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Copyright © 1971 by The Free Church of Berkeley
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 72-120338
Standard Book Number 0-8192-1115-X
Printed in the United States of America
All rights reserved. Except for
brief passages quoted for review
purposes, no portion of this book
may be reproduced in any form for
any purpose without the written
permission of the publisher.
The authors and publisher wish to thank The
Macmillan Company and Collier-Macmillan Ltd.
for permission to reprint part of the Preface
to Night Flight to Hanoi: War Diary with 11
Poems by Daniel Berrigan. Copyright © 1968
by Daniel Berrigan.
M
f^4<^
A traditional formula determines what the prayer
book of any community should contain: tex ovandi
lex ovedendii the rule of faith Is the rule of
prayer. The only standard of our prayer book must
be the standard of our commitment. As the bleeding
witnesses to peace and liberation multiply, we feel
an overwhelming urgency once again, for our time,
to put together texts that will point a wandering
Church back toward its Pole Star. We can't help it
if the message we're committed to is the two-edged
sword of the God who is a consuming fire. We are
in conscience bound to warn users that they are
playing with fire; but also that in the end we will
all, whether by a decisive act or by repeated inde-
cision, fall into the hands of the living God.
This is a prayer book for all those groups, in Amer-
ica and elsewhere, committed by their Gospel and the
needs of the planet to the struggle for peace, jus-
tice, and environmental renewal. It has been pre-
pared by or\e of those groups, the Free Church of
Berkeley, in large part out of words we heard on the
street. Men who are neither hot not cold sometimes
ask us, "Are you a Christian group or another rad-
ical political group?" We are unwilling to say
that we are the Church as distinguished from the
struggle; we are unwilling to say that we are an-
other political group. One purpose of this book is
to challenge the legitimacy of that question.
The Church of all our groups is one with no national
headquarters, budget, or membership rolls; it is a
movement Inside the Churches and inside something
where the Spirit first stirred in our decades — the
Movement. The existing structure to which both of
us in the Free Church happen to sit lightly is the
Episcopal Church. This Liberation Prayer Book ob-
viously stands in some relation to the work of
Thomas Cranmer. In The Living Church of 2 June
1968, one of us (Jock Brown) criticized the attempts
of the Episcopal Church to update Cranmer. At that
time we were challenged to do better; here, with
complicated emotions, is our response.
Like Cranmer, we are living in an age of revolution.
He came down on the side of encapsulating the Church
into a hierarchic, mercantile society. We have
6 Preface
thrown in our lot on the side (which we believe to
be the side of the prophets and Gospel) of support-
ing and humanizing the revolution. We are not con-
cerned to argue here whether expensive church edi-
fices should stand and be filled on Sundays with
affluent worshippers. We are very much concerned,
so long as the edifices and worshippers exist, to
offer them a specimen of what they ought to be doing
and saying.
Cranmer had the supreme advantage of living when
the English tongue came to full maturity — partly of
course as a result of the Reformation, which he
helped to build. Still he went wrong in two ways
(much more so his bowdlerizers after him): he did
not print the right selection of biblical texts in
his book and he interpreted wrongly the ones he did
print. As a result, his effort to free the English
church from an authoritarian religious hierarchy
ended in putting the church to work for an author-
itarian secular government; he had only exchanged
one false master for another. Two excuses can be
made for him. First, biblical scholarship had not
opened to him the true historical figure of Jesus
or the prophets; second, he was too remote to hear
the contemporary people's reformation, which did
grasp those figures through insight into its own
world. Neither excuse is available to people who
want to go on using Cranmer 's work today.
The understanding of the Bible, of history, and of
the current crisis which we presuppose has been
stated in his own way by Jock Brown in The Liberated
Zone: A Guide to Christian Resistance (John Knox
Press, 1969). Its working out in an actual youth
congregation has been the twenty-four hour job of
Dick York for the past three and one-half years.
The network of Movement churches — also supported
mostly by young people — that have sprung up across
the country like mushrooms after rain is recorded
in the quarterly issues of Win With Love: A Direc-
tory of the Liberated Church in America (Free Church
Publications, Box 9177, Berkeley, California 9^709).
Our revision of liturgical tradition begins with
the title. The second half of our Bible calls it-
self a "New Covenant," a phrase taken from Jeremiah
by Paul, and applied to the worship of his scattered
communities. But what makes the covenant new is the
fact that it carries personal fulfilment, social
liberation, and environmental renewal. And so
Ezekiel 34:25 announces it as a "covenant of peace,"
Fveface 7
berith shalom. Our decision to enter the covenant
is an act of "choosing life" rather than death
{Deuteronomy 30:19), a phrase which George Wald
has bound on us all. That choice is made possible
when the Power of history at the right time breaks
through our stubbornness and puts the spirit of the
Liberator in our hearts, saying "Abba Father" {Gal-
atians 4:6). This book is built around those three
texts .
"From the masses to the masses." We have used that
maxim from the Little Red Book of Mao Tze Tung in
putting together this handbook for the Green Revo-
lution. In all important respects it is user-devel-
oped from inside the Movement. Nearly everything
has been tried and revised in the Free Church of
Berkeley; much of the material records oral impro-
visation from our people. Our rubrics are not
legislation but description of what actually has
been done. Throughout we have done our best to find
out what people wanted to have said, we have tried
to root it in its proper tradition, and then we
have given it back to them again. We should like
our work to be Judged on our success in that
enterprise alone.
What we could not improve on in the tradition, we
kept: the canticle of Francis, Cranmer's formulas
for marrying and burying. But as we studied the
tradition we became more critical of it. Thus we
dropped the Te deum and greatly modified the Gloria
in exoelsis y for these are acclamations of an em-
peror (Roman and Byzantine, respectively) who hardly
differs from other holders of secular power. We
replaced them with compositions that define how the
Liberator is different from other claimants. Our
version of the Ahha Father is that reconstructed by
Giinther Schwartz (in Hew Testament Studies XV
[1968/69], 233-247) as it probably existed before
Matthew the liturgical compiler went to work on it.
In our collaboration each has done his own job.
The dramatic structures, the choice of services pro-
vided, the range of idioms, come from Dick's needs
in a street ministry. The choice of biblical pas-
sages, the new versions, and the final compilation,
have been Jock's work. This book includes an an-
thology of the biblical passages that are of central
importance to us; its index allows it to serve also
as psalter and lectionary. Our translations use
liturgical freedom in very different degrees, from
8 Preface
highly literal versions to modernized paraphrase;
they are not specimens of another whole-Bible
translation. We have tried only to use words which
communicate the desired sense to our actual audi-
ences. Thus the two groups of words, both in Greek
and Hebrew, usually translated Lord and Savior
mostly come out Liberator .
We intend our book as both celebration and educa-
tion. We have aimed at putting the right words
together into that right order whose highest name
is Poetry; use will determine where we have suc-
ceeded. We have tried to avoid celebrating the
wrong things, like Cranmer, or (worse) celebrating
nothing at all, like group-sensitivity liturgies
on the one hand and the COCU liturgy on the other.
We are celebrating the freedom won by our struggle
for global justice in community, and brought in by
the Liberator. So we also wish to be as informa-
tional and didactic as a newspaper from Viet Nam
or the Black Panthers. Several texts give a run-
down of cosmic and planetary history. Our Pente-
costal theme, and our hope for use in the Third
World, are symbolized by certain words in foreign
tongues, with translation: Salaam^ Miruj Hda Btnh.
We hardly know where to begin or end general ac-
knowledgements. Ed Kelley gave us the publisher's
Invitation we were waiting for. Tony Morlet got
us the bread to write on. Bob Castle's litanies
have been on our mind. Bits of these liturgies
have been publicized by Bob Haskell, Tom Pike, Al
Thomas, Stephen Snyder, Massimo Theodori, John
Robinson, the Nine for Peace, and the Hawaii
Resistance. Mike Itkin has done us the flattery
of ripping off the bulk of these materials and
reworking them for his own community. We would
never have thought of guerrilla liturgy if Abbie
Hoffman had not been himself. As Viv Broughton's
CHURCH in London has evolved in parallel with the
Free Church, we have borrowed liturgy back and
forth. Special thanks, for benefits recorded only
by the Operator of the universal Switchboard, is
due to Greg Mack, Glee Bishop, Mike Baxter, Phyllis
and Otto Smith, Carl Bangs, Joe McCarty, Gail
Braunstein, Janie Dickinson Allen, Emily, Melinda,
and the thirty thousand people who marched on Memo-
rial Day, 1969. From another point of view, with-
out the work of Lyndon Johnson, Dean Rusk, William
Westmoreland, Richard Nixon, McGeorge Bundy , Mel-
vin Laird, John Mitchell, Spiro Agnew, Richard
Preface 9
Daley, Charles Hitch, Edward Teller, Ronald Reagan,
Frank Madigan, and their associates, this book
would not have been needed in the first place.
We have not written a weekly office or lections for
a Sunday cycle. For we are still a Movement, called
into getting ourselves together from time to time,
in the style of prophetic confrontation. Our book
takes the form in which it was shaped by History.
But in another book we do hope to print suitable
day-by-day readings for our whole Calendar.
The Calendar. The general plan arose spontaneously
when we two were driving with Tom Hayes to Port
Chicago; Jim Kennedy has contributed many revolu-
tionary dates. We wish to record our rejection of
any Perpetual Calendar which would rationalize the
date of Easter or put patriotic holidays on long
weekends; the sun, moon, and history all have their
own integrity. More than half the dates are occu-
pied by persons or events that call for celebration;
they are printed in Roman type, with those that are
major in Berkeley capitalized. Around them are
political commemorations, printed in italics. Since
politics is the realm of the ambiguous, these events
call for a mixture of celebration and penitence,
which we let each user determine for himself. All
our commemorations are arranged for liturgical con-
venience; where our date does not coincide exactly
with the historical or traditional date of the event
celebrated, we have tried, with as much accuracy as
possible, to indicate the original date in paren-
theses .
The Litany. This is the oldest element in the lit-
urgy; it has passed through at least a dozen states.
Our scrapbook shows it as first used in a solidarity
event for the Berrigans on 15 June I968. It works
as a whole public service in its own right; also
each section is recommended for use by itself else-
where .
The Prayers and Celebrations provide a topical sub-
stitute for a yearly cycle of collects.
Entering the Covenant. At the Free Church we have
never yet gotten ourselves together enough to cov-
enant; but we do use most of the texts here some-
how or other. We offer the form to our more ad-
vanced sister communities across the country. The
November Fifth Statement is our current working
confession.
10 Preface
The Book of Changes. Cranmer, assuming a passive,
illiterate peasantry, begins each office with the
priest telling the people why they are there. Our
materials, being user-developed, mostly begin with
the people telling the minister why they are there.
The understanding of the life-cycle is that worked
out by Jock in Planet on Strike (Seabury Press,
1970). The participants are supposed to have this
book in their hands.
1. The form for receiving a baby into the covenant
came from the impromptu blessing of new hippy babies
on Telegraph Avenue.
2. Going through the waters is our normal adult
baptismal form, first used on 11 November 1968; it
is now combined with an Easter Eve liturgy.
3. The wedding celebration pages are likely to wear
out first. The vows are a distillation from hun-
dreds of couple-written services at which Dick has
officiated; they also incorporate a suggestion
from Michael Allen.
k. The form of commissioning for ministry has the
texts which Jock preached from at Dick's ordination.
We take it for granted that any ordinations hence-
forth will be wholly ecumenical; so this form is an
outline to be filled in by negotiation among the
churches taking part.
5. The form for visiting prisoners is an expanded
text for what we have long been doing. We prescribe
the Kiss of Peace with a shall because some jails
are uptight about it and we want to provide the
visitor with some leverage on the warden.
6. The memorial of the dead expands Joe Hill's say-
ing: "Don't mourn, organize."
The Freedom Meal is a revision of the tattered mim-
eographed sheets which have already gone around the
world; we are moved at the response found by these
words — not ours but the people's. The Shalom theme
comes from David Kirk. The nucleus of the Affirma-
tions, a chain of Movement slogans or bumper stick-
ers, was first used before two thousand screaming
kids on k July 1968. We trust communities of the
Spirit to improvise inside the framework we pro-
vide— or outside it.
The Disarmed Forces Prayer Book was compiled in
consultation with Joe Sonntag and his colleagues
at the Pacific Counselling Service; it rests on a
Preface 11
large base of contact with GI's on duty. Thanks to
Tim Parkinson in Green Flag for the refrain "Count
me out"; to Joan Baez Harris and the War Resisters
League; and to the Order of Saint Maximilian.
The Medical Cadre Manual has been done up for the
use of our own medical cadre working with Mike Bax-
ter; it represents the needs of the Medical Commit-
tee for Human Rights and other allied groups.
The Guerrilla Liturgies are designed for outdoor
or cathedral use with a bullhorn or loudspeaker be-
fore a hostile or uninstructed crowd. A cadre of
three or four with prayer books is enough to organ-
ize the people's responses. Each liturgy is in
three parts: a preparation at the staging area; a
liturgy in procession; and a prophetic action or
takeover. Especially in the third part, what we
provide is resource material for the leader to se-
lect from on the spot, in the street, in temples
filled with money changers, at headquarters of pig-
gery. Sometimes you will want to proceed directly
to the action before you split or get busted; at
other times you will want to claim sanctuary and
filibuster praying-in until reinforcements arrive.
If there is time for guerrilla theater, each text
has an interlude that takes up hostile criticism
by a straight man who stands for the congregation.
These liturgies have been designed in a general way
around the Church and national calendar. But the
Catholic scheme of a seasonal cycle of observances
has been modified here into a topical cycle of con-
frontation. Incarnation, penitence, lament, resur-
rection, and earth rebirth have been put back into
history .
1. The lament for victims and executioners is a
much modified Good Friday liturgy. The Reproaches
in this form were first used at Cobo Hall in De-
troit during the National Council of Churches tri-
ennial (December 1969), just after censorship of
the Song My atrocity had been pierced. We owe the
broken pot to Rosemary Ruether.
2. Burn out the mark of the Beast is a generalized
Ash Wednesday text, with borrowings from A Solemn
Rite for the Public Burning of Draft CardSj printed
by the Davis (California) Resistance. We owe spe-
cial thanks to Dan Berrigan, fugitive and prisoner
for the Liberator, for permission to use his beauti-
ful meditation, here slightly cut. This liturgy was
12 Preface
used on Ash Wednesday 1969 outside the Federal
Building in San Francisco (where the fountains a
little later turned to blood), and in 1970 at the
consecration of Oakland Army Base Chapel to Saint
Maximilian.
3. Successive stages of the Decontamination litur-
gy were used in exorcising the Pentagon on 21 Octo-
ber 1967; at the University of California in Berke-
ley and the Graduate Theological Union on 11 April
1969; at. the Oakland Conference Against Facism; at
the National Council of Churches in Detroit; and at
Saint Maximilian's Chapel, Presidio of San Francisco,
on 6 March 1970. It now includes a Palm Sunday (or
Advent) procession. More often the litany response
has been "Power to the people; out demons out."
4. The Sanctuary of peace is a new Christmas ser-
vice; its nucleus was the conversion of the General
Convention of the Episcopal Church into an AWOL
sanctuary at South Bend in August I969. i^e are in-
debted to Raymond Jennings for letting us adapt his
translation from Kanzo Uchimura.
5. Earth Rebirth evolved from the consecration of
People's Park on 11 May 1969; it was used in the
Berkeley festival of I8 January 1970, and we know
that a lot of copies have gone out. It is super-
ficially syncretistic for wide coalition with ecol-
ogy activists. Thanks to Viv Broughton for "How
shall we sing the Lord's song"; to Gary Snyder for
"earth household"; to various straight sources for
well-known slogans; to Incredible String Band for
the Benediction; and to Smokey the Bear for kind
permission to reproduce his Sutra free forever.
We have tried here to present nothing but the bib-
lical testimony and we ask Bible churches to take
our work seriously. Each item carries a clear wit-
ness against militarism, exploitation, and pollu-
tion— in a word. Sin. Each is designed to strike
a clear note of that revolutionary nonviolence,
whether in personal crisis or social confrontation,
which is our Good News. We hope to have found the
narrow way between sectarian withdrawal and harm-
less generalities. We offer our book as a service
to the movement for revolutionary change outside
and inside the Church. We want very much to hear
from critics, and under the Gospel will do our
best to satisfy them in any future edition. Our
Fvefaoe IS
farthest hope is that some materials here will one
day become a genuine bond of unity for the New
Church constantly in birth: that this book will
actually become that Covenant of Peace it calls it-
self.
John Pairman Brown
Richard L. :^ork
Witness day of Jeffrey^
All-isorij Sandy Lee^ and
William
Year of our Liberator
1970
Year not-too-many
before Feace and
Liberation
Preface 5
The Covenant of Peace
Calendar 19
Litany 31
Liberation Prayers 37
Entering the Covenant 51
The November Fifth Statement 58
A Book of Changes
1. Receiving a Baby into the Covenant 6l
2. Going through the Waters 67
3. The Celebration of a Wedding 86
k. Commission for Ministry 95
5. A Form for Visiting Prisoners 101
6. Memorial of the Dead 110
The Freedom Meal 121
The Disarmed Forces Prayer Book 129
Medical Cadre Manual 138
Guerrilla Liturgies
1. A Lament for Victims
and Executioners 1^1
2. Burn Out the Mark of the Beast 157
3. Decontamination: The Advent
of the Liberator l66
4. The Sanctuary of Peace iBl
5. Earth Rebirth 191
Index of Biblical Lections 203
T^ QoA/jC4'^M^ cl Pc^^iCC
Q^JU^'M^
JANUARY
1 A THE NAMING OF JESUS; Emancipation Pvoclama-
tion (1863); New Year's Day
2 b
3 c
k d Albert Camus, man of goodwill (196O)
5 e
6 f EPIPHANY
7 g
8 A Giotto dl Bondone , painter and follower of
Francis (1337)
9 b Galileo Galilei, observer of the creation
(161]2)
10
c
11
d
12
e
13
f
THREE PEACEMAKERS: Menno Simons (1559),
George Fox (I69I), Ammon Hennacy (1970)
14 g
15 A Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929)
16 b
Antony, hermit in Egypt (356)
Jan Palach, resister in flames, Prague
(1969)
17
18
c
d
19
e
20
f
21
22
g
A
23
24
b
c
25
26
d
e
27
f
The conversion of Paul
Polycarp, martyr of Smyrna (I56)
28 g Fyodor Dostoyevsky, student of humanity
(1881)
29 A
30 b GANDHI THE MAHATMA , apostle of nonviolence
(1948)
31 c
FEBRUARY
1 d IGNATIUS OF ANTIOCH, visionary and martyr
(about 115); First sit-ins ^ Greensboro ^
N.C. (i960)
2 e The Presentation of Jesus
3 f Ansgarius, apostle of Scandinavia (865)
H g
5 A
6 b
7 c
8 d Student martyrs of Orangeburg, S.C. (I968)
9 e
10 f Caedmon, first poet of England (about 68O;
moved from 11 February)
11 g ABRAHAM JOHN MUSTE , peacemaker and organ-
izer (1967)
Birthday of Abraham Lincoln (I809)
Innocents of Dresden (19^5)
Valentine ' s Day
CAMILLO TORRES, revolutionary and priest in
Bolivia (I966)
12
A
13
b
14
c
15
d
16
e
17
f
18
g
19
A
Martin Luther, reformer (1546)
Michelangelo Buonarroti, artist of humanity
(1564; moved from I8 February)
20 b Frederick Douglass, black liberator (1895);
Chicago Conspiracy sentenced (1970)
Murder of Malcolm X (I965)
Birthday of George Washington ^ general in
First American Revolution (1732)
21
c
22
d
23
24
e
f
25
26
g
A
27
28
b
c
29
-
MARCH
1 d
2 e
3 f JOHN WESLEY (1791) and CHARLES WESLEY (29
March I788), street ministers
^ g
5 A Boston Massacre (1770)
6 b
7 c Perpetua, Felicity, and their companions,
martyrs In Carthage (202)
8 d Thomas Aquinas, student of natural order
(127^)
9 e
10 f Harriet Tubman, black liberator (1913)
11 g James Reeb , martyr In Selma (I965)
12 A MAXIMILIAN, draft reslster (295)
13 b Gregory, bishop of Rome and musician (604;
moved from 12 March)
14 c Karl Marx, prophet of justice (I883)
15 d JOHNNY APPLESEED (John Chapman), planter of
Eden (l845; date uncertain)
16 e INNOCENTS OF SONG MY (My Lai; I968)
17 f Patrick, apostle of Ireland (46l)
18 g
19 A Joachim of Flores, visionary of the future
(1202)
spring equinox
Isaac Newton, searcher into the creation
(1727)
Innocents of Sharpevllle, South Africa
(I960)
D.C. Nine destroy Dow Chemical office
(1969)
Nikolai Berdyayev, Christian ideologist
(1948)
f Selma march ends (I965); Viola Liuzzo shot
(25 March 1965)
25 g The Annunciation to Mary; Death of Ishi,
last native American (I916)
26 A Ludwig van Beethoven, visionary (1827);
Walt Whitman, poet (I892)
27 b Alice Herz, witness in flames (1965)
28 c Uchlmura Kanzo, founder ol "No-Church" re-
form in Japan (1930); Rogex' Williams,
seeker (March or April 1684)
29 d
30 e Jesus the runaway (12)
31 f John Donne, priest and poet (I63I)
20
b
21
c
22
d
23
e
24
f
APRIL
1 g Feast of Fools
2 A John Frederick Denlson Maurice (1 April
1872) and Eugene Victor Debs (1 April
1925) , socialists
3 b
^ c MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR., peacemaker and
martyr (I968)
5 d Boston Massacre (1770)
6 e Oakland police shoot down Bobby Mutton
(1968)
7 f El Greco (Domenico Theotocopoll ) , visionary
(1614)
8 g GAUTAMA THE BUDDHA, mask of Christ
9 A DIETRICH BONHOEFFER, revolutionary (19^5);
Innocents of Deir Yassin, Palestine (19^8)
10 b PIERRE TEILHARD DE CHARDIN, voyager in time
(1955)
11 c Antonio Ruiz de Montoya, organizer in Para-
guay (1653); Emilio Zapata, agrarian re-
former in Mexico (10 April 1919)
12 d
13 e Innocents of Jallianwalla Bagh , India
(1919)
Ik f Justin, martyr in Rome (about I67)
15 g Damien (Joseph de Venster), priest and
leper (I889); Peace Mobilization (I967)
16 A Benedict Joseph Labr^, priest and panhan-
dler (1783)
17 b Francisco Jose de Goya y Lucientes, artist
and war protester (I828)
18 c Albert Einstein, cosmologist (1955)
19 d Charles Robert Darwin, historian of life
(1882)
20 e Warsaw ghetto revolt (began 19 April 19^3);
Massacre of Ludlow^ Col.y miners (1914)
21 f Peter Abelard (1142) and Heloise (II63),
lovers
22 g Thomas Cranmer, liturgist and martyr (1556;
moved from 21 April)
23 A
24 b Genocide of the Armenians (1915)
25 c Mark, evangelist
26 d Black Manifesto promulgated (1969)
27 e Innocents of Guernica (1937)
28 f Sundar Singh the Sadhu, disappeared on mis-
sion in Tibet (April 1929)
29 g Columbia University student revolt (I968);
Hernan Mery, agrarian reformer in Chile
(1970)
30 A Catherine of Siena, visionary and social
worker (I38O)
2
c
3
d
4
e
5
f
6
g
7
A
8
b
9
c
10
d
11
e
12
f
13
g
14
A
MAY
Joseph the worker; International Workers'
Day
Leonardo da Vinci, universal man (1519)
William Shakespeare (23 April l6l6 O.S.)
