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With haggard hearts each voice imparts this plea for constancy.

Draw near, dispel confounding fear, with Heaven’s clemency.

Each tongue, by supplicating lung, invoke bright morning’s rise!

Through darkest night let love’s Delight condole all mournful eyes.

Both soul and soil alike await Redemption’s crowning glory.

Meadow, mountain, healing fountain, proclaim Resurrection’s story!

Await, awake, for Mercy’s sake—from iniquity’s domain

Shall every creature be restored to God’s sure Rule and Reign.

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

     Call to Confession
Many of us are attracted to this place because here, in this Circle of Mercy, we find the freedom to question dogmas and orthodoxies of every kind. But not just the religious kind. There is another set of dogmas and orthodoxies which entangle our lives more than we know. Over and over our social, economic and political institutions tell us that:

    •only the strong survive
    •you get what you earn
    •friends are to be rewarded and enemies are punished.

Lent is the season for exposing these illusions; for confessing and being delivered from their power; and for learning another Way to live.

Litany of Response
ALL: We journey with you, Jesus, into the desert, the place where deceptions are forced from the shadows. It’s not easy to go there. But we will. As we move to this table, relax our grasping hands, calm our restless feet, empty our hearts of the illusion that happiness comes by hoarding.

ONE: Illusion is the only thing that dies in our confession. On the other side of such death is our deliverance.

ALL: “I have plans for you,” says the Beloved, “plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future filled with hope and emptied of horror.”

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Inspired by Jeremiah 29:11.

Oh, Blessed One, Beloved Abba, whose womb squeezed forth all that is, humus and human alike, animate and inanimate together, sun and moon and galaxies, without end.

Oh, Sweet Deliverer, fruit of Mary’s annunciation, troubler of worlds and troubadour of heaven’s fidelity
whose call to the table gathers the lame and binds every shame with the promise of feast
for the lost, for the least, for the last, and all willing to sing this insurrectionary song.

Oh, Wisdom of Days, breath of life in lungs of clay; pregnant promise to Sarai and Abram. Flaming visage to Moses, whisperer to prophets and confounder of priests. Answer to Hannah’s lament and Elizabeth’s regret.

Give light from darkest night that surrounds and protects our way, even in death, sowing

Redemption’s harvest with each martyr’s blood.

For the worlds we inhabit are shaken and shattered by fearful threat and the agonized cries of soil and soul who serve as fodder for the cannons of discontent with your economy of grace.

Make us extravagant lovers in these dangerous times.

Deepen in us the capacity for reverence, sufficient to sustain the risk of our baptismal vows.

Confirm in us the assurance that one day, in the crumbling of empire, mercy will trump vengeance.

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Adaptation of the author’s poem by the same name.

Invocation and thanksgiving

Create in me a clean heart, O God.

Mercy, mercy, have mercy on me.

In the measure of your abundant mercy, clear the debris from my life.

Mercy, mercy, have mercy on me.

My failures are before me; they mock and taunt me.

Mercy, mercy, have mercy on me.

Even my bones feel the weight of disappointment.

Mercy, mercy, have mercy on me.

May the splintered places and severed joints rejoice with your
 healing promise.

From your mercy I shall rise renewed.

Create in me a sturdy heart, inscribed with your covenant pledge!

From your mercy I shall rise renewed.

Restored to your Presence, I shall again speak of your purpose.

From your mercy I shall rise renewed.

Make me fearless in the face of threat.

From your mercy I shall rise renewed.

Sisters and brothers, this is the goodness of the News we hear
and proclaim: What is needed is not perfection but penitence.
Our shortcomings do not finally confine us. Our mistakes are not
permanent. Grace is greater than our shame, and mercy will
triumph over vengeance.

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Inspired by Psalm 51.

The Prophet Joel foretold the day when the young shall see visions and the old will dream dreams. And the writer of Hebrews implored, “Do not lose heart, for you are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses.”

Come what may, come what may: we long for a summons that calls us by name.

Be careful what you ask for—these dreams and visions could get you in trouble.

Come what may, come what may: regardless the fortune, no matter the fame.

The saints of the ages are gathered in this room—a cloud of witnesses who testify that the promised future is more than the sum of the past.

Come what may, come what may: joy endures, the dream is not vain.

Even if they say you’ve lost your head? You’re out of your mind?

Come what may, come what may, let this news reach the shamed. May hearts be untamed; the earth freed, reclaimed. May this haven of faith be sustained, be sustained. World without end, unchained, unchained.

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Inspired by Hebrews 12.

All of you with voices, sing out! All who lack melodic
     tongue, raise the roof with joyful noise! If you have
     hands, clap them. Feet, tap them. Fingers, snap them.

Let even your eyelids blink out praise to the One whose
     delight drenches earth and every creature.

When you’ve had your fill of huckster dreams and foolish
     schemes; when exhausted by self-help gurus and stock
     market voodoos; when weight loss and hair gain on
     easy monthly payments disappoint:

Come home to the One who throws a party at your
     approach!

