Sunday's Coming

This Sunday is my birthday! Therefore I will write only birthday-related liturgy.

What’s that? That’s neither helpful nor church? Sigh.

How about Blessing The Lord? Or seeing if Jesus can give me a great gift? Or perhaps you’ll be spending it listening to the liturgist try to pronounce Melchizedek more than once. Or maybe continuing with Job, contemplating God’s “answer” to Job’s question.

Is it stewardship season? How’s that coming? What invitations, prayers, dedications, ritual actions, or other liturgical opportunities are you engaging in this season? Please share–some of us still have no dedication-Sunday plan and we need some help!

Whatever you’re working on, stop in with your ideas, or to hear the ideas of others. It’s like a virtual coffee shop in here, complete with collaborators and comfy chairs and good background music!

This is one of those weeks in the lectionary that, when perused on Monday morning, makes you wish for a different lectionary. Perhaps the Narrative Lectionary. Or a nice sermon series on something fun and easy. Or maybe preaching through Ezekiel or something.

But if you’re stuck with the RCL…there’s always the “ode to a capable wife” (which at least we know is not the best translation ever, but still). Perhaps you’ve been following along with Rachel Held Evans’ series on “women of valor” (a better translation of that capable wife business) and will try to tackle Proverbs 31 with a new light.

Or perhaps you’ll be contemplating how faithfulness makes us as strong as a tree…will you address the end of the psalm too, though it seems contrary to experience?

Maybe you want to take on James again this week, thinking about how living from a place of wisdom and peace can create a world of wisdom and peace, and conflict creates conflict. (for fun, take note of the verses cut out of the lectionary…interesting, eh?)

Or maybe you’re wondering: if the lectionary texts had an argument about who was the greatest, who would win, and what would Jesus say? What is success in a gospel-world, and how can we live there and in our earthly-success-world at the same time?

Lots to think about this week–where are you leaning? what seeds of ideas are waiting to sprout into a new way of encountering the Holy in worship? Leave your ideas here so we can create together!

This week we have lots of hard teaching…have you ever wondered why wisdom can’t just be easy?

alas.

Wisdom calls out–standing on street corners, hawking her wares…and yet, few seem to be listening.

Even the creation–from sky to sea–is trying to offer us God’s way of wisdom.

But still we have trouble taming our tongue.

And so we come to the path of wisdom: take up your cross and follow me.

So…how will you approach these hard words this week? Anyone want to work on a confession using that proverbs text? a call to discipleship or a charge-and-benediction based on the gospel story? A call to worship expanding on the psalmist’s imagery?

Leave your ideas–big or small, fully formed or just a seed–in the comments, so we can create together!

we’re back!!! summer was nice and all, but it’s time to get back on the creative-liturgy-train. Are you back? Perhaps you’d like to flex your creative muscles–write a call to worship and send it to us! When your creative juices are flowing, send in a great invitation to offering or a prayer of dedication (stewardship season is nearly upon us, after all, we’re looking for those!). During election season we probably have plenty to confess–share a prayer of confession!

Send your submissions to liturgylink at gmail dot com. You don’t have to be a professional liturgy writer, or have something perfect, or even have the piece completed! Send it in and let the collaborative process work. One of the things we hope for in this space is the back-and-forth, the conversation where ideas flow and sparks fly and we get new ideas out of someone else’s half-formed sentence. So stop in to the comments and make conversation, send in your liturgy or ideas, and let the collaboration begin!

This week many of us are headed back to the lectionary after a summer series. Some of us are Rally-Day-ing, while others have already rallied. Some are working on the narrative lectionary this year rather than the RCL–we’d love to have your NL-related liturgy and ideas here too! Please share!

For those of us working on the RCL this week, we find the sassy Syrophonoecian woman calling out from the pages of Mark. How might she, or the response of Jesus, be a sighting of a “new year” or a call to be the church we can be?

We also find some advice for the beginning of the school year (and the Sunday School Year) in Proverbs. We have the classic call to action in James. And a prayer of trust in varying circumstances in the psalm.

We could perhaps find a theme in these readings, of faithful work within a power (or economic) differential. Or of action speaking louder than words. Or…many themes! What do you think?

Where are you headed this week? Put your ideas, thoughts, words or phrases, song suggestions, or anything else that might spark creativity in the rest of us into the comments! And send your liturgy in so we can create together!