Monica, mother (387)
Student martyrs of Kent, Ohio (4 May 1970)
Henry David Thoreau, hermit and war resist-
er (1862)
Vietnamese victory at Dien Bien Phu (195^)
Revelations to Dame Julian of Norwich
(1373)
Cyril (869) and Methodius (885), apostles
of Russia
Ghetto massacre in Augusta (1970)
Destruction of People's Park, Berkeley,
Calif., begun (1969)
15 b Aristide Peter Maurin, Catholic worker
(1949)
Student martyrs of Jackson (15 May 1970)
Catonsville Nine burn draft files with na-
palm (1969)
JAMES RECTOR, martyr for ecology, Berkeley,
Calif. (1969)
Alcuin, liturgist (804)
Girolamo Savonarola, reformer (1498)
Nicolaus Copernicus, astronomer (1543)
Chicago Fifteen burn draft files (I969)
Antonio Henrique Pereira Netto, apostle to
youth and martyr in Recife (I969)
Bede , historian (735)
Boris Pasternak, poet (30 April I96O)
Massacre of steel workers, Chicago (1937)
Signing of the Barmen Declaration (1934)
16
c
17
d
18
e
19
f
20
21
g
A
22
b
23
24
c
d
25
26
e
f
27
28
g
A
29
30
31
b
c
d
JUNE
1 e
2 f Martyrs of Lyons (177)
3 g POPE JOHN XXIII, apostle of unity (I963)
4 A
5 b Assassination of Robert Fitzgerald Kennedy
(1968)
6 c
7 d
8 e
9 f Columba of lona, holy man (597); First Eng-
lish Prayer Book (10 June 15^9)
10 g Innocents of Lidice (19^2); THIGH QUANG
DUG, resister in flames (11 June 1963)
11 A Saint-Denis, first gothic church, dedicated
in Paris (11^^)
Medgar W. Evers, martyr in Mississippi
(1963)
Peasants' Revolt led by John Ball ^ London
(I38I)
12
b
13
c
14
15
16
d
e
f
Magna Carta signed (1215)
17 g
18 A Denmark Vesey, black liberator (1822)
19 b
summer solstice
20 c
21 d James Ghaney, Andrew Goodman, Michael
Schwerner, martyrs in Mississippi (1964)
22 e Alban, martyr of Britain (304)
23 f
24 g Birth of John the Baptizer
25 A
26 b
27 c International Workers of the World founded
(1905)
28 d
29 e Peter and Paul, apostles in Rome (about 67)
30 f
9
A
10
b
11
c
12
d
13
e
14
f
15
g
JULY
1 g
2 A Visitation of Mary
3 b Algerian independence (1962)
4 c U.S. National Liberation Day {1175',
holiday )
5 d
6 e Jan Hus , reformer and martyr in Prague
(1^15)
7 f William Faulkner (6 July 1962)
Benedict of Monte Cassino, monk (about 5^0)
Newark ghetto revolt (I967)
Capture of the Bastille (I789)
Nine for Peace resign from U.S. Armed
Forces, San Francisco (I968)
16 A Meister Eckhart, mystic (I328; date un-
known)
First Moon landing (I969)
Albert John Luthuli, peacemaker in Africa
(1967)
Mary Magdalen, harlot
Thomas i. Kempis, mystic (1471)
James, apostle; Walter Rauschenbusch, ac-
tivist (1918)
Cuban Revolution (1953)
Johann Sebastian Bach (1750)
Mary and Martha of Bethany
William Penn, peacemaker (1718)
Joseph of Arlmathea
17
b
18
c
19
d
20
e
21
f
22
g
23
A
24
b
25
c
26
d
27
e
28
f
29
g
30
A
31
b
AUGUST
Ignatius Loyola, organizer (1556; moved
from 31 July)
Jean Vianney of Ars, pastor (1859); Anne
Frank arrested (19^M
TRANSFIGURATION OF JESUS; HOLY INNOCENTS OF
HIROSHIMA (19^5)
FRANZ JAEGERSTAETTER, draft resister in
Austria (19^3); Innocents of Nagasaki
(19^5)
Watts ghetto revolt (I965)
WILLIAM BLAKE, visionary (1827); Clare of
Assisi, abbess (1253)
Florence Nightingale, nurse (I910)
Maximilian Kolbe, O.F.M., of Poland, volun-
teer substitute victim (19^1)
MARY
Benjamin Bufano, peace sculptor (1970)
Blaise Pascal, confessor (1662)
Jonathan Daniels, martyr of Selma, Ala.
(1965); First blacks landed at Jamestown^
Va.j as slaves (I619)
21 b Bernard of Clairvaux, visionary (1153;
moved from 20 August)
Execution of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo
Vanzetti (1927)
Simone Weil, mystic (19^3)
Women's suffrage granted (1920)
William Edward Burghardt DuBois, black lib-
erator (1963)
Augustine of Hippo, ideologist (^30)
Freedom March on Washington (28 August
1963)
Ruben Salazar, Chicano peace martyr (29
August I97O)
John Bunyan, tinker and visionary (I688)
2
d
3
4
e
f
5
6
g
A
7
8
b
c
9
d
10
e
11
f
12
g
13
A
b
15
16
c
d
17
18
e
f
19
20
g
A
22
c
23
d
24
e
25
f
26
g
27
A
28
b
29
c
30
d
31
e
SEPTEMBER
1 f Gregorio Allpay, reformer in the Philip-
pines (19^0)
2 g James Albert Pike, innovator (I969)
3 A Death of Ho Chi Minh (I969)
k b Albert Schweitzer, physician (1965)
5 c
6 d
7 e
8 f Birth of Mary
9 g
10 A
11 b
12 c
13 d
Ik e THE HOLY CROSS; SIMON OF GYRENE, inductee;
INNOGENTS OF BIRMINGHAM, ALA. (15 September
1963)
15 f Dante Alighieri, visionary (1^ September
1321)
16 g Mexican Independenoe (I8IO)
17 A
18 b Dag Hammarskjold, peacemaker (I96I)
19 c
20 d Delano farm workers begin strike (I965)
autumn equinox
21 e Matthew, evangelist
22 f Nuremberg war-crime verdicts (19^6)
23 g Sigmund Freud, physician of souls (1939)
24 A Milwaukee Fourteen destroy draft files
(1968)
25 b
26 c
27 d
28 e Louis Pasteur, physician (1895)
29 f Michael and all angels
30 g First use of anesthetics (1846)
OCTOBER
Chinese revolution (19^9)
Student martyrs of Tlateloco, Mex . (1968)
Woody Guthrie, singer (1967); Fort Hood
Three resign from U.S. Army (I967)
FRANCIS OP ASSIST (1226)
Teresa of Avila, visionary (1582; moved
from 4 October)
William Tyndale, translator (1536)
John Woolman (1772) and Jose Clemente
Orozco (1949), artists and liberators
Murder of Ernesto Che Guevara (I968)
Circle of the Earth joined (1^92)
Presidio Twenty -seven resist murder ^ San
Francisco (I968)
David Miller first to burn draft card
(1965)
Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley, martyrs
(1555)
17 c John Brown begins black liberation at
Harper's Ferry (I6 October I859)
Luke, historian and physician
Nikos Kazantzakis, prophet (I8 October
1957)
Exorcism of the Pentagon (I967)
James, brother of Jesus, Jewish Christian
Paul Cezanne (I906)
United Nations Charter in effect (19^5)
Miguel Servetus , physician and martyr
(1553); Holy Innocents of the Wars of
Religion
Marcellus, military resister (298); Clar-
ence Jordan, translator in Georgia (I969)
David Darst, witness by fire (I969)
NINETY-FIVE THESES POSTED BY LUTHER (1517);
Halloween
1
A
2
b
3
c
4
d
5
e
6
f
7
g
8
A
9
b
10
c
11
d
12
e
13
f
14
g
15
A
16
b
18
d
19
e
20
f
21
22
g
A
23
24
b
c
25
26
d
e
27
f
28
29
g
A
30
31
b
c
NOVEMBER
1 d ALL SAINTS
2 e ALL SOULS; NORMAN MORRISON, confessor in
flames (1965)
3 f
4 g Sizlren Kierkegaard, lover of truth (I855)
5 A
6 b Russian Revolution (24-25 October 1917
O.S.)
7 c
8 d John Milton, poet (167^)
9 e Martin of Tours, pacifist (397; moved from
8 November)
10 f Roger LaPorte , witness in flames (I965)
11 g Execution of Haymarket defendants (I887)
12 A
13 b
14 c Innocents of Coventry (19^0)
15 d Amos Comenius, educator (I67O); Anti-war
mobilization (I969)
16 e
17 f
18 g
19 A Murder of Joe Hill in Utah (1915)
20 b Leo Tolstoy (7 November I9IO O.S.)
21 c
22 d Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy
(1963)
23 e
2k f
25 g Isaac Watts, musician (17^8)
26 A
27 b
28 c
29 d
30 e Andrew, apostle
2
3
g
A
H
b
5
6
c
d
7
8
e
f
9
10
g
A
11
b
12
c
13
li4
d
e
15
f
DECEMBER
Charles Foucauld, apostle of Algeria
(1916); International Prisoners for Peace
Bay; Rosa Parks keeps bus seat^ Montgomery ,
Ala. (1955)
Sproul Hall sit-in^ Berkeley (1964)
Francis Xavler, apostle of the Orient
(1552)
Clement of Alexandria, pacifist (about
210); Massacre of Chicago Panthers (I969)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1791)
Karl Barth and Thomas Merton, confessors
(1968)
John of the Cross, mystic (1591)
Bill of Rights adopted (1791); Sitting
Bull, red liberator (I89O)
16 g Boston Tea Party destroys private property
(1773)
First air flight (1903)
Nonviolent sit-in^ Oakland^ Calif.;, Induc-
tion Center (I967)
wi nter solstice
Thomas, apostle
John Muir, naturalist (191^)
CHRISTMAS
Stephen and other victims of lynching;
Joseph L. Hrom^dka, socialist (I969)
JOHN, apostle and visionary
HOLY INNOCENTS OF JERUSALEM, AUSSCHWITZ ,
AND TOKYO: INNOCENTS OF WOUNDED KNEE, S.D.
(29 December I890)
29 f John Wycllf, reformer (1384; moved from 28
December)
30 g
31 A
17
18
A
b
19
20
c
d
21
e
22
f
23
g
24
A
25
26
b
c
27
28
d
e
I. The Opening of Perception
Our fingers, eyes, ears, nose, tongue, all windows
of perception, open our senses to sink us in
the glory of the world: Open our senses.
Birds and bats, moths and bees, and all fliers;
fish and dolphins who travel the whale's
road; all animals that share our being: Open
our senses. And so on.
Flowers and green things, redwood trees and all
forests, mantle of the living globe:
Folded mountains and the sand of the shore, rocks
and all hard things :
All bridges and temples stepping on the hills:
Salmon-filled rivers and lakes, waters of life:
Unaltering Sea, the wave of drowning and mother of
us all:
Earthquake and volcano, uneasy continents, and
wandering Icecap:
Wind and clouds, thunderstorm and snow and rain,
breath of this jewel earth:
Moon and all planets, clocks of the darkness:
0 Sun, our Sun, source of life and watcher of our
days :
Stars in your imagined constellations, companions
of shepherd and sailor:
Milky Way and the ten thousand cubed galaxies:
Protons and electrons, all units of existence, who
alone know your own names :
Cosmos of space and time, island in the sea of
nonbeing:
Universal consciousness, everywhere potential
since actual in us :
0 Power behind space and time. Fountain of matter
and energy. Organizer of change and revolu-
tion: Open our senses.
Open our senses, God of nature and history, so
that we may serve our neighbor in love, free
from all dangers and compulsions: Open our
senses .
II. Prayer for Deliverance
From napalm and fallout, from shrapnel, gas, and
bullet, from poison, torture, and mutilation:
Good Lord, deliver us.
32 The Covenant of Peace
From prison and detention camps, from conscription
and from unjust sentences: Good Lord, deliv-
er us . And so on.
From rats and bedbugs, from crowding and eviction,
from hunger and unemployment :
From neglect by parents, from neglect by children,
from neglect by callous institutions:
From cancer and stroke, from ulcers, madness, and
senility :
From starvation and epidemic, from overcrowding of
the planet, from pollution of the soil, the
air, and the waters:
From poverty and disease, from segregation and
prejudice, from harassment, discrimination,
and brutality:
From racism and affluence; from the concentration
of power in the hands of ignorant, threat-
ened, or hasty men:
From propaganda, fads, frivolity, and untruthful-
ness :
From arrogance and unfeeling, narrowness and mean-
ness, from stupidity and pretence:
From boredom, apathy, and fatigue, from lack of
conviction, from fear, self-satisfaction, and
timidity :
From retribution at the hands of our victims, from
the consequences of our own folly:
From resignation and despair, from cynicism and
manipulation :
Through all unmerited suffering, our own and
others ' :
Through the unending cry of all peoples for jus-
tice and freedom:
Through all concern and wonder, love and crea-
tivity :
In our strength and weakness, in occasional suc-
cess and eventual failure :
In aloneness and community, in the days of our ac-
tion and the time of our dying:
By the needs of mankind and of the earth, and not
by our own merits or deserving: Good Lord,
deliver us.
Deliver us. Good Lord, open our eyes and unstop
our ears, so that we may see the figures of
the saints and hear their witness: Good
Lord , del i ver us .
Litany 22
III. Invocation of the Saints
Bridegroom of poverty, our brother Francis, fol-
lower of Jesus and friend of the creation:
Stand here beside us.
Apostle of nonviolence, Gandhi the Mahatma, re-
proach to the churches: Stand here beside
us . And so on.
Good Pope John, friend of the poor, who longed for
the unity of all people :
Peacemaker in America, Abraham J. Muste, father of
activists:
Peacemakers in the world. Dag Hammarskjold, Albert
John Luthuli, and all your brothers, called
children of God:
Mask of the Christ, Gautama the Buddha, fountain
of compassion:
Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, John Woolman,
Eugene Debs, and all freedom fighters:
Madman in America, Johnny Appleseed, planter of
Eden:
Inductee of Africa, Simon of Gyrene, who carried
the cross of your Liberator:
Visionary and apostle, John of Patmos, resister to
the World Beast :
Visionaries and poets, Caedmon, Dante, William
Blake, John Bunyan, Isaac Watts, pilgrims of
the inner light :
Faithful harlot, Mary Magdalen, first witness of
new life:
Priest and panhandler, Benedict Joseph Labr^, fool
for Christ :
You who speak the soul's language, Johann Sebas-
tian Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig
van Beethoven, and all your brothers:
Students of the earth, Charles Darwin and Pierre
Teilhard de Chardin, voyagers in the past and
in the future :
Children of the synagogue, Albert Einstein, Karl
Marx, and Sigmund Freud, divers in the sea of
humanity :
Vanguard for the Liberator, John the baptizer, who
condemned the crimes of princes:
Witnesses in England, John and Charles Wesley,
street ministers:
Reformers and leaders of protest, Amos of Tekoa,
Paul of Tarsus, Jan Hus, Martin Luther,
Uchimura Kanzo, and all your companions:
Explorers in the Gospel, Menno Simons and George
Fox, generals in the warfare of the Lamb:
34 The Covenant of Peace
Free men in chains, Maximilian and Franz Jaeger-
staetter, draft resisters:
Confessor in Africa, Augustine of Hippo, city-
planner for God's people:
Confessor in Russia, Tovarisch Boris Pasternak,
poet of reconciliation:
Confessors in America, Henry David Thoreau and
Thomas Merton, hermits and resisters:
Confessors in flames, Norman Morrison, Alice
Hertz, Roger LaPorte, David Darst, Jan
Palach, Thich Quang Due, and all your com-
panions, immolated for the sake of peace:
Innocents of Guernica, Sharpeville, and Birming-
ham, all victims of lynching, in your unde-
served deaths :
Innocents of Coventry, Dresden, Tokyo, and all
victims of bombing, caught up in a sea of
fire:
Innocents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, pierced by
needles of flame:
Innocents of Ausschwitz, Dachau, and all concen-
tration camps, in your despair and dying:
Innocents of Biafra and Armenia, Albigenses and
kulaks, all unpopular objects of genocide:
Innocents of Wounded Knee, Deir Yassin, and Song
My, God's wheat ground in the mill of war:
Martyrs of Africa: Perpetua, mother; Felicity,
slave; and your companions:
Martyrs and confessors, Polycarp, Ignatius, and
Justin, who refused the incense to Caesar:
Martyr in Berkeley, James Rector, witness to green
revolution :
Martyrs in the streets of the South, Jonathan
Daniels, James Reeb, Medgar Evers , Michael
Schwerner, Viola Liuzzo, and all your com-
panions :
Martyr in Athens, Socrates the hippy. Christian
before Christ:
Martyr in England, John Ball, priest and revolu-
tionary :
Martyr in Colombia, Camillo Torres, priest and
revolutionary :
Martyr in Germany, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, confessor
and revolutionary:
Martyrs of Orangeburg, Kent State, Augusta, and
Jackson, witnesses to youth revolution:
Martyr in America, Martin Luther King, organizer
for peace and justice:
Litany 35
Unwed mother, blessed Mary, wellsprlng of our
liberation :
Our hero and leader, Jesus the manual laborer,
root of our dignity:
Our hero and leader, Jesus the prophet, who re-
sisted the Establishment:
Our hero and leader, Jesus the Liberator, a king
because first a servant:
Our hero and leader, Jesus the poet, who laid down
a new form of speech: Stand here beside us.
Our hero and leader, Jesus the Son of God, bright
cornerstone of our unity in a new Spirit :
Stand here beside us .
IV. Intercessions
For the poor and hungry, migrant workers and
hoboes, outcast and unemployed: We call on
the Spirit.
For street and ghetto people, for unmarried moth-
ers and children unwanted in their homes : We
call on the Spirit. And so on.
For the wounded, for prisoners and exiles, for all
persecuted because of conscience or resist-
ance :
For the sick and suffering in mind or body, for
alcoholics, for those spaced out on drugs or
fear :
For the mortgaged and manipulated, fearful of
crime and competition, pawns in a game of the
affluent :
For prostitutes; for policemen, jailers, and sol-
diers; for all prisoners of a degrading
system:
For uptight authorities and officials, that they
may listen to the voice of the different and
weak :
For oppressors, exploiters, and imperialists, that
they may be confused and disarmed by love:
For the masters of war (especially /I/, /!/, and N)j
that they may be given a new transplant of
flesh in place of their heart of stone :
For all whom we fear, resent, or cannot love; for
the unlovable:
For those who are dying and have died, in bitter-
ness or tranquility:
For doctors, nurses, and social workers, for min-
isters to the poor:
For organizers, students, and writers, all who
raise the cry for justice:
36 The Covenant of Peace
For all who are close to us, here and in every
place :
For the reconciliation of mankind through the non-
violent revolution:
For the established churches, that they may be
humbled, reformed, and united:
For the global movement of peace and liberation,
the church of Jesus incognito:
For reformers and prophets, preachers and poets,
that God may raise them up where they are
least deserved and most needed:
That all couples may realize their union with the
universal flow of love:
That our tables may be spread with the natural
fruits of the earth, that our grandchildren
may inherit a restored planet :
That all persons in their work may express ancient
wisdom through the child's vision:
That each one who enters our house may receive the
hospitality due to the Christ whom he bears:
In thankfulness for all who have turned from ex-
ploitation to the Way:
In thankfulness for all who have been freed from
prison, poverty, illness, or fear:
Here whenever possible the people make free inter-
cessions and thanksgivings .
