O Emmanuel/O God with Us

A.Hanson, 2012

O Emmanuel, you bring hope for all people: Come and teach us the way of love, O Gracious God. 

In my role as public minister, I interact with many people who believe that faith in something greater than themselves is foolish. But I guess that in spite of how foolish it might seem, I would rather have hope than despair for our world.

I see many tough and terrible things, but I also see many beautiful and redeeming things.  I believe in a God that brings hope, despite all evidence to the contrary, because I do see bits of Gospel and hope and goodness in the midst of all the brokenness.

Blessings on your Christmas season!

O Rex Gentium/O King of Nations

A.Hanson, 2009. 

O hope of all nations, and their desire, you are the foundation, you are that which makes two into one: Come and save the creature whom you have fashioned from clay. 

I think a lot about human beings as creatures in my work in the hospital.  I see the most basic animalistic functions happen: screams of pain, gasping for breath, bleeding.

I have never thought about asking God to "save the creature whom you have fashioned from clay", because that slides too close to asking for a miracle.  But as I reflect on this Advent, I wonder if "saving" is much bigger than I might imagine. Saving might mean just saving from this life. It could mean death.  I need to sit with this idea a little more.

O Rex Gentium, O King of Nations, you created us from the beginning of all that is. Come and save us. O Rex Gentium, O King of Nations. Come.

O Oriens/O Rising Dawn

A.Hanson, 2014

O Rising Dawn, brightness of the light eternal, sun of compassion: come and enlighten us, we who sit in darkness and without life. 

I work a lot of overnight shifts at the hospital where I am a chaplain.  The night always stretches before me with some sense of foreboding. Traumas take on a life of their own during the night.  There is such a breath of relief that comes for everyone at dawn.  For the patients, it is relief that they have survived to see a new day.  For the staff, it is relief that they have survived another shift and can rest safely at home.

I think this breath of relief captures a bit of the explanation of Christ as Rising Dawn.  A healing light that bathes a darkened world after many hours of tense darkness.

O Oriens, O Rising Dawn, with gentle light you reveal that which the darkness hides.  Enlighten us from the darkness we hold within ourselves, from the darkness that shadows our world. O Oriens, O Rising Dawn.  Come.

O Clavis David/O Key of David

O Key of David, and scepter of the house of Israel; you reveal and you do not hide; you close and do not open: come and deliver us from the chains of our prisons, we who sit in darkness and without life. 

This particular year, this cry to "come and deliver us from the chains of our prisons, we who sit in darkness and without life" feels particularly poignant.  Advent 2014 shall forever be remembered with images of tear gas and protests on the streets of Ferguson, MO, with a garish "Season's Greetings" sign glowing overhead. Images of thousands marching for change. Images of so much pain burned into our memories.

This year there is really nothing to say except, "O Come, O Come Immanuel."

O Clavis David, O Key of David, deliver us.  Unbind us from the prisons of our world.  Sit with us in our darkness.  Free us from ourselves.  O Clavis David, O Key of David, Come.

O Radix Jesse/O Root of Jesse

A.Hanson, 2012

O Root of Jesse, you stand as a sign to the people; before you leaders shall keep silent, nations shall be reverent: come to free us, and do not delay. 

Root of Jesse is one of the weirder statements about the nature of Christ.  It basically says that Christ comes from a royal lineage, and Christ's coming has been foretold.

What strikes me about this Antiphon is the command, "Come to free us, and do not delay." What I love about the prophetic literature is God's people holding God to God's promises. This feels particularly pertinent today.


O Root of Jesse, free us and do not delay.  Be a leader of peace in a world of violence. O Radix Jesse, O Root of Jesse, come.

O Adonai/O Lord

A.Hanson, 2012 

O Lord, leader of the House of Israel, you appeared to Moses in the fire of a burning bush; On Mount Sinai you gave us your wisdom: with outstretched arm, come and redeem us. 

I think culturally we rebel against the idea of a Lord.  Adonai, or Lord, in Hebrew has connotations of a ruler and an omniscient being that Americans are uncomfortable with.  But it's not as if we do not have other lords or other things that rule over us.  We have made money our lord.  We have made success or career or education our lord.

