I was in my early 20s when I first discovered Lent. I had heard about it before, but I hadn’t thought much of it, let alone celebrated it. Now, I can’t imagine a year without this season of reflection and repentance, climaxing in Holy Week and launching us into Eastertide.
Lent is an opportunity to reflect on our weakness and need – a focus that is so antithetical to humankind’s continual quest for perfection. We come to Christ not as perfect beings, but as broken individuals. If we ever lose our understanding of how broken and needy we are, we are truly lost.
The good news of the Gospel is that Christ knows our need, takes us as we are, and transforms us by His life, death, and resurrection into new people. Every time we engage in the discipline of confession, repentance, and restoration in Him, we are preaching this Good News.
In this spirit, I offer a new Ash Wednesday prayer and five new confessions (for the five Sundays of Lent), paired with and inspired by Scripture from Lenten lectionary readings in the Book of Common Prayer. I wrote these for my own church, and they are now available to you. Until the first Sunday of Lent, they are both half-price. Here’s one of the confessions:
—
People: Father, forgive us for that which we have done and left undone,
Leader:
for wielding you as a weapon against our foes
instead of loving our enemies,
for chaining our eyes to the earth and its vanities
instead of opening our hearts to your Divine rule and reign.
for throwing our crosses aside
instead of bending our backs to their worthy weight.
You were not ashamed of us,
but took our feeble flesh upon You
and died in our place. We hesitate
to speak your name in polite conversation.
People: Lord, have mercy on us. Let your face shine again upon us.
Leader: Fill us with courage, Father, to cast off all the world offers
and take up suffering and humiliation with gladness, as those who have found
a deeper, wider joy. As we choose death daily, grant us eternal life.
People: May we speak Your Gospel in word and deed to a hungry world.
Father, we give You praise that Your purpose prevails, That You have directed the hearts of many, like creeks into rivers and rivers to the sea, to select in our nation our leaders.
We give You thanks that
You hold the hearts of these leaders in Your hands,
that You mold them like clay,
You will achieve Your purpose through them.
For those of us
who grieve the consequences of Your purpose,
let us not harbor hatred or fear,
but cast them over into Your hands.
For those of us
who are pleased with the results of Your purpose,
let us not harbor pride or mockery
but seek to be humble and attentive.
For all of us,
forgive us when we place our purposes above Your own,
forgive us when we revel in our own righteousness
and look not to Your right judgments.
May our hearts burn with love for You,
and love for our neighbors,
and rest in the peace
of Your purpose.
May we lift up petitions
for these leaders faithfully
and continually,
for You have appointed each and every one,
and You love them
and came to die for them.
They are precious in Your sight,
as are we.
Come, Lord Jesus.
We long for Your truly righteous kingdom.
Have mercy on us here
as we serve Your purpose.
Guide our steps.
Turn our hearts to the small and mighty acts
You have called us to in each and every day,
that we would proclaim Your power and glory and love
to a world in desperate need of a Savior.
Give us hope for a future
when all will be made right,
when every tear will be wiped away
and darkness be swallowed up in light.
I first tried my hand at liturgical writing when I was living in Chicago and part of Western Springs Christian Reformed Church. The worship of this body of believers was truly my first introduction to responsive written prayers, scripturally-rich orders of service, and the liturgical calendar. Initially, I was skeptical. I came from a house church tradition which upheld freedom and the leading of the Holy Spirit and eyed any form as rote and unnecessary.
But the more I experienced the order of worship at WSCRC, the more richly I encountered the story of Scripture. I began to understand more clearly how the Gospel crashes in on our daily lives and imbues our daily rituals with meaning. But mostly, when I had no words, I could rest in the arranged Scripture and the recorded worship-words of historic and contemporary saints.
I was reminded each week of the glory of God, the necessity of continual confession and repentance, the assurance of God’s grace and pardon of my sin, and what it means to live a new life in Christ. I feasted at the table of Word and Sacrament, and every time I returned I found something new. It was the exact opposite of what I had believed about “high church liturgy” growing up. It was not a substitute for encountering God, it was an aid – and such an aid submitted to His Lordship and engaged in with a heart of faith elevated my eyes and ordered my steps.