For all those things we are not wise enough to ask
for ourselves: We call on the Spirit.
We call on the Spirit to bind us in solidarity
with all who are using their lives to resist
evil and affirm community: We call on the
Spirit.
L.A.^er<i^Co^v P^i/if^e/i^
(Arranged alphabetically by catchword)
For American Indians
0 Great Spirit, you that watch the fall of every
sparrow, restore to the true inhabitants of this
land their own forests and prairies. By their
voice teach all pilgrims and sojourners on this
continent the secrets of its life; let us learn
that it is not our property but yours.
For Animals
0 Spirit of change, you who made mankind bud out
from the world-tree of life, bless our brothers of
other language. Do not let us in our thoughtless-
ness harm them or the wild world we share; have us
live together in sympathy, by the example of
Francis the friend of all.
For Black people
Jesus our Liberator, you were a black man in
Galilee. Stand beside all black people today in
their struggle for liberation; let them become
your hands and your voice to bring all people
knowledge of your Way.
For Broken families
Our Liberator, you knew the pain of an uncompre-
hending family. Take up all broken families in
your arms; break the chain of misunderstanding and
provocation. Teach parents and children gentle-
ness; bring the alienated together by building
them into your new community.
For Casualties
Jesus our Brother, you also at the end despaired
of the Father; raise up all who have fallen casu-
alty through sickness, anxiety, bitterness, or
fear, just as you did in your lifetime on earth;
and unite them with us in one movement.
For Church leaders
Our Liberator, smile with pity and sorrow on those
who are called leaders in your Church. Call their
administrative procedures into question; give real-
ity to the words they daily repeat. If they can-
not build for peace, justice, or conservation, let
them at least not support war, oppression, pollu-
tion. If they cannot embrace your poverty, let
38 The Covenant of Peace
them at least not embrace the world's affluence.
Raise up beside them prophets and ministers of
your way, and so call your church back to yourself.
For the Churches
Our Liberator, you make the message of your peace
known in many ways; set fire to all the churches
where it is spoken ignorantly, partially, coldly,
perversely, falsely; let their tinder blaze up
into your truth.
For Clergy and Sisters rejected by their churches
Our Liberator, you told us that your followers
would be expelled from the houses of God and in-
vestigated by synods. Walk beside each of our
brothers and sisters who have been penalized for
their faithfulness. Take their suffering up into
your suffering, make your victory their victory;
build the casualty-rolls into your new community.
For the Coming of the Liberator
Jesus, you came before when expected, and unex-
pectedly; in every age you have brought your Way
to men's hearts, not through official channels,
but through your own channels. Today, come in the
right way for you to come, and give us eyes to
recognize it. Maranatha, come quickly, our
Liberator.
For Confidence
0 Truth of all being, from time to time we see a
hint of your reliability. Extend those times to
all our time, make our confidence in your faith-
fulness the root of all our being, so that we can
say Yes to life; through the Liberator who is the
living evidence for our faith.
For the Convention of a church
Spirit of our Liberator, you presided over the
councils of the apostles, even when unworthy or
shortsighted. Move the hearts of all here as-
sembled, so that our sole agenda will be to turn
back the breaking wave of violence; let us act to
liberate the poor, to restore the natural order,
to break the weapons of militarism. Teach us that
renewal begins with the house of God; smash racism,
war, exploitation, in our hearts; set our own
house in order.
For the Conversion of ourselves
Our Father, our hearts are transparent to you; you
understand the excuses, delays, rationalizations,
that we put between ourselves and the next step.
Sweep away that spiderweb. Do not let any doubt
Liberation Prayers 29
shadow our certainty of the one thing necessary.
Resolve all complications in the simplicity of be-
coming ourselves, so that we may be agents of your
love and fellow-soldiers with the Liberator in
your battle.
For Courage
Our Liberator, we do not ask that our fear should
be taken away from us, but we do turn it over to
you. Let it be your business. Turn our own ac-
tions back over to us, and we for our part will
make them our business.
For the Courts
Our God, with you is the book of justice, in you
is no violence at all. Overshadow each court of
this world which claims to do your justice. Ex-
pose its hypocrisies, halt its harassments, break
through its tunnel vision. And let all its seeds
of justice bear true fruit, for our peace and
liberation.
For Defense against demonic powers
0 God our only Strength, surround us with the de-
fense of commitment, and put into our hands the
weapons of truth and nonviolence, so that we may
not succumb to the World Pig, but stand beside
Jesus our hero and leader.
For Directors of corporations
0 Director of the universe, examine with care the
accounts of all who claim to be agents in your ad-
ministration; let the voice of the poor and op-
pressed be heard in their boardrooms; touch their
hearts with doubt and uncertainty; distribute
their accumulations; halt their manufacture of
poison and death; show them how their task may be
turned over to all whose hands do the world's
work.
For the Dying and dead
0 Fountain of life, you allowed Jesus your son to
be taken over by death; lift in your hands our
brother [sister] now leaving this common life, and
unite his dying with the Liberator, so that he may
also be raised up by your spirit in the community
of love.
For Engineers and scientists
0 God of truth, you have showed to students the
hidden things of your creation. Let them swear by
your faithfulness never again to destroy man or
nature by their knowledge; let them no longer ac-
cept the wages of death from the prince of death.
40 The Covenant of Peace
For Families
God, it is your way to build great things out of
small. Maintain each family against all suspi-
cions and anxieties, so that it may become an ex-
ample and a building-block in the home of us all,
that new mankind which you are bringing in through
Jesus our Liberator.
For Farmworkers i foresters ^ biologists
Jesus our brother, you appeared first in your new
life to a woman of the street as a Gardener. You
are the true Adam; walk always with men and women
who are doing the work of Adam, planting the gar-
den of this planet; liberate them from all oppres-
sion, help us all learn their secrets.
For Hope
You who are our Future, show us your hand in the
still undetermined events to come. Help us work
with the hope that our work makes a difference;
help us rest in the assurance that we are not in-
dispensable; help us die in solidarity with our
brothers and sisters of all times, and especially
with our elder brother the Liberator.
For Housing
God, you are our home in the Age to come. Turn
your pity towards the homeless of this Age: the
exploited, the unwanted children, the evicted,
hoboes, vagrants. Turn your indignation towards
all heartless institutions and landlords that have
kept them so. With your bulldozer, level the
world ghetto; build the new Jerusalem on this
green and pleasant earth.
For Justice in the economic system
0 you who are all our wealth: break down every
concentration of money, overthrow every industry
that pollutes the earth, give all men and women a
creative job for their hands and a true share of
the common wealth.
For Love
God, we recognize you as author of change; we are
ready to spend our time where you command. For
your part, show yourself to us as the Unchange-
able. Hold us fast to our friends and lovers,
give us time to spend with them, which is also
your time. Let our love be the strength and the
model for our struggle.
For Media people
0 Power of being, you made the Liberator the word
and image of yourself. Let all who work with
Liberation Prayers 41
words and pictures hold up everything they touch
to his example; let them enrich not themselves but
your people; give them strength and will to expose
every system of violence and to advance your
peace and liberation.
For Meetings
Our Father, you are known to us through the words
and needs of our brothers. Speak to us in this
meeting, so that our brothers may be helped and
your revolution of love pushed forward, through
Jesus our Liberator who never showed himself hard
of hearing.
For all in Mental confusion
Jesus our brother, take up in your hands all whose
inner self has been broken by a violent age. Let
them find good friends and relatives, quiet and
greenness and running water. And smash the world
of meaninglessness that has smashed them; bring in
everywhere the things that make for our peace.
For the Military
Jesus our only leader, go and speak to the Gener-
als and Admirals. Tear down the pictures of your-
self they have hung on their walls, put a worm in
their apple, wormwood in their highballs. Infect
their minds with knowledge of what they have done;
find a useful vocation they can retire to. And
break the chain of command; let them have no suc-
cessors, let their in-baskets be filled with
cobwebs .
For the Ministry
0 Well of our peace, you told our Brother to pass
by the great ones of the world, and to call the
poor as his organizers. Let many men and women
hear the cry for justice raised by the victims of
force or neglect on every continent. Let them
serve the fallen and strengthen the struggling,
with commitment and joy, to their life's end.
For National Liberation Movements
0 God of justice, let all who struggle for na-
tional liberation establish their own culture,
sitting unafraid under their vine and figtree.
Make their revolutions humanized and democratic.
At your right time turn them from all violence
or dictatorship; make them true spokesmen for jus-
tice in the World Revolution of peace and freedom
which you have begun.
42 The Covenant of Peace
For the Old
Our Father, we pray for our fathers and mothers,
who will see only by hope and trust the new thing
you are doing. Let them live with their grand-
children, let them not be pensioned away by their
sons and daughters to die. Help them understand
that their strange children are bone of their
bone, flesh of their flesh; that the catechism
they taught in their churches is being worked out
in the streets.
For Peace and Freedom
0 God, the source of change, break all chains,
stop all wars, and end the hate which causes both,
so that your people may live with peace and free-
dom in Jesus our Liberator.
For the Planet
Architect of the worlds, you put man and woman in
the garden to keep it; show us the true harmony
between ourselves and the earth, between green
things and animals, air and water. And give us
the secrets of knowledge and will, to restore all
damage done to the planet by our ignorance or
malice, and to let all living things have the
freedom which is proper for them.
For the Police
You who have given laws to man and all creation,
supervise all those who profess to be maintaining
law. Raise up protest whenever their law becomes
a new lawlessness. Remind them that they are
servants, not masters, of the people. Help them
to neither use nor carry the weapons which our
Liberator renounced. And give them dignity to re-
ject the role of rich man's pawn in oppressing
those poor for whom our Brother died.
For Politicians
0 Light of truth, shine on all those whose profes-
sion is named compromise and show them those
things which cannot be negotiated; in the spirit
of the one who is our way, our truth, and our
life.
For the Poor
Our Liberator, you called the poor blessed, for
you became one of them. Let them realize their
blessedness as the vocation to struggle for jus-
tice and freedom on the planet which your Father
gave us all.
Liberation Prayers 43
For the President of the United States
0 God our only strength, look with indignation and
pity on N., the President of these United States.
Break down the fence around his White House; let
him hear the voice of a colored nation, of a col-
ored world. Inspire him with distrust of his ad-
visers. Repeat daily in his ears the words of his
childhood preacher, that men do not gather grapes
from thorns, nor figs from thistles. Teach him
that peace is not built by killing, nor justice by
repression. Make him the servant and not the ex-
ploiter of his people, after the example of Jesus,
his Liberator and ours .
For Prisoners
Jesus our brother, victim of brutality and politi-
cal prisoner, be with all our brothers and sisters
unjustly jailed. Give them the strength to do
what must be done without useless anger and bit-
terness; soften the hearts of their guards with
pity or at least justice; and speed up your prom-
ised coming to open all prison gates and set cap-
tives free.
For any Project
0 everlasting Word, who at the beginning shaped
all worlds, put your spirit into the fingers and
brains of those who have begun this project; let
them push past midpoint fatigue to the end; remove
all obstacles not of their own making, so that we
all may share with you in the work of creation.
For Purity of air and water
0 Power of being, you have spread an envelope of
clean water and air around this sapphire earth.
Break every chimney, rust every pipe which deliv-
ers poison into your living world; teach our
brothers and sisters to live invisible on the only
planet they will be given.
For a Remnant of God's people
0 Rock of Israel, you promised salvation for those
who endure harassment. In time of testing let
your people not return evil for evil; by your gen-
tleness keep the fabric of this earth from irre-
versible harm; and in the end lead a remnant out
into your Liberated Zone, for the sake of the one
who stayed steadfast in trials, Jesus our
Liberator.
For other Religions
0 Power of Being, you nowhere leave yourself with-
out a witness. Let us learn truth from all men.
^4 The Covenant of Peace
by whatever name they call it. Let Mammon and
Beelzebul be unmasked, whenever they come to us in
the name of the Liberator; and let his Incognito
be removed, whenever he comes to us once again
under a new name, as he did also at first.
For Reparations
Our only true Judge, you who delay condemnation
and love gentleness, help us turn from our compli-
city in racism; break the chain of our guilt; let
us hear both the patience and the anger of the
victims; help us to take their side, and to bring
with us reparations for our sin and the sin of our
fathers; for the sake of that homeless brother who
was wounded for our offenses, Jesus the Liberator.
For the Revolution
0 God whose Name is revolution, cut our ties with
all that is wrong and dying; help us to carry out,
not our revolution, but yours. Do not let us con-
tinue in the old way of murder, but direct us onto
the new Way of love, which we learn from the
spirit of our brother the Liberator.
For the Rich
0 Power to whom all things are possible, we do not
know whether you can bring a camel through the eye
of a needle. Let our rich brothers and sisters
not trespass forever on your gentleness and for-
bearance; let them rather hear the word to the
rich young ruler, and give it all away; may their
reward be in the future and not in the past.
For Rights everywhere
0 Power of being, your love is the only law; in
you is no injustice at all. Hold up every legal
system, every court and administrator, to the
plumbline of your impartiality. Smash all dis-
crimination, use our hands and voices to build a
world of equal rights for all.
For a Runaway
Father of all the unwanted, take under your care
each one who for a time has no family in the
world. Soften the heart of his parents, make pos-
sible his return if that is your desiring, for the
sake of Jesus the teenager who ran away to be
about your business.
For Scholars
Spirit of truth, through our fault the powers of
darkness have obscured the truth of the Gospel by
a false learning. Raise up true scholars to con-
found its pretensions and to light a true beacon;
Liberation Prayers 45
let them point to the unschooled poor who do your
work by the Liberator living in them.
For Schools and seminaries
Fountain of wisdom, have you not put springs of
knowledge into men's hearts and into books? Let
our schools reject all subservience to oppression;
let them stop at no truth short of the truth of
liberation; let them find nothing good enough but
your goodness.
For Simplicity of life
Jesus, without self-punishment you reduced your
needs to a minimum; your message was short; you
did not travel far nor live long. Give us a share
of your simplicity and truthfulness, so that our
success may be of the same kind as your success,
and our failure measured by your failure.
For Strength in troubles
0 Judge of history, you have let troubles surround
us; we are tired, in pain, near despair. Send
your Spirit to each one of us, and underneath our
fatigue put an energy from outside us. Hold us
fast in the love of the brotherhood, remembering
that everything we suffer has already been suf-
fered by the Liberator.
For the Threatened
We pray for all those so burdened with a sense of
mediocrity or guilt that they cannot let go of
supposed securities, for fear that justice will
strip them naked. God, give them other ground to
stand on. Show them that to renounce complicity
is the beginning of true security in the brother-
hood of the Liberator.
For Travelers J hitch-hikers ^ drivers
God, in every age you send men and women from
their homeland like Abraham to build a new com-
munity in a distant country. Watch over those who
go out on trip. Do not let them fall into sick-
ness or the hands of the violent, and each night
find them a meal and lodging for the sake of the
Son of Man who had no place to lay his head.
For a Trial
0 Judge of the Ages, hold up the standard of your
truth to those who in this place are called agents
of your justice, so that they may speak not what
is conventional but what is right, remembering the
unjust condemnation, long ago and yesterday, of
their Liberator.
46 The Covenant of Peace
For the Unemployed
Jesus the manual laborer, stand beside those whom
oppression has deprived of useful work; turn their
hands to your work. Care for their needs, for
their wives and children; and do not let them be
muzzled by welfare. Redouble their cry for jus-
tice; build a true society on the solid base of
their indignation.
For Union organizers
0 Source of change, you called Moses your first
prophet as an organizer of the exploited, the
leader of a general strike. Give all union organ-
izers his commitment and power; by their work
break down every system of injustice and oppres-
sion, build a human society on this garden planet.
For Unity of people
0 God of life, you who have made men and women of
one stock and one family, turn our eyes from out-
ward differences to the common humanity and let us
embrace, as children of one house, through the
Brother of us all.
For the Unity of the Church
0 Fountain of unity, build all humankind into a
new creation around your Son, the true Adam. Do
not let administrative schemes deceive the simple.
Raise up everywhere people's organizers, who will
unite your church in order to do your desiring:
the works of freedom, conservation, and peace.
For Victims
Our Liberator, that Power which we do not under-
stand has brought many persons (and especially N . )
into union with your suffering. Raise up cham-
pions for their cause. Do not leave them as vic-
tims long; and while they are such, give them your
confidence and a foretaste of the new life.
For the Vision of God
Bright Sun of all the worlds, you have made the
fullness of all the universe your splendor. Bring
us to such simplicity that our eyes can see the
Day of your liberation in every day, through the
one whose face reflects the knowledge of that
glory, Jesus our brother.
For the Vocation of everyone
Our God, you are no respecter of persons; all work
is your work, no man's is more important than an-
other's. As our Brother learned in the carpen-
ter's shop the whole task of liberation, so may
Liberation Prayers 47
each of us bring to his task the whole person he
must become.
For White people
0 God of history, you are taking this planet from
the white people who have long usurped it, and
giving it to others. Turn the children of the
colonialist to their brothers; let them bring with
them their treasures of science and art. Together
let them build one family without exploitation on
one living planet.
For our Work in the revolutionary Church
God, you make all things work together for good
among those who love you; help us build each word
and action into a consistent program of change,
looking forward to the coming New Age of coopera-
tion among all in the Liberator.
For the Young
0 God, in you is every future; stand beside the
young people in whom our future lies. Help them
avoid the mistakes of their parents; renew in them
all truths which their parents once affirmed.
Make them cells of a more just society, builders
of a restored planet.
/i8 CELEBRATING
For Liberation
Our Father, the Prince of this world had shut us
up very tight in his castle Despair; now the Lib-
erator with the weapon of his Spirit has broken
down its walls, and we learn a new song of
freedom.
For a Safe Return
0 Power of history, you exiled your people in
Babylon and brought the Liberator down to Egypt;
you have brought us home from the discomfort and
dangers of exile; we trust you also at the end to
anchor humankind, and the whole universe, in the
destination of their hoping.
For the Creation
Creator, you who have filled the universe with
splendor, even as we struggle against the powers
of darkness we celebrate your magnificence; we
make our road of combat part of the desired goal
and we salute you as our final Goal.
For Nature and History
Fountain of life, we praise you for the excellence
of the planet where we labor, for the lives and
works of our brothers and sisters in the past, for
touching our hearts to see both. Do not let us be
satisfied with less than whole commitment; let us
be your agents in life and liberation.
For a Saint
0 Source of life, you pour humankind into many
shapes; we thank you for the example and witness
of your servant N. ; help us take on the form of
humanity that our time and place call for, in the
strength of that Brother who is the perfect man.
For our Food
0 King of the Ages, blessed are you who bring the
grain out of the earth and make the sap rise in
the vine. We praise you in these your gifts, we
ask that the hungry never be turned away from our
door, through that Liberator who declared all food
sacred and who never ceases offering us the bread
of life.
For Childbirth
Father of all living, we thank you that your
daughter N. has safely brought a child into the
Liberation Prayers 49
world of light; watch over them both and, by your
Spirit, have the child brought up in the presence
of Jesus the Liberator.
For Harvest
Source of life, we praise you that once again in
its season the land has given its increase and
your people are fed in joy fulness; may the earth
never grow less green, and may all mankind ever
rejoice in your liberation.
C-K^eWv^ ^ Cov^fv/iW
A form for the mutual compact of a group which may
not yet have called or commissioned a minister ;
and where some may not yet have gone through the
waters^ or may have doubts about their baptism as
infants .
Salutations
Leader and People:
It is time for us to wake up from sleep;
Our freedom is nearer than when we believed.
{Romans 13:11]
See, now is the proper time;
Today is the day of liberation.
[2 Corinthians 6:2]
You are the light of the world;
A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.
[Matthew 5:14]
God has made with us a covenant of peace;
He sends down the rain in its season.
He has broken the bars of our yoke;
And freed us from the hand of our oppressors.
[Ezekiel 34:25-27]
He removes bow and sword, and war from the land;
He makes us lie down in safety.
[Rosea 2:18]
The habitation of God is with men;
He lives with them and they are his people.
[Revelation 21:3]
Change your heart and turn back;
The fulfillment of time has arrived.
[Acts 3:19; Galatians 4:4]
Be confident in the good news ;
The Liberated Zone is at hand.
[Mark 1:15]
The Promise of the Covenant
Leader: Friends, we are here as a group because
we have tried and failed to make a life for our-
selves individually. But a seed has been sown in
the world, and each of us is aware of its germina-
tion in his heart. Today we want to throw off
complicity with an old order of violence and to
bind ourselves together in a new compact, so
clearly that not the simplest person will doubt
for an instant where we stand. We know that by
ourselves we lack the insight and the will to do
52 The Covenant of Peace
this. So let us hear the old promise of a cove-
nant freely made available to men and women, whose
terms are not arbitrary but the laws of the uni-
verse, offering that peace which the world cannot
give .
