corporate worship

The word of the Lord was rare in those days

/ Cassidhe Hart / Leave a comment

I don’t remember why, but I was reading the story of Samuel and his mother Hannah in the book of 1st Samuel, and I was struck by a phrase that recurred several times: “the word of the Lord was rare in those days.” So I decided to write some song lyrics inspired by my meditation on the story. 

1. 
The word of God was quiet then,
and visions weren’t so widely known.
Prayers were made by violent men,
who claimed the Holy as their own, 

When Hannah came to Shiloh’s heights
and fell upon its sacred ground. 
She poured her offering of tears,
mouthing words without a sound.

“Don’t forget me, Holy One,
don’t ignore my desperate cry. 
If we can’t hear you, are you listening? 
Do you hear each anguished ‘why’?”

2. 
The word of God was quiet then,
and visions weren’t so widely known, 
so Hannah left and looked for hope 
all along the journey home. 

An answer swelled within her womb, 
a promise grew into her son.
When he was weaned, she brought him back 
in thanks for all the Lord had done. 

“I remember, Holy One,
how you listened to my cry.” 
Hannah turned her prayer to song
and lifted praise to Adonai: 

3. 
(The word of God was quiet then, 
and visions weren’t so widely known.) 
“My heart rejoices in the Lord.” 
She sang, “My strength’s in God alone.” 

“The mighty warrior’s bow has snapped; 
the stumbling ones are clothed in pow’r.
The barren woman rocks her child; 
the hungry feast on manna shower. 
 
“You remember, Holy One,
and you listen to our cry. 
Before I questioned, you were listening,
Before I asked, you gave reply.” 

4. 
The word of God was quiet then, 
and visions weren’t so widely known,
but Hannah sang with joyful faith
and nurtured seeds of hope she’d sown. 

Did her son, the prophet Samuel,
learn from her what listening means? 
Were the words of God so silent?
Whose holy visions were unseen? 

We remember, Holy One:
We must learn to hear your cry,
not in those who grasp at power,
but in the outcast asking why.

Easter 2021

/ Cassidhe Hart / Leave a comment 
While it was still dark
we grabbed our cups of warm beverages
and set off down the nearly-empty street,
the watchful eye of the half-moon
looking out from the sky growing bluer every moment. 

Everyone on the beach is a silhouette,
recognition made harder by the masks we wear.
But somehow we know each other by the choice to be present
here
in the cold dawn on the colder sand. 

The singing starts. 
It’s more muffled this year,
but not even thirteen months of pandemic 
will silence us altogether. 

We watch the horizon 
where a band of cloud
meets the placid water,
and I wonder
what we’ll actually be able to see this year. 

We sing the sky to brightness, 
and the first streaks of color break through: 
jagged lines,
like stretch marks
where the whole world has been waiting to give birth
to this particular morning
in this particular place
with these particular people shouting
“Alleluia!”

And indeed the sun does crown the cloudy horizon.
And a child marvels at just how big it is.
And the lake reflects the glowing red
into a path of light,
a pillar of fire guiding the way
into liberation.
Death has lost its sting, 
and God has arisen
in the swimming muskrat
and the calling seagulls
and the little boys gleefully kicking sand
as the round stone of the sun rolls higher into the sky,
as the pillar of fire grows too bright to look at
and sinks slowly into the water
where it becomes the promised land.
Lighthouse Beach, Evanston, IL, April 4 2021

“My God,” shouts out the suff’ring Lord 

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Written last year as we catapulted into the fullness of the pandemic and Holy Week.

To the tune of KINGSFOLD (To Mock Your Reign)

–

–

“My God,” shouts out the suff’ring Lord, 

“Why have you forsaken me?” 

Our king and the Incarnate Word

Has pow’r for just one plea. 

His body bears an anguished pain

Beyond the heavy cross. 

No human language can contain

This emptiness of loss. 

–

“My God,” yells out the hungry child,

“Why are you so far from me?” 

Their body, dirty and reviled, 

Is home to Deity: 

The lonely Christ is present there

And joins the tearful cry

That dares to give voice to despair

And hungers for reply. 

–

“My God,” cries out the broken Earth,

“Can you not hear my groan?”

This planet to which God gave birth

Now reaps what we have sown. 

The Lord of Life with flesh of clay

Is there in every death,

In each extinction, every way

Creation gasps for breath. 

–

“Where are you, God?” the desperate pray

As they reach out for a word. 

Both midnight and the brightest day,

They question who has heard. 

