homely liturgy
Jesus
at the shore
Jesus on the mountainside
Jesus in the temple
on the portico
through the city streets
to the cross
and so
after death and resurrection
Jesus in the sky
all
directions
Jesus
in my heart
c l couch
photo by Robert Bye on Unsplash
Golan Heights in Israel
(x = space)
x
x
Faith Alone
x
The Bible
Through a friend
Took us to Ephesians
Yesterday
Where we are saved
By grace through faith
One thing required
Of us,
To believe
x
Faith alone
Ignites the spark
As if the kindling
For the fire of grace
Were waiting
On the inside
All this time
x
Let salvation blaze
In heaven and
In testimony
While
Here we need to know
Whose means for fire
Rests
And waits
For the one thing
That matters
For a spark
A start
To save
x
Ephesians 2:8
(thank you, David)
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Andrew Seaman on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Impoverished
x
I am a Christian
(and you’ll pardon me
if I don’t mind
that you are not)
And so I believe
That Jesus saves
And the Holy Spirit indwells
x
As God creates
And so we have
The three in one
And one always in three
x
And should I be offended
Or should you
And I think neither
x
God is
And if you don’t think so
Then
You don’t think so
Though statistically
Most on Earth
Believe
In something
Someone
Greater than oneself
Who is at work
In the world
Or for some
Is standing by
x
Jesus is offensive
He excoriates
Both Jew and Gentile
He also is all love
And empties himself of godhood
On a cross
To die
The first
Last
Great sacrifice
For sin
x
And that offended evil
I am sure
And the devil wailed
While certainty in hell
Was harrowed
By the Lord
And Lord
Who came alive again
And lives for us
Offended
Or easier about
Salvation
x
So we’ve time and chance
To care about
Our part in things
I’m thinking
Keeping promises
To families
To Earth
To what is true
What is giving
What is loving
x
Some find love offensive
In the cost
Of nothing worldly to have
Or to keep
Or it isn’t love
That like grace
There are no dispensers
With requirements
Except the Lord
Who says
Love God
And each other
Do both
x
And if that’s a requirement
Well
Take it up
With the one who made you
x
There
I have offended
But I empty myself to say
I love you
And when I do so
I have done it
And maybe say it
Well
x
Love God
And believe
Believe in Earth
Not quite so solid
Through truly
Given
Believe in us
That we have a chance
That we have a choice
That might please hell
Or make a heaven
In the middle
x
Believe well
And do better
Keep nothing that relinquishing
Would make love
Wholly stronger
And viable
In an occupied world
x
Until revelation
Make it real
And in the meantime
Learning
Living
What shadows
(taught by Plato
and what others more respectable)
Reveal
x
C L Couch
x
x
Speaking finally of Narnia and Earth, the professor said, It’s all in Plato.
Except it isn’t.
x
good thoughts courtesy of the ALC at Covenant Evangelical Presbyterian Church of West Lafayette, Indiana—anything that offends, maybe insults, is from me
x
Photo by Callum Hill on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
A Good Wednesday
(Passion, Passover, Ramadan)
x
It’s Wednesday
When Amanda would
Bound—how
Does one bound
If one is not
A deer?—but she
Would bound
Into class and
Announce, “It’s
Hump Day!”
x
Now it’s Holy Week
So this is Holy
Wednesday
For which there
Are liturgies
With special
Prayers
x
We imagine
What Jesus
Might be doing now
Because we are
Conditioned
By the narrative
For timing
x
Maybe he’s visiting
With friends;
Maybe he has actions
And words
For healing
And teaching,
Knowing what’s to
Come and having
These his
Final opportunities
x
For us
This year
There is a confluence
Of events,
Of seasons:
It’s Ramadan
And also Pesach
Or Passover
x
There are several days to each
That are the same
x
Three great truths
Come together,
Great faith
Celebrated
Bittersweet
x
Bitter
With fasting
And remembrance,
Sweet with
Fasting and remembrance
x
God is great
x
The angel passes over
Faithful homes,
Jesus saves,
And the prophet receives
Revelation—goodness,
Such good chances
That we have
To respect
And enter into
Many groups
x
The places where we worship
(observant)
Entering with curiosity
To know,
To have regard
For learning
And appreciation of
Our neighbors
x
Respect, appreciation—these
Are forms of love,
The kind of love
That comes from God
To feed our faith
In one another
x
As if God could say,
Come together
Right now
Over me
x
But don’t imagine
Not a heaven or a hell:
With appreciation
Of the music
We can have some
Heaven here
And have it there
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash
(FOR ALL)
x
(x = space)
x
x
Alt
x
Are tombs
Really whitewashed
x
Maybe in a desert place
To keep the heat off
For a while
I don’t know if white
Enhances
Gathering of cool
At night
x
With herbs for scent
And preservation
Added after death
To show devotion
x
I guess we could
Understand
What might have happened
Had the guards cooperated
And helped
The rolling of the stone away
Unless they laugh
At women
Then tell them to
Roll the rock aside
On their own
x
And having gained entrance
Beholding the wrapped body
x
They might need lamps
So that they may work with care
On Jesus
Three days’ dead
And in what state
