Dear folk of St. David’s, we gather shoulder to shoulder numb and sad and say to God how long, how long must we sing the song of Psalm 40....
11 Do not withhold your mercy from me, LORD; may your love and faithfulness always protect me. 12 For troubles without number surround me…” Psalm 40
Spiritual Walk and Musings: Don't tell me why!
To Ponder and Pray: EVEN ON SUCH A DAY by Walter Brueggemann
all about all things working together for good,
all about your watchful care and your severe mercies.
And then we are drawn up short;
by terror that strikes us, in our privilege, as insane;
by violence that shatters our illusions of well-being;
by death that reminds us of our at-risk mortality;
by smoke and fire that have the recurring smell of ovens.
We are bewildered, undone, frightened,
and then intrude the cadences of these old poets:
the cadences of fidelity and righteousness;
the sounds of justice and judgment;
the images of Sodom and Gomorrah;
the imperatives of widows and orphans.
Even on such a day we are not minded to yield on your sovereignty,
We are, we confess, sobered, put off, placed in dread,
that you are lord as well as friend,
that you are hidden as well as visible,
that you are silent as well as reassuring.
You are our God. That is enough for us … but just barely.
We pray in the name of the wounded flesh of Jesus. Amen.
[while reading Isaiah 1]
A prayer for Good Friday 1991 by Walter Brueggemann.
THE TERRIBLE SILENCING WE CANNOT MASTER
Holy God who hovers daily round us in fidelity and compassion,
this day we are mindful of another, dread-filled hovering,
that of the power of death before which we stand thin and needful.
All our days, we are mindful of the pieces of our lives <
and the parts of your world
that are on the loose in destructive ways.
We notice that wildness midst our fear and our anger unresolved.
We mark it in a world of brutality and poverty and hunger all around us.
We notice all our days.
But on this day of all days,
that great threat looms so large and powerful.
It is not for nothing
that we tremble at these three hours of darkness
and the raging earthquake.
It is not for nothing
that we have a sense of our helplessness before the dread power of death that has broken loose and that struts against our interest and even against our will.
Our whole life is not unlike the playground in the village,
lovely and delightful and
filled with squeals unafraid,
and then we remember the silencing of all those squeals in death, and we remember the legions of Kristy’s Cantabrians that are swept away in a riddle too deep for knowing.
Our whole life is like that playground and on this dread-filled Friday we pause before the terrible silencing we cannot master.
So we come in our helpless candor this day … remembering, giving thanks,
celebrating …
but not for one instant unmindful of dangers too ominous and powers too sturdy and threats well beyond us.
We turn eventually from our hurt for children lost.
We turn finally from all our unresolved losses
to the cosmic grief at the loss of Jesus.
We recall and relive that wrenching Friday when the hurt cut to your heart.
We see in that terrible hurt, our losses and your fill embrace of loss and defeat.
We dare pray while the darkness descends and the earthquake trembles,
we dare pray for eyes to see fully and mouths to speak fully the power of death all around,
we dare pray for a capacity to notice unflinching that in our happy playgrounds other children die, and grow silent,
we pray more for your notice and your promise and your healing.
Our only urging on Friday is that you live this as we must
impacted but not destroyed,
dimmed but not quenched.
For your great staying power
and your promise of newness we praise you.
It is in your power and your promise that we take our stand this day.
We dare trust that Friday is never the last day, so we watch for the new day of life.
Hear our prayer and be your full self toward us.
Amen
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