The lonely, sick, abused, and poor – 

Christ joins them from the cross

And echoes from his wounded core

The fullness of their loss. 

Feast of the Annunciation

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I wrote this hymn during the season of Advent this past year because I longed for new lyrics to the familiar carol “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen.” But this song also is appropriate for March 25, the Feast of the Annunciation, the day we celebrate the angel’s visit to Mary and Mary’s perplexed but wholehearted ‘yes.’ I was inspired both by Mary’s own song and by St. Basil’s ancient words: “Annunciations are frequent; incarnations are rare.” What seeks to be made alive in you today?

The angel came to Mary with the message, “Do not fear!

You are the highly favored one, and God is with you here,

For you will bear the Son of God and bring God’s kingdom near!”

O, tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy! O, tidings of comfort and joy!



When Mary heard the angel’s words, she asked, “How can this be?”

The angel opened up to her the sacred mystery,

And even then her longing grew for all to be set free.

O, tidings of wonder and joy, wonder and joy!  O, tidings of wonder and joy!

And Mary told the angel, “Here I am to serve the Lord.

I will receive God’s promises according to your word.”

And she prepared her heart to hold the Spirit then out-poured.

O, tidings of mercy and joy, mercy and joy! O, tidings of mercy and joy!

Then Mary raised her voice to God in hopeful, thankful song:

“God has begun the turning we have waited for so long:

Redemption comes to lift the weak and to reshape the strong!

O, tidings of justice and joy, justice and joy! O, tidings of justice and joy!”

The angel comes to each of us, invites us all to bear

God’s love made flesh within our lives. So let your hearts prepare!   

Will Mary’s yes take root in us and grow until we share

God’s tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy? God’s tidings of comfort and joy!

Living Holy Saturday

/ Cassidhe Hart / 2 Comments

When I was in college – when Facebook profiles still fit on one page and I tended toward a bleaker spirituality – my religious views on Facebook read: “We live in a Holy Saturday.” My point, I think, was to highlight the “already-not-yet” nature of Jesus’ beloved community, the waiting and unsureness we all feel when we are seeking God in the world. Today, it would be more accurate to say I believe we migrate through Holy Saturday, again and again, as part of our wrestling with the Divine. And right now, I think, many of us are camped in Holy Saturday, waiting, alone, not sure how to be hopeful.

I’ve often imagined what it would have felt like to be one of the women who followed Jesus, waiting for a whole sabbath day to anoint his body, sitting observantly still on the outside but tangled with fear and confusion and shock within. I’ve imagined a sort of heavy grayness, even on Holy Saturdays when the sun shines brightly. What would it feel like to believe that God had be executed, tortured, killed? To live without even an echo of resurrection?

When I walked to my congregation’s meeting house yesterday, preparing to set up the Zoom broadcast for our Good Friday service, I felt a profound sense of unreality. I couldn’t make my mind remember that I would be in the sanctuary alone, that my worship collaborators would be visible only through a screen, that every house I passed was filled with people sheltering in place, that New York had started digging mass graves for virus victims. I still felt numb when the service ended. I put away the worship elements in an empty building, and when I got home and climbed into bed, I tried to imagine what Easter could be. I cried. And I waited.

I was hoping, by the time I got to this point in writing this post, that I would have something profound to say. But I don’t. I just have emotions calling out past the numbness for expression. Anger at systems that have not prioritized the vulnerable. Grief for the many little normalcies my life has lost. Sadness for the people dying and mourning alone.  Fear as I wonder what parts of our world will be resilient. There is no other call in this moment but the call to stillness, to sit with the reality of the world as fully as I can. The women who followed Jesus knew that their task with the jars of spices would wait. They all could wait.

Most of the theological explanations for what Jesus did on Saturday have focused on the “harrowing of hell,” a sort of final victory for Christ over the death-dealing powers of Satan. The Apostles’ Creed states that Jesus “descended into hell” as its only description of what happens on this strange Saturday. No one actually knows what happened. And knowing what happened, I think, is not the point. All we can know – what can give us consolation – is that whatever happened, Jesus was present in this day, in this unreal, isolated, waiting day. And Jesus is here with us still.

Passing Peace

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It’s happened hundreds of times. When the presider said the words, “The peace of Christ be with you,” we all responded, “And also with you,” and then we stood up to pass the peace to one another. “Peace be with you.” “And with you.” Over and over, grasping each other’s hands, giving one another a hug, gently smiling, reaching out. It happens this way every week on Wednesday evenings in my seminary chapel.