What would happen if we surrendered to the Lord of Israel?  To the gentle wisdom of God?

O Sapientia/O Wisdom

A.Hanson, 2013

O Wisdom, you come from the mouth of the most high, and reach from one end of the earth to the other, mightily and sweetly ordering all things: come, teach us the way of wisdom.

In this particular season of Advent, we seem to have an abundance of chaos in our world. The senseless racism of our country has been made abundantly clear, despite all attempts to contain it, schoolchildren are dying in Peshawar, Pakistan, Ebola rages in Africa.

O God of Wisdom, you hold the earth in your hands.  Help us to know that you know all things and you order all things.  Help us to rest in your wisdom.  Even when it all seems so senseless.  O Sapientia, O Wisdom.  Come.

O Antiphons

A.Hanson, 2014

The O Antiphons are a set of sung refrains that are used at Vespers during the last seven days of Advent.

They get this unusual name because each refrain begins with "O" and some name of the Messiah. They pertain to some prophecy from Isaiah.

Also, they are beautiful.  So please join with me in my Advent preparation with the O Antiphons.

Liturgy Series Part X: Benediction and Dismissal

LSTC, Augustana Chapel, Chicago.
A. Hanson 2013

I have been a part of many different worship services throughout my life.  In traditional congregations, at College, at camp, and now where I work.

A Benediction is generally something along the lines of:

"The Lord Bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face to shine upon you, the Lord look upon you with favor, and give you peace.  In the name of the Father, + the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen." 

One of my absolute favorite benedictions is from Holden Village:

"O Lord God, who has called us, your servants, to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown.  Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go, but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us, through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen."

A benediction is an invocation of God's blessing as the assembly leaves worship and goes out into the world.

A dismissal is the congregation's reminder to itself as to its mission in the world.

My internship congregation says the following together every week as a dismissal:

"Renewed by Christ in Word, water, bread and wine, we go in peace to serve our community and the world.  Thanks be to God."  

Another common benediction is:

"Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.  Thanks be to God."  

This final part of the worship service calls upon God to remain present in the lives of those gathered, and help them to fulfill their vocation as people of God.

Liturgy Series Part IX: The Eucharist (otherwise known as communion)

Credit Jodi Houge, 2013. 

(After a long hiatus, the liturgy series is returning.  Life gets crazy sometimes and I don't always keep up with blogging.)

The celebration of the Eucharist is one of the most lively debates in the Church.  Who gets to eat at the communion table?  Who does not?  Should we use real bread or wafers?  Should we use only wine or grape juice too?  Should we commune by common cup, individual cups, or intinction (dipping of bread into wine)?  At what point should children be allowed to commune?  Do you need to go through a class first to "understand" communion?  Does anyone understand communion?  Should you be baptized in order to take communion?  Is one denomination's communion more valid than another's?  Should we have communion every sunday or does that cause it to become "less special" and we should restrict it to once or twice a month or even more infrequently?

And so on and so forth.  We could argue about this all day.  Everyone has an opinion.

But when we celebrate the Eucharist, what is actually going on?  (In full disclosure, I am an ELCA Lutheran, so what I am going to write will be true to my tradition.  I cannot claim to speak on behalf of any other denomination.)

What does Jesus say about this?  In Matthew 26:26-29, Mark 14:22-25, and Luke 22:14-23 we hear some variation of "In the night in which we was betrayed Jesus took bread, gave thanks, and broke it for them all to eat saying, 'Take and eat, this is my body given for you.  Do this in remembrance of me.' Again after supper he took the cup, and when he had given thanks gave it to them all to drink saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood shed for you and for all people for the forgiveness of sins.  Do this in remembrance of me.'"  

Jesus says nothing about understanding what is going on, who is old enough, when it should happen.  Jesus says to give thanks, to eat and to drink, and by doing so, remember him.  That is it.

