though they are no gods?

But my people have changed their glory
for something that does not profit.
Be appalled, O heavens, at this,
be shocked, be utterly desolate,
says the Lord,
for my people have committed two evils:
they have forsaken me,
the fountain of living water,
and dug out cisterns for themselves,
cracked cisterns
that can hold no water.

Luke 14:1, 7-14

On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the sabbath, they were watching him closely.

When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable. "When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, `Give this person your place,' and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, `Friend, move up higher'; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted."

He said also to the one who had invited him, "When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous."

Prayer

This week's prayer was written by Mike Studer:

Dear God,

This morning, I ask for a special blessing on all the teachers and staff that work tirelessly to care for and educate our children and young adults. In times of frustration, bring them relief, in times of fatigue, bring them rest, in times of joy, give them celebration, in times of sadness, give them support, and in times of exasperation, give them hope. Please help them surrender fully to you and remember that as they serve their students, it is you they are really serving. 

Amen.

Liturgy 8-21-2016

This blog is a record of the call to worship, Scripture readings, and prayers from our Sunday liturgies.  If you are interested in writing something for the liturgy, please email jamie@ubcwaco.org.

Call to Worship

We have gathered to worship the Lord of everything

carrying our own everything with us:
the old and the new
the good and the bad
the exciting and the mundane
all of it.

seeking to be formed in the way of Christ

the Healer who takes
our wounds upon Himself

and to be transformed by the Holy Spirit

the Artist who paints hope
on torn canvases
and is making all things new

Amen

Scripture

Psalm 103:1-8

Bless the Lord, O my soul,
and all that is within me, bless the Lord’s holy Name.

Bless the Lord, O my soul,
and forget not all the Lord’s benefits.

The Lord forgives all your sins
and heals all your infirmities;
The Lord redeems your life from the grave
and crowns you with mercy and loving-kindness;
The Lord satisfies you with good things,
and your youth is renewed like an eagle's.

The Lord executes righteousness
and judgment for all who are oppressed.

The Lord made the Lord’s ways known to Moses
and the Lord’s works to the children of Israel.

The Lord is full of compassion and mercy,
slow to anger and of great kindness.

Luke 13:10-17

Now Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, "Woman, you are set free from your ailment."

When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God. But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, "There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day."

But the Lord answered him and said, "You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?" When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing.

Prayer

This week's prayer was written by Sharyl Loeung:

Healing God,

Call us to stand upright
may we be bent no longer
May we not carry the worry of tomorrow

Reach down and deliver us from the depths
Look deep into our body, mind, our emotion
and call us to stand upright

Bring forth the good and beautiful because of your loving kindness
We long for your rest even while you work on this Sabbath day

Unbind us, call us to stand up right
that we may choose to walk in obedience

Amen.

Liturgy 8-14-2016

This blog is a record of the call to worship, Scripture readings, and prayers from our Sunday liturgies.  If you are interested in writing something for the liturgy, please email jamie@ubcwaco.org.

Call to Worship

We have gathered to worship the Creator

The One who made us
and sustains us

And to be formed in the Way of Christ

The One who holds us together
And shows us how to live
As we are meant to

By the power of the Holy Spirit

The One who is among us
and is making us new

Amen.

Scripture

Isaiah 5:1-7

Let me sing for my beloved
my love-song concerning his vineyard:
My beloved had a vineyard
on a very fertile hill.
He dug it and cleared it of stones,
and planted it with choice vines;
he built a watchtower in the midst of it,
and hewed out a wine vat in it;
he expected it to yield grapes,
but it yielded wild grapes.

And now, inhabitants of Jerusalem
and people of Judah,
judge between me
and my vineyard.
What more was there to do for my vineyard
that I have not done in it?
When I expected it to yield grapes,
why did it yield wild grapes?

And now I will tell you
what I will do to my vineyard.
I will remove its hedge,
and it shall be devoured;
I will break down its wall,
and it shall be trampled down.
I will make it a waste;
it shall not be pruned or hoed,
and it shall be overgrown with briers and thorns;
I will also command the clouds
that they rain no rain upon it.

For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts
is the house of Israel,
and the people of Judah
are his pleasant planting;
he expected justice,
but saw bloodshed;
righteousness,
but heard a cry!

