Open our eyes, open our minds, open our hearts.
Show the way, drive us out of the cramped and silent spaces,
Lead us onto the open and unmarked path
For your name's sake.

With your strong Spirit's urging,
With the fire and cloud of your presence before us,
With the song of Miriam ringing in our ears,
Push us into your freedom.

For your name's sake,
Liberator,
Savior,
Guide.

AMEN.

I really dislike change, don't you? I prefer for things to stay the same, so that I know what to expect, what's going on, so I feel like I have some control over things. I love the familiar. It is very comforting and restful, especially when life is uncomfortable and distressing. Consider, for example, the service of Morning Prayer in the Book of Common Prayer. It is a historical and liturgical treasure, a gift of the Anglican Communion to the church at large, and in its elegance and beauty of language, a gift to the English-speaking world. The cadences of the prayers, the reliable cycle of biblical readings, the beloved canticles, comfort and renew the spirit by means of their beauty and familiarity. Oh my brothers and sisters, I need the familiar and I resist change.

Of course, I like for things to stay the same when I am comfortable with them, when I'm not bothered or inconvenienced by them, when I feel that they suit me to a T. But when things don't suit me, when I am troubled, or alienated, or silenced, or dismissed, or suppressed by things as they are, well, then I have a great investment in changing them. When I begin to see the missing stories (especially when they are my stories), when I hear the silence where missing voices should be (especially when this is my voice), when I notice the suppression, the denial of my sisters and brothers, well, then I find myself very uncomfortable with things as they are. Oh, my sisters and brothers, I long for change.

Since a long long time, women and others left behind in the evolution of the church's prayer into the prayers of the church's male celibate priests and bishops have made their own place for prayer and worship. Praying between the lines of the traditional liturgy, praying in private places or among the forgotten and the silenced, hiding their prayer in plain sight in nursery or schoolroom, in brush arbors and slave quarters, they found their way to God, outside the established prayer of the church of the priests and bishops, of white men of power. And God, of course, was there, in the hidden and forgotten places. And of course, the God found there looked and sounded more like the poor, and the enslaved, and the silenced and suffering women and children than otherwise.

But silence and secrecy, however necessary at times, is not enough. And finally the voice will no longer be silenced, the worshipper must claim her place in the public community of faith, must testify to the work of God in a life that has not been seen by the powerful as worthy of God's attention. So the churches of African Americans were brought to life in pain and rejection and in courage and hope. These communities reminded the church of its history, not only of slavery and violence and repression and denial, but also its heritage of liberation and freedom. And the testimony of God's work in their lives shines a light on the pathway of all people, in the lives of Martin Luther King Jr., Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, Coretta Scott King, and the countless faithful Christians who bear witness far from the public spotlight. This claim of liturgical and religious authority, previously denied, resulted in a great gift to the church, to this country, and to the whole human race. We resisted, those of us who didn't see ourselves in these stories, who could not recognize this God as being like us. But it was a blessing to us anyway.

And over 30 years ago, women began to claim their voices in public worship, claiming liturgical authority that was denied them by the church of the officials. And the women reminded the church of its history, not only of silencing and suppressing women's voices, of forgetting and distorting women's stories, but also of the strong history of women's leadership and authority in the church. This community of women reminds the church of its own stories, stories of Martha's confession of faith in Jesus as Messiah, which we just heard read, that parallels the more familiar confession of Peter. Peter's confession is regarded as the foundation of his claim to primary authority in the church. Martha's confession is disregarded. The community of women reminds us of the earliest egalitarian Christian communities led by women, what New Testament writers call "the church in her house," the community of women invites us to reclaim that egalitarian vision of community and the voice and presence of women as leaders and religious and liturgical authorities.

In claiming our place in the center of the church's life, we have offered the church many gifts. The gifts of powerful and inspired leadership, both ordained and lay. And if we have not been blessed by the strong, loving and wise leadership of women, how much poorer are we!

