Walking bridge over Lake Stumpf in Collegeville, Minnesota
Written during my recent participation in the Collegeville Institute’s writing workshop, Writing in the Age of Anxiety. Written for my fellow courageous writers and the welcoming staff who cared for us.
LAMENT
How long, O God? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I bear pain in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all day long? How long will anxiety hold me? Enter into me? Surround me?
Consider and answer me, O God! Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death while still alive, and anxiety will say, “I have prevailed, I won, I am ruler of all”; Rejoicing because I shake, tremble, and cannot move.
I trusted you, O God! Trusted in your steadfast love. Can my heart continue rejoicing in your grace and salvation during the depths of my despair?
I will sing to you, O God. Not because I feel your presence. But because you have dealt bountifully with me in the past and my hope lies in days soon to be. I stand before you now, wearing all that makes me anxious, sinking down. Not into the mire, but in humility to you. The One who created me in my entirety calling me “good” as I ask for your blessing.
BLESSING
God who knit all things together in the womb of creation bless my anxious spirit. Jesus who held hope for all of God’s people bless my grief. Holy Spirit whose energy guides me toward courage bless my meekness. +
SENDING
Beloveds, God’s kingdom continues to come near in our work of writing. Go and do. Amen.
(Adapted from Genesis 1, Psalm 13, Mark 1, & Matthew 5)
Jesus… got up from supper, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. ~John 13: 3-5, NRSVUE Adapted
Each week chefs use our congregation’s professional kitchen as commissary for their businesses or in volunteering their time and talents to feed people at our two weekly community meals. One chef, even when he cooks as a volunteer, puts on his chef’s jacket and dons an apron to cook for people who are unsheltered, addicted, insecurely housed, formerly incarcerated, or living in fear of deportation. In changing his attire, this chef combines the work of his hands and heart with a visible sign of who he is as a servant to others.
What this chef does is not new. Jesus took off his outer robe (an act that gets the disciples attention!) to serve others. Until this moment, Jesus led these men as a healer and teacher. But in this new act, Jesus shows that leadership is first and foremost an audacious act of serving.
So, Jesus takes off his outer robe. Ties a towel around his waist so as to not dirty the clothing he still wears. He pours water into a basin and then kneels on the ground before his disciples. Perhaps Jesus makes a welcoming gesture for the disciples to sit before he takes their feet, foot by foot. Dipping them in the basin, washing heels, arches, balls, and toes. Drying them. The twelve staring in disbelief. Knowingly washed by a man who can heal their every wound yet in this moment insists on doing this common, unpleasant, and demeaning work.
What would it be like if our leaders today followed Jesus’ way? Many of our current crew in the United States shun servitude out of fear and excessive shame. Feeding shame while perpetuating human evils–grandiosity, denial, rage, arrogance, exhibitionism, contempt, perfectionism, and withdrawal. 1 Experts tell us that shame-based leadership is really based on “the fear of disconnection” from others yet the use of powering over behaviors actually makes real the feared disconnection. Leadership however that is based on serving others connects people through self and other compassion. 2
The congregation I serve, St. Johns Lutheran Church in Rock Island, Illinois, believes in and practices servant leadership. Yet last year we decided not to wash one another’s feet as is the Christian tradition on Maundy Thursday. We did so because we are a smaller congregation full of elders. This worship reenactment felt overwhelming to the various groups involved–worship staff, altar guild, and the worship & music committee. Something however wasn’t quite right in skipping over this liturgical moment. We still wanted to embrace Jesus’ serving behavior. We still wanted to follow Jesus’ example.
After much discussion and prayer, our Altar Guild designed a liturgical set using an old wooden chair, a pair of sandals, a water pitcher, basin, and towel placed in the lower transept. The worship team, with the creative help of one of our retired pastors, wondered together what liturgical words and song would best help us integrate servant leadership into our bodies, hearts, souls, and minds. Here’s what we came up with:
FOOTWASHING LITANY
We begin by singing an antiphon from the 9th century. The Taizé Community adapted the text and their founder, Jacques Berthier, wrote the music. The words are:
Where true charity and love abide, God is dwelling there; God is dwelling there.
Then we begin a liturgical dialog between the worship leader and the assembled congregation.
Leader: Jesus, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him.
Assembled: Peter said: “Lord, are you going to wash my feet? You will never wash my feet.”
L: Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.”