Lutherans understand Christ to be fully present in the bread and wine, but not that they are literally transformed into the body and blood.  This has launched a thousand debates.  For me, communion is proclamation. It is Christ saying, "This is my body and blood given for you.  Do this in remembrance of my death and new life and that I have done this for you."  Communion is the guarantee that the Gospel will be preached every single Sunday without fail, regardless of what happened in the sermon.

In my time as an intern pastor, one of my joys is bringing communion to members who are hospitalized, homebound or in care facilities.  It is a joy to preside at this holy time, and a privilege to share communion and prayer and conversation with these members of our congregation.

Up next, Liturgy Series Part X: Benediction and Dismissal 

Liturgy Series Part VIII: The Offering

Denver,  2012.  A. Hanson. 

My congregation here in St Paul, Humble Walk Lutheran Church, has a really healthy attitude towards the offering.  In our worship bulletin it simply states, "We were created with a need to give."  There are no apologies about asking for money.  We are simply provided with the opportunity to give.  And we do.

The offering is one of the most awkward parts of the liturgy for many people.  As a culture, we are afraid to talk about money.  To ask for money.  Especially in church.  Because if we do, we are afraid that we are going to alienate someone.  So much of our attitude around stewardship (financial giving that provides for ministry) in the church is fear based.  Fear that we will not have enough.  Fear that if we ask we are going to offend someone.  Fear that if we ask and don't receive we are going to look foolish.  Fear, fear, fear.

In my previous career, in non-profit organizations, we talked a lot about giving.  There are a few basic premises surrounding healthy giving attitudes.  First, people give because they are asked.  They very rarely intuit what you want from them.  Next, people want to give  out of abundance towards something that is abundant.  People do not give out of desperation or to a "sinking ship."  They want to know that their contributions are going to towards something that makes an impact.  They aren't necessarily giving to keep the organization from going under.  Third, giving is not all about money.  Time is just as valuable if not more valuable than money.  Finally, people give to causes and people they care about.  Very few people will give to a church or organization just because of some intrinsic, altruistic responsibility to do so.  They will give because they are about what your church or organization is doing. So tell them about it.

Giving out of a sense of abundance is what inspired the photo above.  An overflowing sense of gratitude for the blessings that one has received.  Many people in the church tithe for their offerings.  Tithing is a biblical concept in which you give 10% of your income to the church.  My pastor in Denver describes tithing as, "I give 10% of what wasn't mine to start with back.  It's a great deal, because I get to keep 90%!"  Getting into a giving routine is a bit scary.  What if I don't have enough?  What if I can't buy that thing that I want when I want it?  I am on a fixed income? Or worse yet, I am on an UNFIXED income and have no idea what I can afford.  I think starting somewhere with giving, any kind of giving at all, is the place to start.  Because when you start giving away money, it feels good.  You get to support people and organizations and ministries and causes that you care about. And when you start giving, you are swept up in it like a stream of water and you are buoyed along.

What if we stopped being apologetic about asking for money and started thinking about it as a way of providing an opportunity for people to do what is important to them?  What if we stopped operating out of fear and operated out of abundance instead?  What if we stopped worrying about what we CANNOT give and focused instead on what we CAN?  And we all said thank you and celebrated how good it feels to give.

Part IX: The Eucharist (otherwise known as communion)

Liturgy Series Part VII: Sharing of the Peace

I really wish I remembered where I found this bumper sticker.
No clue.    A. Hanson 2013

The sharing of the peace is one of my favorite parts of the liturgy.  It occurs after the prayers of the people and before the meal.  The sharing of the peace is often seen as merely a time of greeting.  But it is so much more.

The sharing of the peace is a communal absolution.  In the words of the preacher, we are all making a confession of our human sinfulness.  And in the sharing of the peace, we acknowledge the freedom from that bondage.  We absolve one another when we say, "the peace of Christ be with you...and also with you!"

I have often wondered what our world would be like if we shared peace with one another on a more regular basis.  A sort of greeting that states, "I see the humanity in you and you see the humanity in me.  And we are bound together by our common identity in Christ."  We frequently hurt, disappoint, and otherwise harm others.  We in turn are hurt, disappointed and harmed by the human failings of other people.  What we are saying when we greet one another with the peace of Christ is "I forgive you in the name of Christ."