Luke 12:49-56

Jesus said, "I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; they will be divided:

father against son
and son against father,
mother against daughter
and daughter against mother,
mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law
and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law."

He also said to the crowds, "When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, `It is going to rain'; and so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, `There will be scorching heat'; and it happens. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?"

Prayer

This week's prayer was written by Josh Ritter:

All Vulnerable God of Mystery and Grace,

Thank you for the Divine Trinitarian Dance you invite us into each day.

Forgive us when we forget that this is your infinite gift of Beauty and Grace to us.

Forgive us for not recognizing our true self that is in you and in Christ, and forgive us for pretending to be who we think we are and for believing these masks are real.

We know that we are called by you to live as Christ and in Christ and to become the Divine Spark that is buried in each of our hearts. We are called, just as Jesus was, to let that spark – that divinity – burn as a wildfire and consume us. We know that we are called to open our hearts so that we may be healed and in turn offer healing to this world that has also forgotten the Divinity that resides within all of Creation, within all things, within all people.

You call us to More…You call us to embrace abundance, love, grace, beauty, forgiveness, hope, joy, and belonging. But, often, we doubt…our humanity doubts and overwhelms our calling to become one with Christ…and we believe lies as truth…and we turn those lies into idols and worship those idols as gods.

We believe scarcity rather than abundance,
We believe apathy and indifference rather than love,
We believe strength rather than vulnerability,
We believe fear rather than hope and belonging,
We believe perfection and control rather than acceptance and forgiveness,
We believe achievements and temporary distractions rather than true joy,
We believe uniqueness and individualism rather than friendship and community,
We believe consumerism and greed rather than charity and hospitality...

Forgive us for worshiping these idols…because when we do this our hearts close down, our ego self and small self become larger than life, brokenness grows, the potential to give and to receive healing stops, our connection to you as the Vine and Divine Source of love and grace is cut off and we wither…and then we project our fear, pain, hurt, and smallness out onto others…

So help us to stop being idol worshippers, because we become like the gods that we worship…and help us to remember the divine nature, our true self, that you have called us to be and to become…we recognize that Jesus never actually really had that many problems with sinners, but he did have much to say about those who offer cheap religion and arrogant judgment towards others.

Help us not to practice what culture teaches us, which is to love the sinner and hate the sin, and instead help us to remember the consistent biblical teaching to just love our neighbor…come what may…love our neighbor…

Help us to remember that you call us to More…to expansiveness, to abundance…to Love and Justice…to transform our hearts and lives and to become displaced from the norms of our culture…You call us to be refugees in this world because residents of the Kingdom of God claim no other citizenship than to Christ the Redeemer, the one who disrupts hierarchies of power and kingdoms of control and heals them through his redemption and Resurrection.

Help us this day to remember that we are created in and for You and that we are called to be witnesses for the Love and Grace that is the Divine miracle of the universe that we call Christ.

Amen.

The Mirror in the Wilderness (Part 7)

This is the final entry in a series of readings that were shared during our Sunday morning gatherings through Lent.  You can find the other installments here: (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6)

---

During Lent, we have been looking at Jesus as a Mirror that perfectly reveals to us who we have been and who we are, in all of our brokenness. 

In the Mirror, we are known. 

That image came from a Barbara Brown Taylor reading I shared on Ash Wednesday, and again on Friday.  She says that the reaction of the Romans, the Jews, and all of us, upon seeing ourselves for who we really are in this Mirror, is to smash it every way we can.  And so, on Friday, we remembered the shattering of Jesus.  But today we are reminded that the shattering didn’t take.  The Mirror was made whole again.

Only now, this Mirror carries a network of cracks—scars of the shattering.  The cracks don’t obscure the reflection, but they do transform it in a way.  We see a different kind of self looking back at us—the kind only a broken mirror can reveal. Held in tension with the truth about who we have been, and who we are, we find reflected back at us the truth about who we can be, and about what we can do; the truth that we can be changed.

Yes, now the Mirror tells us a story about who we’ve been, who we are, and who we can be.  In the Mirror, we are known.  In the Mirror, we are loved.

