When we arrive at a month with a 5th Sunday, we take it as an opportunity to spend the morning moving through three liturgical movements. Each movement looks like this:

1. Scripture/teaching
2. Story
3. Song
4. Prayer

We also follow a theme during each Movement Sunday. In January 2017, the theme was Leaving, with the following movements:

1. Leaving
2. Leaving Again
3. Leaving Peace

Here is the entirety of the Liturgy of Leaving for the morning:

• Song of Gathering - "Come Ye Sinners"
• Welcome & Explanation
• Song of Invitation - "The Fire and the Flood"
• Movement I: Leaving
  • Scripture: Genesis 12:1-9
  • Story: The Relatives Came pt. 1
  • Song: "Oceans"
  • Prayer: "A hard, deep call to obedience" by Walter Brueggemann
• Movement II: Leaving Again
  • Scripture: Genesis 13:5-11
  • Story: Excerpt from Listening To Your Life by Parker Palmer
  • Song: "Jesus, We Love You"
  • Prayer: A poem by Wendell Berry
• Movement III: Leaving Peace
  • Scripture: John 14:25-31
  • Story: The Relatives Came pt. 2
  • Song: "Oh God"
  • Prayer: The Prayer Of St. Francis
  • Communion

Because part of our recording was corrupted, we have included the original studio recordings of the songs on the podcast instead of our live recordings. Text for the prayers are below.

 

A Hard, Deep Call To Obedience
You are the God who makes extravagant promises.
We relish your great promises
of fidelity
and presence
and solidarity
and we exude in them.
Only to find out, always way too late,
that your promise always comes
in the midst of a hard, deep call to obedience.

You are the God who calls people like us,
and the long list of mothers and fathers
before us,
who trusted the promise enough to
keep the call.
So we give you thanks that you are a calling God,
who calls always to dangerous new
places.
We pray enough of your grace and mercy among us
that we may be among those
who believe your promises enough
to respond to your call.
We pray in the one who embodied your promise
and enacted your call, even Jesus.
Amen.

 

From A Wendell Berry Poem

As soon as the generals and the politicos can predict the motion of your mind,
lose it.
Leave it as a sign to mark the false trail, the way you didn’t go.
Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary, some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection. 

 

Prayer Of St. Francis
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love.
Where there is injury, pardon.
Where there is doubt, faith.
Where there is despair, hope.
Where there is darkness, light.
Where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.