Our theology states that the forgiveness is not done by us.  Rather, it  is done through us by God in Christ and the Holy Spirit.  So, sin boldly.  But also forgive boldly.

Up next...

Part VIII: The Offering

Liturgy Series Part VI: Prayers of the People

Prayer Candles
St Thomas Episcopal, Denver.   A. Hanson, 2012.

The prayers of the people are also a part of the Word section of the liturgy.  These prayers are addressed to God the creator, the first person of the Trinity.  The prayers of the people are of ALL the people, so we voice them in first person plural, using "we" language.  They are a collective prayer, offered aloud by one speaker. Different congregations have different ways of voicing these prayers. My home congregation in Denver provides the opportunity to write prayer petitions at a prayer station, which are then read aloud.  At my church here in St Paul, prayers are spoken aloud during an appointed time in the service.

Each congregation also has a distinct tone in their prayers of the people as well.  One of the things that I often notice when worshipping in more evangelical (less liturgical) churches is that there is a certain prayer vernacular.  Those in prayer will say something along the lines of "Jesus, I just want to thank you.  Jesus, I just want to ask that you..."

This is a pet peeve of mine.  This sort of prayer feels apologetic.  It makes one kiss the feet of God and does not boldly ask for anything.  Jesus gave us the Lord's prayer and instructs us how to pray in Luke 11:1-13.  We are told to "ask and it shall be given to you...for anyone who asks receives."  Jesus boldly asserts, "Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish?  If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!"  We are commanded to pray for what we need and to ask boldly for it.

The prayers of the people include several general categories:

-For the church universal, its ministers and the mission of the Gospel
-For the care of creation
-For peace and justice in the world, the nations and those in authority
-For the poor, oppressed, marginalized, sick, bereaved, and lonely
-For all who suffer in mind, body, or spirit
-For the congregation and local and specific concerns
-For the faithful departed

I am in the process of writing the prayers of the people for the chapel service where I will preach next week. I am going to keep an eye on the liturgical propers for the day (certain prayers and prefaces), the news for current events, and any specific prayer requests for the seminary community.

up next...

Part VII: the sharing of the peace

Liturgy series part V: Sermon

Preaching on Epiphany at HFASS,
January 2013.  With the Abelkis clan.

Apologies that I am a day late with this post.  I have been working on producing a sermon for tonight at my congregation, Humble Walk Lutheran Church.

Preaching is one of the most misrepresented parts of the liturgy.  I think we often view it merely as a preacher standing behind a massive stone pulpit and issuing pedantic edicts to us in some sort of holier-than-thou persona.  If that is all that preaching is all about, why wouldn't we have a huge distaste for it?!

Preachers are portrayed in popular culture as buttoned up men who preach fire and brimstone judgment of others.  This rests on at least two problematic assumptions.  First, there are many different types of people who are called to be ministers of Word and Sacrament (in other words, pastors).  My denomination ordains women, LGBTQ persons, and so on.  Next, that it is the preacher's role to be above judgment and to tell others what God thinks of them.  This could also not be further from the truth.

My own understanding of what it means to be a preacher has been profoundly shaped by Gordon Lathrop's book, The Pastor: a Spirituality.  In this book, Lathrop discusses the pastor as being a broken symbol that points ever more closely to God as seen in Christ on the Cross.  The pastor is just as broken as all others.  Another formative piece for me is the Lutheran understanding of the priesthood of all believers.  This underscores that as a result of our baptism, we are all charged with preaching and carrying out the Gospel.  Some of us are set aside to preach and preside, but never set above.

The sermon is the point in the liturgy where the scriptures interact with the world.  Today as I prepare to preach on the Good Samaritan text, I am finding myself being ripped apart by the news of the Zimmerman verdict.  "Who is our neighbor?"  Stay tuned, there will be a blog post about this.

There are all sorts of methods for producing a sermon. Probably as many different methods as there are preachers.  I thought I would share my method.