And in the cracks, we see another story.  A story that makes the cracks in our own hearts ache.  A story that makes our own broken pieces cry out.  It’s a story where we see what God makes of broken pieces, and where we start to see what God might make of us. We see the cycle of birth, living, and death--the song that has been sung for ages, both through the various seasons that make up a single life, and in life itself—now crowned with Resurrection; an emphatic yes to life.  And this changes everything.  And in the midst of everything, we find it changes us.

In the Mirror, we are known. In the Mirror, we are loved. In the Mirror, we are transformed.

No longer people of the shattering, we are resurrection people. Those who mourn deeply the loss or violation of life, because we know that life is most definitely a gift.  And those who hope fiercely because we have seen just how far God is willing to go to put broken pieces back together. Freed from the finality of death that haunts us, threatens to paralyze us, we are able to embrace the fullness of the beauty that God has woven into life.

Yes, we are resurrection people.  Those who in the once-shattered Mirror of Christ are known, loved, transformed, and free.

--

JM

The Mirror in the Wilderness (Part 6)

Every Sunday during Lent, we will be taking time to wrestle with our place in the culture of sexual violence within our society.  While this is, unfortunately, one of many sub-cultures of a broader culture of violence in our society, we have chosen to name this one during Lent because it is not necessarily an evil that we have named before at ubc.  I’ll be the first to admit that this is difficult, but we will face this difficulty together.  

The litany included in this post is taken from a liturgy in protest of sexual violence that you can find here, and the women who put that together are putting out more material and resources here.  This group is also hosting a series of liturgies on Baylor’s campus over the next month.  The next service will be “A Space for Hope” on Tuesday, March 29th, at 8pm in Elliston Chapel.

Posted below is something I read during church on March 20th.  It is the second of several pieces we will encounter in our liturgy over the next few weeks  You can read the first piece here, the second piece here, the third piece here, the fourth piece here, and the fifth piece here.  If you have any questions or concerns about anything you see here, please email me at Jamie@ubcwaco.org. 

---

This is the final week of Lent.  For the past 5 weeks, we have been reckoning with our place in the midst of a culture marred by sexual violence. If you haven’t been here, all of the readings I have done on this topic are available on the ubc blog under the title, “The Mirror in the Wilderness.” 

When we started this journey together, our aim was to use the season of Lent both to shine a light on the prevalence of sexual violence in our culture and to shine a light on ourselves revealing our complicity in this broader system—to talk about something we don’t talk about.  We’ve been doing this out of the conviction that problems in our culture are our problems, and that, as the church, we don’t get to point fingers at everyone else and pretend that we aren’t a part of the problem.  We are.

We have noted a few ways that we might consider ourselves to be complicit in this system: the impulse to distance ourselves from stories of sexual violence whenever possible, the cause and effect rhetoric we offer to those affected, and the language we let slide in the world around us and out of our own mouths.  These provide a starting point for weeding out our place in this broader system, but they are by no means the full picture.  There is more work to do. 

Lent is a time when we give particular interest to wrestling with sin in our lives, but it is not the only season where we do this. Shining a light on our sin is something we should ultimately always to be open to.  And so, I pray that you will continue to ask the Spirit to bring to light your complicity in this system of evil, even beyond this time we call Lent.  Keep asking hard questions of things that you assume are harmless.  Keep seeking wisdom and courage for combatting things that you know are harmful.

Systems are hard to take down because they transcend any one person or group of people—instead they reside in ideas, in apprehensions, in assumptions, in prejudices, in culture itself—all things that shape people.  But it’s not that people are removed from the equation.  People are shaped and thereby become the avenue by which culture shapes other people.  People live into the ideas that they receive, they pass them on—most often without mentioning them at all—and they contribute to the narrative of how things are.  Thus, these ideas are sustained by our acceptance.  But we’ve been talking about what happens when we don’t accept these ideas.  What happens when we decide the way things are isn’t cutting it anymore.  What happens when we pull back the curtain to try to figure out how these systems work.  What happens when we throw a rock in the machine.  When we take responsibility for our own complicity in systems of violence and seek personal transformation?  When we go off script in interacting with the people around us?  And when we pass this counter-system on to other generations?  The system will not be able to stay the same. 

We need to do this hard work for the good of our neighbor, for the good of the world, and for ourselves. 

So ubc, may be we a people of the way things could be.  May we be a people who search ourselves for ghosts in our own machines that would keep us from being more fully formed in the way of Christ, and who catch the wave of the Kingdom and ride it into fulfillment.