Assistant: See, the days are coming, says the
Power of history, that 1 will seal a new covenant
with the house of Israel. It will not be like the
covenant which I sealed with their fathers, on the
day when I took them by the hand to lead them out
of Egypt, the land of exploitation; for they re-
jected that covenant, even though I was their hus-
band. For this is the covenant I will seal with
the house of Israel after those days: I will put
my law in their midst and write it on their
hearts; I shall be their God and they will be my
people. No more will a man teach his neighbor or
his brother, saying, "Know God"; for they will all
know me, from the least to the greatest. I will
pardon their crime and remember their complicity
no more. [Jeremiah 31:31-34]
The Threefold Rule
Leader: Friends, let us hear from the prophet
that Way of justice which is the first rule of the
covenant .
Assistant : Is not this the fasting that I have
approved, says the Power of history:
To break the chains of injustice.
To cut the straps of the yoke.
To release the oppressed into freedom.
And to throw off every yoke;
To share your bread with the hungry.
And bring the landless poor into
your household;
When you see the naked, to cover him.
Not hiding away from your own flesh?
[Isaiah 58:6-7]
Leader: Let us next hear from the book of Moses
the permanent task laid on man and woman, to plant
the garden of this living planet.
Assistant : Then God took man and put him in the
paradise of Eden, to cultivate it and tend it.
And God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruit-
ful and increase, spread over the earth and regu-
late it; assume leadership over the fish of the
sea, the birds of the air, and every animal that
moves on the earth." [Genesis 2:15; 1:28]
Entering the Covenant 53
Leader: Friends, the good news we bear is that
Jesus is the agent of the new covenant. In him,
we who are called will receive our promised in-
heritance. Let us then finally open our ears to
the new Way of Love laid down for us by our
brother the Liberator.
Assistant :
You shall love your enemies.
Do good to all who hate you.
Bless those who denounce you,
Pray for those who harass you.
If someone hits your right cheek.
Turn him the other also;
If someone takes away your coat.
Give him your shirt also.
Give to everyone who demands;
Do not ask to have back what is seized.
And as you wish people would treat you.
You treat them just that same way.
Your reward will be great.
For you will be children of the Highest,
Who raises his sun on the evil and good.
And rains on the just and unjust;
So you shall be merciful.
Just as your Father is merciful.
[Luke 6:27-31, 35-36; Matthew 5:45]
Liberation from Complicity
The following Statement of Complicity is either
read by the people along with the leader y or re-
peated after him line by line.
We confess that we are accomplices
With the demonic powers of violence.
We grow rich by daily oppression;
We sleep in beds of racism.
We take pride in freedom and justice.
And we invent new slavery.
We say that our goal is peace.
And invent new instruments of war.
We live off the fat of the land,
And we poison it for our children.
We say that we love our neighbor.
And we try to breed him off the earth.
We cry out against exploitation.
And exploit each other and ourselves.
And so we are accomplices
In the crime of burnt bodies;
Burnt ghettoes;
Burnt earth;
Burnt freedom.
5^1 The Covenant of Peace
We are accomplices by our violence.
By our violence.
By our most grievous violence.
In turning our faces away
And in doing nothing.
Leader and People:
Kyrie eleison. Kyrie eleison.
Lord have mercy upon us. Lord have mercy
upon us .
Christe eleison. Christe eleison.
Christ have mercy upon us. Christ have
mercy upon us.
Kyrie eleison. Kyrie eleison.
Lord have mercy upon us. Lord have mercy
upon us .
Leader: The Power that lighted the stars, that
puts down oppressors and lifts up the poor from
the dust, can also transform our twisted and bro-
ken lives. For the door of our freedom opens by
itself for all that knock; whoever is in Jesus
our Liberator has become a new being. And so,
may he who provides us with bread from the earth,
air to breathe, and fire to purify rottenness, now
also in his great waters drown our old self, and
give us a fresh start through this community of
love. Amen; so may it be.
Psalm 111
I celebrate God with my whole heart
In the community of those who love
justice .
Great are the events he brings.
To be studied by all who delight in him.
Splendor and beauty is his work;
His justice stands forever.
He sets up a memorial of his marvels;
Loving and gentle is our God.
He gives food to those who honor him;
He always remembers his covenant.
He shows his people the power of his works
By giving them the inheritance of the
violent .
The works of his hands are certain and just;
All his demands are true;
They are fixed for ever and ever.
They are done in truth and confidence.
He sent liberation to his people;
To eternity he upholds his covenant.
Blessed and holy is his being;
His fear is the summit of wisdom.
Entering the Covenant 55
A true mind is theirs who do his will;
His praise will stand forever.
Making the Covenant
Here a representative of the community reads their
covenant statement ; see the specimen appended.
Leader: Brothers and sisters, are you determined
in your minds, without any reservation, to carry
out the provisions of this covenant for the time
provided?
Then each in turn^ ending with the leader ^ ex-
presses in his own words his adherence to the
covenant .
Leader: Are you prepared, for that purpose, to
study the Holy Scriptures, and the natural laws of
society and this planet, building into your lives
whatever new truths may come from that study?
People: We are prepared to do so.
Leader: Friends, it is a narrow door of service
and commitment that we are entering today: more
than an hour of ceremony, more than a summer of
community organizing. For while there is a lower
class, we are in it; while there is a soul in
prison we are not free; while the earth is pol-
luted we are unclean; wherever bombs fall, our
wholeness is wounded. And if we claim to be per-
fect in knowledge or action, we deceive ourselves
and injure our brother. Let us then always have
in mind the story of the two men, which our Lib-
erator taught us.
Assistant : Two men went into the sanctuary to
pray, a clergyman and a sheriff. The clergyman
stood up and prayed thus to himself: "God, I
thank you that I am not like other men, exploi-
ters, unjust, or unfaithful, such as this sher-
iff. I fast twice in the week, I give ten percent
of all my income to charity." But the sheriff
stood far off, not daring to lift his eyes to the
sky, and struck his breast, saying: "God be gen-
tle with me, a guilty man." I tell you, the sec-
ond man went back to his house liberated, but not
the first. For everyone who lifts himself up is
put down; but the person who puts himself down is
lifted up. [Luke 18:9-14]
Leader: But we have been told, and believe, that
the full commitment of the Liberator makes up for
our failure in commitment: the news of his life
56 The Covenant of Peace
is the power of God for liberation to everyone who
trusts it [Romans 1:16]. Are you ready at this
time to make that act of trust?
People: We are ready, in the strength of the
Li berator .
Leader: Look then, sky and earth witness this
day, that there have been set in front of us good
and evil, blessing and curse, life and death.
Which will you choose?
All: We choose life, that we and our children may
live. [Deuteronomy 30:19]
Leader: The covenant of peace is sealed; for God
at his right time has sent the Spirit of the Lib-
erator into our hearts, crying out:
[Galatians 4:6]
All: Abba, Father:
Blessed be your working;
Soon be your appearing;
Done be your desiring.
Our bread provide us;
Our debts forgive us;
From trials free us.
Then all present sign the document of the Covenant .
The New Unity
Leader: Brothers and sisters, we who have taken
on the covenant of peace are no longer strangers,
but fellow-citizens with the saints and residents
in God's household, at one with the apostles and
prophets. The cornerstone of our community is
Jesus the Liberator, in whom we are becoming a
living temple, a forest cathedral, of the Spirit.
Let us then take to our heart the life of the
original Church as Luke describes it .
Assistant : So all who accepted Peter's word went
through the waters. They committed themselves to
the teaching and community of the apostles, to the
breaking of bread and prayers. And every person
was afraid, for many great acts were done by the
apostles. And all those who believed lived to-
gether and had all things common; they sold their
possessions and property, and distributed them to
all, as any one happened to have need. Daily they
attended the Temple together; and house by house
they broke bread and ate in gladness and joyf^l-
ness of heart, praising God and maintaining good-
will to all the people. And God added liberated
Entering the Covenant 57
persons day by day to their number.
[Acts 2:41-47]
Here follow the Affirmations God is not dead
etc^< from p. 12S.
Then the Intercessions from the Litany (p. 35)^ or
in some other form.
Leader: This is my command, that you should love
each other as 1 loved you. No one has greater
love than this: to lay down his life for his
friends. You are my friends, if you do what I
command. And my yoke is easy and my burden light.
Peace I leave to you, my peace I give to you; not
as the world gives, do 1 give to you. Shalom.
[John 15:12-14; Matthew 11:30; John 14:27]
Here follows the Kiss of Peace.
Assistant :
I your God love justice;
I hate robbery and oppression.
I give you your reward in truth;
I seal with you a covenant of my Age.
Your children are known among the peoples.
Your descendants in the heart of all
nations ;
All who see them will agree:
They are a people that God has blessed.
[Isaiah 61.8-9]
Benedictus
Blessed is the God of Israel,
For he has visited and ransomed his
people ;
And lifted up a horn of liberation for us
In the house of David his servant .
As he promised by the mouth of his holy
prophets
Who have been since the start of his Age:
Liberation from our enemies
And from the hand of all that hate us.
Showing gentleness to our forefathers
And remembering his holy covenant.
The promise he made to Abraham our father;
That we, rescued from fear of our
enemies ,
Should serve with holiness and justice
All of our days in his presence.
[Luke 1:67-75]
58 The Covenant of Peace
Leader: Thus says the Alpha and the Omega, the
first and the last, the beginning and the end: 1
was dead, and see, I am living in the Age to come;
I will give everyone that is victorious to eat
from the tree of life in the paradise of God.
[Revelation 22:13, l:l8, 2:7]
Specimen of a local covenant :
The November Fifth Statement
Adopted by the staff of the Berkeley Free Churchy
5 November 1969
The Free Church of Berkeley is a community within
the revolutionary Movement which relates to the
radical tradition of Jesus, the Prophets, and the
Church of Liberation.
I will make for them a covenant on that day
with the wild animals, with the birds of the
air, and with the creeping things of the earth.
[Rosea 2:l8]
We recognize the Spirit of God at work in the
movement of our brothers and sisters for the res-
toration and preservation of the ecological bal-
ance of our planet. We believe that uncontrolled
production and consumption constitute violence
against ecological law and order. We admit our
complicity, individually and collectively, in the
pollution of our environment by chemicals and ra-
diation, in the exploitation of natural resources
and wilderness, in the horror of overpopulation.
Therefore we dedicate ourselves to working toward
a life-style which holds a viable ecological order
as a sacred and revolutionary priority.
The November Fifth Statement 59
I will break bow, sword, and battle out of the
land, and allow them to sleep in safety.
[Hosea 2:18] I will make with them a covenant
of peace . . . and they will know that I am the
Power of history, when I break the bars of
their yoke and liberate them from the hand of
their oppressors. [Ezekiel 34:25-27]
We recognize the Spirit of God in the movement for
peace and liberation throughout the world. We
join in the struggle for the liberation of op-
pressed peoples (the poor, the Third World, racial
minorities, women, and youth) from exploitation
and racism at home and from imperialism abroad.
We dedicate ourselves to serve the victims of
force and oppression, avoiding the trap of the
colonialist mission in perpetuating a corrupt sys-
tem, and recognizing that the highest form of
service is organizing the oppressed for resis-
tance. We will struggle for the establishment of
social and political structures which are just,
humane, and participatory. We will resist insti-
tutions of war, conscription, racism, imperialism,
and injustice, and shall attempt to offer an al-
ternative through the life of joy and suffering in
our voluntary community of brothers and sisters.
I will marry you to myself for ever, marry
you with integrity and justice, with tender-
ness and love. [Hosea 2:19]
We recognize the Spirit of God at work in the
struggle of our time toward sexual intimacy, voca-
tional creativity, psychic integrity, and inter-
personal sensitivity. We resist those institu-
tions of our society which dehumanize and destroy
real interpersonal relations. We accept the im-
perative to develop attitudes and life-styles that
are personally and communally liberating and non-
exploitative. In celebration we will be freed to
work toward the ecological and social revolutions.
f\ Ko^ ^ C^^i^v/e^
7 . ^e<^MA^ ^ ^^ii^ l^tc. t(ic Cov^c/k-^M^
Including the form for adoption of a child
The act of going through the waters implies that
an individual is able to answer for himself or
herself. By the present form a baby is brought
into the covenant of peace in the fullest way that
something can be done for one person by others.
Psalm 139
0 Power of being, you have searched me out;
You see my thoughts from far away.
You surround my path and my bed.
And have knowledge of all my ways .
Before a word is on my tongue.
My God, you know it perfectly.
You encounter me in front and behind;
You lay your hand upon me .
The marvel of your knowledge is beyond me;
It is too high for me to reach.
For you shaped all my parts;
You formed me in my mother's womb.
1 will praise your works;
For I was wonderfully made.
You knew my life altogether.
My substance was not hidden from you.
When I was being made in secret ,
Fashioned in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed shape;
In your book my members were written.
And all the days that were made for me.
Before they had yet come to being.
Minister: We celebrate you, our Father, master of
sky and earth, that you hid these things from the
wise and learned, and revealed them to babies.
Yes, our Father, for this was your joyful will.
[Luke 10:21]
The Presentation
Here the mother ^ holding her child, prays in her
own words or as follows .
62 A Book of Changes
Mother: Fountain of all life, I thank you because
you have entrusted me with a share In your work of
creation, and given me a child for the covenant of
your peace. Like Hannah I have brought him [her]
to your congregation; and I pray that he may live
all his life In this community, through Jesus our
Liberator who was once a child.
Alt: Amen; so may it be.
Or if the baby is adopted^ the mother can say:
Maker of all life, another has given birth, and I
have been entrusted with the child that was born.
I bring him [her] as my own child into the pres-
ence of this congregation; and I pray that he may
live all his life in the covenant of your peace;
through Jesus our Liberator who also found a new
mother in the community of love.
Father: Friends, we have read in the book of Luke
how the child of Mary, eight days after his birth,
was given his name of JESUS and taken to the
Temple to be brought Into the covenant; there he
was blessed by Symeon and Anna. So likewise we
have brought this child of our bodies [or, this
child whom we have taken as our child] to the
present company. Here we will renew our own com-
mitments, name this child and enroll him in this
community, and begin his education in it.
Reader: They brought him children so that he
could lay his hands on them; and his Disciples
criticized them. But when Jesus saw this he was
very angry, and said to them, "Allow children to
come to me, do not prevent them; for to such be-
longs the liberated zone. Truly I tell you, un-
less a person receives God's liberation like a
child, he will never enter it." Then he took them
up in his arms, put his hands on them, and blessed
them. [Mark 10:13-17]
Litany
0 Child, our promised Prince of Peace: Accept
your own chi 1 dren .
0 Child praised by shepherds and their animals:
Accept your own children. And so on.
0 Child honored by kings of the earth:
0 Child given the name JESUS of liberation:
0 Child, carrier of the world's spirit:
0 Child, born in the city of royalty:
0 Child, taxed by a foreign oppressor:
0 Child, presented in God's temple:
Receiving a Baby into the Covenant 63
0 Child acclaimed by Symeon the prophet:
0 Child, a displaced person for the covenant's
sake :
0 Child, in whose place the innocents were
murdered :
0 child apprenticed to the manual laborer: Accept
your own chi 1 dren .
0 Child, a runaway for your father's business:
Accept your own children.
The Promises
Minister: Let us all at this time renew the prom-
ises which we once made in the presence of this
community .
Here the Minister and People repeat the six ques-
tions from the form of going through the waters
(pp. 73-74).
Minister (to the parents): Brother and sister, we
have just reaffirmed our own commitments. Are you
determined to bring this child up in a household
where those convictions are living, while also
letting him [her] have his own integrity; and at
the right time help him to a free act of going
through the waters?
Here the parents express their willingness in
their own words.
Minister (to the godparents) : Do you undertake
full responsibility for the care and education of
this child if its parents should be taken from
this community, as if if were your child?
Godparents : This child is flesh of our flesh.
The Covenant
Minister : Let us hear from the prophet Rosea
God's promises of hope in the covenant of peace,
which this child is about to enter.
Reader: On that day I will seal for you a cove-
nant with the wild animals, with the birds of the
sky and the beasts of the earth. I will break the
bow and sword, and remove war out of the land; and
1 will make you lie down in safety. I will marry
you to me forever, marry you in justice and integ-
rity, in love and gentleness; I will marry you to
me in steadfastness, and you will know that I am
God. [Hosea 2:18-20]
64 A Book of Changes
Minister : Sky and earth witness to us that God
has set before us today good and evil, blessing
and curse, life and death. Which will you choose?
All: We choose life, that we and our children may
live.
Here follow the Affirmations God is not dead etc.
from p. 2 23.
Receiving the Child
Then the father and mother say together :
This child of our flesh has found a new
f ami ly ;
We name him [her] N. ;
We entrust him [her] to you our brothers and
si s ters .
Or if the child is adopted they say:
We take this child as flesh of our flesh;
We name him [her] N. ;
We entrust him [her] to you our brothers and
s i s ters .
Then the Minister enters the child's name in the
hook of the community , saying:
Blessed are all those whose names are written in
the Lamb's book of life. As this child sees the
faces of its family on earth, so may its guardians
beyond space and time see the face of our one
Father .
All: Abba, Father:
Blessed be your working;
Soon be your appearing;
Done be your desiring.
Our bread provide us ;
Our debts forgive us;
From trials free us .
Reader: All those who are led by the spirit of
God are children of God. For you did not receive
a spirit of slavery in fear, but a spirit of adop-
tion, in which we cry out, Abba, Father. The
Spirit Itself witnesses together with our spirit
that we are children of God; and if children, then
also heirs; heirs of God and joint heirs with the
Liberator. With him we suffer together so that we
may live together with him in splendor.
[Romans 8:14-17]
Minister : Whoever wishes to be first among us,
must be last of all and a servant of all. For the
Receiving a Baby into the Covenant 65
Liberator took up children In his arms, saying:
"Whoever receives such a child In my name receives
me; and whoever receives me, receives not me but
the one who sent me." Shalom, brothers and sis-
ters, sons and daughters, the covenant of peace be
upon you all, Shalom.
Then follows the Kiss of Peaee^ begun by the par-
ents kissing the child.
Psalm 23
My shepherd Is the God of creation;
There Is nothing I lack.
He lets me lie down in high pastures;
He guides me to the water of peace.
He opens my life in liberty
To walk in the ways of justice.
Although I go through death valley
I am not afraid of wickedness;
For you are walking beside me.
The way of my leader guides me.
You set a table before me
In the face of all my oppressors;
My brow is bright with the olive.
My cup is filled overflowing.
Joy and gentleness follow me
All the days of my life;
I make my home in God's keeping
Until the end of all days.
Then the Minister marks a cross with oil on the
child's forehead J saying:
May the Father send guardians to watch over you at
night, and to be your shade by day.
Then the parents give the child the Bible (or the
New Testament or Psalms) and also the prayer-book
of the community ^ saying:
Take the words we live by; we set your feet in no
other way than the one we ourselves have chosen.
Magnificat
My heart praises the Power of being.
My life leaps up in my Liberator.
For he saw the oppression of his servant;
Every age will now hall me as happy.
That Energy has dealt with me nobly;
Blessed is the name of his being.
His sympathy spreads on all ages
Of those who are fearful before him.
66 A Book of Changes
He has done a new thing with his arm.
And scattered the arrogant in their
schemes .
He has pulled down the powerful from their
seats
And raised up the wretched of the earth.
He has filled the hungry with his food.
And turned the wealthy away.
He has restored his servant Israel,
Remembering his constant kindness.
As he promised to our fathers, to Abraham
And his offspring until the new Age.
[Luke 1:46-55]
Minister :
God bless you and watch over you;
God shine his face on you and love you;
God lift up his face to you, and set
his peace among you.
[l^umbers 6:24-26]
2 . CfcU^ t^A-tyi^ t^ \^Me/H
This fornix the act of permanent adult Qommitment
to the new Wayj is an adaptation of the old Roman
Easter Eve liturgy and baptism. It is set in the
context of the Freedom Mealj and should only be
shortened in prisons 3 in siakness j or other emer-
gency. If possible it should be a Vigil service
and ideally it will be scheduled for the Eve of
Easter or Pentecost; but any baptism is of itself
a festival of the Resurrection.
The New Fire
Outside the room new fire is struck.
Minister : 0 Light beyond all worlds, in the be-
ginning you organized the primeval darkness into
our universe; let this new fire signal for us the
great work by which you placed Jesus our Liberator
in the center of history, a man transparent to
your illumination, so that the spirit of his new
life may shine in our community of love.
People: Amen; so may it be.
A taper is lit, and the procession enters the
darkened room, while three times is said:
Minister : The light of liberation.
People: Thanks be to God.
Reader: Rejoice now, you army of Powers beyond
space and time, your Captain of humility is at
hand; blow the trumpet of freedom for the servant
King who conquers by love. Let the stars of morn-
ing shout as they did at the first moment of crea-
tion, for our Brother is making a new sky, a new
earth. Sing with joy, forests and oceans, moun-
tains and grainfields; for your mother the Earth
has passed out of eclipse by demonic powers into
the noontide Sun of justice, who restores her for
all creatures that live on her. And gather to-
gether here, you whole cloud of witnesses in the
liberated community of love, and fill our halls in
the glory of the Illuminator.
Here the Candle and other lights are lit.
Reader and People:
Peace be with you all.
And with you, our brother.
68 A Book of Changes
Lift up your hearts.
We lift them up to our Liberator.
Let us celebrate the Power of being.
It is good and right for us to do so.
