As you observe All Saints Sunday on November 7, 2021 or at another time near November 1 (All Saints Day), you may desire a rite that acknowledges those who have died from COVID-19 during this past year or since the beginning of this pandemic.

Of course, we lament many other deaths and losses due to systemic injustice, racism, climate change, poverty, and more. Even as we put our hope and trust in God, including times of lament in our worship allows us to join the pleading of all creation. “We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves…” (Romans 8:22-23)

The following litany of lament may be part of the gathering rite or part of the intercessory prayer. Other resources for lament can be found in All Creation Sings (pp. 61-66). Hymns and songs with a lament theme can be found in Evangelical Lutheran Worship (#697-704) and All Creation Sings (1049-1055). See especially “God weeps with us who weep and mourn” (ACS 1054) for its resonance with the gospel reading for All Saints. Musical resources for choir and assembly can be found in Music Sourcebook: All Saints through Transfiguration, with most of the contents available to subscribers on Prelude Music Planner. Additional intercession resources crafted in response to the pandemic are available from the Lutheran World Federation. Additional lament resources can be found in Pray, Praise, and Give Thanks: A collection of Litanies, Laments, and Thanksgivings at Font and Table by Gail Ramshaw.

Litany of Lament for All Saints in a Time of Pandemic

The shroud of death covers us. 700,000 and more have died in our nation from the COVID-19 pandemic. Four and a half million and more have died worldwide.
Have mercy, O God.

Sickness fills our homes and hospitals. Health care workers are weary and exhausted as suffering and death has come so near to them.
Have mercy, O God.

Families and friends grieve. With Mary we cry out, “Lord, if you had been here.” Over 100,000 children in the United States cry out for parents, grandparents, or caregivers who have died from this pandemic.
Have mercy, O God.

Ways of life are forever changed. The shadow of this disease spreads over the living. Relationships are strained or broken. Depression, anxiety, fear, and grief have become constant companions.
Have mercy, O God.

Families and neighbors, leaders and officials, mistrust one other. Anger rages. Systems break down. Doors are closed to understanding and mutual care.
Have mercy, O God.

Receive O God, the laments of our own hearts…

A generous time of silence is kept.

Lift up your heads and hear these words of promise:
The Creator of all brings life from the ashes.
The Redeemer of the world wipes away our tears.
The Spirit of life fills us with strength for the days to come.

Even as we grieve, we do not grieve as those without hope. We trust that all your saints dwell with you forever. And so we are bold to acclaim:

Thanks be to God.
Thanks be to God.

Petition for the prayers of intercession

God our hope, we remember all who have died and now rest in you. We remember especially all who have lost their loves to COVID-19 (especially. A time of silence or ringing of bells could be observed). Comfort all who mourn and give us your strength until that day when crying and pain are no more. Hear us, O God.
Your mercy is great.

Practical guidance specific to COVID-19 safety, “2021 Guidance for All Saints and Related Observances,” is available from the Ecumenical Protocols for Worship, Fellowship, and Sacramental Practices consultation.

This post is written by Rev. Aaron Fuller. Pastor Fuller serves multi-vocationally as a chaplain in the Navy Reserve and Pastor at Our Father’s Lutheran Church, Rockford, MN.  His views expressed here are his own and do not represent the Department of Defense, Navy or Navy Chaplain Corps in an official capacity.

On November 11th the nation will observe Veterans Day. It is a day set aside to recognize veterans’ service in the Armed Forces, past and present. In recent years the day has been marked by recognition in the news and social media, encouraging people to “thank a veteran” or “support the troops.” It has also been marked by businesses offering benefits such as discounts and free meals to veterans, in recognition for their service.

Similarly, congregations across the ELCA have chosen to recognize veterans in worship. Others have chosen not to. Both choices are faithful expressions of people’s deepest convictions. I want to offer why all congregations should consider acknowledging veterans in their worship services around Veterans Day this year.

This year, September 11th marked two important realities in our collective history. The first was the twentieth anniversary of the terrorist attacks that led to the tragic loss of life here in the United States, and subsequent twenty years of war in the Middle East. The second reality was the shocking withdrawal and evacuation of the United States from Afghanistan. Also shocking was the sudden rise of the Taliban taking back the country, creating a massive refugee crisis and wiping out two decades’ worth of progress made with the Afghan people on human rights.

