Unwelcome!
God is here
His Spirit is with us
[but not with them]
so opened last night’s provocative liturgy at grace responding to the usa and uk climates of fear and shoring up borders to those from other countries. the start was a liturgy of unwelcome which included the unveiling of an icon of the god of unwelcome which was a reworking of rublev but with the faces of trump, pence and bannon – it was disturbing! we had scriptures reassuring us that god is on our side and will destroy enemies and sang a song to the god of unwelcome which included these verses…
Excluding God
Excluding God
You love me
but not my neighbour
Excluding godUnwelcoming God
Unwelcoming God
Close the door
Ring fence the table
Unwelcoming god
we then had take two which was a liturgy of welcome and included similar things. the highlight for me was meg wroe’s amazing rework of rublev’s icon with the three as migrants. we discussed together when we exclude and seem to follow a tribal god rather than the god of the whole world and all peoples recognising that there is a judge or pharisee in all of us as well as someone longing to be christlike with an open home and table. here is a link to the service in the grace archive including the unwelcome icon! and here is a pdf of it for anyone interested – it draws on several prayers, songs liturgy from other grace services. i really enjoyed and was challenged by the experience both of planning and then leading grace. and i long to follow in the way of the god and christ of welcome rather than whatever unholy gods seem to be centre stage right now. i am making this liturgy a worship trick – 69 in series 4.
[massive thanks to jon birch for the icon of unwelcome and meg wroe for the icon of welcome]
Thanks for pointing us in this direction, Jonny. It reminds me of something John Philip Newell says in his ‘Rebirthing of God’
“the greatest obstacle to compassion is not hatred. It is habitual patterns of narrow self-interest. It is a way of seeing in which we pretend that we can be well simply by looking after ourselves. Or we pretend that our nation can be safe simply by focusing on the protection of our nation, even at the expense of other nations. Such patterns of narrow self-interest become the norm, accepted and sanctioned at times even by our religious traditions. We become blind to the courage to see.”
Hi 🙂
Just wondering if I’m allowed to copy, print & use your liturgy for our own service on Sunday morning?
With many thanks.
Love & blessings, Nel
yes of course that’s fine!