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It is with careless ease that we say, “Bless God, for all life is good,” when the sun shines during our outings, when no strain threatens our budget.

It’s easy, when life is blessed with children and our ancient ones live long and die in peace.

It takes little faith to acknowledge God’s goodness when terror remains at a distance.

It’s easy, when health is secure and the future holds promise.

But life is not always and everywhere good. Storms and strains often surround us and those we love.

Children suffer, loved ones die too young, health crumbles and terror draws near.

Draw ever nearer, O God of Zarephath, divine place of Meeting in the midst of drought and destitution.

Bring us into the presence of widows whose faith is stronger than famine.

Send Elijah to accompany us to the place where hope outstrips horror.

Provide us with provisions that neither faint nor fail.

And teach us to say, along the risky journey of faith,

“Bless the Lord, O my soul, and bless God’s holy Name.”

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Inspired by 1 Kings 17:8-16.

Oh LORD, you are my shepherd, I shall not want.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?

You make me lie down in green pastures; You lead me beside still waters.

O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer; and by night, but find no rest.

You restore my soul and lead me in right paths for the Heaven’s Holy Namesake.

In you our ancestors trusted, and you delivered them. To you they cried, and were saved; in you they trusted, and were not put to shame.

Even wending through the darkest valley, I fear no evil.

Do not be far from me, for trouble is near, and there is no one to intervene.

But the scent of Your Presence is there.

O LORD, do not be far away! O Help of the helpless, come quickly to my aid!

Your rod and Your staff — they comfort me.

On you I was cast from my birth, and since my mother bore me you have been my God.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.

I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint.

You anoint my head with oil. My cup overflows.

My mouth is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws.

Surely goodness and mercy track my steps all the days of my life.

For the Beloved One did not despise or abhor the affliction of the afflicted.

And I shall inhabit the house of the LORD my whole life long.

To the Ancient of Days, indeed, shall all who sleep in the earth bow down; before the Architect of Creation shall bow all who go down to the dust, and I shall live for this Advocate.

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Inspired Psalms 22 & 23.

Sisters and brothers, heed the appeal of Heaven’s approach: The sinews of life grow from bodies adorned with the countenance of mercy.

Conform no more to the ruling arrangements. Don’t go cheap for the marketer’s bribe.

Let the eyes of your soul be refocused. Let the ears of your heart be retuned. Hold onto your birthright. Hold out for more: Don’t go cheap for pleasant lies.

Don’t go cheap, no, don’t go cheap.

Sort the news. Weigh the claims. Hawkers abound, shilling for those invested in the way things are. Hold out for more: Don’t go cheap for second-hand convictions.

Don’t go cheap, no, don’t go cheap.

If one of you has a special ability, what of it? Don’t be vain. It is not for you. Fear of its loss will poison your well. Hold out for more: Don’t go cheap for flattery’s promise.

Don’t go cheap, no, don’t go cheap.

If one of you says, “I have no gifts to give,” again I say, “Don’t be vain.” Fear of its lack will poison your well. Hold out for more: Don’t go cheap for scarcity’s threat.

Don’t go cheap, no don’t go cheap.

I, the Guarantor of the Harvest, have dug many wells in your terrain. They flow from one to the other in ways you cannot comprehend. And all draw from the same aquifer of life, freely given. Don’t go cheap for private access.

Don’t go cheap, no, don’t go cheap.

©Ken Sehested @ prayerandpolitiks.org. Inspired by Romans 12:1-8.

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.