21st Century Africana Liturgy Resources for the Thirteenth Sunday After Pentecost, Year B

Meditation
(Based on Mark 7:1-8)
Tradition, can, before you know it, determine who you are.

I washed my hands before I ate and watched the worldwide news.
New Orleans as Spike Lee accounts…
The Middle East by cable news…
Darfur, nobody shows.

I wonder, as I eat good food, why people suffer so?
The sanitized incline themselves to choose who lives and dies.
Their hands are washed and wiped and clean; then thoroughly they're dried.
"Clean hypocrites" abandon God and choose instead tradition.

Thank God, for God, who's not deterred by filthy dirt and mire.
Life isn't cute; it's filled with pain AND hope that help will come tomorrow.

Remind us that our hands were formed from the dirt some now despise.
Remind us that without God's grace. that dirty face'd be ours.

Gathering Call
Leader: We gather today hungering to be real
With genuine smiles
And actions that match our hallelujahs.
We are not content to just master the power handshake of strength.
We want also to master the partner handshake of mutual respect and mutual support.

People: No more lip-service; we want to be real!

Leader: We yearn to rise above culture and prejudice
To a mindset where foreigners and strangers are not held in contempt
And all are invited to God's table.

People: No more lip-service; we want to be real!

Hymn Selections:

• "Yes, God Is Real," 201, Songs of Zion
• "Give Me a Clean Heart," 182, Songs of Zion
• "Gift of Love," 408, United Methodist Hymnal
• "A Charge to Keep I Have," 413, United Methodist Hymnal

Morning Prayer
O God of Consistency, how good it is to hear your Word. How good it is to experience your Word for ourselves! For you are a God who keeps your Word! Close-up God, you sent us Jesus, to show us how to match our words with our actions. For Jesus there could be no "God bless you" without providing actual blessings. For Jesus, there could be no lip service to inclusiveness; but his ministry was to the poor and to the rich, to the Jew and to the Gentile, to the righteous and to the unrighteous, to the young and to the old, to men and to women. We continue to be honored by the grace that poured from Jesus' lips and his actions.

This Labor Day Sunday, we want to work to be consistent. We want to work to shed that "other face" and show just "one face" to the world. Teach us how to be consistent in all that we say and do. Deliver us from "nice-nastiness." Take these earthen vessels we call our lives and make us "doers" of your Word. Just as we depend on you, God, let others be able to depend on us. Put in us the desire to be real. Make us "examples of Your Word." In the name of the one who embraced us and showed us how to embrace the unembraceable, Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.

OR

Pastoral Prayer
(Based on James 1:18)
Gracious God, the trials of life often catch us unawares. We stumble, shocked, and wonder how it happened. But don't let us wallow in self-pity. As we struggle to stand again, remind us that today's faith came from yesterday's trials; that today's maturity came from yesterday's mistakes; that today's endurance came from yesterday's exhaustion. Build new character inside us ?? a character undaunted by trials and tribulations. Help us face the test that produces faith; the faith that produces endurance; and the endurance that leads to maturity. Along the way, we'll pause to pray and praise you for every new step and every inch of progress. Amen. Children's Time
Leader: Good morning boys and girls. (Children respond. You could also have a puppet wave good morning.)

Bible Verse: (Pre-select a child to read or recite the Bible verse. Practice with him or her before the worship service.)
Jesus said "There is nothing that goes into a person from the outside, which can make the person unclean spiritually, but what comes out of a person that makes him or her unclean" (Mark 7:15).

Leader: Have any of you ever eaten without washing your hands?
(Children answer.)

Leader: Who can show us the right way to wash your hands before you eat?
(The thought here is that children in the group may have learned several good ways to wash their hands. If the children should happen to agree on one method, be prepared to demonstrate a more elaborate way, cleaning under the fingernails and washing all the way up to the elbows.)
(Children answer.)

The Story: "Back in Jesus' time, the religious leaders taught the people special ways to wash their hands. (Demonstrate with a big bowl of water and large gestures.) The people who were the leaders of Jesus' religious group tried to say that Jesus was a bad person because some of his disciples were eating without washing their hands in that special way. They accused the disciples of having dirty hands! But Jesus said to everyone that eating with dirty hands does not make a person bad. Jesus said that what makes a person bad is doing dirty things. Jesus thought it was more important for people to be as good as they pretended to be."

Prayer (Repeat after the leader): God of love and mercy, teach me how to live a clean life. Teach me to do good things, say good clean words, and even think clean thoughts. Thank you for the people in our lives who give us good clean examples of how you want us to live. Amen.

About the Authors:
Sherrie Dobbs Johnson is the pastor of Grace United Methodist Church in Brooklyn, New York.

Kwasi I. Kena is a former staff member of the Discipleship Ministries.