Reader: It is right that here and now we should
thank you, 0 Power of history, through Jesus our
Liberator, the true Adam, who was executed by the
oppressor and lives in us with triumph; he is the
Lamb sacrificed at the Passover feast, in whom
death has died. In this night you led our fathers
out of the house of exploitation, passing through
the great waters on dry land; in this night those
who walk the new Way pass out from the valley of
darkness into the clear light of your Liberated
Zone; in this night our Brother breaks the chains
of our hell of separation, and builds us into the
society of mankind. To free an unfaithful servant
you gave up a loyal son; 0 fortunate guilt of man,
that warranted such liberation!
Therefore, 0 Father of lights, accept this candle,
that it may burn continually to push back the
frontiers of darkness. May the Morningstar who
knows no setting, when he comes in splendor to
consummate his work, find it still burning, and us
his brothers still working by its light. Amen; so
may it be .
The Six Prophecies of the Waters
Then a spokesman for those who wish to go through
the waters says:
Friends, we are here at this time as refugees from
the occupied territory of exploitation; we wish to
enter the liberated zone of your fellowship.
Minister : Brothers and sisters, you are welcome.
You know and we know that no person can enter new
life except through the purification of death to
the old way. Let us then be quiet and hear the
promise of the waters.
Reader: Hear the first prophecy, the bounding of
the great deep, from the book of Job.
Where were you when I compacted the earth?
Speak if you have such knowledge.
Who (if you know) set its dimensions?
Who put his yardstick against it?
What did its foundations rest on.
Who laid its cornerstone,
When the stars of dawn sang together
And the -sons of God called out in joy?
Going through the Waters 69
And who fenced the sea with gates.
When it broke out from the womb.
When I made the clouds its clothing,
And wrapped it in the dark storm.
And planted a boundary for it.
And set up its gates with their bar.
And said, "So far you may come, and no
further;
The pride of your waves is here broken"?
[Job 38:4-11]
Peop le :
When he fixed the sky, Wisdom was there;
When he drew a circle on the face of the
deep. [Proverbs 8:27]
Reader: Hear the second prophecy of the rainbow,
from the book of Moses.
And God said, "This is the symbol of the Constitu-
tion which I am making between myself, and you,
and every living creature that is with you, for
all the generations of time. I am setting my bow
in the stormcloud, and it will be a symbol of the
constitution between me and the earth. Whenever
I bring the stormcloud over the earth and the bow
appears in the cloud, 1 will remember the consti-
tution between me and you and all living crea-
tures, every kind of animal. The waters will
never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.
When the bow is in the stormcloud, I will see it
and remember the everlasting constitution between
God and every living creature, every animal on
earth." [Genesis 9:12-16]
People: For all the days of the earth, sowing and
harvest, heat and cold, summer and winter, day and
night shall not cease. [Genesis 8:22]
Reader: Hear the third prophecy, how a new people
was born by going through the great waters, from
the book of Moses.
Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea,
and God pushed the sea back by the strong wind of
his breath from the east, all the night long. He
made the sea dry land, and the water was divided.
And the children of Israel went into the middle of
the sea on dry ground; the waters were a wall for
them on the right and on the left. And the
Egyptians were pursuing and came in after them,
all Pharaoh's horse and' chariots and cavalry, into
the middle of the sea. And in the morning watch
70 A Book of Changes
God looked down on the army of Egypt from the pil-
lar of fire and cloud; and he held up the army of
Egypt by muddying their chariot wheels so that
they were too heavy to roll. And Egypt said, "Let
me run away from the face of Israel; for God is
fighting on their side against Egypt."
Then God said to Moses, "Stretch out your hand
over the sea, and the water will come back over
Egypt, over his chariots and cavalry." And Moses
stretched out his hand over the sea, and the sea
returned at daybreak to its usual place, and the
Egyptians rushed into it. So God wiped out the
Egyptians in the middle of the sea. The water re-
turned and covered the chariots, the cavalry, and
all Pharaoh's army that went after them into the
sea; not one of them remained. But the children
of Israel walked on dry ground in the middle of
the sea, and the water was a wall for them on the
right hand and on the left. [Exodus 14:21-29]
People :
I will sing to the Power beyond armies,
For he has utterly triumphed;
The horses and the chariots
He has thrown into the sea;
They were covered up by the floods.
They went down in the deep like a stone.
[Exodus 15:1, 10]
Reader: Hear the fourth prophecy of God's victory
over the dark powers of the deep, from the book of
Isaiah.
Wake up, wake up, get dressed with strength,
0 Arm of the Power beyond all hosts;
Wake up as in the ancient days.
The generations of the ages.
Was it not you that cut up the Beast,
That wounded the great monster?
Was it not you that dried up the sea.
The water of the great deep.
That made the abyss of the sea a road
For the liberated to go through on?
All those ransomed by God will return.
And come to Zion with singing;
The happiness of the Age to come
Shall rest as a crown on their heads;
Gladness and joy are given to them.
Mourning and tears are abolished.
[Isaiah 51:9-11]
Going through the Waters 71
People :
He has drawn a circle on the face of the
waters ,
At the horizon of light and darkness;
The pillars of sky are shaking
And cower at his demands.
With his power he stilled the sea,
By his knowledge he smashed the World
Beast .
By the wind of his breath the sky grew fair,
His hand impaled the Pig retreating.
[Job 26:10-13]
Reader: Hear the fifth prophecy of drowning and
rebirth, from the book of Jonah.
I called out of my distress
To the Power of being, and he heard me;
From inside the belly of the prison
I cried and you heard my voice.
For you threw me in the heart of the sea.
I was surrounded by the flood;
All your waves and breakers
Have passed over my head.
The waters shut in over my life,
The deep was on every side of me.
Weeds were wrapped around my head
At the roots of the mountains.
I went down to the land
Where gates shut against me forever.
But you brought me up living from that death,
0 God my liberator. [Jonah 2:2-6]
People :
Out of the depths I cried to you, my God;
0 Liberator, hear my voice;
May your ears consider well
The voice of my complaining. [Psalm 130:1]
Reader: Hear how Jesus our brother went down into
the great waters, from the book of Mark.
The beginning of the message of Jesus the Liber-
ator, as it stands written in the prophets: "See,
I send my messenger before your face, he will pre-
pare your way"; "A voice of one crying, in the
desert prepare God's way, make his paths
straight." John the baptizer was in the desert
proclaiming passage through the waters as a fresh
start for liberation from crimes. The whole land
of Judea went out to him, and all the people of
Jerusalem. They went through the waters at his
hands in the Jordan river, admitting their crimes.
John's clothing was of camel hair, with a leather
72 A Book of Changes
belt around his waist; he ate locusts and wild
honey. And in his announcement he said: "One
stronger that I am is coming after me, whose san-
dals I could not stoop down and unloose. I make
you pass through water; he will make you pass
through the holy Spirit." In those days there
came Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee and went
through the waters in Jordan at John's hands. And
just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw
the sky split and the spirit coming down on him
like a dove. And there was a voice from the sky,
"You are my beloved son, in you I am well
pleased." [Mark 1:1-11]
People: I have waters I must go through; I am un-
easy until it is finished. [Luke 12:50]
The Rules of the New Way
Here are read the three Rules of the new way from
the form of entering the covenant (pp. 52-53).
The Litany
Reader: And Cain said to Abel his brother, "Let
us go out to the desert." And when they were in
the desert, Cain rose up against Abel his brother
and murdered him. And God said to Cain, "Where is
Abel your brother?" And he said, "I do not know;
am I my brother's keeper?" And God said, "What
have you done? The voice of your brother's blood
is crying to me from the ground. And now you are
cursed on account of the ground, which opened its
mouth to receive your brother's blood from your
hand. When you work the ground, it will no longer
yield you its strength; you will be a fugitive and
a wanderer on the earth." [Genesis 4:8-12]
Reader and People:
Whose blood is this on my hands? Wash off
your brother's blood.
Whose sweat has built my affluence? Wash off
your brother's blood. And so on.
What burned flesh is in my nostrils?
My finger has pressed the bomb-release.
My hand has voted the war-lever.
My ears are deaf to the beggar.
My eyes have turned away from the wounded.
My key has locked out the poor.
My axe is sticky from the redwoods.
My voice Is hoarse from lying.
My loins have subdued the slavegirl.
I put death in my children's milk.
I programmed the death-computer.
Going through the Waters 7S
I made my lover a stranger.
I breathe the poison of my inventions.
I do not know my brother.
Am I my brother's keeper? Wash off your
brother ' s bl ood .
What blood is this on my hands? Wash off
your brother's blood.
The Questions
Minister : Brothers and sisters, you have heard
the rule of justice from the book of the Prophets,
and Jesus' rule of love from the Gospel. Are you
committed from now on to walk by those rules in
your dealings with other people?
Candidates : Yes, I am committed to serve and lib-
erate the oppressed and to love my enemies.
Minister : You have also heard the rule of our
common life on this earth from the book of Moses.
Will you undertake to help limit the numbers of
the human race and to maintain the order of the
planet?
Candidates : I take on the task of Adam, to build
the paradise of Eden.
Minister : Are you ready at this time to break off
your ties with all that destroys God's created or-
ders, both of nature and society?
Candidates : I renounce cooperation with eyery
system of violence and oppression.
Minister : Are you convinced that Jesus our Broth-
er, through the new Way of revolutionary nonvio-
lence which he teaches and illustrates, is our
only salvation from disorder, guilt, and meaning-
lessness?
Candidates : I trust in Jesus as my only Liberator.
Minister : Are you ready to follow, his way in joy
and sorrow, in comfort and deprivation, in life
and death; and in solidarity with the Church, of
which the fellowship assembled here is part?
Candidates : I will follow his Way wherever it
leads; his Way is peace, peace is his Way.
Minister : In the spirit of this community, will
you constantly renew the promises you make here
and the life you receive here; and work consist-
ently for renewal of the planet, of society, of
our own freedom, teaching and organizing to your
life's end?
74 A Book of Changes
Candidates : I join the revolutions of justice and
1 ove .
Accepting the Covenant
Minister : Friends, you have heard how in the be-
ginning the Power beyond nature and history
brought this earth into existence from the ocean
of nonbeing; how he has again and again kept the
family of mankind from being swallowed up by the
floods of the Beast; and how at the right time of
history he brought Jesus our brother through the
water of Jordan and the greater waters of death as
the firstborn of the new Age. Some of you may
have been brought to the waters as babies by so-
cial convention, or as adults without any clear
understanding. Now you have considered the radi-
cal change laid on us by the sacred books, and de-
manded by the needs of the earth, of the poor, of
our own souls. Are you then prepared, for what is
truly the first and last time, to make a fresh
start, accepting the death and life, the suffer-
ing and promise, of the waters?
Here each candidate in turn expresses in his own
words his readiness to go through the waters.
Minister : Brothers and sisters, we welcome you as
fellow-soldiers in the warfare of the Lamb. Our
leader said that if his kingdom were of this
world, his servants would fight; but his kingdom
is not of this world. And although we live in
this world, we are not fighting a worldly war,
for the weapons of our warfare are not of this
world, and therefore have power to destroy the
fortress of the dark powers [2 Corinthians 10:3].
For our strength is made perfect in weakness. Will
you accept induction into this army and no other,
at whatever cost?
Candidates : I accept induction into his army and
no other, at whatever cost.
Minister : See, sky and earth witness to us, that
God has set before us this day good and evil,
blessing and curse, life and death. Which will
you choose?
Candidates : I choose life, that I and my children
may live.
Minister : Hear from our brothers and sisters the
affirmations of our commitment.
Going through the Waters 75
Then are recited the Affirmations God is not dead
etc. from p. 122.
The Blessing of the Waters
Minister : Lift up your hearts.
People: We lift them up to the Liberator.
Minister: Let us celebrate the Power of Being.
People: It is good and right for us to do so.
Minister: It is right that we should praise you,
0 Energy of creation, because by your wisdom hu-
mankind was born from the womb of the waters, and
each passes back into them; but still, at every
threat to our continuance, new communities of hope
have emerged from a passage through the great
seas. And so, may all who, trusting in you, pass
through these waters be washed clean from their
brother's blood and embrace him in peace; may they
strip off complicity for guilt and put on the
white clothing of justice; may the old man of
aloofness be drowned and a new man of solidarity
be raised up. By your life-giving spirit, 0 God,
which at the beginning hovered over the deep,
bless these waters as the means of our union with
Jesus our Brother, the vanguard of your new crea-
tion. Amen; so may it be.
Then the candidates one by one pass through the
waters according to local custom^ while over each
is said:
Minister: In the name of Jesus our Liberator, may
the Power of Being bring you through the great
waters of death into the new community of his
Spirit .
The Clothing and Anointing
Then the candidates are dressed in white clothing ,
while is said:
Minister : As our Brother, after he first took on
the necessity of suffering, was seen by his
friends transfigured in light, so may you take
this white clothing as a symbol that you are
united with the splendor of his commitment.
And after all are so dressed:
Minister : Who are these dressed in white cloth-
ing, and where have they come from?
People: These are ones who have come out from
great oppression; they have washed their clothing
76 A Book of Changes
and made it white in the blood of the Lamb.
[Revelation 7:13-14]
Then each candidate is anointed on the forehead^
while is said:
Minister : As prophets, priests, and kings were
once anointed for their office; since you have
shared the death of Jesus our brother, may you
also share the new life of his anointing, whom we
recognize as our only prophet, our only priest,
our only king.
Reader: Hear how the Liberator was anointed for
death and for life with the best gifts of the cre-
ation, by a woman from among the oppressed.
One of the clergymen asked Jesus to eat with him;
and he came into the house of the clergyman and
took his place. Now a harlot of that city, when
she learned that he was at the clergyman's table,
took an alabaster jar of ointment. She stood at
his feet weeping, and with her tears she began to
wash his feet . Then she dried them with the hair
of her head, and kissed his feet, and rubbed them
with the ointment. [Luke 7:36-38]
The Six Prophecies of the Spirit
Spokesman for the new members : Friends, we thank
you for taking us in from out of Babylon the
great. But many of our brothers and sisters are
still lost in the City of destruction; go out and
help them also.
Minister : We welcome you, our brothers and sis-
ters, into the community of love. But neither you
nor we have power to go out into the doomed
streets and speak the word of life unless the sea-
breeze of the Spirit is blowing through us . So
let us again be quiet and listen for the voice of
the west wind of life and change.
Reader: Hear the first prophecy of the Spirit,
how man and woman received the breath of life,
from the book of Moses.
In the day when God made earth and sky, there was
at first no wild plant on the earth, no wild herb
had yet grown; for God had not brought rain on the
earth, and there was no human being to work the
ground. But then a flood rose up from the earth,
and watered all the face of the ground. And God
shaped mankind. of clay from the ground, and
breathed a living spirit into his nostrils; so man
Going through the Waters 77
became a living creature. And God had planted a
garden in Eden (that is, "Delight") from of old;
and there he set the human beings he had shaped.
And God brought out of the ground every tree beau-
tiful to see or good to eat, the trees of life;
and in the middle of the garden, the tree of
knowledge of good and evil. {Genesis 2:4-9]
People :
He gives us a new heart.
He puts a new spirit in us;
He takes the stone heart out of our flesh,
And gives us a heart of flesh.
[Ezekiel 36:26]
Reader: Hear the second prophecy of the Spirit,
how men became deaf to each other, from the book
of Moses .
And the whole earth had one tongue and few words.
And as they wandered from the east, they found a
valley in the plain of Shinar, and settled there.
And each one said to his neighbor, "Come, let us
make bricks and bake them." They had bricks for
stone, and asphalt for mortar. And they said,
"Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower
with its head in the sky; let us make ourselves a
memorial, so that we shall not be scattered on the
face of all the earth." And God came down to see
the city and the tower that the sons of man had
built. And God said, "See, they are one people,
and they have all one tongue. This is only the
beginning of what they will do; now nothing they
plan to do will be walled off from them. Come,
let us go down and confuse their tongues there, so
that a man will not hear his neighbor's tongue."
And God scattered them from there over the face of
all the earth, and they stopped building the city.
[Genesis 11:1-8]
Teople :
He gives us a new heart,
He puts a new spirit in us;
He takes the stone heart out of our flesh,
And gives us a heart of flesh.
Reader: Hear the third prophecy of the Spirit,
the vision of an age of alienation, from the book
of Ezekiel.
The hand of God was on me; and he brought me in
the spirit of God and set me in the middle of a
desert full of bones. And he led me around
through them; there were very many of them in the
78 A Book of Changes
desert, and they were very dry. And he said to
me, "Son of man, will these bones live?" And I
said to him, "Lord, you are the one that knows."
And he said to me, "Prophesy to these bones, and
say to them. You dry bones, hear the word of God:
See, I am bringing breath into you, and you will
live. I will lay tendons on you, and draw flesh
over you, and put skin on you, and give you breath
for you to live; so you will know that I am God."
And I prophesied as I was told; and when I proph-
esied, there was a noise of rattling, as bone came
together with bone. And I looked, and saw tendons
on them, and flesh on them, and skin over it; but
they had no breath. Then he said to me, "Prophesy
to the Spirit; prophesy, son of man, and say to
the Spirit, Thus says God: Come from the four
winds, 0 Spirit, and breathe upon these corpses,
so that they may live." And I prophesied as he
told me; and the breath came into them, and they
came to life, and they stood on their feet, a very
great army. [Ezekiel 37:1-10]
People :
He gives us a new heart,
He puts a new spirit in us;
He takes the stone heart out of our flesh,
And gives us a heart of flesh.
Reader: Hear the fourth prophecy of the Spirit, a
vision of the Liberator, from the book of Isaiah.
The Spirit of God is upon me.
Because God has anointed me;
He sent me to tell the oppressed good news.
To restore the broken-hearted;
To announce liberation to the captives
And daylight for all those imprisoned;
To proclaim the year of God's pity,
A day of vengeance for our God;
To comfort all those who mourn.
To give them the oil of gladness.
So that men will build up the ancient ruins
And repair the desolate cities.
[Isaiah 61:1-4]
People :
He gives us a new heart,
He puts a new spirit in us;
He takes the stone heart out of our flesh.
And gives us a heart of flesh.
Going through the Waters 79
Reader: Hear the fifth prophecy of the gifts of
the Spirit, from the letter of Paul to the
Corinthians .
We speak wisdom among the fully committed. Not a
wisdom of this age, nor of the demonic rulers of
this age, doomed to destruction; but the wisdom of
God hidden in secret, which he set up before time
and space to honor us. None of the magistrates of
this age recognize it; for if they had recognized
it, they would not have executed the Liberator of
splendor. It is written, "No eye has seen, no ear
has heard, no heart has imagined, what things God
has prepared for those who love him." These
things God has uncovered to us through the Spirit;
the Spirit searches out all things, even the
abysses of God. No one knows a man's affairs ex-
cept his spirit inside him; so no one knows God's
affairs except the Spirit of God. And we have not
received the spirit of the world but the spirit of
God, so that we should know the free gifts made by
God to us; which we do not speak in words taught
by human wisdom, but in words taught by the Spirit.
[2 Corinthians 2:6-13]
People :
He gives us a new heart.
He puts a new spirit in us;
He takes the stone heart out of our flesh,
And gives us a heart of flesh.
Reader: When the Fiftieth day after the Passover,
which is Pentecost, arrived, they were all to-
gether in one place. And there came suddenly from
the sky the sound of a strong steady wind which
filled the whole house where they were sitting.
And there appeared to them tongues of fire, dis-
tributed and resting on each of them. And they
were all filled with the sacred Spirit, and they
began to speak in other tongues, just as the
Spirit put in their mouths. Now there were stay-
ing at Jerusalem Jews and religious men from every
nation under the sky; and when the sound was
heard, a crowd of them gathered and was aston-
ished, because each one heard them speaking in his
own language. They were carried out of themselves
in wonder, saying: "Are not all these who are
speaking Galilaeans? How is it that each of us
hears them speaking in his own language, that he
was brought up in? Parthians and Medes and
Elamites, inhabitants of Mesopotamia, of Armenia
and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and
80 A Book of Changes
Pamphylia, Egypt and the districts of Libya near
Cyrene ; Romans in residence, Jews and converts,
Cretans and Arabs; we hear them speaking in our
own tongues the great actions of God."
[Acts 2:1-11]
People :
He gives us a new heart,
He puts a new spirit in us;
He takes the stone heart out of our flesh,
And gives us a heart of flesh.
The Gift of the Spirit
Minister : Brothers and sisters, after the new
thing has been born, it must still be given the
breath of life. You have heard how again and
again in the past the spirit has been transmitted;
will you here and now receive it in your hearts?
Candidates : I open my body as a temple of the
Spirit.
Minister : Will you bring the same Spirit to your
own household, helping the young to desire the
things done here, so that your family may be an
example and nucleus for the larger community of
love?
Candidates : I will help build the lives around me
into the new City.
Minister : As the Artisan of nature designed the
galaxies and earth with his fingers, will you make
your vocation and job transparent to his Spirit?
Candidates : In my work I stand beside my Brother
the carpenter .
Minister : As he was content to be the servant of
all, will you in his spirit always take thought
for the poor, the suffering, the oppressed?
Candidates : I will be union spokesman and waiter
at tab! e .
Minister : When your own hour of casualty comes,
will you with confidence rely on the same spirit
of ministry in this brotherhood?
Candidates : In strength and in weakness I trust
in the spi ri t of 1 ife.
Minister and People:
Be all of one mind in the Spirit. We are all
of one mind in the Spirit.
Going through the Waters 81
Through the love of the Fountain of life:
We are all of one mind in the Spirit.
And so on.
Through Jesus our brother's fidelity:
Through the hope of his people in every age:
In prosperity and in harassment :
In our families and our aloneness:
In our suffering and celebration:
At the day of death, in the years of living:
In solidarity with God's whole people: We
are all of one mind in the Spirit.
