Why have you forsaken me? A Liturgy of Doubt, Good Friday

Inspired by the Liturgists "Garden" sequence,  I developed this service for Good Friday in 2015, for Elk Grove UMC. Since our Easter Sunrise service is a joint effort with Point Pleasant UMC, I proposed that we join forces on Good Friday.

Side note: collaboration is itself a worthy goal in worship planning.  It fights insularity, practices hospitality and humility, opens the door to creativity through exposure to new ideas.  I say this because unless you explicitly value and work toward collaboration and cooperation, it's almost always easier to just do things yourself.

"Garden" is actually an Easter sequence, but it explores doubt as an expression of Good Friday.  Like a cinematic story split into multiple films, the Good Friday service was "Part 1," and would focus on doubt.  My overarching goal was that this service would be a safe space to express and vocalize doubt.

This was so counter-intuitive for me, as a practiced arguer and apologist.  I have spent much time and study exploring and articulating reasons for faith.  I had to live with my own discomfort, at times, of  planning something that did not give answers and indeed invited questioning.  And it took some digging, for sure, to find materials to use, since churches are nearly always trying to nurture and encourage belief, rather than undermine it.  But I kept asking myself this question: would an atheist or skeptic feel welcome here?  Would this engage the "nones" or the "dones?"

Other very helpful resources were Songs of Faith and Doubt, and Colby Martin's blog about his church's Liturgy of Doubt.  

Here is the order of Service:

Opening Prayer

Welcome

Introduction:

Tonight, we are going to walk through the story of Jesus’s last hours before his death, and in doing this, explore the ways in which the God we thought we knew has died.  Some of you are walking through this right now, and you are welcomed as you are and where you are.  Tonight is not about answering questions, but holding them, hearing them, and honoring them.  For some of you, tonight you will remember a time in your journey like this.  Some of you are here to walk with us, to support us in our search, to be in solidarity.

As you came in, you should have gotten a card that looks like this, with three prompts for reflection.  At various points in the service tonight, we will invite you to respond and give you some time.  And at the end, we’re going to have an open space to respond with them.  

To begin, please join me in the opening prayer.

Opening Prayer: 

A responsive reading of this prayer from Convergence Community

Readers Theatre- Gethsemane

(Excerpts From Matthew 26, using the VOICE)

“Friday” (monologue) 

Card Reflection

As you came in, you were given a card with three opportunities to respond.  Now is the time for you to consider the first question: Who have you stood with as they questioned God?  Who needs or needed you to “keep watch,” so to speak, in their time of spiritual darkness?

Music

Andrew Peterson's “The Silence of God” 

Readers Theatre – Arrest and Interrogation 

(adapted excerpts from Matthew 26-27 and John 18, using The VOICE)

Card Reflection 

Now again you have a chance to reflect and respond on your note card.  In the story we just heard, Jesus gets asked many questions, but doesn’t answer many of them.   So it is with us, as well.  What questions have you asked, but not found an answer to?

Music  

Jesus, Jesus by Noah Gundersen

Readers Theatre – Sentencing and Crucifixion 

(adapted excerpts form Matthew 27, using the VOICE)

VIDEO: Peter Rollins on Mother Theresa and Doubt

Card Reflection 

Many of the words of the song we’re going to sing now are taken from the Journals of Mother Teresa.  As we sing, you’re invited to respond to the third question on your card.

"Theresa"

Readers Theatre – Death and Betrayal

(adapted excerpts from Luke 26, using the VOICE)

“Saturday” (turned into a dramatic reading with multiple readers)

Open Space

Now we come to an open space, where you can reflect and respond in a number of ways.  We hold our questions and our doubts as sacred.  They are yours and, because we are all together in this, they are ours.  

You can come and attach your card to the cross.  This can be a way of leaving the unanswered questions to God, for God to receive and wrestle with. They can be a form of protest, like when the reformer Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses of things he opposed in the Roman church, to the church door in Wittenburg.  If you don’t want others to read them, you may fold it shut, and noboby will read them, ever.  

But I also encourage you to consider leaving the questions visible.  In our communities, questions are not frowned upon or seen as a deficiency of virtue or character or faith.

And more than that, we want to give voice to these questions. No doubt, Jesus’ disciples left the events of that Friday with a million unanswered questions.  So before you attach your card to the cross, put it in a basket next to one of our readers.  They will read your question or response aloud, for all of us to ponder, to ask with you, to hold and keep watch.  You can take your card after they are done or leave it there.

The third way I invite you to respond is to go to one of the tables and fill a sachet, a little pouch, with burial spices, to carry with you.    

At the end of this time, if you will find your seat again, we’ll close with a responsive reading of a Psalm.

Instrumental Music – Were you there? 

Special Music – "On the Willows" from Godspell

Responsive Reading: Psalm 137 

Liturgist:  Psalm 137 is a Lament from when Isrealites had been exiled to ancient Babylon, away from their religious identity in the land they believed was promised to their patriarchs.  Zion represents their political and religious hopes and identity, and to sing a song .  Please sing with us the words of the refrain in italics.  

