Lent 2018 Worship ResourcesUbuntu: Reflecting on Christian Community

Second Sunday in Lent, 25 February 2018

“Invited to Wholeness”

Suggested Scripture: Mark 8:31-38

Contemporary Reading: “God’s invitation to wholeness always includes more than ourselves. God’s invitation to wholeness is ubuntu... In a life of wholeness we may face brokenness and endure woundedness, but our suffering will not be meaningless. Meaningless suffering is soul-destroying. Time and again I have been with people who have undergone unspeakable anguish. I have listened to people who have been subjected to brutal torture. I have sat with people who have borne terrible loss. Some could find no meaning in their suffering. Years after the horror had passed, the memories still held them hostage. Others, like my former colleague Tom Manthata, ...When he came out of prison he spoke to his friends in the Council of Churches. “Let us not be consumed by bitterness,” he said… Tom may not be described as an artist in the ordinary sense, but he wove meaning for all of us from the threads of his suffering.” from Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Rev. Canon Mpho Tutu van Furth, Made For Goodness

Call to Worship: A Circle expands foreverIt covers all who wish to hold handsAnd its size depends on each otherIt is a vision of solidarityIt turns outwards to interact with the outsideAnd inward for self critiqueA circle expands foreverIt is a vision of accountabilityIt grows as the other is moved to growA circle must have a centreBut a single dot does not make a CircleOne tree does not make a forestA circle, a vision of cooperation, mutuality and care

(poem by Ghanaian theologian Mercy Amba Oduyoye)

Prayer of Reflection:

Busy, normal people: the world is here.Can you hear it wailing, crying, whispering?Listen: the world is here. Don't you hear it,Praying and sighing and groaning for wholeness?Sighing and whispering: wholeness,wholeness, wholeness?An arduous, tiresome, difficult journeytowards wholeness.God, who gives us strength ofbody, make us whole.We yearn to experience wholeness inour innermost being:In health and prosperity, we continueto feel unwell,Unfulfilled, or half-filled.There is a hollowness in our pretendedwell-being:Our spirits cry out for the well-being ofthe whole human family.Wholeness means healing the hurt,Working with Christ to heal the hurt,Seeing and feeling the suffering of others,Standing alongside them.Their loss of dignity is not their loss:It is the loss of our human dignity,We busy, “normal” people.The person next to you: with a differentlanguage and culture,With a different skin or hair color-It is God's diversity, making an unbrokenrainbow circle-Our covenant of peace with God, encirclingthe whole of humanity.God, who gives us strength ofbody, make us whole. Amen.

(adapted from “An African Call for Life” in An African Prayer Book)