In unity with all the creation: We are all
of one mind in the Spirit.
Then the Candidates kneel down before the Minister
and his colleagues ^ who lay hands on their heads ^
saying :
In the name of Jesus our Liberator, may the heal-
ing Spirit of God rest upon you; the spirit of
wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel
and strength, the spirit of gentleness and the
love of God, in this reconciled community of
friends .
Then likewise the Ministers kneel down and receive
the spirit from the new members ; and so throughout
the congregation. The Kiss of Peace follows ,
while the Minister says:
Shalom, my brothers and sisters, the peace of our
Liberator be with you. Shalom.
Minister : The covenant of peace has been sealed;
for God has sent the spirit of repentance into
your hearts, crying out:
/I U.-
Abba, Father:
Blessed be your working;
Soon be your appearing;
Done be your desiring;
Our bread provide us ;
Our debts forgive us;
From trials' free us.
CANTICLE
And after this I will pour out
The breath of my spirit on all flesh.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
Your old men will dream dreams,
Your young men will see visions;
On your servants I will pour out my spirit
[Joel 2:28-29]
82 A Book of Changes
At the Freedom Meal
Then begins the Litany of the Saints (p. 33)^ dur-
ing which the Ministers can leave the room and re-
turn in celebration vestments . Immediately after-
wards follows the Gloria in Excelsis (p. 122)^
during which bells are rung.
Minister : Let us hear that Word from which, we
believe, there is fresh light yet to break.
The Epistle
All of us who went through the waters to Jesus our
Liberator, went through them to his death. For we
were buried with him through our immersion into
his death so that, just as he was awakened from
the dead by the splendor of the Father, we also
might walk in new life. For if we have been
grafted onto the manner of his death, so shall we
also be with his rising. We are aware that our
old self was executed along with him, so that our
complicity with evil might be destroyed, for us to
serve evil no longer. And if we have died with
him, we trust that we will also live with him.
For we know that, after the Liberator was waked up
from among the dead, he will not die again; death
has no more control over him. He died to evil
once and for all; he now lives to God. So we must
think of ourselves as dead to evil, and alive to
God in Jesus the Liberator. [Romans 6:3-11]
Psalm 98
Sing a new song to the Power of history.
For he has done wonderful things;
His right hand and his holy arm
Have carried off liberation.
He has made his victory known.
To all races he showed his justice;
He remembered his mercy and truth
To all the house of Israel;
And all the continents of the earth
Have seen the liberation of our God,
Sing to him, the whole world;
Rejoice, cry out and praise.
Praise him with every music.
With music and voice of melody.
With trumpets and sound of horns
Be happy before the King of power.
Let the sea in its fulness thunder.
The globe and its inhabitants;
Let the rivers clap their hands.
Let the mountains laugh together.
Going through the Waters 83
Before the Power of history
Who comes to judge the earth;
He will judge the globe in fairness.
And all the races with equity.
The Gospel
Now two of them on that day were walking to a vil-
lage named Emmaus about sixty miles from Jerusa-
lem, and discussing together all these things that
had happened. And while they were talking, Jesus
himself drew near and began walking with them; but
their eyes were kept from recognizing him. He
said to them, "What words were you exchanging in
your journey?" They stood still, discouraged.
One of them named Cleopas answered: "You have
been staying in Jerusalem, and do not know the
events that have happened there in these days?"
He said, "What events?"
They said, "The affair of Jesus the Nazarene, a
prophet powerful in action and word, in the sight
of God and all the people — how the chief priests
and magistrates turned him over for a death sen-
tence and executed him. But we were hoping that
it was he who would liberate Israel. Furthermore,
this is the third day since it happened. And some
women of our number have given us an astonishing
report; they were at the grave early in the morn-
ing and did not find his body; but told us they
had seen a vision of Messengers, who said he was
alive. Some of us went to the grave, and found it
as the women reported; him they did not see."
He said to them: "You fools and slow of heart to
trust all that the prophets said; did not the Lib-
erator have to endure these things before entering
his splendor?" Then starting with Moses and all
the prophets he explained to them the things
about himself in all the Books.
They came near the village they were going to, and
he appeared to be journeying farther. But they
urged him, saying, "Stay with us, for it is near
evening and the day is almost done." So he came
in and stayed with them. And when he joined them
at table, he took the loaf, gave thanks, broke it,
and divided it among them. Then their eyes were
opened, and they recognized him; but he no longer
was seen by them.
They said to each other, "Did not our hearts burn
in us, when he was talking to us on the road, at
the way he opened the Books to us?" And they got
84 A Book of Changes
up at that very hour and went back to Jerusalem,
and found the Eleven and their companions assem-
bled and reporting: "The Liberator has really
been raised up; he appeared to Simon." They in
turn told what had happened on the road, and how
he had been made known to them in the breaking of
the loaf. [Luke 24:13-35]
The Prayer
Minister : 0 Power of the universe, we ask that,
as the Liberator has broken a new way through the
gates of death to your light, so we, turned by him
from the darkness of guilt, may walk into the city
of justice and peace, through his loving spirit in
the community of life. Amen; so may it be.
The Affirmations are not said again; in their
place can be sung:
The IIar Is Over
Tune: "Victory," Palestrlna 1588 {The Hymnal 1940^
no. 91; 8 8 8, with Alleluias)
1 The war is over, and a zone
Of liberation here has grown
Where life returning cracked the stone;
Alleluia.
2 The dark exploiters had their day;
See how their violent powers decay I
Our Guide has marked a better way; Alleluia.
3 The sap above begins to flow;
The axe lies rusting far below;
The winds of future landward blow; Alleluia.
4 The Sun of Justice lights the east.
And breaks the handcuffs of the Beast,
While humankind sits down at feast; Alleluia.
5 On green sierras near the sky
He wipes the tear from every eye;
Oppressor Death begins to die; Alleluia.
6 He put himself in others' care;
The Dark Lord found no foothold there.
His laurel wreath we all may wear; Alleluia.
7 The people's armies of the night
In every land move towards the light;
At dawn they reach their City bright;
Alleluia.
Going through the Waters 85
8 The Swimmer rises from the wave
To crush the Crab that digs our grave.
Come quickly Jesus, strong to save I
Alleluia.
9 Our guilt no longer fears the tomb.
The landless poor have found a home.
Our Brother tastes the honeycomb; Alleluia.
Alleluia; Alleluia; Alleluia.
For the Offertory canticle is sung:
Jesus our Lamb is sacrificed;
Therefore let us keep his feast
Not with the old leaven of violence,
But with the new bread of plainness and
truth. [1 Corinthians 5:7-8]
For now the Liberator is av;aked from the
dead ,
The vanguard of all who sleep;
For since by a man came death,
By a man comes rising from the dead.
[1 Corinthians 15:20-21]
We have died, and our life is hidden
With the Liberator in God;
And when Jesus our life appears.
We also will appear with him in splendor.
[Colossians 3:3-4]
For the Dismissal is said:
Reader :
Go in peace and love.
Go out into Babylon and bring them in.
Keep the faith, baby:
You are the Liberated Zone.
The service as printed is oomplete in itself; by
the addition of items in square brackets ^ it is
set in the context of the Freedom Meal ^ with the
engagement taking the place of the penitential
section^ and the marriage proper becoming the
conclusion of the offertory .
At the Procession
Until the first breath of day
And the retreat of shadows
I go up to the mountain of myrrh.
To the hillside of frankincense.
You are wholly fair, my love;
There is no defect to be found in you.
Come with me from Lebanon, my bride.
Depart from the head of Hermon;
Away from the dens of lions,
Down from the mountains of leopards .
You have made off with my heart, my sister,
My bride, made off with my heart;
By a single look of your eyes.
By one jewel of your necklace.
Sweet as the bees' comb are your lips;
Honey and milk are on your tongue.
And your garments in their perfuming
Are as the smell of Lebanon.
A garden enclosed is my sister, my bride,
A garden enclosed, a fountain sealed.
Your buds are a paradise of pomegranates
And all spice: henna with nard ,
Saffron, calamus, cinnamon.
With every tree of frankincense,
Myrr and wood of aloes,
With all the chiefest of balsams.
A fountain of many gardens,
A great spring of living water.
And streams flowing from Lebanon.
\Song of Solomon 4:8-15]
\If the Freedom Meal follows ^ the minister reads
Francis' prayer for peace, p. 121,]
The Greetings
Minister : Shalom, my brother and sister, the
covenant of peace be upon you, Shalom.
Couple and Others: And peace be with you, our
brother, Shalom.
The Celebration of a Wedding 87
Minister : For the Liberator himself Is our peace;
People: He breaks down all walls of hatred.
[Ephesians 2:14]
Minister : And we have been betrothed to him
People: As a faultless bride to her husband.
[2 Corinthians 11:2]
The Litany for a Wedding
(Replacing the Invocation of the Saints)
Minister and People:
Blessed is the Fountain of all the worlds:
Blessed is he whose name is Love.
Blessed is he that established the light of
the Sun: Blessed is he whose name is
Love. And so on.
Blessed is he that compacted the earth:
Blessed is he that filled up the great sea:
Blessed is he that brings down the rainfall
of life:
Blessed is he that raised cedars from the
ground :
Blessed is he that makes grain sing in the
field:
Blessed is he that makes our heart glad with
the sap of the vine:
Blessed is he that made birds and insects,
deer and all living things :
Blessed is he that formed man and woman after
his own image :
Blessed is he that makes the womb swell with
new life:
Blessed is he that puts his own creativity
in our fingers :
Blessed is he that raised up Jesus as our ex-
ample and Liberator:
Blessed is he that surrounds us with the pil-
lars of his saints:
Blessed is he that makes the nations live in
peace :
Blessed is he that forgets not love in the
grave of our death: Blessed is he whose
name is Love.
Blessed is he whose splendor is the universe:
Blessed is he whose name is Love.
The Demands of the Liberator
The three rules of the new Way are replaced by the
following :
88 A Book of Changes
Reader: Hear the light burden laid on us by Jesus
our Liberator. The first demand is this: "Listen,
Israel, our God is one; and you shall love our God
with all your heart and soul and mind and strength."
And the second is like it: "You shall love your
neighbor as yourself." No other demand is greater
than these.
[Mark 12:29-31; Matthew 22:38]
The Engagement
This replaces the entire penitential section of
the Freedom Meal. First the couple address the
congregation as follows :
Man: Friends, after thought and prayer I have
come here today, with the intention of taking the
hand of A/, in marriage. I ask your approval; and
I call on our brother here, as your representa-
tive, to witness our promises.
Woman: Friends, after thought and prayer I have
come here today, with the desire to offer my hand
to A', in marriage. I ask your approval; and I
call on our brother here, as your representative,
to witness our promises.
Then the minister says to the couple:
My brother and sister, today you are to accept
from each other the joyful burden of that love in
which the worlds were made. As Isaac our fore-
father went a long journey to his homeland, and
there found the fair Rebeccah he was in search of,
so you two have found each other. Our Liberator
offered up all for this beloved community here
assembled, with which he is one flesh. Likewise
I ask you today, in its presence, if you are pre-
pared to do the same.
Then the minister says to the woman:
N.J will you take this man to your wedded husband?
Will you love him, comfort him, honor and keep him
in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all
others, keep only to him, so long as you both
shall live? I wi 11 .
Likewise to the man:
N.J will you take this woman to your wedded wife?
Will you love her, comfort her, honor and keep her
in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all
others, keep only to her, so long as you both
shall live? I wi 1 1 .
The Celebration of a Wedding 89
Then the woman speaks to the man as follows ^ or in
words of the couple ' s own choosing :
I, N.J promise that I will strengthen and support
you, N.J by sharing my joys and fears; and at the
same time, in patience and trust, give you room to
grow, and freedom to be your own self.
And likewise the man to the woman^ in the same
words. Then the minister says to the couple
together :
N. and N.J will you take pains not to burden the
earth with the number of your children; but to
make your family a nucleus for a more just and
happier society, helping build this planet into
the garden it was meant to be? We will.
Then the woman either is given away or steps for-
ward with the man.
Reaffirming the Covenant
Minister : My brother and sister, let us listen to
the joyful promise made by the Power of Being.
Reader :
"For the mountains may be removed
And the hills may be shaken.
But my love shall not be removed,
And the covenant of my peace shall not
be shaken,"
says the God who has felt sympathy for you.
[Isaiah 54:10]
Minister to all: Friends, today these two join
our community in a new relationship. So let us
once again reaffirm that covenant by whose assur-
ance we live. For see, God calls sky and earth to
witness that he has set before us this day good
and evil, blessing and curse, life and death.
Which will you choose?
People: We choose life, that we and our children
may live.
[The Gloria in excelsis can be said here or
omitted. ]
Minister : Let us hear that word from which, we
believe, there is fresh light yet to break.
Lesson
Reader: And God said, "It is not right for a man
to be by himself; I will make him a partner suit-
able for him." And God shaped from clay every
90 A Book of Changes
wild animal, and every bird of the air. He
brought them to man to see what he would call
them; and whatever man called each creature, that
was its name. So man gave names to all the ani-
mals, and to all the birds of the air, and to ev-
ery creature of the wilderness; but for man no
suitable partner was found. Then God brought un-
consciousness upon man, and he slept; and he took
one of his ribs, and brought flesh back over its
place. And God built the rib he had taken from
man into woman, and brought her to man. And man
said, "This time it is bone of my bone and flesh
of my flesh; she will be called woman, because
she was taken from man." Therefore a man leaves
his father and mother and embraces his wife, and
they become one flesh. And the two of them, the
man and his wife, were naked and not ashamed.
[Genesis 2:18-25]
Psalm 128
Happy are all that stand in awe of God,
Who walk in his ways;
You will eat the produce of your hands.
You are happy and Joyful.
Your wife is a fruiting vine
On the walls of your house;
Your children are slips of olive
All around your table.
So shall the man be blessed
That stands in awe of God.
God will so bless you from Zion,
You will see Jerusalem happy all your
days;
You will see your children's children.
And Israel in peace. Shalom.
The Gospel
On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of
Galilee. The mother of Jesus was there, and Jesus
and his followers were invited to the wedding.
Now when the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus
told him, "They do not have any wine." Jesus told
her, "What is that to you or me, lady? My hour is
not yet at hand." But his mother told the serv-
ants, "Do whatever he tells you." Now there were
six water jars lying there, each holding two or
three gallons. Jesus told them, "Fill the jars
with water," and they filled them to the brim.
Then he told them, "Now draw off from the jars,
and take it to the master of ceremonies"; and they
took it. Now when the master of ceremonies tasted
The Celebration of a Wedding 91
the water which had become wine, and did not know
where it came from (only the servants who drew off
the water knew), he called the bridegroom and said
to him: "Everybody brings out the best wine at
the beginning, and then the poorer wine when peo-
ple are drunk; but you have kept the best wine un-
til now." Jesus did this as the beginning of his
signs in Cana of Galilee, and thus showed his
splendor; and his followers had confidence in him.
[John 2:1-11]
The Prayer
Minister : 0 Fountain of love, make the hearts of
this man and this woman firm, so that they can
carry out joyfully the things they have today
promised; for the sake of the one who has set us
the precedent of his own love, Jesus our Liber-
ator. Amen; so may it be.
The Affirmations can be replaced by the following
Canticle
All of you that went through the waters
Have clothed yourselves in the Liberator.
In him there is neither Jew nor Greek,
No oppressed or oppressor.
Nor any male or female ;
In Jesus you are all made one.
[Galatians 3:27-28]
Here if desired can come a short sermon.
The Freedom Meal intercessions can be replaced by
the following
Intercessions
For ^. and N . , now to be married in the sight of
God and in the presence of this community: We
call on the Spirit.
For the happiness of couples everywhere: We call
on the Spirit. And so on.
For the poor; for prostitutes, unmarried mothers,
orphans; for all the unloved and unwanted:
For doctors, nurses, and social workers; for all
ministers to the oppressed:
For the peace of the world, for an end to all war:
For the whole creation; for animals without voice,
that we may become their voice:
For children and grandparents, that they may enjoy
love in a family:
For every person in his vocation, that each may
remain faithful to his best vision:
92 A Book of Changes
That the Christ incognito may never be turned from
our door: We call on the Spirit.
We call on the Spirit to bind us in solidarity
with all here and elsewhere, living and dead,
who build their lives into the golden circle of
love: We call on the Spirit.
[If the Freedom Meal follows ^ the Offering is be-
gun by the Minister saying:
And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming
down out of the sky from God, made ready like a
bride adorned for her husband. [Revelation 21:26]
The Presentation is the usual one on p. 126.]
The Marriage
The man takes the woman by her right hand and says
as follows:
I N. take you N. to my wedded wife,
To have and to hold,
From this day forward.
For better, for worse.
For richer, for poorer,
In sickness and in health.
To love and to cherish.
Until death do us part.
As the first man took his wife Eve
In the paradise of Eden.
Likewise the woman:
I Nj take you N. to my wedded husband.
To have and to hold.
From this day forward.
For better, for worse.
For richer, for poorer.
In sickness and in health,
To love and to cherish.
Till death do us part.
As the first woman took her husband Adam
In the paradise of Eden.
Then the minister blesses the ring or rings^
saying :
As these rings have [this ring has] neither begin-
ning nor end, and lose [loses] neither luster nor
substance, so may the Wellspring of love maintain
these two persons constant and joyful in the com-
munity of peace, through our Brother who gave him-
self for it.
Then the man puts the ring on the woman's finger^
saying :
The Celebration of a Wedding 93
With this ring I marry you,
With my body I honor you.
With all I have I present you.
And the woman likewise ^ if she has a ring.
Minister : Once again the covenant of peace has
been sealed; for God who marries us to himself In
love has sent the Spirit of the Liberator Into our
hearts, crying:
All:
Abba, Father:
Blessed be your working;
Soon be your appearing;
Done be your desiring.
Our bread provide us;
Our debts forgive us ;
From trials free us .
Minister : Let us pray for peace among men. 0
Power of history, let the home of these two, as of
couples everywhere, become a city set on a hill, a
sanctuary of peace; by their work and play may
people learn love and not war, sitting unafraid
under their vine and flgtree; through the Liber-
ator who blessed peacemakers as your children.
Amen; so may it be.
Let us pray for peace In the natural order. 0
bright Sun of creation, let the joyful union of
this couple (If your desire Is such) overflow into
the birth of children, not too many for the planet
to bear, who will carry on in their generation the
renewal of society and nature; so that in your
right time the wolf may lie down with the lamb and
the paradise of Eden be restored; through the bond
of our unity, Jesus the true Adam. Amen; so may
it be .
Then the Minister joins their right hands, saying:
Those whom God has joined together let not man put
asunder .
Then he says to the people:
Friends, you have heard what things N. and N. have
promised, and watched their exchange of rings; on
your behalf I declare that they are man and wife,
in the name of the Fountain of love who has
filled this community with the spirit of Jesus the
Liberator .
Then follows the Kiss of Peaoe, begun by the
couple, during which is said:
94 A Book of Changes
My beloved is mine and I am his.
He feeds his flock among the lilies.
Come quickly my love like a gazelle
Or a stag on the mountains of spices .
The bed underneath us is green.
The beams of our house are of cedar.
[Song of Solomon 2:16, 8:14, 1:17]
[If the Freedom Meal is to be celehratedy the
Sursum oorda is then said. The Abba Father need
not he repeated. The Blessing and Dismissal are
replaced by the following ."l
Minister : May the Power behind space and time
bless you, and unite you with his own Name of
love, to take your intended place in the unrolling
of his will; through the spirit of our Brother who
gave us the true picture of humankind. Amen; so
may it be.
At the Departure
Rise up my love with me,
My fair one, and come away;
For see, the winter is past;
The rain is over and gone;
The crocus appears on the earth.
The time of singing is near.
And the voice of the turtledove
Is heard in our land.
[Song of Solomon 2:10-12]
An outline of commissioning for any office of min-
istry in the community . It is set in the context
of the Freedom Mealy in which the three Rules and
the form of Liberation from Complicity can be
omitted.
The Prophecy
Son of Man, speak to the children of your people
and say to them: If 1 bring the sword on a coun-
try, and the people of the country take a man of
their own and make him their watchman, and he sees
the sword coming against the country, and blows
the trumpet and warns the people; then If someone
hears the voice of the trumpet and does not take
warning, and the sword comes and takes him away,
his blood is on his own head. He heard the voice
of the trumpet, he did not take warning, his blood
is on himself; for if he had taken warning, he
would have saved his life. But if the watchman
sees the sword coming and does not blow the trum-
pet, and the people are not warned, and the sword
comes and takes away any one of them; that man is
taken away in his complicity, and his blood 1 will
require at the hand of the watchman.
Son of Man, I have made you a watchman for the
house of Israel; whatever thing you hear from my
mouth, you are to warn them from me. If I say to
the criminal, "0 criminal, you will certainly
die," and you do not speak out to warn the crimi-
nal to turn from his way, the criminal will die in
his complicity, and I will require his blood from
your hand. But if you warn the criminal to turn
from his way, and he does not turn from his way,
he dies in his complicity, and you have saved your
life. [Ezekiel 33:2-9]
Canticle
Have the way of life among you
Which was also in Jesus our Liberator;
Although in the form of God,
He did not set his heart on that equality.
But he made himself empty.
Taking the form of a slave.
And receiving the nature of a man.
He accepted humiliation.
96 A Book of Changes
And became obedient to death,
Even the death of the cross.
