MID-DAY PRAYERS in Advent, December 3, 2015

MID-DAY PRAYERS in Advent, December 3, 2015

MID-DAY PRAYERS in Advent, December 3, 2015

Narrator: A different genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of Miriam,

the daughter of Anna.

  1. Sarah was the mother of Isaac
  2. Rebekah was the mother of Jacob
  3. Leah was the mother of Judah
  4. Tamar was the mother of Perez.
  5. The names of the mothers of Hezron, Ram, Amminadab, Nashon, and Salmon have been lost.

ALL: The names of the mothers have been lost.

Narrator: The sum of generations is therefore:

Fourteen from Sarah to David’s mother;

Fourteen from Bathsheba to the Babylonian deportation to Miriam,

the mother of Jesus who is called the Christ.

ALL: The generations of women from Miriam, called Mary, the mother of Jesus, continue to this day.[1]

  1. Women like Aida de Suarez, one of the laslocas – the mad women they called them – the mothers of those who had disappeared in Argentina -- who didn’t stay at home crying but danced in the Plaza de Mayo to confront the terrorizers directly.
  1. Women like LeymahGbowee, who led a Mass Peace Action in 2003 with Muslim and Christian women in Liberia that stopped the 14 years of civil war.
  1. Women like Jean Becker, Senior Advisor at Laurier, who fights for the place of Indigenous people in our university system, indigenous knowledge in our curriculum, and nurtures a place and space for indigenous students.

Let us remember our own genealogy from our matriarchal heritage and take a moment to share it with our neighbour.

Prayers

Let us give thanks, and offer prayers for the women who have formed us.

Let us give thanks for women like Aida, Leymah and Jean who have defied the structures of oppression and exploitation and broken the silences where injustice ruled.

Let us pray for the women who are oppressed by systems that see them as commodities.

Let us give thanks for those who walk alongside persons of all genders as full participants in the journey of life and raise their children to dance freely in the world.

Song (to the tune of O Come, O Come Emmanuel)

This holy season teaches us that we

Who now, with Christ, share one humanity,

Must do our best to bring this fragile earth

Into the peace that heralds a new birth.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Our freedom is at hand.

The Dawn of Justice shines upon the land.

In our Advent waiting, may we deeply feel the strong, sacred, ancient threads that connect us with those who wait: threads of longing, of justice, of compassion.

Peace.

Prepared with gratitude … strong, sacred threads.

debbielouludolph

[1]The revised genealogy of Matthew’s Gospel and the revised text of O Come O Come Emmanuel was prepared for a service of the New York Women’s Liturgy Group. I found it published in Janet Walton’s book, Feminist Liturgy: A Matter of Justice (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 2000), 49 – 51.

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