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Every bird in flight, every creature of sea, every hair of every head is numbered and known.

In darkness and in light, whether happy or sad, asleep or awake, there is an Advocate who lingers, Who does not forget, Who notices every tear and cherishes all laughter.

Who is this Advocate, this gracious Father, this guardian Mother, this Presence whose Way is peace, whose Will is justice, whose Weal is shaped in mercy.

This One’s name cannot be contained, cannot be captured, cannot be controlled.

The Name above every name will not be tamed, will always slip from grasping hands, will not be hoarded or harvested for a profit.

The Blessed One comes to those with empty hands; to those on bended knee; to those of generous heart and gentle tongue.

This is the Master who abolishes slavery; the Lord who banishes privilege; the Savior who redeems without revenge.

Be Thou my vision, O Redeemer of all.

ALL SINGING (“Be Thou My Vision” tune): Heart of my own heart, whatever befall; still be my vision, O Servant of all.

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org.

     Call to worship
Welcome to this Circle of faith. Today we mark both the palm and the passion of the human journey toward the arms of God.

Jesus, riding a humble donkey, entered Jerusalem, cheered by the crowd.

Palms and cloaks were laid in his path as a sign of messianic hope for deliverance.

Hosanna! Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes with liberation.

We, too, long to be saved, to be delivered from occupation.

Hosanna! Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes.

But who is this one who comes, this one who conquers? Why this confusion: Mighty One, mounted on the colt of a common donkey, rather than on a stallion of war?

What does this mean? What struggle is this?

     Confession and confirmation
Morning by morning the Beloved awakens me.

Tuning my ear to heaven’s harmony.

Be gracious to me, Blessed One, for I am in distress.

My eyes are awash with grief; my tears are a drowning flood.

My bones bulge under the weight of unlived life.

Sighs crowd my heart and swell my tongue.

Jesus weeping over Jerusalem. Over Asheville. Over the Circle of Mercy.

Can you hear it? Can you hear it?

But the One who vindicates is near.

The approach of Beloved has reached our ears.

Hear this, O people of The Way: The fitness of Christ is available to all. Hide not your face from this Deliverer. Your sins are insufficient, your shortcomings are too paltry, your frailties are too insignificant and your fears are too impotent to overwhelm the Reign of Grace!

We hear, and in hearing we rejoice!

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Adaptation of a longer poem by the author, “Morning by Morning.”

Encouragement is the lime and silica that cement fickle sand into concrete resolve. The ministry of encouragement is not the “soft,” interpersonal side of our more hard-charging, public mission of confronting disruptive power.

We rejoice in the Blessed One,
who draws us up and circles us round
and builds a bulwark against gales of destruction.

Offering pastoral encouragement within the Body is not “feminine” work where mission in the larger world is “masculine.”

As the Scripture enjoins, weep with those who weep; rejoice with those who rejoice; and thereby reweave the unraveling fabric of the Beloved Community.

Nor are habits of complimenting each other to be shaped by the logic of commercial transactions: I offer winsome words to you, anticipating you will return the favor, and more, later on.

O God who ventures into the pit of every human catastrophe,
your ears catch the pitch of our cries which no mortal can hear.

The work of encouragement is done to boost the soul’s immune system. Encouragement does more than make someone “feel better.” It’s how we prepare for struggle.

Incite one another to love and good works, says the Apostle.

Encouragement is the capacity to confront fatigue, failure, even desperation, with the confidence that God is not yet done. And neither are we.

Provoke one another to fidelity amid the world’s faithless affairs.

By so doing, the Evil One’s power to rend us asunder comes undone.

The giving and receiving of timely encouragement in seasons of severity opens a portal to Heaven’s purpose and promise and power.

Blessed are those who do the truth.

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Inspired by Psalm 30; Hebrews 10:24; Romans 12:5; John 3:21

From the turbulent bowels of darkest deep, our roiling souls cry to you, oh God!

Close not your ears to the sound of our afflictions!

Draw us to the Still Point of love’s tranquil refrain, to the melody of restful hearts:

“Be still and know, still and know, know that I am God.”

In our watching and waiting, on the boundary of bedlam and the squalling, the brawling, the frivolous noise, shield us from the Confusor’s snare.

Remind us again that Heaven’s Provision will yet outlast earth’s squalid distress.

Oh, people of mercy, of promise and pardon, lean into the One who alone shall abide.

“Be still and know, still and know, know that I am God.”

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Inspired by Psalm 46 and Psalm 130.

There are many images in Scripture which express Heaven’s purpose, but none more concise than this phrase from Jesus, the one we herald as the pioneer and perfecter of our faith:

      The meek shall inherit the earth.

The powers that rule—and sometimes overtake our own hearts—consider the Way of Jesus a foolish option:

      The last shall be first, and the first will be last.

The Spirit now calls us to worship.
The worship of God involves a declaration of worth.
So let us declare again the things that are worthy:

            You have heard it said,
     You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemies.
           But I say to you, love your enemies.