Now, if you are willing and able, please stand and join me once again in this litany of commitment.  We’ve said these words many times together, but make an effort to continue to let them form you.

As a community of faith we will not forget those who are hurting. We will listen carefully. We understand there are those among us who suffer in silence. And so...

We will not further silence our neighbor
with platitudes or should-haves.
We commit to hold their pain gently.

We know we must continue to challenge the power dynamics in our world that make abuse prevalent, even when these dynamics and systems benefit us.

We will not worship ideas or institutions.
We will love God and love our neighbor above all else.

We struggle to understand how the world can be so broken, but we will not let this deter us from seeking justice.

We will not cease praying for your Kingdom come.
We commit ourselves to the journey ahead.
Our friends will walk alone no longer.

---

JM

The Mirror in the Wilderness (Part 5)

Every Sunday during Lent, we will be taking time to wrestle with our place in the culture of sexual violence within our society.  While this is, unfortunately, one of many sub-cultures of a broader culture of violence in our society, we have chosen to name this one during Lent because it is not necessarily an evil that we have named before at ubc.  I’ll be the first to admit that this is difficult, but we will face this difficulty together.  

The litany included in this post is taken from a liturgy in protest of sexual violence that you can find here, and the women who put that together are putting out more material and resources here.  This group is also hosting a series of liturgies on Baylor’s campus over the next month.  The next service will be “A Space for Hope” on Tuesday, March 29th, at 8pm in Elliston Chapel.

Posted below is something I read during church on March 13th.  It is the second of several pieces we will encounter in our liturgy over the next few weeks  You can read the first piece here, the second piece here, the third piece here, and the fourth piece here.  If you have any questions or concerns about anything you see here, please email me at Jamie@ubcwaco.org. 

---

Today is the fifth Sunday of Lent, and we are continuing our reckoning with our place in the midst of a culture that is marred by sexual violence.  If you haven’t been around for the past four weeks, the things I have read during this time are available on the ubc blog, under the title, “The Mirror in the Wilderness.”

I want to return to an idea that I’ve mentioned before—that perhaps when we see a particular kind of violence hold a prevalence in our culture, there are certain ideas or assumptions that are engrained in our culture that in some way help this broken part go unmended, or perhaps normalize it.  For us, that also means there are ideas and assumptions engrained in us that make it difficult for us to be the presence of Christ within our culture.  Last week, we began dreaming together about what a culture that does not authorize or pave the way for a prevalence of sexual violence might look like, and I urge you to continue asking that question of yourselves. 

I want now to begin thinking on a much smaller scale and ask what a version of each of us might look like within that culture.  This is difficult because we don’t necessarily know how to be any other way than we are, but this tension is the Christian life, is it not?  Old things being made new?  But that means that we might need to question things that we have taken for granted in the process—things that we’ve never really thought were that big of a deal—little things we let slide.  What do you let slide?

Is it comments people you don’t know make to other people you don’t know?  Comments that are perhaps in poor taste—crude, yes, unwanted by the addressee, yes, but not necessarily harmful?  What if those comments really are harmful?  What if allowing them to go unchecked makes them normal, and what if this normal authorizes a broader culture of sexual violence?  Should you say something?  Would the stranger even care what you have to say?  Maybe it doesn’t matter if they internalize it.  Maybe it just matters that it’s spoken out loud.  But this is uncomfortable.

What about when it isn’t a stranger?  What about when it’s someone you love, or at least care for, making the comment, the joke, the behind-the-scenes insult, and you know they don’t mean any harm by it?  How do you know?  And how do you know that something small like this won’t snowball over time? Maybe the people you love do internalize the things that you say.  Maybe you help form them.  But this too is uncomfortable.

And what about yourself?  What do you let slide off your own tongue that steals power from other people, that makes light of what is decidedly heavy, that minimizes the cries of people who have been wronged, that normalizes aggressive behavior, on and on? You likely wouldn’t know unless you have been told or have taken time to look.  So in this fifth week of Lent, I’m asking you to look.  And it will likely be uncomfortable, but that’s Lent.

Now, we will participate in the litany of commitment that we have taken on the past couple of weeks, in the hope that it will continue to shape us.

