Queerying Holy Trinity C as Protest

The following Call to Worship and Opening Prayer are inspired by the Romans 5 reading for Holy Trinity in Year C as part of a series on Protest as Worship for Trinity Las Americas United Methodist Church.

Call to Worship
We gather in relationship
The dance of the Trinity dances among us.

We gather for relationship
The dance of the Trinity calls us to a global dance.

We gather through faithfulness, seeking righteousness and grace.
God’s love pours into us through the Holy Spirit.

Through the Trinity God binds us one to the other
Your suffering is my suffering; their suffering is my suffering.

God calls us into relationship with our neighbors--known and unknown.
Relationship invites us into solidarity.

Solidarity gives purpose to suffering so that suffering might produce endurance.
The “suffering with” of solidarity’s endurance produces character, and character hope.

The hope of solidarity is the hope of faithfulness to God in relationship
The hope of the Trinity liberates us for the dance of collective freedom, the dance of the Trinity.

Opening Prayer
Triune God,
Your existence danced the world into existence. Together you Create, Liberate, and Empower. You invite us into the deep relationship that is the heart of who you are. You are the love that grounds us, that becomes us, and that inspires us. Bring us into relationship with you and with our neighbor. Transform our relationships with others to provoke solidarity, inspiring our collective struggle for justice. Root our worship in protest and our protest in worship as we root ourselves in you. We pray in the name of our God who is Justice, Organizer, and Protest.
Amen.

 

holy trinity sunday year b - romans

Romans 8:12-17

¹²So then, siblings, we are debtors, 
     not to the flesh, 
          to live according to the flesh—
               ¹³for if you live according to the flesh, 
                    you will die; 
     but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, 
          you will live.
               ¹⁴For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.
                    ¹⁵For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, 
                         but you have received a spirit of adoption. 
          When we cry, “Abba! Papa!”
               ¹⁶it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit 
                    that we are children of God, 
                         ¹⁷and if children, then heirs, 
                              heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ—
                                   if, in fact, we suffer with Them
                                        so that we may also be glorified with Them.

Queeries for the text:
Are our only options Spirit or flesh?  What do those words even mean?  What are the deeds of the body?
What is a spirit of slavery?
How does fear control us?
What is a spirit of adoption?
Who are children of God?
If we're heirs, what do we inherit?
Is suffering with Christ our inheritance?

What are your queeries?

lent 2 year b - romans

Romans 4:13-25

¹³For the promise that Abraham would inherit the world

     did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law

          but through the righteousness of faith. 

     ¹⁴If it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs,

          faith is null and the promise is void. 

               ¹⁵For the law brings wrath;

                    but where there is no law,

                         neither is there violation. 

          ¹⁶For this reason it depends on faith,

               in order that the promise may rest on grace

               and be guaranteed to all Abraham’s descendants,

                    not only to the adherents of the law

                         but also to those who share the faith of Abraham

                              (for he is the father of all of us,

                              ¹⁷as it is written,

                                   “I have made you the father of many nations”) —

                         in the presence of the God in whom Abraham believed,

                              who gives life to the dead

                              and calls into existence the things that do not exist. 

               ¹⁸Hoping against hope,

                    Abraham believed that he would become

                         “the father of many nations,”

                              according to what was said,

                                   “So numerous shall your descendants be.”

                         ¹⁹He did not weaken in faith 

                              when he considered his own body,

                              which was already as good as dead

                                   (for he was about a hundred years old),

                         or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. 

                         ²⁰No distrust made Abraham waver 

                              concerning the promise of God,

                                   but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, 

                                        ²¹being fully convinced that God was able 

                                             to do what God had promised. 

                              ²²Therefore Abraham’s faith 

                                   “was reckoned to him as righteousness.”

²³Now the words, “it was reckoned to him,”

     were written not for his sake alone, 

          ²⁴but for ours also.

     It will be reckoned to us who believe

          in the one who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, 

               ²⁵who was handed over to death for our trespasses

               and was raised for our justification.

Queeries for the text:
Did Abraham weaken in faith?
Was Abraham righteous?
What does righteousness mean anyway?
Is Paul telling a revisionist history?
If the promise rests on grace, can we condemn anyone to be outside the promise?
Would the forgiveness of sins or our justification before God be true if Jesus just died and wasn't resurrected?
If God creates ex nihilo, calling into existence the things that do not exist, can God call our justification into existence without Jesus' death on the cross?

What are your queeries?