1. Determine what text I will be preaching on (sometimes determined by the lectionary, sometimes selected based on a theme, sometimes picked for me by the pulpit supply congregation, etc.)

2. Read that text in a couple different translations and in my Greek-English interlinear Bible.

3. Begin mulling over the text.  I ask questions of it.  Pray about it.  Talk about it with a ton of people. Sometimes I crowd source my sermon questions on social media.

4. Go to text study.  A text study is a group of pastors, church leaders or other interested folks who study the texts with the intent of preaching them.  We talk about the implications of the text for our contexts and I draw on the wisdom of others.

5. Sometimes I consult commentaries and other resources.  Sometimes I don't.  One of my favorites is The Hardest Question, which reflects on the most difficult parts of the text.  I sometimes consult Working Preacher and usually look over The Text This Week.  I sometimes will do a google image search for images to pique my thought process.  I participate in the blogging discussion at RevGalBlogPals to engage with others about the sermonating process.

6. I usually begin my sermon with my own description of the text.  I refer to this as "opening up the text."  As I do this, I find that there are different things that stick out to me and I see things in a new way.

7. I sit quietly and wait for words to come.  Sometimes they do and I start writing.  Sometimes they don't, so instead I go for a walk or do some chores around the house to make space to hear what the Holy Spirit is saying.

8. I generally end up writing two or three drafts of a sermon.  It always feel inadequate. But I choose to trust that the Holy Spirit will make something out of my words.

9. I pray a silent prayer that God would have my words be what they would be.  Then I preach.

10. I set aside all of my feelings about the way I preached the sermon and let it be.


Here are a few things that I hold true about preaching:

a. Preaching is a dynamic art.  A sermon is something that occurs for a specific community at a specific time.  Those same circumstances will never be replicated again.  This is why I do not believe in recycling sermons in their entirety.

b. Preaching is not a one-way communication, from preacher to congregation. Rather it is a continuation of a conversation that has occurred all week about the text.  The preacher is speaking to a specific community, and they should see themselves in the sermon.  The essence of the Gospel is "for you."

c. Sermons tie together the text with the times.  You cannot ignore what is going on in yourself, your community, and the world.  Keep one eye on the scriptures and one eye on the newspapers, as the old quote goes.  Or more accurately in my case, one eye on the twitter feed.

d. There are many ways to preach. It is not just someone standing behind a pulpit.  You can engage in conversational small groups, you can act out the scriptures, you can do a literal crowd sourcing sermon during the service.  The possibilities are endless.

Jesus watching over my Greek translations

Up next:
Part VI: Prayers of the People

Liturgy Series Part IV: Reading the Scriptures

A. Hanson, Luther Seminary.  2013

The next portion of the liturgy is the Word portion. In this portion of the liturgy, we hear the scriptures and hear the word preached in a sermon.  We then proclaim that word with the hymn of the day, confess our faith with one of the creeds, offer prayers of intercession, and finally share the peace with one another.

We read from the Bible each week as part of our liturgy.

There are many different translations of the Bible into English from its original language of Hebrew (Old Testament) and Greek (New Testament).  My favorite translation is the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) and is also the most widely accepted for academic study.  

The Old Testament (more correctly called the Tanakh or Hebrew Bible) includes three parts: 

The Torah: First five books (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy)

The Nevi'im: Prophetic books. There are major and minor prophets

The Ketuvim: The writings (miscellaneous collection of books including Psalms, Song of Songs, etc).  

The New Testament includes four Gospels.  Matthew, Mark, and Luke are considered to be the Synoptic Gospels because they have many similar stories and tell the story of Jesus.  John's Gospel also tells the story of Jesus, but does so in a way that has a higher Christology (which means that Jesus is said to be the Son of God, God incarnate, etc).  The Book of Acts is the second part of Luke's Gospel and was written by the same author or group.  The remaining books in the New Testament are letters written by Paul and other early Christian leaders to specific Christian communities.  