And so God raised him high.
And gave him a name over all names;
So that to the name of Jesus
Every knee should bow down.
Of creatures above, on earth, and below.
And every tongue should agree
That Jesus is leader and liberator
In the splendor of God the Father.
[PhiZippians 2:5-11]
The Gospel
The rulers of nations exercise authority over
them, and their influential men are called Bene-
factors. It is not to be like this among you.
Rather, let the greater one among you become as
the less, and the leader as the servant. For
which is greater, one who sits at table or one who
serves him? Is it not the one who sits at table?
And am I among you as the one who serves. You are
the ones who have stayed with me during my trials.
And I make a covenant with you as my Father made a
covenant with me, that you should eat and drink at
my table in my liberated zone, and sit on thrones
judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
[Luke 22:25-30]
Here follows an address on the character of
ministry .
The Presentations
A statement of the candidate's calling is read by
an elected representative of the community where
he or she is to minister . Then a statement of the
candidate's suitability is read by a minister rec-
ognized both by him and by the community ^ in ac-
cordance with the covenant of the community .
The Questions
Presiding Minister : Friends, you have heard that
this our brother has been called to the office of
by the representatives of this community.
And you have heard testimony to his qualifications
by these others who have already been called and
commissioned for such a ministry. We now wish to
hear from our brother himself, in his own words,
how he understands this task, so that we will have
good grounds to believe he will prove serviceable
to his people, and not himself fall casualty.
My brother, you are being called to serve others
Commission for Minis try 97
in the way of a waiter at table, which our Liber-
ator defines as the truest work of a human being.
It was Indeed said of Jesus our Brother, Others he
saved, himself he cannot save; and all here pres-
ent stand ready to hold up your hand If you fall
casualty. Still, what you are being commissioned
for Is to hold up the hand of others. Do you then
feel that you and your family are solid and stable
enough In your Individual commitments. In your
personal relations, so that with a quiet mind you
can take on the burden of helping others, day in
and day out? Also, as our Liberator and his Apos-
tles often had no place to lay their head, you are
not guaranteed money or support, even from an af-
fluent society, for a work which means building a
different society on new foundations. Few if any
of those you see here are wealthy. Do you then
have a useful vocation by which you can support
yourself in this work if other support fails? And
are you settled in your mind to go on in this work
without bitterness or resentment, if necessary at
your own expense?
You must understand clearly from our sacred writ-
ings the tasks of a minister. First of all, be-
cause he is a fellow-servant with the Liberator,
the minister is a watchman, as we heard from the
prophet Ezekiel. The minister, through his study
of the sacred Books, of the lives of the saints,
of the news, of men's hearts, is given the spirit
of prophecy, to see how the crimes of a nation are
bringing the sword upon it . Are you then prepared
with Amos, Jeremiah, and all the prophets, to con-
demn when necessary the complicity of rulers,
priests, the rich, judges, the exploiters of man
or nature in an oppressive system; and to work for
change in it? Are you willing to share the pov-
erty or harassment of the victims, and to take
your chance on joining them in prison?
Second, the minister of Jesus is a herald: he an-
nounces the Liberated Zone where men and women,
society and nature are starting to become them-
selves. Can you testify with conviction that his
liberation is already at work in yourself? Are
you prepared to let the Spirit build the community
of love around your work, according to God's style
rather then your style? Have you determined to
help recall the Churches of Jesus to their orig-
inal charter, supporting everything true in them,
rejecting or reforming everything corrupt in them?
Will you take on the burden of poetry, delivering
98 A Book of Changes
your message in such language that it can be heard
by your audience?
Third and most important, the minister of the Lib-
erator is above all a servant, as we heard from
Luke; that is what his title means. Whatever his
faults in vision or weaknesses in organization, he
can always take the side of the oppressed, binding
up their wounds, making their suffering his suf-
fering. Are you prepared to do this, becoming, so
far as lies in you, a spokesman for all those who
have no other spokesman?
These tasks are simple to state, difficult to
carry out. But carrying them out is made a little
easier if you hold fast to simplicity of state-
ment. So finally we wish to hear your assurance
that you will not obscure the real nature of your
work by compromise, mystification, double speak-
ing, hidden agenda. Will you be a person who, so
far as possible, holds nothing in reserve, keeps
nothing secret but the confidences of others, per-
mits himself no unexplained absences or unavail-
ability, and has no ambition but usefulness; so
that the simplest man or woman will not for an in-
stant hesitate to trust you, because he can see
instantly what you stand for, and see that you are
one who trusts in a Power greater than us all?
Then the candidate ^ in his own words , as simply
and directly as possible ^ reads or speaks a state-
ment of where he stands in answer to these
questions .
Minister : Are you prepared to bring your whole
life under the guidance of the Spirit, as known to
us in the Bible, in the lives of the Saints, and
in our own history through the Providence of God?
I am prepared to.
Will you use the worship and covenant of this com-
munity as your constant guides to the working of
the Spirit; and at the same time hold them up to
the plumb-line he has given us? Yes, I will do
so.
Have you determined to trust that Jesus our
Brother, by his example, teaching, and work, is
Christ and Lord — that is. Liberator of man and of
all creation? I have so determined.
May the Fountain of strength who has brought you
to this commitment today keep you in it all your
days. Amen; so may it be.
Commission fov Ministry 99
Here follow the Affirmations God Is not dead,
etc. from p. 123.
Litany
Come quickly Jesus the helper of all mankind:
Come quickly our helper.
Come quickly, you that make broken bodies and
lives whole again: Come quickly our helper.
And so on.
You that pronounced the blessedness of the poor
and suffering:
You that bring in the liberated zone to all
nations :
You that were fearless to denounce the crimes of
the powerful:
You that observe the lilies of the wild and the
sparrow's fall:
You that in your coming bring in the paradise of
Eden:
You that love children, join the marriage feast
and mourn the dead:
You that call sinners of the people, and sinners
against the people, into one community:
You that took on our guilt, so that we could take
on your wholeness:
You that throw out the demonic powers from our
living:
You that led the march of protest to the Temple of
God:
You that passed through the dark waters, and were
anointed with the Spirit :
You that were lifted up in transfiguration and in
brutality :
You that broke the evil powers by offering your-
self to them:
You that refresh all people with the bread of life
and the sap of the vine: Come quickly our
hel per.
Come quickly, our helper, and pour out your spirit
on all called to be your fellow-servants: Come
quickly our helper.
The Commissioning
Minister: 0 Spirit of God's breath. Spirit of the
Liberator's life; this community is dead unless
you are the atmosphere it breathes. Come and ful-
fill the dream of your saints that a new society
will rise out of the ruins of the old. As you
have always in the past come on those who trusted
you, today fill this one who asks only to do your
work in your strength. Through him ^ and his
100 A Book of Changes
brothers and sisters everywhere, may the golden
ring of our fellowship become one and the same
with the sphere of this planet, so that all cre-
ated life will exist together in love and peace.
Then the ministers ^ and other representatives of
the community J lay hands on the candidate ' s head^
white is said:
May the Power of Being make you a faithful servant
of his covenant of peace, in the office of ,
not by the letter of human institutions, but by
the Spirit of life; through Jesus our Brother and
Liberator, who was among us as a servant and gave
his life for the people.
Then the newly commissioned minister is given the
Bihle y while is said:
Receive the word of life; put no other book above
this or beside this; let all your words be spoken,
all your actions done, in its spirit.
Then any other appropriate instruments or symbols
of office are given. The new minister is in-
stalled in his office by a representative of the
community . The papers are signed. Then the pre-
siding minister y assisted by his new colleague ^
continues the Freedom Mealy starting at the Offer-
ing. The Beatitudes are replaced with a blessing
of the new minister :
May your mouth speak the word of justice in and
out of season; may you plant the peace garden of
this earth wherever your feet stand; may your eyes
always be turned towards the poor and exploited,
your hands be quick to lift them; and may the
Spirit of God accompany you, so that at the Liber-
ator's coming you will hear the word spoken to a
faithful servant: Since you did it for the least
of these my brothers, you did it for me.
This form is not suitable for a prison-appointed
chaplain making official visits. It assumes a
fellowship between prisoner and visitor ; that is,
it is intended primarily for political prisoners ,
in the broad sense. Prayers especially for mili-
tary prisoners are found on pp. 229-127.
Visitor :
Lift up your heads, you gates;
Open up, you everlasting doors;
For the King of splendor to come in.
Who is this King of splendor?
Our God strong and mighty.
The God beyond all armies.
Lift up your heads, you gates;
Open up, you everlasting doors;
For the King of splendor to come in.
Who is this king of splendor?
The God of all true armies.
He is the King of splendor.
[Psalm 24:7-10]
Grace be to you and peace from Jesus our Liber-
ator, the first political prisoner.
Readings
(1) From the prison diaries of Dietrich
Bonhoeffer.
Nothing can make up for the absence of someone
whom we love, and it would be wrong to try and
find a substitute; we must simply hold out and see
it through. That sounds very hard at first, but
at the same time it is a great consolation; for
the gap, as long as it remains unfilled, preserves
the bonds between us. It is nonsense to say that
God fills the gap; he does not fill it, but on the
contrary, he keeps it empty and so helps us to
keep alive our former communion with each other,
even at the cost of pain.
The dearer and richer our memories, the more dif-
ficult the separation. But gratitude changes the
pangs of memory into a tranquil joy. The beauties
of the past are borne, not as a thorn in the
flesh, but as a precious gift in themselves. We
must take care not to wallow in our memories or
hand ourselves over to them, just as we do not
gaze all the time at a valuable present, but only
102 A Book of Changes
at special times, and apart from these keep it
simply as a hidden treasure that is ours for cer-
tain. In this way the past gives us lasting joy
and strength.
Times of separation are not a total loss or un-
profitable for our companionship, or at any rate
they need not be so. In spite of all the diffi-
culties that they bring, they can be the means of
strengthening fellowship quite remarkably.
I have learned here especially that the facts can
always be mastered, and that difficulties are mag-
nified out of all proportion simply by fear and
anxiety. From the moment we wake until we fall
asleep we must commend other people wholly and un-
reservedly to God and leave them in his hands, and
transform our anxiety for them into prayers on
their behalf.
What times these are I What memories for the years
to come I What matters is that we should direct
these memories, as it 'were, into the right spirit-
ual channels, and so make them harder, clearer,
and more defiant, which is a good thing. There is
no place for sentimentality on a day like this.
If in the middle of an air raid God sends out the
gospel call to his kingdom in baptism, it will be
quite clear what that kingdom is and what it
means. It is a kingdom stronger than war and dan-
ger, a kingdom of power and authority, signifying
eternal terror and judgment to some, and eternal
joy and justice to others, not a kingdom of the
heart, but one as wide as the earth, not transi-
tory but eternal, a kingdom that makes a way for
itself and summons men to itself to prepare its
way, a kingdom for which it is worth while to risk
our lives.
(2) From the acts of Saint Perpetua^ Carthage ^
A.D. 203.
During those few days we were baptized, and the
Holy Spirit told me to make no other request after
going through the waters than for bodily endur-
ance. A few days later we were lodged in prison,
and I was in great fear, because I had never known
such darkness. A day of horror; terrible heat,
due to all the crowds; brutality by the soldiers.
On top of all I was tormented there by anxiety for
my baby. Then those blessed deacons who were min-
istering to us paid for us to be removed for a few
hours to a better part of the prison and refresh
A Form for Visiting Prisoners 102
ourselves. Then my baby was brought to me, and I
suckled him, for he was already faint for lack of
food. I spoke anxiously to my mother on his be-
half, and strengthened my brother, and commended
my son to their charge. I was wasting away be-
cause I saw them wasting away for my sake. Such
anxieties I suffered for many days. Then I got
permission for my baby to stay in the prison with
me, and I at once recovered my health, and was re-
lieved of my trouble and anxiety for my baby. My
prison suddenly became a palace to me, and I would
rather have been there than anywhere else.
(3) From the journals of George Fox.
One time in this Jail there came a soldier to us;
and whilst one of our Friends was admonishing of
him and exhorting him to sobriety, 1 saw him begin
to draw his sword. Whereupon I stepped to him and
told him what a shame it was to offer to draw his
sword upon an unarmed man, and him a prisoner; and
how unfit and unworthy he was to carry such a wea-
pon; and that if he should have drawn it upon some
men, they would have taken his sword from him and
have broken it to pieces. So he was ashamed, and
went his way; and the Lord's power sustained us.
At a later time I had a fit of sickness, which
brought me very low and weak in my body; and 1
continued so a pretty while, insomuch that some
Friends began to doubt of my recovery. 1 seemed
to myself to be among the graves and dead corpses;
yet the invisible power did secretly support me,
and conveyed refreshing strength into me, even
when 1 was so weak that I was almost speechless.
One night, as 1 was lying awake upon my bed in the
glory of the Lord which was over all, it was said
unto me that the Lord had a great deal more work
for me to do for him before he took me to himself.
Endeavors were used to get me released, at least
for a time, till 1 was grown stronger; but the way
of effecting it proved difficult and tedious; for
the King was not willing to release me by any
other way than a pardon, being told he could not
legally do it; and I was not willing to be re-
leased by a pardon, which he would readily have
given me, because I did not look upon that way as
agreeable with the innocency of my cause.
(4) From the Acts of the Apostles, 12:6-11.
Now when Herod was about to bring Peter out for
execution, on that very night he was sleeping
104 A Book of Changes
between two soldiers, bound with two chains, and
sentries in front of the door were guarding the
prison. Then a Messenger of God stood there, and
a light shone in the cell; he tapped Peter on the
side and woke him up, saying, "Get up quickly."
And the Messenger said to him, "Put on your
clothes and your sandals"; and he did so. And he
said to him, "Wrap your coat around you and follow
me." And he went out, following him; he did not
realize that what the messenger was doing was
real, but thought he was dreaming. After they had
passed the first and second guards, they came to
the iron gate leading into the city; it opened for
them by itself. They went out and walked for a
block, and then suddenly the Messenger left him.
Then Peter came to himself and said, "Now I know
truly that the Lord has sent his Messenger and has
saved me from the hand of Herod and from the ex-
pectation of the people."
(S) From Paul ' s second letter to the Corinthians ^
11:23-32.
Are all those others ministers of the Liberator?
Though I speak like a fanatic, I say that I am
more so. I have had more labors, more imprison-
ments, been often beaten, often in deaths. Five
times I received from the Jews forty lashes save
one; three times I was beaten with clubs; once I
was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; I
drifted at sea for a night and a day; constantly
on journeys, in danger from rivers, in danger from
highwaymen, in danger from my own people, in dan-
ger from foreigners, danger in the city, danger in
the desert, danger at sea, danger among false
brothers; in work and hardship, often sleepless,
in hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness; and
beside these outer things, my daily companion —
anxiety for all the churches. Who is sick, and I
am not sick? Who falls casualty and I am not
angry? If I must boast, I will boast of my weak-
ness. God the father of Jesus our Liberator,
blessed for all the Ages, knows that I am not
lying.
Psalm 1^2
I raise my voice to my God,
With my voice I ask for his gentleness;
I pour out my trouble before him.
In his presence I make my complaint.
When my spirit sinks low.
It is you that know my way.
A Form for Visiting Prisoners 105
For on the path where I walk
They have hidden a trap for me;
I look to the right hand and watch,
And there is none to take notice;
All refuge has gone away from me.
No man looks after my life.
My God, you alone are my fortress.
My share in the land of the living;
Pay attention to my cry.
For I have been brought very low.
Save me from those who harass me.
Because they are too strong for me;
Bring me safe out of prison.
So that 1 can give thanks to your Name .
Then just men will surround me.
And you will deal fairly with me .
Visitor: The golden circle of mankind cannot be
broken by any enemy, but only by ourselves. Once
again, in spite of all difficulties, the community
of love has been restored even in this place.
Others have perhaps offended against that commu-
nity more than we. Still I know for myself that I
have been at fault; and if you feel the same, I
invite you to confess after me.
My brother, I confess in the sight of God, in your
presence, and to our brothers and sisters every-
where, that in my thoughts and words and actions I
have broken the fellowship of our community, bro-
ken the image of God in myself.
[In particular, I have neglected the poor and
oppressed by . . .
I have myself exploited the poor by . . .
I have exploited the natural environment
by . . .
I have exploited my brothers and sisters
by . . .
I have wasted my own abilities by . . . ]
I am willing to do reparation; I ask forgiveness
from God, and pardon from you, my brother, and
from all my brothers and sisters present and
absent .
Then the prisoner can make the same confession as
appropriate .
Visitor: God has laid two ways before us, of
death and of life; since we have chosen life, he
is faithful to maintain his covenant. All breaks
in the community of love have been made whole by
106 A Book of Changes
Jesus our Liberator, who is the ground of all
unity. Amen; so may it be.
All:
Abba, Father:
Blessed be your working;
Soon be your appearing;
Done be your desiring.
Our bread provide us ;
Our debts forgive us;
From trials free us .
Prisoner : Jesus came to Nazareth, where he had
been brought up. And on the sabbath, according
to his custom, he went into the synagogue, and
stood up to read. There was given him the book of
the prophet Isaiah; and, unrolling the book, he
found the place where it is written:
The Spirit of God is upon me.
He has anointed me with oil.
He has sent me to tell the poor good news;
To heal the broken in heart ;
To proclaim release to the captives.
An opening of eyes to the blind;
To set the oppressed at liberty;
To announce God's year of justice.
Then he rolled back the book, and gave it to the
attendant, and sat down; and the eyes of all those
in the synagogue were fastened on him. And his
first words to them were: "Today this writing is
fulfilled in your ears." [Luke 4:16-21]
Litany of Jesus the Liberator
Jesus the first political prisoner, visit all
political prisoners: Hear us our brother.
Jesus who stole from the grainf ields : Hear
us our brother. And so on.
Jesus who stayed with prostitutes:
Jesus who lived with revolutionaries:
Jesus who called the tax-collectors:
Jesus who slept with the poor:
Jesus who proclaims release to the captives:
Jesus who sets the oppressed at liberty:
In our need of bread and meat, clothes and
medicines, books and paper:
In all times of heat and cold, loneliness
and harassment:
When we are brutalized or neglected, in-
sulted or threatened:
In our temptations to counter-brutality,
counter-violence :
A Form for Visiting Prisoners 107
For all prisoners weaker than ourselves,
whose needs are greater than ours :
For all jailers and wardens, especially N.
and N . J that humanity may win out over
routine :
For all judges, officers, governors, and
presidents, that for their hearts of
stone they may be given hearts of flesh:
For all those sick, persecuted, poor, dying,
inside and outside, that you may be with
them to the end:
For women prisoners, for juveniles, for
mental patients:
For our family and friends (especially N.),
that they may receive their needs and not
lose confidence in your way:
For a speedy reform of the courts and prison
systems everywhere :
For an opening of gates, for recovery of
sight to the blind:
For liberation of all oppressed, for help to
the victims of violence:
For an end to war and exploitation, here and
in every land which you liberated by your
blood :
{Here can follow free intercessions .'\
In solidarity with draft resisters, Maxi-
milian, Franz Jaegerstaetter , David
Darst, Thich Quang Due, Jan Palach,
Norman Morrison, and all their brothers:
In solidarity with all executed for your
sake: Polycarp, Ignatius, Perpetua and
Felicity, Justin, and all their brothers:
In solidarity with all murdered for resist-
ance: Camillo Torres, Joe Hill, Sacco
and Vanzetti, Martin Luther King, James
Rector and all their brothers:
In solidarity with all unjustly imprisoned
for your name's sake: Paul of Tarsus,
George Fox, Gandhi the Mahatma, Abraham J.
Muste, John Bunyan, Dietrich Bonhoeffer
and all their brothers:
By your unjust arrest and trial, imprisonment
and beating:
By your undeserved death, by your permanent
life in our community: Hear us our
brother.
Hear us, Jesus our brother, and by your name
of Liberator be with us always: Hear us
our brother.
108 A Book of Changes
Psalm ^0:1-3
I waited patiently for my God;
He turned to me and heard my calling.
He drew me up from the pit of desolation.
Out of the swamp and quicksand.
And he has set my feet upon a rock;
He has made my steps secure.
And he put in my mouth a new song.
Words of praise for my God.
Psalm 1^6:5-10
Happy is he who hopes in God,
God who made sky and earth and sea.
He keeps his promise for ever;
He executes justice for the oppressed;
He gives bread to the hungry;
He sets the prisoners free;
He opens the eyes of the blind;
He lifts up all that are bowed down.
God loves all who love justice;
God watches over all strangers;
He supports the widow and orphan;
He smashes the way of the wicked.
Visitor: I bind on my heart the breastplate of
justice .
Prisoner : I bind on my head the helmet of libera
tion. [Isaiah 59:17^
Here follow the Affirmations God is not dead,
eta. from p. 123.
Visitor: Our God is faithful to maintain the cov-
enant of his peace through the Liberator, who him-
self is our peace. For hear his words:
I have called you out in justice,
I have taken your hand and supported you;
I give you as a covenant to my people.
As a light to all nations on earth:
To open the eyes of the blind;
To bring out the captive from prison.
Those who sit in darkness from the dungeon;
For I am God, that is my name.
[Isaiah 42:6-7]
By my God I can overcome an army; through him I
can leap over a wall. Maranatha, come quickly,
Jesus our Liberator. Shalom, my brother, his
peace be with you, Shalom.
Here the visitor and prisoner shall exchange the
kiss of peace.