The Faithful One reclaims the breath of every death,
     adopting every orphaned child. Every martyr from
     every grave, every saint of every age, testify to
     Harvest plans from Heaven’s bounteous stage.

Every storehouse now released, to all the lost and all the
     least, every belly, every beast, bless the Name beyond
     all guile.

You prisoner, take flight. You blind, give way to sight.
     Humiliation’s reign, now stripped of fear and fright.

Every martyr, every grave, every saint of every age,
     gathers round to lend you Light through darkened
     days and restless night. Come home; come home.

Ye who are weary, come home.

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Inspired by Ps 146. Final lines adapted from the refrain of “Softly and Tenderly,” by Will L. Thompson.

And what do we mean when we speak of the Lordship of Christ? Is this to say that the Holy One is the ultimate author of vengeance and retribution? Of demeaning power and humiliation?

No, a thousand times, NO! The Lordship of Christ speaks of the coming end of all lording, of the day when the cords of subjugation will unravel.

Is the Abba of Jesus simply a cruel human father writ large and limitless? Does the Power of Heaven reside in threat against any who refuse to bend the knee? Is the Creator, finally, a terrorist?

No, a thousand times, NO! In Christ we gain bold access to that Power Whose pronouncement was that creation is good and Whose promise is that it will be so again.

To this One, and this One alone, do we bow. To all others who demand our allegiance, we say no, a thousand times, NO!

For this reason we pray that Jesus—who blazed The Way—may grant you strength through the persevering power of the Spirit.

We pray that Christ may dwell in all our hearts as we are being rooted and grounded in love.

This is our invocation: That here in this Circle of Mercy, and in every corner of creation, all shall comprehend what is the breadth and length and height and depth of Christ’s love and, thereby, gain access to the fullness of the Beloved’s presence.

(IN UNISON): We hereby declare that, by the power of the One at work within us, the Promise of God shall accomplish more than our meager minds can imagine, to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Adapted from Ephesians 3:14-21.

Thus says Yahweh, author and anchor of creation,
to the people of Promise whose memory has failed:

When you were but a babe, I cradled you. I swept you
into my arms and nestled you under my chin.

I suckled you and sang sweetly, cheek to cheek,
calming your restless hands and feet.

From Pharaoh’s deadly bargain I purchased your release.
Why have you grown tired of my attention?

What beguiling voice has led you into this wanton, wayward desert of destruction—back into the arms
of the empires of vanity and vengeance?

Shall I unleash my righteous wrath against you?
Can your trust be hinged on nothing but
Assyrian brute force?

Shall I now save you with my destructive anger?
Shall I release you to the pillage of national security?

Thus says the Most High and Holy One of Heaven:
My heart recoils at the thought of plundering you
in order to pardon you.

Instead, I will woo you. I will wait you out.

(Do you yet seek me to utter? A clue—look
for my Presence among the clutter.)

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Inspired by Hosea 11 & Matthew 7:7-8.

To what wilderness have you strayed, oh people of the Way? To what distraction have you tuned your ears? Have you not heard? To what diversion have you loaned your eyes? Have you not seen? Oh people of Mercy:

Sing chords of comfort to worried minds, tender songs to wounded hearts. Raise a song of gladness!

The One who established the foundations of the earth has not abandoned. The One whose breast has nursed you has not forsaken. Oh people of Mercy:

Sing chords of comfort to worried minds, tender songs to wounded hearts. Raise a song of gladness!

The ransom of enmity is paid! The hostile threat is answered. In God’s Mercy, the Bosom of Heaven has been restored. Oh people of Mercy:

Sing chords of comfort to worried minds, tender songs to wounded hearts. Raise a song of gladness!

Listen, and hear. Look, and see! The lowly places are raised. The lofty places erode. The stumbling paths are smoothed and the precipice is secured. The Fresh Breath of Heaven fills the air. Breathe deeply, oh people of Mercy:

Sing chords of comfort to worried minds, tender songs to wounded hearts. Raise a song of gladness!

Singing: Alleluia, alleluia, joy to every heart.

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Inspired by Isaiah 40.

The Rock of the Righteous is our God:

Who marks the boundaries between justice and vengeance;

Who blazes the Way from enmity to peace;

Who causes the wicked to stumble in their folly

But protects the weak against howling storms of contempt.

Oh, Strong Refuge, incline your ear to the clamor of children and all of weary voice.

Hasten now, all you whose life is spent with sorrow, you of bone-wasting days, of sighing weeks and storm-tossed years,

You who endure contentious tongues, threatened by gangsters and banksters of every sort,

Come to the Sheltering Presence of the One who knows,

The One who tapes your photo to Heaven’s refrigerator door,

The One who rekindles in you the gift of love on the wings of a dove.

Thou who hast by thy might led us into the light, keep us forever in the path, we pray.

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Inspired by Psalm 31 and lyrics to “Lift Every Voice and Sing.”