By the rivers of Babylon,

    we sat and wept

    when we thought of Zion, our home, so far away.

How can we sing

Sing the Lord’s Song

In a foreign land?

On the branches of the willow trees,

    we hung our harps and hid our hearts from the enemy.

How can we sing

Sing the Lord’s Song

In a foreign land?

And those that surrounded us

    made demands that we clap our hands and sing—

Songs of joy from days gone by,

    songs from Zion, our home.

How can we sing

Sing the Lord’s Song

In a foreign land?

So cruelly they taunted us—haunted our memories.

How could we sing a song about the Eternal

    in a land so foreign, while still tormented, brokenhearted, homesick?

    Please don’t make us sing this song.

How can we sing

Sing the Lord’s Song

In a foreign land?

O Jerusalem, even still, don’t escape my memory.

    I treasure you and your songs, even as I hide my harp from the enemy.

And if I can’t remember,

    may I never sing a song again—

    may my hands never play well again—

For what use would it be if I don’t remember Jerusalem

    as my source of joy?

How can we sing

Sing the Lord’s Song

In a foreign land?

Sending Forth

New Ways to Pray

A Wordle of all the Psalms (World English Bible)

One of my church's unique and beautiful characteristics is our life together in prayer.  Many churches (though not all, sadly) have some part of their church service dedicated to some form of the traditional practice of "prayers of the people."  Ours typically takes the form of an open mic, passed around to those who want to pray aloud.

This last Sunday, I was asked to direct the music (our regular music director was on vacation) for our two "contemporary" services.  This being the first Sunday of the month in a Methodist Church, it was Communion Sunday.  Our typical order of service on these days is:

• Annoucements
• Three Songs - two standing, loud, fast; one seated, more reflective
• Prayers of the people
• Offering
• Scripture Reading
• "Table Talk" - a short sermon
• Communion, served in the front, by intinction
• Closing Song

The topic of this service was a continuation of the previous week's lectionary gospel reading, Luke 11:1-13.  Specifically, our pastor said he intended to focus on the obvious problem of what do with with the promise that "whatever you ask for, you shall receive," in the face of many prayer requests that go unfulfilled.

My own understanding of worship is that it does and must include these tough questions.  Few songs in the popular worship repertoire do this justice, but the Psalms give us many good examples of what do to with grief, despair, questions, and anger.  I tried to put together a set of songs that focused on capturing and expressing these things as the Psalms did. 

Some of my favorite Psalm-based songs for worship: 40, by U2, Down in the Lowlands (Originally by Charlie Peacock), Who will ascend (this is the one I know, but there are others from this Psalm). We tried doing Third Day's My hope is you, but it is so musically boring, and we didn't have an electric guitarist.

There are many, of course, based on the more joyful songs--Better is One Day by Matt Redman, Forever by Chris Tomlin--but I find laments much more rare.

I think communion is a very appropriate response to the question of unanswered prayer.  The person, life and suffering of Jesus is the only answer that carries any weight in the face of it, I believe.  To lead into that, then, I chose At the foot of the Cross, a song that speaks deeply about Jesus's solidarity with us in suffering, and his ultimate redemption of it.

But I can't leave it at just music; I'm too adventurous.  So I began to think of how I could invite others to pray in a new way, in the way of the Psalms.  What came to mind was the magnetic poetry you see on refrigerators or espresso machines at coffee shops.  So I put together my own list of words that could serve as a foundation of piecing together our own Psalms.  The Wordle above helped me a bit.

My basic format for creating a psalm was this: 1) Where I am, or what questions I have;  2) Who I acknowledge, believe, or experience God to be; and 3) What I ask or thank him for.  As I talked this idea over my with brilliant, creative, insightful, and practical wife, she suggested that I prompt people a little more specifically.  So for each of these sections of a psalm, I gave a couple prompts:

1. "My Soul is..." and "How Long will..."
2. "The Lord is..."  and "Our God is..."
3. "Grant us..." and "Save us from..." and "Thank you for..."

Instead of our typical prayer time, I invited people to come piece together their own psalm, in the format provided.  I also had blank cards for people to write their own words if they needed.  Our pastor decided that it would work well to have people come take communion right after that, so we did that. It was an open space, a different kind of feel than what we usually do, and took about 15 minutes all total.  

The benefit, I think was encouraging people to think of prayer more broadly, and to give room for other kinds of participation. This format is especially good for younger worshipers, since it is hands-on, and for those who don't feel comfortable praying into a mic for the whole gathered body to hear.  In addition, there is something spiritually formative about having to create prayers with a limited amount of words.  I found the prayers people put up were less specific, but often speaking of deeper things.  This is what art can do--express something deeper and more profound than what we normally express verbally--and this activity allowed everyone to be an artist, if only for a moment.

I am grateful to be at a church where there are enough people willing to try something new that I don't have to worry if people will participate.  One member suggested making these magnetic and making it a permanent installation.  We'll see, but I love the idea.