As a community of faith we will not forget those who are hurting. We will listen carefully. We understand there are those among us who suffer in silence. And so...

We will not further silence our neighbor
with platitudes or should-haves.
We commit to hold their pain gently.

We know we must continue to challenge the power dynamics in our world that make abuse prevalent, even when these dynamics and systems benefit us.

We will not worship ideas or institutions.
We will love God and love our neighbor above all else.

We struggle to understand how the world can be so broken, but we will not let this deter us from seeking justice.

We will not cease praying for your Kingdom come.
We commit ourselves to the journey ahead.
Our friends will walk alone no longer.

---

JM

The Mirror in the Wilderness (Part 4)

Every Sunday during Lent, we will be taking time to wrestle with our place in the culture of sexual violence within our society.  While this is, unfortunately, one of many sub-cultures of a broader culture of violence in our society, we have chosen to name this one during Lent because it is not necessarily an evil that we have named before at ubc.  I’ll be the first to admit that this is difficult, but we will face this difficulty together.  

The litany included in this post is taken from a liturgy in protest of sexual violence that you can find here, and the women who put that together are putting out more material and resources here.  This group is also hosting a series of liturgies on Baylor’s campus over the next month.  The next service will be “A Space for Anger” on Tuesday, March 15th, at 8pm in Elliston Chapel.

Posted below is something I read during church on March 6th.  It is the second of several pieces we will encounter in our liturgy over the next few weeks  You can read the first piece here, the second piece here, and the third piece here.  If you have any questions or concerns about anything you see here, please email me at Jamie@ubcwaco.org. 

---

This is the fourth week of Lent, and we are continuing to reckon with our place in the midst of a culture that is marred by sexual violence.  If you have not been around for the past three Sundays, the transcripts of what I’ve read about this are available on the ubc blog under the title “The Mirror in the Wilderness.” 

We’ve been creating space for the Spirit to shape our imaginations when thinking about what it looks like to come alongside people who experience sexual violence, and how to combat the prevalence of this violence in our culture. 

We talk about imagination at ubc from time to time because our capacity for imagination is a gift from God.  Imagination allows us to dream of worlds that are different than our own.  It seems like the concept of imagination got narrowed in our culture at some point to point to worlds of magic and unicorns and the like, as though imagination is merely an avenue of entertainment or escapism, unrelated to the truth of things.  This is somewhat different than what we are aiming at when we talk about the Spirit shaping our imaginations.  The conceiving of worlds different than our own that we are talking about is instead centered on the idea that perhaps the way things are is not the way things have to be.  Though we are inescapably the product of the way things are, and sometimes don’t know how to be anything other than people of the way things are, God has given us the gift of imagination so that we can be transformed into people of the way things could be, knocking about until the way things are changes.  It’s at the heart of the Christian story, because God is not the God of the way things are. 

Imagination is also at the heart of Jesus’ talk about the Kingdom of God: the kingdom is here--among us--and yet, of course, we look around and see a world that is not driven by the selfless love of the kingdom of God, and we look in the mirror and we see people who are prone to place their own desires over the desires of others, but the Kingdom is nonetheless here because Jesus told brain-breaking stories about what it is like, and he has given us a lens to see what it all could be.  And if we let that dream guide our own dreams about the way things could be, we might find ourselves as people who no longer accept the way things are, and instead become people who let the dream of the Kingdom become our waking life.  Our imaginations help us call the norm into question and drive us to rage against systems that hold the world as we know it in place, and ultimately build new ones.

And so, over the past few weeks, we have called into question the veracity of the self distancing our culture has taught us regarding whose problems we should call our own, and we have called into question the rationalizing we have learned how to do that implicitly casts blame in the wrong direction. 

Perhaps we should now zoom out a little bit and raise a question: What if our culture is seeded with ideas that authorize the prevalence of sexual violence that we see around us?  Ideas that turn a blind eye to injustice.  Ideas that lead to selective hearing.  Ideas that normalize aggression. 

And what if it could be otherwise? 

What might that culture look like?  What kinds of conversations would take place there?  How would people interact?  How would authority structures maintain order?  How would people view themselves?  How would they view other people?

Let’s take on imagining that world together, and lean into it.  Because the systems that we are a part of will struggle to stay the same if we do.

