where does liturgy lead us?
Monday night in Grace Cathedral 240 people gathered in the spirit of Taize' - reconciliation and unity in diversity - and brought the concerns of their hearts to the cross of Christ. Our archdeacons, Anthony Turney and Kathleen Van Sickle, ahd collected prayer concerns from communities that make up the Diocese of California: LGBT, Latino/Latina, Afro-Anglican, Asian, young and old, women and men, rich and poor, and created a moving litany that summed up all those prayers.
During the service, individuals wrote their concerns on wooden hearts that they then took to the cross, and left there, in the care of Christ. This part of the service, the wooden hearts carrying our further prayers to Christ, was something Susan Peek thought of, an innovation in the Taize'-style liturgy, that added a touching dimension to an already true and deep service of worship.
The service on Monday night was all I had hoped and prayed for, and more, as it is with our prayers. God will teach us how to become a Beloved Community, and the service Monday night was a step in that journey. We were learning to support each other in our struggles and dreams, and to refer all not only to the larger human community but to God, who is both with the community and beyond it as well.
Then, last night, May 1, at the same time of the evening as we had prayed the night before, Sheila, and Mary Hadaad, and Will Scott and I were at another vigil, on the corner of Mission and 24th, to protest the ICE raids, and to ask for fair immigration laws and policies. If you read the New York Times front page article today, you'll see that rallies and vigils and protests were held yesterday all over the United States. In almost every case, though, the numbers gathered were fractions of those who rallied last year on May 1.
The reason is fear; Sheila was asked not to take photographs of the vigil last night, because participants were fearful of identification, arrest, and deportation. But here is where the learning from the liturgy of the night before could have led us into action in the world: the numbers standing in vigil on Mission and 24th could have been the equal of the crowd a year before, or could even have dwarfed those historic numbers if the Anglos, the GLBTs, the Afro-Anglicans -- if ALL of us had stood with the Latino/Latinas in their various rallies yesterday.
Jesus Christ is with us in liturgy as teacher, friend, and guide. He invites me to follow him into the streets, in solidarity with his poor brothers and sisters.