A: Then Peter said: ““Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!”
We sing again, the same song.
Where true charity and love abide, God is dwelling there; God is dwelling there.
L: After Jesus had washed their feet, he said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master.
We pray.
A: Help us Lord, to seek to serve more than to be served.
We end this liturgical scene in song.
Where true charity and love abide, God is dwelling there; God is dwelling there.
Notes:
Potter-Efron, Patricia and Potter-Efron, Ronald. Letting Go of Shame: Understanding How Shame Affects Your Life. ↩︎
Brown, Brené. Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience.↩︎
When in pain, we often curl up. Shut others out. Protect ourselves. Needing time to think or feel or rest. Isolating too long however works against us. We cease to cry out. We cease to connect.
The writer of this psalm laments, words reaching out of isolation.
“Hear my prayer, Lord; listen to my cry for mercy. When I am in distress, I call to you…” Psalm 86: 6-7a (NIV)
We can practice reaching out. Even if we do not want to now. We can prepare for the time when isolation becomes harmful. Like the psalmist we can cry out to God or others in our suffering. With a loud voice. With shaking hands or clenched fists. Asking God or the universe to hear our cries. Witness our distress. Answer our calls.
I wrote these prayers for pastors, deacons, and others who work for the Church. These petitions found communal life at the 2024 ELCA Northern Illinois Synod Assembly.
God of seed and soil, wind and rain, earth and all creatures,
We see ourselves in the seeds scattered on the path. Instead of birds, the work we do eats us up. Holy Wind blow us off this path and into soil that feeds us. God of good soil, hear our prayer.
We feel like we too fell on rocky ground. We quickly spring from task to task rooted only in our to-do lists with no protection from our own and others’ pain. Holy energy help us find deep soil to grow extensive roots in your being. God of good soil, hear our prayer.
We seek to be surrounded by support and rest. Instead, life prickles with thorns of complaint, gossip, and demands. We cannot catch our breath. We choke. Holy weeder, release us from these tangles. Help us to breathe well again. God of good soil, hear our prayer.
We know we are not alone in our laments and pain. Holy Gospel, open our mouths to tell the truth. Keep us working for justice for all people. God of good soil, hear our prayer.
We send these prayers out into your full creation O, God through your anointed one and with Holy Breath. Amen.
The congregation I serve, St. John’s Lutheran Church in Rock Island, Illinois, begins almost every worship gathering with some words. Part wording from Reconciling Works of which we are a Reconciled in Christ (RIC) congregation. Part stand against centuries of racism. Part land acknowledgement. These words continue to evolve over time with additions and refinements as we grow in awareness and understanding.
We call these words our centering statement. They differ from the beliefs we chant in our Christian creeds, the abridged origin story of the birth of Christianity. Words we sometimes question, embrace the mystery of, wonder about, balk at the embedded patriarchy of. The words of our centering statement that we gather with each week are who we want to be, who we intend to be. In a sense, an ideal. The best version of ourselves as individuals and a community following Jesus that we work toward and grow into word by word.
So, we assemble each week. Hear a few announcements (sometimes it seems like too many). Then sound stills and air shifts while in body and voice, one or all of us says:
Here at St. John’s, we create this place for all people by being a Reconciling in Christ (RIC) community which means we consciously work to publicly see, name, celebrate, advocate, and welcome people of all sexual orientations, gender identities, and gender expressions. We also publicly support and work toward dismantling all minimizing and wounding isms including racism. In this ongoing work of full belonging for all people we acknowledge that the land we worship on this day was once the home to the first peoples of this area including the Sauk, Meskwaki, and Illini peoples. We acknowledge that their way of life was tragically altered and continues to be diminished.
Something then swirls in Spirit’s air. Surrounds us. Holds us. Sinks into our bodies as we begin breathing together. Inhaling in all we just said aloud and in our hearts. Exhaling out our daily sorrows. Three times before hearing music, the prelude. The part of our worship life that we (like so many congregations) tend to chat through. What we have just done though through word and breath allows us the space to absorb sound while we continue breathing, with our hands placed on our hearts or holding our shoulders in a hug.
This practice of saying, breathing, and listening connects us to ourselves, God, and one another. Reattached and restored, we enter our ancient, familiar, liturgical practices for the next hour. Concluding with being sent out into our human constructed communities. Hanging on to all of our words like anchors.