The gifts of song and music, in the hymns of Ruth Duck and Mary Louise Bringle and Jane Marshall and Shirley Erena Murray and Miriam Therese Winter and Deborah Friedman and many more whose names are found in our hymnals and whose poetic words are in our mouths. And if we do not have them in our hymnals, if we do not sing their hymns and songs, how much poorer are we!

Consider, for example, this lovely hymn by Ruth Duck, in which we are invited to experience God through the rich Biblical image of womb:

Womb of life, and source of being,
Home of every restless heart,
In your arms the worlds awakened,
You have loved us from the start.

We your children gather round you,
At the table you prepare,
Sharing stories, tears and laughter,
We are nurtured by your care.

Or this hymn by Mary Louise Bringle for morning prayer that reminds us of the witness of women of faith, including Martha' confession:

Awake with timbrel and with dance,
And sing to God on high.
With olive wreath and waving branch
Our Maker glorify!

Join Sarah, blest with laughing child,
And Deborah, fierce and strong.
Join Judith's spirit, undefiled,
And Miriam's triumph song.

Hear Christ call, "Little girl, arise!"
As Jairus' daughter lives.
Watch bent grow straight,
And recognize the healing Jesus gives.

Awake with song and glad acclaim.
God's daily gifts discern.
With Martha, name Christ's holy name.
With Mary, seek and learn.

Consider the gifts of prayer and liturgy, both spoken and sung, that offer the church the expansive language of God and people and earth that calls us out of our narrow views into a wider place. An extraordinary example of prayer arising from suffering and despair is the book A Journey Towards Freedom: A Haggadah for women who have experienced domestic violence, reflecting three years of observing Passover with survivors of domestic violence, who composed many of the prayers and meditations.

Another example, from the Christian community, is the daily prayer book written by my friend Frank Henderson, a retired biochemist with a passion for medieval liturgy and feminist prayer. Drawing on the ancient patterns of daily morning and evening prayer of Christians, he creates four liturgies for morning and evening, each focused on women or female symbolism: The anointing women, Women evangelists and Apostles, Holy Wisdom, and the Creator and Creation.

Here is the morning thanksgiving from the service for Women Evangelists and Apostles, from A Prayer Book for Remembering the Women:

I invite you to make the response after each versicle: Accept our morning thanks and praise, at my gesture:

O God, you are the source of everything good.
Accept our morning thanks and praise.
We give thanks for our mothers in faith.
For Sarah and Hagar, Rebekah, Rachael, and Leah,
For the prophets Miriam and Deborah,
For Judith and Esther, the saviors of their people.
Accept our morning thanks and praise
We give you thanks for Jesus,
Who sent women to tell the gospel:
Mary Magdalene, Martha and Mary,
The woman of Samaria.
Accept our morning thanks and praise
We give you thanks for the Holy Spirit,
Bold spirit who bids us proclaim
The gospel of justice and peace.
Accept our morning thanks and praise.
Amen.

It's true: I do dislike, I do resist change. And I do long for, I pray for change. Even as I resist, I am blessed by changes wrought from the sufferings of others. And so it is for all of us, I think. We resist, we desire, we are blessed by change.

Why should we care about African-American prayer and song and worship? Because we resist change, we desire change, we are blessed by change.

Why should we care about feminist liturgy, and song, and prayer? Because we resist change, we desire change, we are blessed by change.

And so we must pray, again:
Open our eyes, open our minds, open our hearts.
Show the way, drive us out of the cramped and silent spaces,
Lead us onto the open and unmarked path
For your name's sake.

With your strong Spirit's urging,
With the fire and cloud of your presence before us,
With the song of Miriam ringing in our ears,
Push us into your freedom.

For your name's sake,
Liberator,
Savior,
Guide.

AMEN.

+++++++++++++
References:

Alison Iser, Michelle Lifton, Lisa Gelber, Cindy Enger, Irit Eliav, and Leigh Nachman Hofheimer, editors. A Journey Towards Freedom: A Haggadah for women who have experienced domestic violence. Seattle, WA: FaithTrust Institute, 2003.

J. Frank Henderson. A Prayer Book for Remembering the Women. Chicago: Liturgy Training Publications, 2001.