Lent 2018 Worship Resources
Ubuntu: Reflecting on Christian Community
Ash Wednesday, 14 February 2018
Suggested Scriptures: Isaiah 58:1-12
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
Contemporary Reading:
“Ubuntu is the Xhosa word used to describe the “tend and befriend” survival behavior. Ubuntu recognizes that human beings need each other for survival and well-being. A person is a person only through other persons, we say. We must care for one another in order to thrive.” from Made For Goodness by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and
Rev. Canon Mpho Tutu van Furth
“Ubuntu is the essence of being human. It speaks of how my humanity is caught up and bound inextricably with yours. ... We are created for a delicate network of relationships, of interdependence with our fellow human beings, with the rest of creation. ...Ubuntu speaks of spiritual attributes such as generosity, hospitality, compassion, caring, sharing. ... This concept speaks of how people are more important than things, than profits, than material possessions. It speaks about the intrinsic worth of persons not dependent on extraneous things such as status, race, creed, gender, or achievement. ...Ubuntu teaches us that our worth is intrinsic to who we are. We matter because we are made in the image of God. Ubuntu reminds us that we belong in one family - God’s family, the human family.”
from God Is Not a Christian by Archbishop Desmond Tutu
Litany (adapted from Archbishop Desmond Tutu in An African Prayer Book)
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Our God, our God, why have you forsaken us?
My God, our God,
When will we ever learn, when will they ever learn?
Oh when will we ever learn that you intended us for
Shalom, for wholeness, for peace,
For fellowship, for togetherhood, for neighborhood,
For siblinghood, for family?
When will we ever learn that you created us
As your children
As members of one family
Your family
The human family –
Created us for linking arms
To express our common humanity
God, I am filled
With anguish and puzzlement.
Why, oh God, is there so much
Suffering, such needless suffering?
Everywhere we look there is pain
And suffering.
Why must your people in
(add particular places in the world where there is suffering)
Why must there be so much killing,
So much death and destruction,
So much bloodshed, so much suffering,
So much oppression, and injustice, and poverty and hunger?
O God, my God, our God,
Please is there some explanation
For what is happening in Palestine –
Can you tell me please why
Should your people suffer so?
I don’t understand, oh God, my God, our God,
Why, oh why, must there be so much
Pain and suffering in your creation so very good and beautiful?
I am dumbfounded
I am bewildered
And in agony –
This is the world
You loved so much that for it
You gave your only Son
To hang from the cross, done to death
Love nearly overwhelmed by hate
Light nearly extinguished by darkness
Life nearly destroyed by death –
But not quite –
For love vanquished hate
For life overcame death, there –
Light overwhelmed darkness, there –
And we can live with hope.
Responsive prayer:
One: Jesus, you have taught us to pray for our enemies,
While we pray for the people of______
we pray also for the ______,
All: God, through your Spirit lead us to ubuntu.
While we pray for the ______,
we also pray for the ______.
All: God, through your Spirit lead us to ubuntu. Amen
(These blanks may be filled with contextually appropriate people that are often seen as being in opposition. This way, we pray for all as Ubuntu calls us to do)
Prayer of Reflection:
From thought to feeling
Ideas to senses
From mind to gut
Blood to breath
Desperation to inspiration
Strategy to impulse
From conditioning to dreaming
Body to being
From warring to loving
Difference to oneness
Distrust to faith
From doubt to believing
Insecurity to equilibrium
Questions to silence
From Struggle to Surrender
To Surrender
We Surrender
From imprisonment to liberation
Judgement to acceptance
Attachment to freedom
From exhaustion to enthusiasm
Dragging to dance
Holding on to letting go
Anchoring to flight
From known to unknown
Roots to wings
(adapted from a poem by South African poet Malika Lueen Ndlovu)