A Litany of Confession and Witness: Believe Women.

There is a perpetually present heaviness in the air that many are beginning to wake up to and notice. It’s a heaviness filled with a conglomeration of pain and trauma and shame, loneliness and seclusion and violation. For far too long, the church has ignored this heaviness or swept it under the rug (just check out the #churchtoo hashtag on twitter). This past Sunday we made the decision this would not be true of our new church, and so we leaned into that heaviness and acknowledged its presence, together.

Acknowledging this heaviness and making space for it in our gatherings is a marker moment in the life of our church. We intentionally verbalized the phrase, ‘We hear you, we see you, we believe you’ and then were told: “Thank you,” “I have never been in a church that has acknowledged my pain like this,” or “I never felt like my pain mattered in church, that I was supposed to cover it up and just deal with it alone.” This was powerful. We pulled back the curtain to not only acknowledge but expose the heaviness in our midst. We allowed it to stir within our new church and allow the Spirit to begin a new work of healing and togetherness to emerge. And it all happened with a public acknowledgement and a focused litany.

Dr. Sharon R. Fennema said of worship,

“In our contemporary context where practices often precede belonging and belief, participation in worship is one of the primary ways that people of faith are formed in that faith. In and through preaching, sacraments, ritual, music, art, action and the experience of community, people encounter and come to know the Holy. Worship can be a place for creative engagement, for spiritual formation through participation, and for transformative experiences that offer a vision for social change.”

This is what we are striving to create in our new church, a formative and transformative environment where we can acknowledge the heaviness, experiment with new forms of ritual and experience, allowing a new vision of social change to emerge. We won’t always get it right, but we do pray weekly as a church for the courage to try what others think cannot be done.

The focused litany we used this past week (which we altered slightly to fit our context) was also written by Dr. Fennema entitled, A Litany of Confession and Witness: Believing Women. It was a powerful and tearfully transformative moment for our church, and perhaps can be for yours as well.

A Litany of Confession and Witness: Believe Women

by Dr. Sharon R. Fennema

Voice: And Eve said, the serpent tricked me and I ate. [Genesis 3.13]
All: And God believed her.

Voice: And Hannah said, No, sir, I am not crazy, I am a woman deeply troubled; I have been pouring out my soul before the Lord. [ 1 Samuel 1.15]
All: And the priest believed her.

Voice: And Tamar said, No, do o not force me to lie with you; for such a thing is wrong. Do not do anything so vile! [2 Samuel 13.12]
All: And her brother believed her.

Voice: And Esther said, we have been sold. I and my people, to be destroyed, to be killed, to be annihilated. [Esther 7.3-4]
All: And the king believed her.

Voice: And Mary said, My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for God has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is God’s name [Luke 1.46-48]
All: And Joseph believed her.

Voice: And the woman at the well said, Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! I think he may be the one, the Messiah we have been waiting for. [John 4.29]
All: And the people believed her.

Voice: And the hemorrhaging woman said, If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well. [Mark 5.28]
All: And Jesus believed her.

Voice: And Anita said, It would have been more comfortable to remain silent. But when asked by a representative of this committee to report my experience, I felt that I had to tell the truth. I could not keep silent.
All: And a few people believed her.

Voice: And Christine said, I am here today not because I want to be. I am terrified. I am here because I believe it is my civic duty to tell you what happened to me.
All: And some people believed her.

Women: And the women said, #metoo
Voice: Will we believe them?

Voice: Jesus said to them, Have you believed because you have seen? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe. [John 20.29]

All: Amen.