Tuesday, May 20, 11:00 a.m.
Service of Word and Prayer
Rev. Blair Pogue, liturgist
Barbara Brown Taylor, preacher
Mark Sedio, musician
Easter Greeting and Prayer
Leader:
Let us worship the God of life and love.
All:
Alleluia. Alleluia!
Leader:
All:
Eternal Spirit,
flow through our being and open our lips;
that our mouths may proclaim your praise.
Hymn
“Joyful Is the Dark”
Readings
Exodus 20:18-21
Luke 9:32-36
Sermon
“Inside the Dark Cloud of God”
A Prayer for Darkness in an Age of Glare
Leader:
The old symbols are changing. We are too grown up to fear the bear in the closet,
or the wolf in the tangled forest behind our childhood. We no longer believe a
specter in black hood and cape lurks in the shadows, waiting to snare us. What
we now fear most slips into our streets and living rooms fully lit, planned by
people a lot like us.
All:
By candlelight, by symbolic torches and lamps of learning, we like the
ancients have been taught to pursue and love the light.
Leader:
But sometimes we shield our eyes from all the glimmer and shine…and
sometimes, Lord, we tremble in fear of some blinding ray or nuclear flash of
ultimate light that could level to ashes the world you put us in.
All:
We have not learned to govern the light we make.
Leader:
Lord, turn out the lights. Make it dark in this place, in each of us. Take us for a
moment out of the glare and cover us in “the cloud of our unknowing.”
All:
We who have prayed for centuries that you dispel the dark ask now for this
moment that you dispel the light.
Leader:
Sighting along the slender beams as we track a future tense that disappears into
galaxies, stunned by success, we track a future tense that disappears into galaxies,
stunned by success, we have hurried past what the Psalmist knew:
All:
You have hidden the truth in darkness, and through this mystery you teach
us wisdom.
Leader:
Keep us in the dark a little longer, Lord. It is here we can dream and imagine
deep, as ancient prophets did – as children do.
All:
Blind us so we can see from behind our eyes. When we slowly open them,
grant we may see again the real world, white light stopped in its tracks, light
embodied as colors that hint our home – where mountains shout and rivers
clap their hands, the Eden we lost and the new world we would build. Amen.
Blessing
Leader:
All:
May God the Creator bless and keep you;
May the beloved companion face you and have mercy upon you;
May the eternal Spirit’s countenance be turned to you and give you peace.
Amen.
Hymn text and tune used by permission under OneLicense, #E-802911
“A Prayer for Darkness in and Age of Glare” by Rod Jellema from A Slender Grace (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans
Publishing Company, 2004). Used by permission.