So since then, I have continued to write words of worship for whichever church body I am a part of. One in particular strikes at a very present moment in the church body: A Liturgy for Separated Worship. This responsive prayer revolves around the unique situation many of us find ourselves in right now – separated bodies meeting both online and in-person. This is not the way it’s supposed to be, but it is currently the way we function. Until embodied worship begins again, every service feels like we’re missing part of ourselves. This liturgy is free until the end of the year, when it will hopefully not be needed.
Looking to the next stage of the church calendar, I’ve also recently uploaded the following new liturgies:
All Saint’s Entry & Exit Liturgies: In some sense, this liturgy is another one that groans with the weight of separation – between the Church on earth and the Church triumphant.
Advent Introits: Lamps Lit & Canticles: These two sets of introits offer Advent candle-lighting responsive readings on scriptural themes of waiting and singing.
Peace on Earth: A Christmas Pageant: This full service is designed as a concert or pageant for your Christmas celebrations. Includes a short children’s drama, Scripture readings, reader’s texts, and suggested hymns.
Christmas Exultation: A festive, joyous responsive reading for churches to use during Christmastide (particularly on Christmas morning).
I’ll continue to upload more (and write more!) in the ensuing weeks. I hope they are of encouragement to you and your church body in worship.
(The following prayers are excerpted from an upcoming collaborative project led by Brennen Daniels and featuring words by him, Emily Steffen and myself, Wrestle Collective (vol 1 // help our unbelief). Get your copy here, and follow along on Instagram for updates!)
didymus (morning prayer) John 20:25-29
Others have seen You,
but my wound is too deep for them to mend it with their words.
I need to hold You in my arms, I need to touch the broken form of You and, physically, for myself, know the Word is wounded too.
God help my unbelief, but some of us need more.
reach into me (evening prayer) John 20:26-29
O Palpable, Present One, what consolation is this, that even (especially) in my faithlessness, You meet me?
It would be a terrible thing to stop doubting if it meant I couldn’t reach into Your side and touch Your heart.
My Lord and My God, embrace me now. Make my doubt, faith, and my faith, sight.
Originally published by the Rabbit Room here. If you don’t know them, you need to. Check them out!
Today, again, I am at the wide sink in our kitchen scrubbing up the dinner dishes.
We don’t own a dishwasher, and I don’t think we’ve ever owned one. I grew up on a chore rotation of dishwashing, so it never really struck me as a priority to have a dishwasher. Some days, however, I think about our burgeoning family of recently-seven and wonder if we’ve made a terrible error in judgment.
But this is not one of those days. The younger kids are all finally down for their naps, and my wife is out with our oldest on a mommy-daughter date. I have pressing things on my mind, but I know that cleaning up the kitchen comes first, so I settle into it.
I’m impatient on the best of days, but this simple ritual of taking fifteen minutes to wash up the dishes has become a haven for me. Maybe I just love the miniscule accomplishments of cleaning small things. It doesn’t take a day or two, or even an hour. In five seconds I can have a clean bowl, and I can set it aside. No matter that after breakfast tomorrow it will be dirty again. I can clean it again, without fuss or much energy. And as each newly-cleaned dish gathers in the drainer, my sense of accomplishment grows and grows. I even begin to think, illogically, that I can just as easily conquer the monstrous obligations lumbering in the shadows just beyond the bubble-clad light of the sink.
I make the process of stacking them all to dry a sort of Tetris challenge, to see how many I can fit before I have to hand-dry a few. I may not be good at following up on emails or planning ahead, but I am good at Tetris.
I kind of wish that my creative life was more like washing dishes. I set goals for myself all the time (don’t we all?) and try to carve out time to meet them. But it always seems like I’m staring at a pile of dirty dishes accumulating by the minute. I keep lists of my artistic dirty dishes: post that thing on Facebook, write another blog, edit those poems, write another chapter, tweet something so people know you actually have Twitter. Once in a while I even compile these lists into master lists. And since going to Hutchmoot, my pile of books I absolutely can’t do without reading has grown from hobbit-height to ent-height. In recent days I’ve mostly just glanced guiltily at this pile while watching another episode of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel with my wife.
I’m this way with messages and emails too. I treat these two inboxes like an overstuffed closet – peeking in and mumbling something about “must go through that next weekend” but secretly fearful that the moment I open the door I will be suffocated in a deluge of information that will only serve to stress me out more than I already am. So I let it all linger behind the little red dot, accumulating guilt as I accumulate messages.
