[LITURGY] A Liturgy for the ”Outsiders”

Intro: Hey, South Bend City Church. Welcome to today’s liturgy episode of the podcast. My name is Mariah and I’m the Director of Art and Worship here at South Bend City Church.

In this weekend’s gatherings, we centered our liturgy on the Lectionary Reading from Psalm 69. And I had the opportunity to share my personal story of the ways in which I’ve felt like an outsider and I had the opportunity to share my new song, Jesus-Loving Queer Kid with our community. Then we took some time to encourage ourselves and each other with singing and we opened up the table for all of our community to share in the Eucharist together.

If you would like to join us in the Eucharist, make sure to have some form of bread or cracker and some form of juice or wine with you. And know that when you hear Jason say, “‘This is the body of Christ broken for you and the blood of Christ shed for you,” that he’s speaking that over you as well today. Above all, we want you to know that if you’ve ever felt like an outsider in your everyday life, and especially in churches, that you are seen, you are safe, and you are loved by our community and by the divine.

Thanks so much for joining us today. Let’s join in with the rest of our community now.

Mariah: This morning, we’re gonna continue on in a liturgy. If you need reminders of those announcements, they are on the back of your program. But if you open it up to that first page, down at the bottom, we’re gonna enter into a Lectionary Reading. And the rest of our morning or at least the next 20 minutes or so, or it’s gonna focus around this reading. And I’ve asked Pam to read it for us. And then when we get to the bolded section, I ask that you join her then.

Lectionary Reading (Psalm 69)
“For I endure insults for your sake. Humiliation is written all over my face. Even my own brothers pretend they don’t know me. They treat me like a stranger. I love you more than I can say and when I humbled my soul with fasting, they insulted me for doing so. I am the subject of gossip for those who sit in the gate, and the drunkards make songs about me.

But I keep praying to you, Lord, hoping this time you will show me favor. In your unfailing love, O God, answer my prayer with your sure salvation. Rescue me from the mud. Don’t let me sink any deeper. Save me from those who hate me and pull me from these deep waters. Answer my prayers, O Lord. For your unfailing love is wonderful. Take care of me. Come and redeem me. Free me.

Mariah: So this morning we wanted to take a minute to just explore that Scripture through several different lenses. And one thing that stuck out is that sometimes I would assume that all of us at one point has maybe felt a little bit of like an outsider. And some of us have even felt that way in churches; that there’s people gossiping about us or they don’t view our faith as strong enough or whatever it is. And that can be for any number of reasons. And so the first thing we’re gonna do this morning is I’m gonna get a little vulnerable with you guys, if that’s okay.

I’m not sup–, I don’t talk about my personal life up here. One, I don’t know that it’s appropriate all the time and number two, it’s none of your business. Oh, I kind of kid. Yeah. But some of you may not know this, a year ago, I publicly came out through a social media post and that time, and I’m not gonna lie, even still sometimes that’s really scary. And I’ve been really fortunate to find this community.

But I spent 27 years of my life not knowing this community. And it left me feeling like a little bit of an outsider. And while I might not have been fully aware of my identity at every moment of my life, once I was aware of it, it left me feeling really isolated and really lonely. And I found that sometimes church was the most dangerous place for me to be.

And one thing that I was determined is that as I was coming out, I was like, “I wanna be a bridge. I wanna be who I am. And I also wanna bridge the gap between people who are like me and the church”. Because if there’s one thing that I’m not gonna let people take from me, it’s Jesus.

And so a year ago, as I was coming out, I typically do big things by writing about them. And I wrote a song. And this song might make you feel tense today, or it might make you feel seen. It’s probably gonna be one or the other. Either way, I want you to know that this is a safe place for wherever or whatever you feel here. But I wanted to share it with you because it’s my personal story of how I’ve felt that Psalm 69 in my life.

So this is for all of you who felt like an outcast or an outsider. And it’s for all the Jesus-loving queer kids like me.

Jesus-Loving Queer Kid by Mariah Keener
Verse 1
I find it hard to write this song or begin to find the words
Cause I’ve always loved God and I have always liked girls
And those two things can’t coexist or at least that’s what I was taught
In a dress for Sunday best I found myself so lost
And a decade on church stages came at way too high a cost
Cause if you knew who I loved you’d never let me walk through the doors

Chorus
If I’m like Jesus and you’re the Pharisees
Who remember all the rules and forget love intervenes?
What if that’s how the pews became the most dangerous place to be
For Jesus loving queer kid like me?

Verse 2
I came home on Wednesday and I couldn’t believe
How foreign it seemed to be on Route 283
I guess it’s true that I outgrew this place that I once called home
The roads they look so different from the less traveled one I chose
And you all have opinions on in the end where I will go
I’m not asking you to join me but consider that you read the map wrong
What if you’re wrong?

Chorus

Bridge
So throw your stones and do it quick
Do your worst I can handle it
I have braced myself for way too long
Cause I believe in the man that stooped down to ride in the sand
To see oppressed empowered to be strong
And says that in the end love can’t go wrong

Chorus

Jason: When Mariah and I were talking about that song being a part of the gathering today, I kind of asked, I was like, “hey, can I get in there afterwards?” For two reasons. One, to be able to say to you, Mariah, that we love you and we’re proud of you.

And then too, just to remind us as a community that a lot of what we’ve been learning from the beginning is that Jesus seems to see very clearly all of the hurt that we carry and all the harms that we create when we decide who’s in and out at the table. When we divide the world in that way, and it seems that so much of what he is doing is inviting us to reimagine a kingdom of universal belonging and a place for everyone. And so as much as there’s the hurts that we carry and the harms that we create, there’s also the joy and the beauty of following Jesus into a different kind of future, where we learn how to see one another and make the world safe for one another.