For many veterans there has been a significant investment made in Afghanistan and the Middle East the past twenty years. That investment is shown in the toil it has taken on their bodies and minds. They also bear inner conflict between what they have experienced and their fundamental values, often rooted in their religious faith. That inner conflict leads to hard questions: “What was the point of what I experienced?” “Was it all worth it?” “Am I good?” Left unanswered, those questions can become a matter of life or death.

This response to traumatic events is known as moral injury. Moral injury is defined as “perpetrating, failing to prevent, bearing witness to, or learning about acts that transgress deeply held moral beliefs and expectations.”¹ While moral injury shares some of the same signs of trauma as post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, it is not the same.  Moral injury is distinct; it is a violation of what is right. It is feelings of betrayal towards justice. It is an injury of the soul, where human goodness is diminished to where we no longer see God’s light in ourselves or others.

As I listen to God’s people in both contexts I serve in as Pastor and Navy Chaplain, it is apparent to me we are all suffering from a collective moral injury, a result of the past twenty years and made manifest through the nation’s withdrawal from Afghanistan this past summer.  That injury has caused the division and disconnect we all are experiencing right now as we struggle to live in a world that feels less safe, less compassionate, and less just.  We need healing – collectively reconnecting to what is right, what is true, and what is good.

That healing starts by acknowledging those who are struggling with that moral injury the most: veterans. I can think of no better way to begin that healing than in our regular worship. God heals through Word and Sacrament, confession and absolution, and gathering and sending.  That is so necessary for veterans right now, and so necessary for us all.

1. Litz, B. T., Stein, N., Delaney, E., Lebowitz, L., Nash, W. P., Silva, C., & Maguen, S. (2009). Moral injury and moral repair in war Veterans: A preliminary model and intervention strategy. Clinical Psychology Review, 29(8), 695-706. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2009.07.003

A worship resource for Veterans Day includes prayers, hymn suggestions, and other ideas. Both PDF and Word versions are available at https://elca.org/Resources/Worship#Liturgy.

When the church gathers, we pray for the needs of the world. Like preaching that is both rooted in
scripture shared across time and space and attentive to the local assembly at the present moment, the sense of “praying for the world” is expansive but also attentive to a particular context.

Evangelical Lutheran Worship encourages that “The prayers [of intercession] are prepared locally for each occasion” (ELW. p. 105). How can this be done? What practices are useful? What resources can help? Listed below are several resources from ELCA Worship or Augsburg Fortress.

Downloadable Resources on ELCA.org/worship

How Do We Craft the Prayers of Intercession?  This newly added FAQ summarizes the task of preparing intercessions. A list of further resources that dig deeper into the task are included.

Here Other Intercessions May Be Offered.  This Sundays and Seasons essay offered by permission of Augsburg Fortress gives practical tips on what it means to pray contextually and gives concrete examples.

A Template for the Prayers of Intercession. This  template prepared by Gail Ramshaw is an excerpt from Pray, Praise, and Give Thanks: A Collection of Litanies, Laments, and Thanksgivings at Font and Table. It is offered by permission to assist in the crafting of comprehensive intercessions.

For What Shall We Pray? This weekly post provided on the ELCA worship blog invites individuals, groups, and congregations to lift up our world in prayer. This resource is prepared by a variety of leaders in the ELCA and includes prayer prompts, upcoming events and observances, and prayer suggestions from existing denominational worship materials.

Prayer Ventures. These petitions, one for each day of the month, are offered as guides to prayer for the global, social and outreach ministries of the ELCA, as well as for the needs and circumstances of our neighbors, communities and world. While helpful for personal devotion, they could also be a helpful resource when preparing intercessions.

Resources available from Augsburg Fortress

Sundays and Seasons.  This annual worship planning guide available both in print and via an online subscription provides crafted intercessions for each Sunday and festival in the church year. Worshiping asssemblies are encouraged to adapt as needed for local use. Sundays and Seasons also includes seasonal essays that included more general tips and suggestions.