And this can often become the way of my spiritual life, acquiring nudge after nudge at the base of my skull – “you know, you really ought to pray / read Scripture / confess that thing / call up and encourage that person more than you are now…” until I finally get a free hour. Then, the moment I crack my Bible open, all the other things I know I need to do crowd in on me, and what was supposed to be a spiritually refreshing time becomes a battle to just clear everything out so I have head-space to talk to God.
There are ways to combat all of these things, I hear, twelve rules for living, or was it seven habits? Because what I need most when I’m overwhelmed is a dozen reminders of what I should be doing.
But right now I’m not thinking about decluttering my inbox, or sorting my to-do list into five other to-do lists, or scheduling out a better walk with God.
I’m finding a measure of comfort in washing dishes.
It’s the small motion of caring for the things that have been placed in my care. It’s the same comfort I receive from sweeping the floor, or pulling a weed, or taking a walk, or brushing my teeth, or boiling water for pasta, or building a train track with my sons.
Somehow these things seem so unimportant that engaging in them has become a weird sort of luxury. I could consider it procrastination, but it’s not solely avoidance when it’s housework, right? Of course I have to do them, but I care about them more because they are unseen by an online world, unmeasured by a quantity-based economy, untimed by an efficiency-obsessed culture. Ordering the seemingly small and insignificant in my place becomes an act of defiance in the face of a world that pressures us all to achieve. Every moment really does become an act of worship, something holy, when we focus on taking the time needed to do the next small thing well.
The first session I went to at Hutchmoot 2019 was John Pattison’s candid discussion on Wendell Berry’s Sabbath Poems. We talked about how the concept of Sabbath, built as it was out of the seventh day of Genesis 2, was akin to the afterglow of birth. After God created, He established a full day just to delight in His creation.
At least one-seventh of our time is to be set aside purely for the purpose of enjoyment of God and His works, without the pressure of striving or achieving. We get to be still and know that He is God, and we are His deeply-loved children. We get the comforting reminder that we are not in control and it’s okay. If we take our hands off the wheel for a day, the world will still turn.
God holds this rest out to us as a gift, that we may cease striving once a week. Sabbath, at its core, is an essential reminder to ourselves that we do not make the world go round, nor do we cure the deepest ills in our souls, nor does our work hold sway over our value as God’s children. One day a week, we are to receive.
But what about those who find it practically impossible to cease labor due to a particular season of life, or who cannot just stop ministering to the sick, feeding the hungry, binding up the broken, or caring for those in their care? Where do we find rest along the way, until we can partake of another Sabbath? The days are long enough as it is that Sabbath days already seem further and further apart, and even when we find them they are interrupted. We know that we need to prioritize rest better and seek out help from our communities in difficult seasons. But as some of us discussed after the session, we still find respite only in quick gulps, like Midwesterners soaking up an hour of sun during a false spring. It’s never enough.
But is it not possible to find rest in the unfolding of our working lives as well? We are constantly lifting up our eyes to our Provider, seeking strength for the work ahead as well as rest in our weariness.
“We join our work to Heaven’s gift,
Our hope to what is left,
That field and woods at last agree
In an economy
Of widest worth.”
“1982: VII,” from This Day, Wendell Berry
I’m hoping, in my idealism, to devote this upcoming Sunday purely to resting and receiving. Yet, even on that day, I will still make a meal, wash dishes, change diapers, take a shower, and play with my children – as acts of delight and defiance, a measure of Sabbath. For Sabbath can be found not only on Sundays, even though they act as a tangible reminder to rest. It can also be found in a moment of letting go of all other pressing concerns and doing the next simple, necessary task well.
Through this lens, my habits can become havens. I begin to believe that even when I put my hands back on the wheel, the world will still turn.
What if I were to submit myself to the task before me, trusting that what I do now is freely done, for a Father Who loves me? What if I trusted that God held all the worries and dreams and chores ahead of me, that He knows my weakness and gives me His strength in the midst of it? What if I believed that something as simple as washing a dish, writing a paragraph of a story, or changing my toddler’s diaper carries eternal significance?
That would indeed be a Sabbath-filled life, a life that finds comfort in the ultimate rest ahead.