And in particular, he gave us this meal that we call the Eucharist or communion as this sacred expression of belonging with God and one another. And in a moment, we’ll come to this table together.

But before we do, we thought we would turn to a song that has become sort of a cry of the heart for South Bend City Church in the last few years. It echoes the blessings that Jesus gives at the beginning of his great sermon in Matthew 5, where he speaks to people going through the absolute worst and people who’ve been marginalized in every possible way. And he says, “the kingdom of God is yours,” which is to say that God and God’s kingdom are so good and so generous and available that they are for everyone and anyone. And so we thought we would bring this song into our gathering again today.

And for some, I would encourage, you to sing this with your heart, to belt it out, to put it on your lips, to celebrate it. And then for others, I know you might need to receive this song today. You might need to hear this song sung over you. And so we sit in the round so that we can sing to one another and both give and receive the heart of a song like this. And so whether you find this to be a moment where you want to speak these truths through song or whether you want to receive these truths, we’ll take a moment with this before we come to the table. And if you’re able, will you stand at your feet while we do that?

The Kingdom is Yours by Common Hymnal
Verse 1
Blessed are the ones who do not bury
All the broken pieces of their heart
Blessed are the tears of all the weary
Pouring like a sky of falling stars

Verse 2
Blessed are the wounded ones in mourning
Brave enough to show the Lord their scars
Blessed are the hurts that are not hidden
Open to the healing touch of God

Chorus
The kingdom is yours
The kingdom is yours
Hold on a little more this is not the end
Hope is in the Lord keep your eyes on Him

Verse 3
Blessed are the ones who walk in kindness
Even in the face of great abuse
Blessed are the deeds that go un- no – ticed
Serving with unguarded gratitude

Verse 4
Blessed are the ones who fight for justice
Longing for the coming day of peace
Blessed is the soul that thirsts for righteousness
Welcoming the last the lost the least

Chorus

Verse 5
Blessed are the ones who suffer violence
And still have strength to love their enemies
Blessed is the faith of those who per – se – vere
Thought they fall they’ll never know defeat

Chorus

Tag
Hold on a little more this is not the end
Hope is in the Lord keep your eyes on Him

Come to the Table by Common Hymnal
Verse 2
Come all broken, come all needy
Come all poor, and come all slaves
Come all rulers, come be seated
Come all sinners, come all saints

Verse 3
Every race, every nation
Come all rebels, come all gay
From the fringes, come to Jesus
To a table full of grace
To the table come and stay

Chorus 1
Come to the table, from near and far
Come from the shadows, come out of the dark
There’s room at the table, we saved you a seat
Come to the banquet, come join in the feast

Chorus 2
Come to the table, come eat and drink
There’s no inner circle, come dine with the king
Recline at the table, come let down your guard
You’re never a stranger, just come as you are
You’re never a stranger, just come as you are

Jason: You can be seated.

And now we come to the table of Jesus together, a place where radical love has given itself so that we might find our way to one another and discover that God has found God’s way to us.

I’m gonna ask those who are serving us today to join me on the stage. And as they do that, I wanna remind you that there was a night 2,000 years ago where Jesus knew what lay before him as he would give himself for us and for the world.

So before that happened at that meal with his friends, he took a loaf of bread and he broke it, and he said, this is my body broken for you. Take and eat. And later at that same meal, he took a cup and he said, this cup is the promise of a new covenant, of the enduring love and faithfulness of God. Drink and drink deeply.

The way we practice the Eucharist here, the table’s open to anyone who wants to be at the table with Jesus with no regard for how proud you are of the week that you lived through or even really for what you believe. The regard here is simply if you want to be at the table with Jesus, it’s our honor to welcome you there with him and with one another. When you go to the table at the high tops in the corners, you’ll find somebody there to serve you. You can simply hold out a hand and into your hand somebody will place a piece of gluten-free, soy-free, nut-free, dairy-free bread and they’ll remind you the body of Christ broken for you. Hold on to it for a moment. Don’t eat it yet. Step over and somebody will hold out a cup of grape juice, but they’ll remind you the blood of Christ shed for you. You can take the bread and dip it in the cup and then take and eat that. If you want to partake in this but you’re not able to make your way to the table, no problem. If you’ll just wait till the lines are done and raise a hand and then our servers will keep an eye out and they’ll come your way, but that’ll be our Eucharistic practice in a bit.

I’ll pray for these elements, I’ll serve those who will serve you, and then you’ll be invited to come.

Loving God, I pray that these elements would be for us, your life given for us and for the world. I pray that we would know your love in this meal, your strength in this meal, your presence in this meal, that we would discern the body of Christ, not just in the bread and the cup, but in the bodies of those all around us who join us at the table today. I would thank you for this, and we pray in the name of Jesus, amen.

The body of Christ broken for you and the blood of Christ shed for you.

 

Come to the Table by Common Hymnal
Bridge (x3)
Come be whole, come be loved
Come accepted, come now come

Chorus 1
Come to the table, from near and far
Come from the shadows, come out of the dark
There’s room at the table, we saved you a seat
Come to the banquet, come join in the feast

Chorus 2
Come to the table, come eat and drink
There’s no inner circle, come dine with the king
Recline at the table, come let down your guard
You’re never a stranger, just come as you are
You’re never a stranger, just come as you are
You’re never a stranger, just come as you are