Praying for the Whole World: A Handbook for Intercessors.  This concise handbook proposes seven steps, from Monday to Sunday, to assist in preparing the weekly intercessions.

The Sunday Assembly. This first supporting volume to Evangelical Lutheran Worship includes guidance on the role of intercessions in the Sunday assembly (pp. 167-172).

Leading Worship Matters: A Sourcebook for Preparing Worship Leaders.  A comprehensive guidebook, this resource devotes a chapter to preparing and leading intercessory prayer (pp. 69-94). Very practical helps such as a list of twelve tips for preparing the prayers and a sample letter of invitation to a training session for new intercessors,  among others, are included.

• Tips for Preparing the Prayers
• Sample Letter of Invitation

If you have not yet encouraged lay people to craft and lead prayer in your assembly, may these resources be an encouragement in that holy work. As noted in Leading Worship Matters, “The intercessions are best prayed in different voices, by a variety of people with divergent experiences of life, who not only can articulate their own perspectives on the needs of the world but can gather up the needs of those around them (p. 71).

Blessings on your work of encouraging, teaching, and most of all, praying.

“Mercy, we abide in you. Stir in us, we pray” (ACS 1077).

All Creation Sings includes several short songs that can be taught “paperlessly,” that is, singing together without printed or projected words or music for worship. This kind of singing can be led by one person or a small group with or without instrumental accompaniment and it is often ideal for small retreats or outdoor settings in addition to weekly worship. This post will help bring ACS “off the page” by guiding you to several audio-video resources.

Videos from Music that Makes Community

Music that Makes Community is a non-profit organization that develops and supports the practice of paperless singing. The ELCA has partnered with MMC over the past several years and you can find a wealth of information on their website. Below are links to several teaching videos provided by Music that Makes Community and other sources for songs included in All Creation Sings.

ACS 914 Jesus, the Light of the World

ACS 940 Come, Holy Spirit

ACS 978 God Welcomes All

ACS 989 Let Your Peace Rain Upon Us / Yarabba ssalami

ACS 1007 Khudaya, rahem kar

ACS 1057 What Does the Lord Require of You?

ACS 1079 Open My Heart

Additional teaching videos

ACS 903 Freedom Is Coming

ACS 928 Pave the Way with Branches

ACS 929 Blessed Is the One (audio only)

ACS 1003 For Such a Time as This

ACS 1009 Come, Bring Your Burdens to God / Woza nomthwalo wakho

Additional Augsburg Fortress Resources

The Accompaniment Edition of All Creation Sings includes helpful tips on leading these shorter songs on pp. 10-11, as well as a listing of topical suggestions suitable for Service of Word and Prayer (p. 8) and for services of lament (p. 10).

Several short songs in All Creation Sings were previously published in the collection, “Singing Our Prayer: A Companion to Holden Prayer Around the Cross.” An audio CD included with purchase of the Full Score Edition includes recordings of ACS #s 998, 1012, 1018, 1033, 1035, 1037, 1074, 1075, and 1083.

Church musician and composer Tom Witt gives examples of teaching short songs as part of the All Creation Sings Liturgy Webinar. That webinar and additional webinars, teaching videos, and blog posts related to All Creation Sings are available at www.augsburgfortress.org/AllCreationSings.

In the Easter season our “Alleluias” are bold. Many of the hymns and songs chosen for Easter have a majestic and joyful quality to them. Bells, brass, and drums often enhance organ, piano, or guitar. Yet we know that even though we are a resurrection people, we can’t always shout our praise or exude joy. “Christ has risen while earth slumbers,” a new hymn in All Creation Sings, announces the promise of resurrection while acknowledging the complexity of human experience. In the words of stanza three: 

Christ has risen to companion former friends who fear the night,
sensing loss and limitation where their faith had once burned bright.
They bemoan what is no longer, they expect no hopeful sign
till Christ ends their conversation, breaking bread and sharing wine. (ACS #938)

Drawing on imagery from the Emmaus story in Luke’s gospel, Christ comes among us as he did to those confused, fearful, and grieving disciples. This hymn’s author, John Bell of the Iona Community, is a Scottish Presbyterian pastor who writes and leads songs that often challenge our understanding and experience. He has written several books and articles about why and how we sing in community and how song shapes our witness in the world. You might enjoy listening to this 2019 interview with Bell in which he talks about some other songs of his in both ELW and ACS as well as core beliefs that shape his ministry. 

