At All Souls, the community where our family lives and loves, we have a shared liturgy each week. Liturgy is “the work of the people,” and we believe that encountering God is something we do together. We all pray. We all question. Together, we all sit listening to the cues of grace. A good bit of what we do comes from the Book of Common Prayer and the Lectionary – we join the chorus of God’s people in other places and in other generations.
However, we also create our own movements. Somewhat regularly, I’m going to post one of our original pieces. Use it for your own reflection and pondering.
This week, I share our litany (where a leader reads the first lines and all the people respond) from the Old Testament reading. One of our tasks as a Christian community is to learn how to hear the Bible, how to allow the text to submerge us in its narrative. We have no desire to blandly take in the words. We want to wrestle and wrangle. We want to awaken our curiosity, bring our questions. We want to see where the text will take us.
OT Reading | Judges 6:11-24
Is the Lord with us?
The Lord is with you
Is the Lord with us? Is the Lord with Haiti, with the forgotten or the shattered?
The Lord is with you
But I am so full of fear. My soul has shrunk. I am empty, no courage.
The Lord is with you, mighty warrior
I cannot do what is before me. I am empty, no faith.
The Lord is with you, woman of strength
Rise up, people of God.
The Lord is with you. Today. Tomorrow. Forever, unto the end of the age.
Man that is good news. Thanks for this post Winn.
I'm with you, Kyle. Good news indeed.