The Bible is best viewed as a library of individual books instead of one cohesive whole.  This library is called a canon and represents the books that are generally agreed upon to be authentic.  There are also non-canonical books, called the Apocrypha, that are used in some traditions, but have some more disputed origins.  

The readings from scripture each week include a First Reading (usually from the Old Testament), a Psalm that is chanted or sung, a Second Reading (also called an Epistle and from the New Testament) and a Gospel reading from one of the four Gospels.  

There are several ways to select readings for a given Sunday.  The ELCA usually uses what is known as the Revised Common Lectionary.  This is a three-year plan for reading scripture and focuses on a different synoptic Gospel each year.  Year A is Matthew, Year B is Mark, and Year C is Luke (which is what we are in presently).  Readings from the Gospel of John are used in the seasons of Christmas, Lent, and Easter.   The lectionary attempts to tell the story of our Christian faith in a way that corresponds with the church year. 

There is a downside to using this lectionary because the readings appear to be fragmented and there are huge chunks of the Bible that never appear in lectionary texts.  In an attempt to tell a more cohesive story, two professors from Luther Seminary, Rolf Jacobsen and Craig Koester, have developed the narrative lectionary, a relatively recent invention.  This is a four year lectionary cycle that covers the sweep of the Biblical story from Creation through Paul's letters to the early Christian church.  The aim behind the narrative lectionary is to help tell our story as people of God.  

Additionally, congregations can select their own readings to correspond to a sermon series or theme for the congregation.  The preacher will build their sermon off of one or more of the readings.  

Part V: Sermon

Liturgy Series Part III: Prayer of the Day/The Church Year

A. Hanson, St Paul, MN. 2013.

The prayer of the day is when the community is gathered together in prayer.  The prayer of the day concludes the "gathering" portion of the service and leads the assembly into the Word portion of the liturgy.

There is much variety in the way that an opening prayer can be written.  The prayer includes an opening address to God ("Gracious and ever-living God"), the body of the prayer, and a closing address ("In your holy name we pray") followed by "amen."  The prayer can be written by the presiding minister or assisting minister, or a prayer from a worship book can be used that is appropriate to the season in the church year.

Yes, the church has a calendar of its own.  You might have noticed that throughout the year the vestments of the pastor (the stole) and the paraments on the altar (fancy cloths that are draped upon it) will change color.  The ELCA site has a larger description of what the colors signify here.

The church year begins with Advent.  Advent is the the season of preparation that occurs in the four weeks before Christmas.  Despite what consumer culture would have you believe, it is not a ramp up to Christmas. In fact, it is a distinct season with its own hymns and practices and is more solemn than Christmas.  The color for Advent is blue.

The season of Christmas takes place beginning on Christmas Day and running through Epiphany, which is twelve days.  It celebrates the birth of Christ and the incarnation of God (God made flesh).  The color for the season of Christmas is white.

In the time after Epiphany we celebrate the baptism of Christ, as well as the Transfiguration of Christ.  We celebrate light in the darkness of winter and Christ as the light of the world.  The color white is used for festivals in this time, while the color green is used for other sundays.

Ash Wednesday marks the start of the season of Lent.  On Ash Wednesday, we acknowledge "We are but dust and to dust we shall return" and that we cannot save ourselves from sin or death.  Many Christians receive the imposition of ashes upon their forehead as a sign of outward mark of penitence.  The ashes are made from the palms from the previous year's Palm Sunday.  The color for Ash wednesday is black.

The season of Lent begins with Ash Wednesday and lasts for 40 days.  This time echoes the time Jesus spent in the Wilderness and Moses' time on Mt Sinai.  It is a time of contemplation and preparation for Easter.  Lutherans do not understand Lent to be an entirely penitential season, but rather, a season of confession of sin rooted in the promise of God that comes through Christ on the cross.  The color for the season of Lent is purple.

Lent ends with the start of Holy Week, which begins with Palm Sunday.  I have written at length about Palm Sunday , Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and the Easter Vigil in previous posts.  This is the highest holy time in the church year.  The color gold is used for Easter (or white if gold is not available), the only time in the church year one would see these vestments and paraments.  We tell the story of Holy Week and Easter each year using the Gospel of John because it has the highest Christology out of the four Gospels.

