Kyrie Eleison: Band-aid mercy

Our Lenten song is a simple arrangement of the prayer “Kyrie eleison”:
Kyrie eleison
Christe eleison
Kyrie eleison,
OR:
Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

A lot of times we hear the term “mercy” and think of clemency, like what a judge shows a criminal. Or we think of forgiveness for wrong-doing. Or we think of a movie scene with a medieval peasant begging to be spared by an overbearing lord or knight. But what about band-aids?

This week, as we begin to learn our Lenten song, I will be handing out bandages to the children. Why? Because eleison does not only mean “mercy” in the senses listed above. It comes from the same idea as healing oil. Back in the day, people treated wounds by rubbing oil into them to soften them and promote healing. (Sort of like we might use Neosporin today.) The mercy which we ask of God is a healing grace, like oil poured in a wound.

“Mercy” also has an old association with mothering, the feeling a mother has for her child. “Mercy” is often translated “steadfast love,” or “lovingkindness” as well. In the Hebrew, the word for mercy is meant to invoke a very lasting sort of love that takes one in and does not let go, ever. Other nuances of “mercy” are rooted in these meanings.

We will talk a little about these big ideas of mercy in choir, but I encourage you do think about them and maybe talk them over at home as well. Our focus this week as we prepare for Lent will be simpler: Bandaid mercy, the grace that heals us.

For grown-ups, with our ability to abstract, healing grace can be a broad typology. The wounds of death and sin are cured by the medicine of immortality, the very presence of God among us, with us in the Eucharist to heal us. We recognize the pattern of wound and healing in lots of places in our lives, especially in Lent, when we get our annual check-up. During Lent, we see God the healer as well as how we might be sick and in need of healing. We see the lengths to which God the great physician goes to heal us, even death on the cross and rising again.

For the children this week, it is enough to know that God wants to heal us right here, right now, immediately. God’s desire to love us into health is what makes it possible for us to pray, “Lord, have mercy.”

• God’s healing grace makes us more open to healthy, loving relationships.  What does it mean to soften our hearts?
• Show your children how oil makes their skin softer.
• How is it healing to know that God will not let you go?
• Talk to your children about their baptisms, when they were anointed as the priest said, “___, you are sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever.”  This Lent, try to remind them that this is what we mean when we say “mercy.”

We return in the season of Light

Choir rehearsals resume this Wednesday, January 12, at 5:30pm in the choir room. To get into the spirit of the season of Epiphany, we will start off this semester singing, “This Little Light of Mine.”  From the light of the star to the light of the Transfiguration, Epiphany sheds brightness on what God was up to when He became human in Jesus.  Join us to let your light shine!

 

Children’s choir is open to all children of singing age, roughly preK-5th grade.  We meet Wednesdays from 5:30-6:15pm.

Call and Response

Every week we practice, “Call and Response.” One person speaks or sings, and the other person or persons reply in song or speech. We start out the church service this way.
Call: Blessed be God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Response: And blessed be His kingdom, now and forever. Amen.

We continue with the amens, and we really get going for the Peace.
Call: The peace of the Lord be always with you.
Response: And also with you.
The response at the peace is not just words, but also actions. We shake hands, hug or kiss, nod, and smile at those around us as we show them Christ’s peace. Then there is the big moment of action, where the caller and responder hunker down for some serious work.
Call: The Lord be with you.
Response: And also with you.
Call: Lift up your hearts.
Response: We lift them to the Lord.
Call: Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
Response: It is right to give him thanks and praise.
Suddenly what started as a few words back and forth and broke into action at the peace has come into its fullness. God calls to us by giving us good gifts, bread, wine, hearts. We respond by saying thanks. We call out to God, lift up our hearts, bread, and wine, and God gives us Himself in response.

We go back and forth with God, in words and actions, God giving, us giving back, God giving back even better than before. In Advent, all of the scriptures and hymns show us some of this story. We hear God saying to us through prophets, through John, through songs and prayers, “My people whom I have called, I have heard your call to me. I am on my way right now.” God is coming to be with us! The call goes out, waking us up to be ready to respond.

Our calls to God may happen when we see or experience hurt in the world. God comes to us in response. Our calls to God may be calls of rejoicing, when we see or experience good in the world. God comes to us in response. This week’s hymn takes us to the verge, lets us peek into the gifts of God, right up to the moment when we see God arriving.

This week’s hymn, “Watchman, tell us of the night,” 640 in The Hymnal 1982, follows a Call and Response pattern. Help your children notice this pattern that is so central to our worship. Help them to notice the hope in this hymn, hope that God is coming to us.

New Choir Year Starts This Week

This Wednesday, September 8, marks the beginning of the choir year. The children will rehearse from 5:30-6:15 in the choir room. We will begin the year singing, “Peace Like a River” with simple choreography using playsilks. All children ages 5 to 11 are welcome to join us.

Parents, please come prepared to sign up for the email list when you drop off your child[ren].

Unlike previous years, the Fellowship Commission will not provide a dinner this year for choir families. Please consider this information in making your dinner plans.

We’re looking forward to a great year!

Let Our Prayers Rise

Each week at the end of rehearsal, the children and adult leaders gather around two large playsilk canopies. Each person holds onto a spot on the silk. One of the adults, usually the director, begins the prayer time. After each response, those gathered around the silks sing out, “Lord, hear our prayer.”

As the prayers progress, a child or two begins to wiggle. The silks puff and shake. By the time we all join in with the “Our Father” at the end of prayer time, the faces are alight with joy. The silks are lifting, rising, rippling. The children bounce their prayers up to God.

Though few children have taken advantage of the opportunity, they are invited to bring drawings or small toys that symbolize a prayer that they may not be able to put into words. The drawing or toy goes into the playsilk and is lifted up by the whole group.

In children’s choir, I understand that most children (most grown-ups, too, actually) learn best kinetically, that is, by doing. For that reason, we try to incorporate movement as much as possible into learning music and learning our place as ministers of music in the church. The children often use rhythm instruments to accompany their songs. We learn words by acting them out, sometimes in very silly ways. We pray in the wiggle posture.

In all these ways, we try to build the children up right where they are, in their own wiggly, joyful developmental phases. Where we are is where God meets us. God who has gone before us and is waiting for us in every here and now is just on the other side of every akimbo arm, every squirming singing smile. I hope that when you hear the children sing, you also experience God’s closeness. Especially if you get the urge to tap your foot, clap your hands, or even wiggle.