We will now participate in a litany that is a part of the Liturgy in Protest of Sexual violence that we have been using the past few weeks.  We read this litany last week together, and we will continue to do it, because it seems in line with the kind of world that we are imagining together, because perhaps in lingering on these words, we will found ourselves molded into people who better embody them.  I’ll read the light print, you may respond with the bold.

As a community of faith we will not forget those who are hurting. We will listen carefully. We understand there are those among us who suffer in silence. And so...

We will not further silence our neighbor
with platitudes or should-haves.
We commit to hold their pain gently.

We know we must continue to challenge the power dynamics in our world that make abuse prevalent, even when these dynamics and systems benefit us.

We will not worship ideas or institutions.
We will love God and love our neighbor above all else.

We struggle to understand how the world can be so broken, but we will not let this deter us from seeking justice.

We will not cease praying for your Kingdom come.
We commit ourselves to the journey ahead.
Our friends will walk alone no longer.

---

JM

The Mirror in the Wilderness (Part 3)

Every Sunday during Lent, we will be taking time to wrestle with our place in the culture of sexual violence within our society.  While this is, unfortunately, one of many sub-cultures of a broader culture of violence in our society, we have chosen to name this one during Lent because it is not necessarily an evil that we have named before at ubc.  I’ll be the first to admit that this is difficult, but we will face this difficulty together.  

The litany included in this post is taken from a liturgy in protest of sexual violence that you can find here, and the women who put that together are putting out more material and resources here.  This group is also hosting a series of liturgies on Baylor’s campus over the next month.  The next service will be “A Space for Anger” on Tuesday, March 15th, at 8pm in Elliston Chapel.

Posted below is something I read during church on February 28.  It is the second of several pieces we will encounter in our liturgy over the next few weeks  You can read the first piece here and the second piece here.  If you have any questions or concerns about anything you see here, please email me at Jamie@ubcwaco.org. 

---

This is the third week of Lent, and we are continuing our journey through reckoning with our place within a culture marred by sexual violence.  If you haven’t been around for the past couple of weeks, we began the first week by acknowledging that we do in fact have a problem, and last week we voiced a prayer together in the voice of survivors of sexual violence.  Throughout both weeks, we have been trying to create space for the Spirit to shape our imaginations regarding how we might engage problems that seem much bigger than we can take on.  The transcripts of what I read for the past two weeks are now posted on the ubc blog under the title “The Mirror in the Wilderness,” and I would encourage you to go read those again, or for the first time.

In the first week, I suggested that one aspect of living within this culture that we might call sin is the tendency for many of us to—whether we mean to or not—distance ourselves from stories we hear—that is, unless we or someone we love are affected by sexual violence, we have a tendency to not consider it to be our problem.  And since this does not seem to mirror what Jesus would do, this impulse is something we should seek to combat. 

I’d like to suggest another point of self-reflection this week. Without saying that we are all in fact guilty of this, it seems reasonable to suggest that many of us could be at some point: our culture has a tendency to allow cause-and-effect thinking to drive the way we engage people when they recount the stories of their experiences of violence to us.  More directly, we have a tendency to suggest—or at least to think— that if a person had not chosen to wear a particular kind of clothing, or had made different choices about where they spent their time socially, or had not chosen to consume this or that beverage, they might not have found themselves in such a harmful situation. 

This impulse is not only unhelpful, because should-haves do not undo tragedy; it is also harmful, silencing, and alienating. But in and through all these things, it is a lie.  It is a lie because there is no choice a person can make that would make them deserve sexual violence, yet this is precisely what is heard when one suggests that any choice made by the person who experienced sexual violence led to this experience.  And with this, it communicates that the person who was the aggressor in sexual violence did something reasonable.  Which is also a lie, as this is never the case.  Further, it is a lie because people are subjected to sexual violence even when they in fact do what this flawed sense of cause and effect says they should.  Finally, perhaps it is often a lie because it is a statement of self-preservation masquerading as advice or care—in my experience, when rationalizing words roll off my tongue in place of mutual lament, it is me trying to tell myself that this won’t happen to me or anyone I love.  That it’s easily preventable.  This is a lie.

These words are empty. These words help no one.

