2018 Sanctuary Everywhere: A liturgical offering

2018 Sanctuary Everywhere

An opening message from the author/liturgist, Michael Harrington:

2018 Sanctuary Everywhere is a plea hoping to find a foothold and a family of co-conspirators who are looking for refuge and giving haven along the way.

“2018se” is a Plea – to discover the implication of what Sanctuary means:

Because you and I are Persons of Faith
Because there are consequences for not giving safe haven to The Refugee (anyone in any Exile).

2018 Sanctuary Everywhere seeks re-animation of the notion that we as People of Faith are protectors for those seeking refuge from oppression.

We are to claim them for the church and place them under the shield of our bodies. We are to be the container of grace for these holy people.

We are to stand and be recognized for the religious right of asylum.
Period.

These 2018se liturgies (or templates) are a sharing and invitation to the Church in Exile to join an ongoing vigil of solidarity.

Epiphany Season: A Liturgy for the Time of Manifestation

CALL TO WORSHIP:

God, is with us today,
Manifest
God, is with us today,
A public demonstration of power
A revelation of purpose
God, is with us today,
A relationship
A phenomenon
God be recognized in my mind
A sign shown clearly
A visible expression
Of Our Love

PROCESSIONAL HYMN:

Welcome to the Planet
Welcome to existence
Everyone’s here
Everyone’s here
Everybody’s watching you now
Everybody waits for you now
What happens next?
What happens next?

I dare you to move
I dare you to move
I dare you to lift yourself up off the floor
I dare you to move
I dare you to move
Like today never happened
Today never happened before (1)

PROCLAMATION:

We live, we die,
and like the grass and trees,
renew ourselves from the soft earth of the grave.
Stones crumble and decay,
faiths grow old and they are forgotten,
but new beliefs are born.
The faith of the villages is dust now…
but it will grow again…
like the trees. (2)

RESPONSE:

Remember
We remember that women always march

They always have
They persist and they resist — that’s what they do.

Being woke and…
Being transformational

Questions still left behind
The mystery of the missing women of Ciudad Juarez
The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo

One Billion Rising
No one left behind
None left blind

A READING:

I was standing on the highest mountain of them all,
and round about beneath me was the whole hoop of the world.

And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell
I understood more than I saw;
for I was seeing in a sacred manner
.. the shapes of all things in the spirit,
.. and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being.

And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people
was one of many hoops
that made one circle,
wide as daylight
and as starlight,
and in the center grew
one mighty flowering tree
to shelter all children of one mother
and one father.

And I saw that it was holy. (3)

HOMILY:

Singer-songwriter Halsey [real name Ashley Nicolette Frangipane] delivered an emotional speech about sexual abuse at the New York Women’s March:

“A Story Like Mine”

You see I’ve worked every day since I was 18
I’ve toured everywhere from Japan to Mar-a-Lago
I even went on stage that night in Chicago
when I was having a miscarriage
I mean, I pied the piper,
I put on a diaper
And sang out my spleen
to a room full of teens
What do you mean
this happened to me?

You can’t put your hands on me
You don’t know what my body has been through
I’m supposed to be safe now
I earned it

It’s 2018 and I’ve realized nobody is safe
long as she is alive
And every friend that I know has a story like mine
And the world tells me we should take it as a compliment
But then heroes like Ashley and Simone and Gabby,
McKayla and Gaga, Rosario, Aly
Remind me this is the beginning,
it is not the finale
And that’s why we’re here
And that’s why we rally
It’s Olympians and a medical resident
and not one fucking word from the man who is President
It’s about closed doors and secrets and legs and stilletos
from the Hollywood hills to the projects in ghettos
When babies are ripped from the arms of teen mothers
and child brides cry globally under the covers
Who don’t have a voice
on the magazine covers
They tell us take cover

But we are not free until all of us are free
So love your neighbor, please treat her kindly
Ask her story and then shut up and listen
Black, Asian, poor, wealthy, trans, cis, Muslim, Christian
Listen, listen and then yell at the top of your lungs
Be a voice for all those who have prisoner tongues
For the people who had to grow up way too young
There is work to be done
There are songs to be sung
Lord knows there’s a war to be won

EUCHARIST:

There is no such thing as a holy war.
There is no such thing as sacred violence.
The sacred is sacred.

Violence is violence.
The sacred is one thing.
Violence is something else altogether.
Violence is a violation, a negation.
The sacred is the sacrifice,
The blood,
The love. (5)

Remember
There are people in the world so hungry,
that God cannot appear to them
except in the form of bread. (6)

RECESSIONAL HYMN:

Welcome to the fallout
Welcome to resistance
The tension is here
The tension is here
Between who you are and who you could be
Between how it is and how it should be

I dare you to move
I dare you to move
I dare you to lift yourself up off the floor
I dare you to move
I dare you to move
Like today never happened
Today never happened before

Maybe redemption has stories to tell
Maybe forgiveness is right where you fell
Where can you run to escape from yourself?
Where you gonna go?
Where you gonna go?
Salvation is here

I dare you to move
I dare you to move
I dare you to lift yourself up off the floor

I dare you to move
I dare you to move
Like today never happened,
Today never happened,
Today never happened
Today never happened before (7)

BENEDICTION:

Creator God
Another deadly shooting
at another American high school
with other parents children.
Some will say his is not a good time to try
to have a meaningful conversation
about gun violence.
So today we pray again.
Tomorrow we stand against the wind.
Then and Now
– Amen.