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.↩︎
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.
In recent weeks a small snippet of scripture swirls in my mind. Words repeating themselves for days. Demanding acknowledgement. Forcing me to ask if this repetition gets its fuel from my anxiety or if Spirit speaks. The words are from Psalms:
Gentle words suggesting I wake to each day. Acknowledge my place in it. Plant myself in each hour’s time and space. Even in the too busy days of being a pastor, the chaos of moving and home repair, and the ongoing work of caring for family.
“So, teach us to count our days…”
A thought reflected on first while sitting in the quiet of an inn far away from our unpacked boxes and new unknowns. Vacation morning pulsing with no agenda. A day to rest in, hear the rhythm of. Once home, reflection continues in dawn’s daily quiet.
“So, teach us to count our days…”
Phrase reminding me to offer gratitude for the experiences contained in each day. Yet in my own situation—survivor of deep tragedy, pastor, son with chronic illnesses, new empty nester, partner again—I forget these offered moments of acknowledgement. Do not see them or push them away. And in doing so miss gratitude’s slow reveal of what loosens with change.
“So, teach us to count our days…”
I think in my own insecurities, anxiety, and unhealed wounds I hold tightly to my sons, having done so since conception. Even more since my first husband, Tony, died. Now as they move away from me in distance, I am brought back to the time before they existed on this plane. The stage before I knew and loved their father. An earthly space I occupied holding hope for them along with the despair that they might never exist.
“So, teach us to count our days…”
My sons, now six feet tall, are hope made real. And what connected me to something bigger than myself each day when raising them remains. Joined by the absorbing vocational work of writer and pastor. Past despair turning toward wondering: What comes next in this new iteration of our family’s “we?” Each of us counting our days separately yet with the others’ love and support. Life transforming from one time to the next.
“So, teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart,” the psalmist writes. Action words infusing my prayers.
God, you remain in every time and space. Teach us to live each day traversing change with grace and in doing so growing “the enlightened eyes of our hearts.” [2]Hearts seeing the truths of life together and apart. Truth building wisdom so that sight, gratitude, and compassion teach us to live well within ourselves, live well with others, live in healing, and live in you. Amen.
Pray for compassion, for just mercy, for our culture prone to carry unhealed pain buried within its layers of lies and controversy until it explodes into others–so often and again our innocents. Then get off your knees advocating with every word, deed, action, courageous works of self-healing, and posture for God’s love, compassion, and justice to rule our world. Not those humans whose pain permeates their stolen power. Prayer is like empathy, only the beginning. The first step. Stagnant unless it leads to compassionate action.