I do not think it is a stretch to call this impulse sinful, in that it disregards the needs of a person who is hurting, it aids in clouding our vision of what is truly evil, it does not champion the truth, and it places our own need to be comfortable over all of these things.  As we continue to seek the Spirit’s guidance in being formed into people who are more like Jesus over the next few weeks, let’s keep this in mind.

We will now participate in a litany of commitment that is a part of the Liturgy in Protest of Sexual Violence that we have been using the past few weeks.  This won’t be the only time we read this commitment during Lent, because it is ultimately a lot to live into, but try your best to hold these words in your mind and discern what areas of this commitment you might need help with.  I’ll read the light print, you may respond with the bold.

As a community of faith we will not forget those who are hurting. We will listen carefully. We understand there are those among us who suffer in silence. And so...

We will not further silence our neighbor
with platitudes or should-haves.
We commit to hold their pain gently.

We know we must continue to challenge the power dynamics in our world that make abuse prevalent, even when these dynamics and systems benefit us.

We will not worship ideas or institutions.
We will love God and love our neighbor above all else.

We struggle to understand how the world can be so broken, but we will not let this deter us from seeking justice.

We will not cease praying for your Kingdom come.
We commit ourselves to the journey ahead.
Our friends will walk alone no longer.

---

JM

The Mirror in the Wilderness (Part 2)

Every Sunday during Lent, we will be taking time to wrestle with our place in the culture of sexual violence within our society.  While this is, unfortunately, one of many sub-cultures of a broader culture of violence in our society, we have chosen to name this one during Lent because it is not necessarily an evil that we have named before at ubc.  I’ll be the first to admit that this is difficult, but we will face this difficulty together.  

The litany included in this post is taken from a liturgy in protest of sexual violence that you can find here, and the women who put that together are putting out more material and resources here.  This group is also hosting a series of liturgies on Baylor’s campus over the next month.  The next service will be “A Space for Silence” on Tuesday, March 1st, at 8pm in Elliston Chapel.

Posted below is something I read during church on February 21.  It is the second of several pieces we will encounter in our liturgy over the next few weeks  You can read the first piece here.  If you have any questions or concerns about anything you see here, please email me at Jamie@ubcwaco.org. 

---

Today we are continuing our reckoning with our place in a culture marred by sexual violence.  Last week, we acknowledged that we have a problem, one facet of which is, for some of us, our tendency to distance ourselves from situations involving sexual violence if at all possible, and identified this impulse as unlike what we might expect from Jesus, and thus as sin.  

In the coming weeks, I want to encourage you to continue to pray that the Spirit would shape your imagination regarding how you yourself might be an instrument of change in our culture of violence.  The truth is, we all have some degree of influence in our immediate social surroundings, and while knowing exactly what we can do is often times a daunting task, we can at least seek wisdom from God—to refuse to do even this is its own kind of problem.

We are going to pray together now, using words that were composed by Kendall Rothaus, Lilly Ettinger Leman, Emma Wood, Rachel Toombs, Natalie Webb, Sharyl Loeung, and Heather Mooney, in their liturgy in protest of sexual violence.  This prayer is written for the voice of survivors of sexual violence, but if you are not a survivor yourself, I want to offer you two ways of looking at this: First, we do not gather to worship together only as a group of individuals, but as a body that is united in Christ.  Therefore, the fact that these words can have a direct meaning for some of us means that they can and should be voiced by all of us as we pray together. Second, there are petitions in this prayer for particular kinds of people—compassionate listeners, faithful advocates, etc—and in praying for these things, you might think of it as a petition that God would form you into a person like that, or to help you use gifts that God has already given you to be that person for someone who needs it. 

God. In a world that has little time for us,
we want to believe that you have time.
In a culture that too easily dismisses us,
we want to believe that you care.
Among institutions that are slow to come to our aid,
we want to believe that you are eager to help.

You are our first and last resort.

 Here is our petition:

We ask for comfort and peace.

God, hear our prayer.

We ask for courage and strength.

God, hear our prayer.

We ask for Your justice and healing.

God, hear our prayer.

We ask for compassionate listeners.

God, hear our prayer.

We ask for faithful advocates.

God, hear our prayer.

We ask for bold truth-tellers.

God, hear our prayer.

We ask for personal and institutional transformation.

God, hear our prayer.

We’ll take a moment in silence now to allow the Spirit to minister to us and to continue to shape our thinking about these things.