But this week, just an hour earlier, our buildings and the entire campus surrounding us had been on lock-down. Our doors had been shut and secured. Office lights had been turned off. Some were crammed together in a basement study room; others were crouched behind metal file cabinets. Those of us in the chapel closed our doors and continued to prepare for worship, unsure if anyone but ourselves would be able to come. I removed myself from the musicians practicing so that I could listen for the sound of approaching gunshots.

I’d received the email as the worship group rehearsed – there were reports of a shooter; everyone on campus should shelter in place. It was an hour before we were given the all clear, though we were told that one building remained under lock-down. At the time we began our worship service, we didn’t yet know that the whole situation had been prompted by a hoax report. So when helicopters continued to circle as we sang our opening song, and when sirens blared by as we said the Prayers of the People, I felt a prolonged sense of anxiety.

Then, near the beginning of the Communion liturgy, after the confession and pardon, we engaged in that ancient ritual of passing the peace. In that moment, it felt like a subversive act, a site of resistance to the atmosphere of violence we all breath. “Peace be with you,” said with both concern and sincerity. “And also with you,” spoken as we met each other eyes and touched each other’s hands.

Earlier, in her sermon on John 12:20-26, Dr. Nancy Bedford had exhorted us to look for Jesus in resistance to the “worldly” ways of empire and to follow in Jesus’ paradoxical and life-giving way. And even earlier in the day, thousands of teenagers had peacefully left their classrooms and demanded gun law reform, even in the midst of adults’ reprimands. Peace is not easy.

The Christian call to practice peace in the midst of what Jesus calls “the world” – the network of power centers that rule through military and economic might – is not new. The American worship of war and weapons is not the first imperial force Christians have had to contend with. When Jesus said the words “Peace be with you” in his resurrection appearances, he was offering a peace that flew in the face of Rome’s militarized “Pax Romana,” which ruled through subjugation and false security. Christ invites us into his radical peace, and it is not peace of passivity or of resignation. It is an active peace that reaches out in the midst of fear and violence and says, “I see Christ’s presence in you. I extend Jesus to you. I have chosen to give my life for your well-being.”

The later news that the report of an active shooter had been hoax does not change the poignancy of our passing the peace nor the world’s need for our witness. We still live in a profoundly broken world. We live in a world where, as my colleague Alexa points out, it was reasonable and likely for us to believe that someone had obtained a gun, shot their girlfriend, and intended to do further harm with it.  We live in a world where others have had to go through a similar experience, whether hiding in their schools from a gun or in their neighborhoods from a bomb.  We live in a world where violence is a punchline.

For all these reasons and more, Christ continues to call us to give our lives for the cause of peace that passes all understanding. Perhaps that is why we pass the peace every Sunday – to turn this ancient liturgy into muscle memory, so that our practice of peace will always be stronger than the world’s way of violence.

hands-care.jpg

Hymn of “I am”

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In the spring, I was in a class entitled “Finding Words for Worship” taught by renowned hymnist and liturgist Dr. Ruth Duck.  We were all charged to try our hands at hymn writing, a task that made me profoundly nervous.  What I discovered, however, was that I found deep joy in crafting words to fit a tune.  Below is the hymn I wrote for the class.

Sung to the tune St. Columba (The King of Love my Shepherd Is, United Methodist Hymnal #138).

Based on Jesus’ I Am statements in the Gospel of John (chapters 6, 4, and 15).

I am the bread of life, my friends,

For a hungry world I’m broken.

My life I give to all who hear

And trust the Word I’ve spoken.

I am the well of truth, my friends,

Come taste the living water.

My Spirit will descend on you

And name you son and daughter.

I am the vine of love, my friends,

Your branches will I nourish.

In Love remain and make your home,

In Love will branches flourish.

I am the host who calls you friends:

Receive the meal I’ve given.

My life in you, your life in me

Will bring the feast of heaven.

© Cassidhe Hart, 2015.

Thursdays in the Lectionary – When They Were All Together in One Place

/ Cassidhe Hart / 1 Comment

This week I’m at a the Forum for Theological Exploration‘s Christian Leadership Forum, and I’m part of the team preparing the Fourm’s times of worship.  Because Pentecost is this coming Sunday, our team decided to focus on the coming of the Holy Spirit and the sometimes difficult waiting we do in anticipation of that arrival.  We read this litany at our opening worship this morning, and it was my hope in writing it that it would prepare our hearts for the often surprising activity of the Spirit.      