Bell’s text written in the late 1980s is paired in All Creation Sings with the tune ST.HELENA. The tune by Calvin Hampton (1938–1984) was published in 1977 without a text. It was first associated with “There’s a wideness in God’s mercy” (ELW #587). The Advent hymn “Unexpected and mysterious” was written by Jeannette Lindholm especially for this tune (ELW #258). Like both of those texts, the editors of ACS sensed that the melodic spaciousness of ST.HELENA paired well with the sense of breadth and transformation in Bell’s text. 

In the 2019 interview noted above, John Bell remarked: “The church at its best has a pastoral song which relates the pain of people as well as the joy of people.” “Christ has risen” includes the words “Christ has risen and forever lives to challenge and to change all whose lives are messed or mangled, all who find religion strange” (st. 4). Perhaps this is the only hymn we’ll encounter with the word “mangled,” but it is an honest, direct descriptor of so much of what we experience. 

Into both our joy and our pain, into our messes and challenges, Christ’s new life flows. Especially in this Easter when the pain, grief, and isolation of this year are ever palpable, this new hymn can renew our trust in the One whose Spirit dwells among us always. 

Christ is risen, Christ is present making us what he has been:
evidence of transformation in which God is known and seen. (st. 4) 

To learn more about All Creation sings, visit www.augsburgfortress.org/AllCreationSings.

Christ Has Risen While Earth Slumbers
Text: John L. Bell, b. 1949
Music: Calvin Hampton, 1938–1984
Text © 1988 WGRG, Iona Community, admin. GIA Publications, Inc.
Music © 1977 GIA Publications, Inc.
Permission required for further use. 

Image: Sundays and Seasons

Today’s post was written by Denise Rector, a PhD student at the  Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago focusing on womanist theology, race, and history. Denise was a member of the Liturgy Working Group for  All Creation Sings  and author of this lament. *

“Lamenting Racism” in All Creation Sings offers an entry point to the complexities of racism, making space to consider and mourn the effects of racism. 

Why lament? 

Why a lament, as opposed to a prayer or litany? This lament is intended as an action that acknowledges what has been broken in our relationship with our neighbor – the neighbor that we as the ELCA are called to love as we love ourselves. Specifically this lament is a way to recognize points of brokenness in the relationship between the ELCA and African Americans. 

However, even after lamenting, there is still work to do. The other theological work of lament is that it invites contemplation of confession and forgiveness, reparation, and reconciliation. As members of the ELCA, we can lament racial inequity as a reflection of a societal problem, and then work to make the church and society more equitable. We are freed in Christ to serve our neighbor by actively remediating inequity.  

Using this lament 

Please include this prayer in your worship planning. You may want to add it to worship during Black History Month or for the commemoration of the Emanuel Nine (June 17), or in vigils or healing services. But please know that this lament is not limited to a certain commemoration, church season, type of worship service, or time of year.  

This lament can be a way to begin: 

• Bible studies
• Book club discussions
• Adult education hour
• Online events
• Staff meetings

The most obvious connection may be to use this lament in situations that deal with racial or racist themes. But in reality, race – even White race – is always an issue. Therefore this lament can be used any time, for many various purposes. Be creative! You could: 

• Use as part of a personal prayer or meditation practice, changing the “we” to “I” 
• Focus on the prayer during a national time of ethnic recognition/celebration (African Descent; American Indian and Alaska Native; Indigenous Peoples within Canada; Arab and Middle Eastern; Asian and Pacific Islander; and Latinx community Heritage months) 
• Lead a discussion / plan a lesson about the lament for confirmation, adult education, etc. 

The very word “racism” engenders emotional response. And that’s OK. Some people are more comfortable than others in talking about race. Consider how some of the above could work for you or in your congregation to begin hard but necessary conversations. 

*sections adapted from Rector, Denise, The Gift of Lament: Moving from Diversity to Racial Equity in the ELCA, M.Div thesis, Wartburg Theological Seminary, 2018.

To learn more about All Creation Sings, visit www.augsburgfortress.org/AllCreationSings.