The Mirror in the Wilderness (Part 1)

Every Sunday during Lent, we will be taking time to wrestle with our place in the culture of sexual violence within our society.  While this is, unfortunately, one of many sub-cultures of a broader culture of violence in our society, we have chosen to name this one during Lent because it is not necessarily an evil that we have named before at ubc.  I’ll be the first to admit that this is difficult, but we will face this difficulty together. 

The litany included in this post is taken from a liturgy in protest of sexual violence that you can find here, and the women who put that together are putting out more material and resources here.  This group is also hosting a series of liturgies on Baylor’s campus over the next month.  The first will be “A Space for Lament” on Tuesday, February 23, at 8pm in Elliston Chapel.

Posted below is something I read during church on February 14.  It is the first of several pieces we will encounter in our liturgy over the next few weeks.  If you have any questions or concerns about anything you see here, please email me at Jamie@ubcwaco.org. 

---

If you were able to attend one of our Ash Wednesday services, you heard me read a selection from Barbara Brown Taylor in which she talks about Jesus as a Mirror in which, when we catch a glimpse of ourselves, we see just how profoundly flawed we are.  When we measure ourselves against Jesus, we see a great difference, and this difference serves to lay our sins bare before us. The knee-jerk response to seeing such a horror is to smash the Mirror—which is what the Romans and Jews did, what Judas and the other disciples did, and what each of us find a way to do.  In Lent, we are practicing resisting the urge to smash the Mirror, but instead to lock eyes with the Reflection—to let it sting, and to seek with God’s help to close the gap of the difference between us and Jesus in some way—to be transformed.

Much of what we see in the Mirror is likely different for each of us—we don’t necessarily share all of the same flaws, but we are cultured people.  By that I don’t mean that we are fancy, but rather that we are people who are the products of a particular time and place, and so we likely share many of the same problems.  Unfortunately, it’s the problems that we all share that are sometimes the most difficult to acknowledge.  It seems fitting in Lent to drag some of these into the Light together. The particulars of these problems are legion, but we likely catch many of them in confessing that violence has too ubiquitous of a place amongst us—and not just the violence that causes hearts to stop beating or leaves scars and bruises—it’s violence that causes hearts to go numb, that leaves scars and bruises we might never see, namely sexual violence.

If you’re a person who has not experienced violence like this up close, you might be tempted to feel as though you have the luxury of viewing a situation like this from afar without it being your problem, distancing yourself from any responsibility to minister to those affected, to see them, to listen to them, or to do whatever people who are truly appalled or horrified by an event do. But we would be hard pressed to find a single situation related to the dignity of a human person of which Jesus thought He had the luxury to say “it’s not my problem.”  And when we look at Him, and look at ourselves, we see a difference, and though we scramble to find a way to say that that is not so, it is, and this difference is sin.  This, this self-distancing, is the sin that tries to keep itself hidden in our culture of violence. And during Lent, we are going to look into the Mirror, let what we see sting, and say, “this is a problem, and we must change.”

So we are going to take several moments over the next few weeks to confess and pray together, grafting this into our liturgy over time rather than relegating it to a single week—because that somehow seems to be a more honest way to bring to light evils that extend beyond single events in the lives of those who are the receiving end of them.  We will carry this weight with us, praying for transformation in our systems of justice, but also praying for personal transformation so we can ourselves become instruments of change.  Today, we are going to read a litany together that was written by a group of women in town, four of whom are a part of ubc—Heather Mooney, Sharyl Loeung, Natalie Webb, and Emma Wood—and I’d like to thank them for gifting us with their words.   

We pause this day
to recognize there are
many among us who
have been wounded by violence,
exploitation, coercion, or manipulation.

There are many among
us who are suffering and grieving.

There are many who need
support and healing,
who need their voices heard,
and their stories acknowledged,
and their experiences validated.

The weight of oppression is heavy,

and the effects of trauma
are real and long-lasting.

We pause this day
to recognize
all of us are impacted
by the culture of violence.

All of us are impacted by the culture
of impatience and hostility
in which we live.

By listening to one another,
may we become instruments
of justice and peace.

We're going to take some time now in silence for this to sink in, and for the Spirit to minister to us, to reveal to us our complicity in our culture of violence, and to begin to shape our imaginations for enacting change.

---

JM