What condition
In that desert place
And nation
Well
A colony
In an empire
x
And so how brave are they
The Marys
Maybe with friends
Followed by apostles
Also doubt
As it was
From their own
Who didn’t move
On hearing
x
But back (and on) to risk attention
And arrest
For being some of them
The followers
Of the insurrecting one
State-executed
x
And here they are
Near him
The last of him
In sight of soldiers
And maybe other agents
Who paid Judas
Who has disappeared
Now want to quash
All parts
And signs
Every extremity
Of the body
Of this body
Dead in flesh
x
And now the movement
(body in the region)
Gone
Entirely
Execution
Burial
Ridicule
What works
So wins
The devilish
And worldly
Agendas
x
C L Couch
x
x
Matthew 23:26 and verses following
(plus the Passion narratives about coming to the tomb of Jesus, given in the four Christian Gospels)
x
Photo by Foto Phanatic on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
one spiritual law
x
God loves you
have faith
this is the only message
it’s enough
for anyone
at any time
x
we believe it
and for Jesus
we are saved for heaven
and have entered heaven’s realm
even now
x
like Marty’s distillation
of theology
“Jesus loves me, this I know;
for the Bible tells me so”
x
God bless and teach us
I think this is a promise
in creation
that both have happened
and will happen with
our participation
x
believe
even now
even here
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Claudio Schwarz on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Glory
x
It’s a Sunday feeling
For those who have a Sunday
To be speaking
And singing to the Lord
x
The pastor cites
The shortest psalm
As an invocation,
Which is an invitation
More so a directive
To be singing
x
Can you imagine David
Dancing first
Before the ark
When it was brought into
Jerusalem?
There was singing then
And all the instruments
We’ve heard about
That played
x
Today is Mission Sunday at this church
So there are connections to the world
x
Everyone’s invited
Everywhere
Not as a number
But as you,
You are invited
To meet Jesus
Through us
Not because we are messiahs
But because
We can quote him
Tell his story
Show you something of his love
For everyone
And the hope that the whole human world
Might be saved,
x
Which is God’s wish
But not God’s will
For God has mitigated God
In favoring our will
And our decisions
Yes, it’s the reason why
The world is so flawed
And screws up so badly
x
That according to the story
Has made us
The silent planet in the universe
Burning other planets
With what happened in the garden
And then
Going quiet
While the planet’s fate is determined
Of itself
x
Then there will be noise
x
But here is David
In Jerusalem
And there is great noise
Locally
That celebrates
That helps to consecrate
The presence and the symbol
And our rendering of faith
In holy God
And in each other
As neighbors
And a nation
x
The world will not know you, Lord;
And nations will fall
x
We could wish it were not so,
And we do
x
But not everyone will be there
In the sky
The circle won’t be broken
But our hearts,
Well,
They are other matters
x
It’s a Sunday feeling
For those who have a Sunday
And take one
Or on another day
x
We have been ransomed
From kidnapping,
From the prisons
Huge or small—all intimate
When they should not
Have to be
x
The world violates our souls
And yet we believe
And from the ashes
Of all sins consumed
At last,
We shall rise
Who choose to rise
x
The glory of the Lord
In homely ways
Inside the heart
We do not understand
x
How something so
Cosmically grand
Can live in something
So small
As our souls,
One soul by one
x
Then there is the glory
That we read about
And then imagine:
The universe made straight
While also bending low,
We with that
And all the Earth
That knows at last
This is it,
The certainty of God
In blinding presence
That will not hurt our eyes
And the song of angels,
Unbinded song
That should destroy
But will not touch eardrums
Adversely
x
The glory of the Lord
Clearly
All there is,
Compelling
As to break our souls
Though it will not—in fact,
We’ll never had been
Better,
Freer,
Then to get
Our next assignments
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Christian Cagni on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
On the First Day
x
Ash Wednesday
Let’s have ash
Upon our foreheads
Crosses that will smudge
And that’s all right
Throughout
The day into
The evening
For the season
x
We say it’s for remembrance
Of death
And our mortality
But our foreheads are warm
There’s temperature beneath
And all the little crosses
Bearing small,
Smudged,
And living
Testimony
Everywhere
x
Not bad for evangelism
Contraindicated for a show
Rather a story of
Black, loving humility
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Taylor Flowe on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
The Loneliness of God
x
God is not alone
For God is
In three parts
And always
One
And always three
x
Jesus in the flesh
Could leave
And left
For hillsides
Other isolated places
Divine agony
And privilege
For sorrow
Things to feel the first time
All alone
x
Divine surprise
Pain
And maybe
Astonishment
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Alex Blăjan on Unsplash
x
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