When they were all together in one place, God of the unexpected, your people had no way of knowing what would happen next.

We have come together to be shaken out of our complacency.

When they were all together in one place, unimaginable God, you met your disciples there, right where they had gathered.

We have come together with empty hands and tired hearts, knowing that our desire to be present is enough.

When they were all together in one place, untamable God, you breathed into their beings a holy disorder, a sacred cacophony, a resurrected life that baffles, confuses, and invites us into new ways of knowing and being.

We have come together as people still learning how to let go of our plans and expectations to make way for your wild grace.

But God, we so often forget that the miracle of Pentecost came fifty days after the miracle of Easter. There were fifty days between an encounter with the empty tomb and the formation of a Spirit-filled community. We are impatient people, and we fill the quite spaces of our lives with attempts to capture you in words, in numbers, in progress reports and projected outcomes.

Give us humble spirits and fresh eyes to pay attention to your surprising acts of justice and mercy.

God, when we seek the presence of your Holy Spirit, you call us to gather together from our places of difference and listen—to you, to each other, to the longings you stir in us.

We have come together to wait.

Come Holy Spirit.

Amen.

For the times we are walking in the wilderness

/ Cassidhe Hart / 3 Comments

A second litany for a second pop-up worship at my seminary.  The litany is based on themes from Isaiah 40:3-5 and the songs “Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord” and “Guide My Feet, Lord.”  We closed with “We are Marching in the Light of God.”  See the first pop-up worship’s litany here.

You, uncontainable God, are always coming, always making way, always breaking in where we least expect you.  Wake us up to your arrival!

Guide our feet, Lord.

You, life-giving God, come into our dried-up places and breathe out the miracle of your rejuvenating Spirit.  Walk with us in our wilderness!

Guide our feet, Lord.

You, inviting God, pull us out of our pits of fear and set us on the road to freedom.  You call us as your way-makers–show us the roads that lead to you!

Guide our feet, Lord.

You, persistent God, never leave us to travel alone.  We are held by your love and propelled by your justice with healing in our hands and fire in our hearts.  Fill us with your strength!

Guide our feet, Lord.

When we get stuck in worn-out daily liturgies, renew our practice of your presence.

Guide our feet, Lord.

When we are filled with dried-out words, ideas, and stories, bubble up in us your refreshing water of life.

Guide our feet, Lord.

When we are lost in rough relationships, redeem our interactions and re-orient our priorities.

Guide our feet, Lord. 

When we are confronted by uneven and unequal structures and systems, build us into your all-embracing family of shalom.

Guide our feet, Lord.

God, you are our road, our guide, and our final destination.  Bring us all into your glorious kingdom.

Guide our feet, Lord.

And all God’s people said,

Amen. 

A litany for difficult times in the semester …

/ Cassidhe Hart / 3 Comments

I wrote this litany for a “pop-up worship” service in March.  A group of us entered the main atrium of our school and began an unexpected short service of lament, prayer, and hope.  These words also speak to the final push at the end of the school year … or at any other time and place of stress and difficulty.  The congregational response is intended to be simple enough for people to join in without written instructions.  

The word litany, by the way, comes from the Greek words for entreaty and supplicant.  Fitting for this particular piece.      

God of all the universe, we come to you heavy-hearted and light-headed, confused, distracted, and frustrated.

Lord, we cry to you.

God of our planet-home, we come carrying equal parts anxiety and hope, and we pray that they mix into some sort of faithful future.

Lord, we cry to you.

God of every creature, great and small, we want to live in your peace and justice, but sometimes the gap between our love and your love is just so great.

Lord, we cry to you.

God who dwells in the deep places of our hearts, we want to obey your call to “be not afraid,” and so we cry out, “Lord, I believe!  Help my unbelief!”

Lord, we cry to you. 

God of every moment, we feel your insistent presence in the beauty of a birdsong, the smile of a friend, and the warmth of a blanket, and we praise you for the small things.

Lord, we cry to you.

God of the pilgrim way, we thank you that you have brought us this far and rejoice in the call you have given us.

Lord, we cry to you.

God who holds our time in your hands, we know that you promise never to abandon us, and we pray for an enlivened sense of your presence with us.

Lord, we cry to you.

God, our beginning and our end, keep pulling us into your story of salvation, keep reminding us of our own belovedness, and keep sustaining our steps as we walk into your kingdom.  And all God’s people said:

Amen.