The time after Easter is celebrated until Pentecost.  Pentecost is celebrated 50 days after Easter and celebrates the gift of the Holy Spirit and the mission of God extending to all of humanity.  We hear the story of Pentecost in the book of Acts 2, and how we are all filled with the Holy Spirit.  The story of Christ is no longer just among the disciples.  The color for Pentecost is red.

The time after Pentecost is known as "ordinary time."  Ordinary time includes some lesser festivals and occurs until Christ the King Sunday, just before Advent begins the following November/Early December.  During Ordinary Time we hear the story of God in Christ and in us.  The color for ordinary  time is green.

Up next...

Part IV: Reading the Scriptures

Liturgy Series Part II: Kyrie

A. Hanson, Salzburg, Austria. 

Kyrie Eleison, Christe Eleison, Kyrie Eleison.

Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy.

The Kyrie is a sung or spoken verse that is a part of the Gathering portion of the Liturgy.  Kyrie Eleison is derived from the Greek words for Lord, Κυριος,  and Mercy, Ελεος.

The Kyrie is derived from a story in Mark 10:46-52, in which Jesus and the disciples come upon a blind man named Bartimaeus sitting by the side of road near Jericho.  Bartimaeus, hearing that Jesus was nearby cries out, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!"  The crowd tells the blind man to be quiet over and over again.  Jesus stopped and says, "bring him here."  Jesus heals him and says, "Go, your faith has made you well."

When we cry out, "Kyrie Eleison" we are acknowledging our utter dependence on Christ for healing.  In the last 20 or 30 years, as liturgy has been re-imagined in an attempt to be relevant, one of the trends has been to create an up-tempo, festive rendition of the Kyrie.  This sort of liturgy has made the unfortunate (and confusing) move of essentially turning the Kyrie into an opening hymn and/or canticle of praise.

One of my pastor friends remarked upon hearing a particularly festive arrangement of the Kyrie, "Are we or are we not begging for mercy from the God of heaven and earth?"

Now, worship is often joyful, but the Kyrie is a prayer for God's mercy to continue to be present in us and in the assembly.  We often say upon hearing particularly painful news, "Kyrie Eleison.  Lord have mercy."  This is what we say when we are so at a loss for words that we know not what else to say in the midst of our grief and pain.  And we come to worship each week weary and hungry and desiring to be filled up with God's mercy and grace.  This is what we ask for with the words "Kyrie Eleison."

So the Kyrie is a prayer sung or spoken as part of the liturgy to bear witness to our dependence upon God for healing and strength and to ask for God's mercy to fill the church and the world.

Up next...

Part III: Prayer of the Day

Liturgy Series Part I: Confession and Forgiveness

Christ icon that I made for a class project
using magazine pages, 2011

The Confession is one of the most bewildering parts of the liturgy and probably feels really uncomfortable to members of our worshipping communities that have not been a part of a congregation before.  That, and the fact that culturally, we do not spend much time talking about our human failings.  We would rather attempt to cover them up and polish up our image and do everything possible to get ahead.

 The minister leading the confession usually leads with some sort of introduction such as,

"Let us confess our sin in the presence of God and of one another..."

As a child, and even into young adulthood, I was attempting to list all of my sins in that short bit of silence.  I was frustrated by the fact that not only did I not have enough time to confess all my sins that I remembered (in my operating definition of the time, sins were all the bad things I did), I was tortured by the fact that I could not remember all of the things that I did wrong.  And reciting as corporate confession, such as that in setting one of the the Evangelical Lutheran Worship/ELW, our main worship book,

"Most merciful God, we confess that we are captive to sin and cannot free ourselves.  We have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done and by what we have left undone.  We have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.  For the sake of your son, Jesus Christ, have mercy on us.  Forgive us, renew us, and lead, so that we may delight in your will and walk in your ways, to the glory of your holy name. Amen" 

sounded hollow at times.  These were not MY PERSONAL sins.  I was (and am) more likely to be jealous and mean to my sisters and impatient and controlling.  I found that I was frantically trying to confess all my sins as I remembered them and hoping to atone for them.