Day by endless day the world insists that you are what you make; that your value equals what you earn; that your worth accumulates according to your ability to hoard.
Day by endless day the world insists that only the strong will survive. But Jesus said:

      Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth.

Day by endless day the world insists that ultimate
     power flows through the barrel of a gun;
           that mercy impairs strength;
that policies of dominance will ensure a life of prosperity.

But we believe the meek shall inherit the earth;
     that the last shall be first;
           that the way to peace involves
the risk—yes, even this, beloveds—of loving enemies.

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Inspired by Matthew 5:5, 20:16, 5:44 & 6:19, 24.

Who among you believe that grieving and lamentation are symptoms of despair?

Not so!

Only the hopeless are silent in the face of calamity—

Silenced because they no longer aspire even to be heard, much less heeded.

The labor of lament, on the other hand, is premised on the expectation that grief’s rule will be bound by the Advent of Another.

The liturgy of grief transforms the pain of lament into passion for an outcome forged in justice and tempered in mercy.

Such an outcome is not ours to impose by strength of will

Or accomplished by force of threat;

Yet it does demand of us relentless struggle and steadfast resolve.

Come, you whose beds are awash in weeping,

You whose portion is tear-mingled wine and bread of mourning.

Come, come to the mountain of Refuge.

There the Spirit, as with Jesus before, kneels ready to bathe your feet with her tears.

Hear this Word of assurance, you of wavering endurance:

The moment nears when those sowing in tears will reap shouts of extravagant joy.

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Inspired by Psalm 6:6; 42:3; 80:5; 102:9; Luke 7:38; Psalm 126:5. For an ecumenical “Service of Lament and Healing” following the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.

We are free to act boldly because we are safe.

We are safe because we are at rest.

We are at rest because we have been forgiven.

We are forgiven because we have come to know that the Spirit meets us in our weakness, not our strength.

And in the strength of our weakness we find our security; fear’s fierce grip loosens, freeing us to act boldly.

Such is the journey, ever onward. By the Clothier’s hand are we fitted with garments apropos for the Fiesta to come!

So rise up, you pilgrims, whether hale and hearty or flustered and weary. Be clothed with the sun and with power from on high, robed in righteousness, shod in the Gospel of Peace.

Round up your rowdy friends, but especially the lame and all with no claim on the Bountiful Table.

The Banquet beckons.

Your Host awaits.

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Inspired by Revelation 12:1; Luke 14:13, 24:49; Psalm 139:2, Ephesians 6:15.

History says, Don't hope on this side of the grave.
It is too much to ask for mere mortals such as us.
     Yet we say, Noli timere. Do not be afraid.

Hope is not beyond your reach. It is not in the highest
     region of heaven, or out beyond the farthest sea.
Hope need not be the exclusive province of heroic figures.
     Noli timere. Do not be afraid.

Hope is in your mouth, ready to be savored; it is in your
heart, awaiting love’s harness. Noli timere. Noli timidus.

Do not be afraid, brothers. Do not be timid, sisters.

The time will come when the longed-for tidal wave of
justice will rise up, when hope and history shall rhyme.*
     Noli timere. Do not be afraid.

So then, live toward that great sea-change on the far side
of revenge. Believe that a further shore is reachable from
     here.* Noli timere. Noli timidus.

Do not be afraid, mothers. Do not be timid, fathers.
Believe in miracles and cures and healing wells.
     Noli timere!

Behold, the Beloved summons heaven and earth to
     witness our resolve: blessings and life in the face of
     curses and death. Choose life, and rejoice evermore.

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Deuteronomist: One who accounts history to elicit response in the hearer. Written on the eve of a U.S. Congressional debate over attacking Syria, with lines selected and adapted from Deut 31. *From Irish poet and playwright Seamus Heaney’s play “The Cure at Troy: After Philoctetes by Sophocles.” “Noli timere—fear not” were Heaney’s final words to his wife before he died 30 August 2013.

A life in Christ is
           an invitation
to live according to a different rhythm.

It stimulates the courage to
           move forward
even when the path seems to crumble
beneath our feet, when every way forward
                       is shrouded in threat.

The Love of Christ is that embrace which
           untangles the anxious heart
           and calms the fretful hand
where fears are overruled by confidence and
           trembling is tempered
with pardon and permission.

It is the still, deep stream amid
Every tempest that knows
           nothing, nothing,
can separate us from the
           length and breadth
                 of Heaven’s reach.

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Written as a beloved’s funeral benediction.

From the turbulent bowels of darkest deep,
     our roiling souls cry to you, O God!

Close not your ears to the sound of our
     afflictions! Remind us again that Heaven’s
Provision will yet outlast earth’s squalid distress.

Draw us to the Still Point of love’s tranquil refrain,
     to the melody of restful hearts:

“Be still and know, still and know, know that I am God.”

In our watching and waiting, on the
     Boundary of bedlam and the squalling,
                 the brawling, the frivolous noise,
shield us from the Confusor’s snare.

“Be still and know, still and know, know that I am God.”

O people of Mercy,
     of promise and pardon,
           lean into the One
                 who alone shall abide.

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Inspired by Psalm 130 & Psalm 46.