Martin Luther experienced these same frustrations and this is part of what led him to do much of his writings.  What makes Lutheran theology different is our understanding of sin.

This is probably going to come as a shock...

But sin is not something you do. It is a state in which you reside.  If we understand sin to be something we do, the reverse side is that we think there is something that we can do to save ourselves from that.  And that is simply not true.   Martin Luther refers to this as "incurvatus se" or the turning in upon the self.  What we testify to when we participate in the community confession is that we are utterly dependent on Christ.  We cannot save ourselves from sin, death, and all evil.


My friend Kae, who is the lead pastor at Mercy Seat (ELCA), describes confession in this way,

"Confession is me acknowledging that if Adam and Eve hadn't eaten that apple, I would have.  Confession is me acknowledging if those people who called for Jesus' death on Good Friday had not done so, I would have been the one shouting 'Crucify Him!'"  

Confession is painful because it gets at the very core of who we are.  But confession is not just confessing our sins.  The other component is just as important.  Forgiveness.

Confession and Absolution is proclamation of the Word.  We confess that we are dependent on Christ, but in the absolution (a fancy word for forgiveness) that is proclaimed for personally as Christ is "for you."  It is to say, Christ died for your sins for now and all time. You are forgiven. You are loved.  You belong.

The presiding minister (or any member of the priesthood of all believers, since we are all filled with the Holy Spirit and empowered to forgive sins) says something along these lines,

"God who is rich in mercy, loved us even when we were dead in sin, and made us alive together with Christ.  By grace you have been saved.  In the name of Jesus Christ your sins are forgiven.  Almighty God strengthen you with power through the Holy Spirit, that Christ may live in your hearts through faith.  Amen."

And that is it.  It is done.  There is nothing left for us to do because it has already been done for us.  To that, I say, "Thanks be to God!"  We do not need to list all of our sins, because they are known and already forgiven.  God does not need us to enumerate them and to do penance for them.

Now, private confession and absolution for specific things that weigh on the heart is a rite in the Lutheran Church and I believe deeply in this for the burdened conscience.  But this is solely a matter of pastoral care, not a prerequisite for being "right with God."

It has already been done.  Amen.

Part II: Kyrie

Liturgy Series: Introduction

A. Hanson, Haarlem, Netherlands

One of the things about which I am most passionate is liturgy.  So I am going to embark on a blog series about the different parts of the liturgy and what this means and why it matters.  There are four basic parts of the liturgy, Gathering, Word, Meal, and Sending. I am going to break these down into the subheadings that appear in our worship bulletins.

I have quite a few friends and people that are close to me who are new to Lutheranism or church in general, and liturgy is one of the most intimidating things to them.  To them, liturgy is something that everyone else seems to know and it demarcates the difference between who is "in" and who is "out."  And this is the exact opposite of what Liturgy should be.  I can only speak to my tradition, the ELCA, so I cannot speak for what liturgy looks like or means for other traditions.

Liturgy as we know it is derived from a Jewish service of the Word as practiced by Jesus himself (Luke 4:14-21) and a meal that is the sharing of bread and wine in remembrance of Christ's death and resurrection (Matthew 26:26-29).  There are scripture readings included in the liturgy, including psalms.  Each component of the liturgy has a biblical basis, although there is no specific liturgy in the Bible, per se.  You can read more about these scriptural components of liturgy, on the ELCA site at this link, Biblical Roots of the Liturgy.

Music is not tangential to the liturgy, in fact, it serves a very important function of illuminating and pointing to the texts.  It functions as proclamation.  It provides a communal way of remembering and reinforcing our shared story.

There is a long and dramatic (and dry) history outlined in the Book of Concord about how liturgy came to be what it is and how it served to differentiate the Lutherans from the Catholics, etc, etc.  But that is not what matters to most of us (although my Lutheran Confessions professor would probably beg to differ).  So I am going to spare you that discussion.

Instead, we move to...

Part I: Confession and Forgiveness