A Form for Visiting Prisoners 109
Visitor: May God's love be victorious everywhere,
as it has already prevailed in our hearts. May
all men and women enlist in the peaceable army of
Jesus our Liberator. May the Spirit of life flow
into you with its waters, and bring you to a place
of hills and sky, of joy and freedom.
(i . Hcff^c^^l t>lj tit DciU
Reader: Brothers and sisters, as our uncovered
face mirrors the splendor of God, let us be trans-
figured into his likeness, from splendor to splen-
dor. Our good news is hidden only among those who
are being destroyed, whose minds the Idol of this
age has blinded with lack of trust, to keep them
from seeing the brightness of the Gospel of the
splendor of the Liberator, who is the picture of
God. For the God who said "May light shine out of
darkness" has shined in your hearts, to give the
splendor of the knowledge of God in the face of
the Liberator. Now we hold this treasure in ves-
sels of clay, to make it clear that the fountain
of energy lies with God and not with us. At every
point we are oppressed but not crushed; we see no
way out but we do not give up; we are persecuted
but not deserted, thrown down but not destroyed.
Always we carry around the dying of Jesus in our
body, so that in turn the life of Jesus may become
visible in our body. For we in our life are con-
stantly being handed over to death for Jesus'
sake, so that the life of Jesus may shine through
our dying flesh.
So let us not give up; for even while our outer
humanity is being destroyed, our inner humanity is
daily being renewed. For this temporary oppres-
sion is generating for us a weight of splendor in
the Age to come. Let us then not pay attention to
the visible but the invisible; for things seen be-
long to this passing age, but things unseen belong
to the Age to come. For we know that when our
temporary quarters of clay are dissolved, we have
a home from God, not made by hands, belonging to
the Age to come and in the Place of being. In our
present house we groan, desiring to be clothed in
that habitation which is from God, so that we may
not be found naked; so that our vulnerability to
death may be swallowed up by life. To this end
God is making us ready; and he has already en-
trusted us with the down-payment of his Spirit.
[2 Corinthians 3:18-5:5]
As the body is brought into the room:
Anthem
See, the habitation of God is with men, and they
shall be his people; he will wipe off every tear
Memorial of the Dead 111
from their eyes. Death and mourning shall be no
longer, because former things have passed away.
[Revelation 21:3-4]
If there lives in you the Spirit of the one who
raised up Jesus the Liberator from among the dead,
he will give life also to your mortal bodies
through his Spirit which lives in you.
{Romans 8:11]
The dead in him shall live, their bodies shall
rise up; dance and sing, you dwellers in the dust.
For his is a dew of splendor, on the land of shad-
ows he will make it fall. [Isaiah 26:19]
Psalm 90
God, you have been a home for us
From one age of men to another.
Before the mountains were pushed up.
Or the planet gave birth to the
continents ,
From before time and until after time.
You are the Power of Being.
You turn man back into his dust.
And then say, "Rise up, children of Adam."
For a thousand years in your eyes
Are as yesterday or a night watch.
You sweep them away with your floods.
They are remembered as a dream.
They are grass that springs up in the
morning;
In the evening it withers and dries.
For we come to an end by your outrage.
We draw back at your indignation.
You have set our complicity before you.
Our crimes in the blaze of your features.
All our days fade away at your sentence;
Our years pass at the snap of your finger.
Our days are seventy years.
Or eighty in our farthest strength;
Their breadth is labor and trouble.
Soon it is gone and we are blown away.
Make us learn so to count our days
That we bring our hearts to wisdom.
Minister : Shalom, my brothers and sisters, the
light and peace of our Liberator be with you and
with the faithful departed, Shalom.
People: And peace be with you, our brother,
Shal om .
112 A Book of Changes
Litany
Jesus our brother, by your birth outside the inn:
Put your 1 i f e in us .
As a victim of harassment, as a refugee child:
Put your life in us. And so on.
By your apprenticeship in wood and stone:
By your new birth in solidarity with our guilt:
By your temptations, by your doubt of your true
calling :
By your will to feed the hungry, to heal the
suffering :
By your openness to speak the words of our need:
In your fidelity to the voiceless poor and
oppressed :
In your anointing with nard by a woman of the
streets :
In every humiliation of your unmerited dying:
By your rising again wherever bread is broken:
By the new spirit of this your brotherhood:
Put your life in us.
By all who take your way, both known and unknown:
Put your life in us.
Lesson
Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher;
Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.
What profit does a man get
Of all the work he does under the sun?
A generation comes and one goes.
But the earth stands as from the beginning.
The sun rises and the sun goes down
And returns to the place it rose up from.
The wind blows south and turns to the north.
It turns and goes back on its circuits.
All the rivers flow into the sea
And the sea is never filled by them;
To the place that the rivers come from.
There they go back once again.
All things are full of tiresomeness;
Men cannot discover their meaning.
The eye is not satisfied with seeing.
Nor the ear ever filled with hearing.
What has happened is what will happen.
And nothing is new under the sun.
[Eaclesiastes 1:2-9]
Nunc Dimittis
Master, now you dismiss your servant
According to your word, in peace.
For my eyes have seen your liberation
Which you have set up before all peoples :
Memorial of the Dead IIS
A light to illuminate the nations.
And to be the splendor of your people
Israel. [Luke 2:29-32;
For the Gospel
It is the love of the Liberator that supports us;
for we conclude that if one died for all, then all
have already died in him. He died for all so that
those who live should no longer live to them-
selves, but to him who for their sake died and was
raised. So that whoever lives in the Liberator is
a new creation. The old things have passed away
and (Only lookl ) new things have come into exist-
ence. All things are from the God who has recon-
ciled us to himself through the Liberator, and has
given us the servant's task of reconciliation. We
are to announce that the Power of Being has recon-
ciled the universe to himself through the Liber-
ator, not holding men's complicity against them,
but setting in our midst the word of reconcilia-
tion. God is making his appeal through us as
spokesmen of the Liberator; on his behalf we urge
you, become reconciled to the Root of your being.
The one man wholly free of complicity was made
guilt for our sake, so that we might become the
justice of God in him. As his fellow-workers we
urge you not to frustrate the gentleness of God.
For it is said, "At the right time 1 listened to
you; I helped you in the day of liberation." And
just look: today is the right time, now is the
day of liberation. [2 Corinthians 5:11-6:2]
The Prayer
Minister : 0 Life of the world, you uphold all our
individual lives; in the presence of your saints,
look on the body of our brother [sister] departed
and on us who remember him; renew perpetually the
golden ring of our fellowship-; maintain both him
and us in fidelity to the liberation being done by
Jesus, so that we all may have good hope of life
in this our community of love. Amen; so may it be
Intercessions
For the solitary and suffering, for the neglected
and exploited: We call on the Spirit.
For all enslaved by a system of violence, whether
as masters or servants: We call on the
Spirit. And so on.
For the hungry and sick, for all dying in lonely
places :
11^ A Book of Changes
For all comrades of Luke the physician, for the
servants of the poor:
For all who struggle for justice in the name of
the Liberator:
For all who are building their lives into a more
just society:
For all who have died, in ignorance or in knowl-
edge of the new Way:
In memory of Jesus our brother, himself deserted
in his last hour:
In solidarity with our brother [sister] departed,
who has died and is living:
In thankfulness for the example set by the saints
of humanity: We call on the Spirit.
In thankfulness for the new life brought in by our
Liberator: We call on the Spirit.
Psalm 16:9-11
My heart is glad and my mind rejoices.
My body dwells in security
For you did not hand my life over to the
Grave;
Nor make your faithful servant see the
Pit.
You show me the Way of life;
In your face there is wholeness of joy;
At your right hand is happiness for
ever.
If the Freedom Meal is to be oeVebratedy here fol-
lows the Presentation and Kiss of Peace. In any
case the Abba Father is here said:
Abba, Father:
Blessed be your working;
Soon be your appearing;
Done be your desiring.
Our bread provide us;
Our debts forgive us;
From trials free us .
The Blessing and Dismissal are replaced by the
following :
The Blessing of the People
Minister :
God bless you and watch over you;
God shine his face on you and love you;
God lift up his face to you and set his
peace among you.
[Numbers 6:24-26]
Memorial of the Dead 115
Dismissal of the Body
Reader: I have been poured out, and the time of
my departure is here. I have fought the good
fight, I have finished my race, I have kept the
faith. Now there is waiting for me the wreath of
justice, which the impartial Judge will give me
in that day; and not to me alone, but to all who
have loved his appearing. [2 Timothy 4:6-8]
Minister : 0 Ground of our being; with confidence
we entrust to you our brother [sister] departed.
Give him the rest of the Age to come, you who are
all our rest, and may light perpetual shine on
him. May any thing that he did wrong be forgiven,
as we who remain forgive each other, in the spirit
of Jesus the Liberator. May any thing that he did
well live in unity with the excellences of all the
saints, which are not theirs but yours. And may
we who still walk the way of gentleness in hope,
and this one whose way is completed, at your right
time stand together beside all reconciled mankind
in the paradise of Eden, through our solidarity
with Lazarus and all his brothers the poor.. Amen;
so may it be.
116 A Book of Changes
A Mighty Fortress (Psalm ^6)
Tune: "Eln' Feste Burg," Luther 1529 {The Hymnal
1940 no. 551; 87.87.66.667)
1 A mighty fortress is our God,
And quick to hear our calling.
We will not fear the final flood.
Or hills in ocean falling.
The waves may higher break.
And roots of mountains shake;
The universal Power
Stands as our ageless tower.
And Jacob's God our stronghold.
2 He brings his City mountain streams.
Her streets with light adorning;
He shows his goodness to her dreams.
And guards her in the morning.
If nations raise their arm.
His voice arrests their harm;
The universal Power
Stands as our ageless tower.
And Jacob's God our stronghold.
3 Come see what works our God has done.
An end to war proclaiming;
He breaks the sword and snaps the gun;
The armored cars are flaming.
Be still, for he commands.
Controlling in all lands;
The universal Power
Stands as our ageless tower.
And Jacob's God our stronghold.
Memorial of the Dead 117
At the Grave
Anthem
Free me, 0 God, for the waters have come up to my
soul; all your waves and floods have gone over me.
[Fsalm 69;1, 42:7]
Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and
dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears
much fruit .
[John 12:24]
When this mortality puts on deathlessness , then
will come about the word that is written: Death
is swallowed up in victory.
[1 Corinthians 15:54]
Psalm 27
God is my light and my liberation;
Of whom should 1 be afraid?
God is the fortress of my life;
Of whom shall 1 be terrified?
Teach me your way. Ground of my being;
Lead me a straight path in the face of my
oppressors .
I am confident of seeing the goodness of God
In the country of the living.
Be strong and let your heart be bold.
And wait for the right time of God.
Lesson
Do not worry about your life, what to eat;
Nor about your body, what you will wear.
Is not your life more than its food.
And your body more than its clothing?
See the crows, that they never sow seed
Or harvest or bring into barns;
And still your Father feeds them;
Are you not of more value than they?
And which of you by his worrying
Can add a hand's breadth to his height?
Look at the poppies of the field;
They do not weave or spin.
I tell you, Solomon in his splendor
Was not dressed like one of them.
And if the wild plants which bloom today
And tomorrow are thrown in the oven
118 A Book of Changes
Are clothed in such manner by God,
Will you not also be clothed, you
suspicious?
So do not worry what you will eat
Or what you will drink or wear;
All peoples of the earth look for these.
Your Father knows that you need them.
But instead look for his liberation.
And you will get these in addition.
Fear not, little flock, for your Father
Has willed you the country of freedom.
Do not worry yourself about tomorrow;
Let tomorrow worry for itself.
Sell what are called your possessions
And give them as presents for the poor.
Make purses that never wear out.
An unfailing account with your Father,
Where moth and rust cannot rot it.
Where burglars do not break and enter.
For wherever your treasure is stored up.
Know also that there will your heart be.
[Luke 12:22-34]
The Committal
Minister: To the Source of life we entrust the
life of our brother [sister] departed, and we com-
mit his [her] body to the earth [deep] from which
it came, as a shock of grain in its season; con-
fidently awaiting the restoration of all things in
the paradise of this garden earth, for which they
all travail together in hope; through the spirit
of Jesus our Liberator, who in his love is chang-
ing each of us into his own splendor.
Kyrie eleison. Kyrie eleison.
Lord have mercy upon us. Lord have mercy
upon us .
Christe eleison. Christe eleison.
Christ have mercy upon us. Christ have
mercy upon us .
Kyrie eleison. Kyrie eleison.
Lord have mercy upon us. Lord have mercy
upon us .
Minister : 0 Power who brings us from death to
life in the love of our brothers, may this one who
has been one of us never be separated from us, by
the Liberator who has broken down all barriers.
And in the presence of our brother [sister] now at
rest, we ask that we who remain may find no rest
except by following the new Way of Jesus in jus-
tice and love. In union with all the servants of
Memorial of the Dead 119
his people who have gone before us, may our bodies
be built as living stones into the temple of his
community. While we draw breath, may we be filled
with his spirit for reconciliation. And at the
end, allow us (after his example) to have poured
ourselves so fully into others that we are alive
in them, and in him, until the perfection of his
new Age. Amen; so may it be.
Blessing
May God who brought back from the dead the great
Shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the perpet-
ual Covenant of Peace, unite you in every good
action to do his desiring, through our Liberator
Jesus, in whom is the splendor of all worlds.
[Hebrews 13:20-21]
A Prayer for Peace
attributed to Franais of Assisi
Minister: Jesus, make us instruments of your peace
peace. Where there is hate, let us sow love;
where there is violence, let us sow forgiveness,
where there is doubt, faith; where there is de-
spair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where
there is sadness, joy. Our Liberator, let us not
so much wish to be comforted as to comfort, to be
loved as to love. For it is in giving that we re-
ceive, in pardoning that we are pardoned, in dying
that we are born into the life of the Age to come.
People: Amen, so may it be.
The Greetings
Minister : Shalom, my brothers and sisters, the
covenent of peace be upon you, Shalom.
People: And peace be with you, our brother,
Shalom.
Minister : For the Liberator himself is our peace;
People: He breaks down all walls of hatred.
[Ephesians 2:14]
Minister : And if he by the finger of God drives
out demons.
People: No doubt his Age is upon us. [Luke 11:20]
Minister :
In Advent
His footsteps are close at hand.
At Christmas
Alleluia, for our peace a child is born.
At Epiphany
Gold is given him, with frankincense and myrrh.
At Easter
Alleluia, the tomb could not contain his life.
At Pentecost
Alleluia, his spirit is on every tongue.
At times of penitence
For our faults the violent spilled his blood.
At other times
In love he built the worlds of light.
People: May we be numbered among his saints
[Alleluia] .
122 The Freedom Meal
At other times
In love he built the worlds of light.
People: May we be numbered among his saints
[Alleluia] .
The Invocation of the Saints
Part III of the Litany (p. 23)j in whole or in
partj to which the response is:
People: Stand here beside us.
The Rules of the New Way
Here (except at a shortened service ) are read the
three Rules from the form of entering the Covenant
(pp. 52-52).
Liberation from Complicity
Except on festivals j the three Rules are usually
followed J as in the form of entering the Covenant^
by the statements of complicity and liberation
(pp. 53-54).
Gloria in Excelsis
Splendor to God in the summits;
And on earth, peace to men of his
pleasing. [Luke 2:14]
For the rosetree of Jesse has budded,
A branch has flowered from his root;
And the breath of our God blows upon him,
A spirit of knowledge and strength.
In freedom he leads the oppressed.
The untouchable poor in his justice.
[Isaiah 11:1-4]
They will forge each sword to a plow.
Beat out bayonets into sickles;
No nation lifts weapon at nation.
Not one will learn war any longer.
But each man sits under his vine.
Without fearing under his flgtree.
[Micah 4:3-4]
The plowman will push past the reaper.
The vintage comes fast upon flowering.
[Amos 9:14]
The wolf will walk with the lamb.
And a little child will lead them;
The lioncub feeds with the calf.
On the rattler's den children are dancing.
No violence or destruction is done
On all the hill of God's holiness;
For his knowledge covers the continents
As the seafloor is filled with the waters.
[Isaiah 11:6-9]
The Freedom Meal 123
Minister : Let us hear that Word from which, we
believe, there is fresh light yet to break.
A Hebrew Prophecy
An Epistle
Hymn or Song
Reading of the Gospel
Prayer for the Day
The Affirmations
Repeated by the people after a leader.
God is not dead.
God is bread.
The bread is rising.
Bread means revolution.
God means revolution.
Murder is no revolution.
Revolution is love.
Win with love.
The radical Jesus is winning.
The world is coming to a beginning.
The whole world is watching.
Organize for a new world.
Wash off your brother's blood.
Burn out the mark of the Beast.
Join the freedom meal.
Plant the people's park.
The asphalt church is marching.
The guerrilla church is recruiting.
The people's church is striking.
The submarine church is surfacing.
The war is over.
The war is over.
The war is over.
The Liberated Zone is at hand.
Sermon
Litany of Intercession
Part IV of the Litany (p. 25)j to which the re-
sponse is :
People: We call on the Spirit.
124 The Freedom Meal
The Offering
Minister : Here, where two or three or more are
joined in breaking bread, Jesus is made known — as
the prisoner, the wounded one, the sick, the
thirsty, the naked, the homeless, who asks for our
help. We have been made a royal priesthood of his
Gospel. So I appeal to you, brothers and sisters,
by the sympathy of God, offer up your bodies a
living sacrifice, in solidarity with his reconcil-
ing love. Do not be conformed to this age, but be
transfigured through the renewal of your will.
A sentence suoh as the following :
Reader: The King will answer and tell them: Since
you did it for one of the least of these my
brothers, you did it for me. [Matthew 25:40]
For you know the gentleness of Jesus our Liber-
ator, that when rich he became poor for our sake,
so that through his poverty we might become rich.
[2 Corinthians 8:9]
Let me boast of nothing except the cross of Jesus
our hero and liberator, through whom the world has
been crucified to me and I to the world.
[Galatians 6:14]
A song such as the following :
They are walking from east and from west
To sit down together at table
In the life of the world's liberation
With Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob;
While the confident heirs of the earth
Are dismissed into outer darkness.
[Matthew 8:11]
And for all men upon this mountain
The Strength beyond armies spreads out
A dinner of all the earth's yield,
A feast of wine from all vineyards.
And upon this hill he unties
The blindfold bound on all peoples;
He destroys old Death forever.
He dries off the tear from all faces.
[Isaiah 25:6-8]
He opens our life in liberty
To walk in the ways of Justice.
He sets a table before us
In the face of all our oppressors;
Our brow is bright with the olive.
Our cup is filled overflowing.
[Fsalm 23:3-5]
The Freedom Meal 125
At the presentation :
Minister: Blessed is the King of the ages who
satisfies his people from the earth. As the grain
does not come to life unless it dies, so may we
die to the old way and rise in his new way. As
the one vine of our father David has many
branches, so may the whole universe be made one
in the Liberated Zone.
The Kiss of Peace
Reader: If you are bringing your gift to the
altar, and there remember that your brother has
something against you, leave your gift there in
front of the altar; go and first be reconciled to
your brother, and then come back and offer your
gift. [Matthew 5:23-24]
Minister: We know that we have passed from death
to life by the fact that we love our brothers. If
a person does not love his brother whom he has
seen, how will he love God whom he has not seen?
He who does not love, does not know God; for God
is love. [1 John 3:14, 4:20, 4:8]
Here follows the Kiss of Peace.
SURSUM CORDA
Minister : Lift up your hearts.
People: We lift them up to our Liberator.
Minister : Let us celebrate the Power of Being.
People: It is good and right for us to do so.
The Praise of Creation
Minister: It is right for us at all times and
places to celebrate the Fountain of nature and
history. As our doors of perception open, they
testify to a universe of glory: the touch of
rocks, skin, fabric, marble columns; the smell of
redwood, fish, flowers, our neighbor's sweat, the
smoke of incense; the taste of grain and the blood
of the vine; the sound of birdsong and animals,
waves and wind, voice and music; the light of our
sun, the galaxies, the lamp of a student. Through
our awareness that the cosmos is everywhere ready
to blossom into a love not of our own devising, we
rise to a sphere of liberation beyond space and
time; we hear words passing human speech, as our
brother Isaiah did in the Temple; standing with
heads bowed beside angelic Energies, in trust we
126 The Freedom Meal
sing to you who determine the number of the stars,
0 Father of splendors :
Sanctus
All:
Holy, Holy, Holy is the Power beyond all
hosts.
The fulness of the whole world is his
glory.
Blessed is the one who comes in his name.
Hosanna, may his Way be victorious.
The Memorial of History
Minister : And although by our fault we abandoned
the well of living waters, the chain of complicity
linking our failure to past guilt has been
snapped, through no merit of our own; and, while
living in occupied territory, we walk with hope.
For in our hands, leading back to the first assem-
blies of our City, we hold a golden thread: the
succession of prophets and saints [and especially
of N] who looked to you, 0 Jesus, the Man for
others, as their Morningstar.
[Here a proper preface can be inserted. ]
Today we remember how at your last freedom meal
with your friends (and at least one enemy) you
took the loaf as we do, said thanks over it and
broke it, and gave it to them, saying: "Take and
eat; this is my body, broken for you; do this for
my remembering." Also after the meal you took the
cup, said thanks and gave it to them, saying:
"Drink this, all of you: for this cup is the un-
ending Constitution of a new society in my blood,
poured out for liberation from your guilt. Do
this when you drink it, for my remembering."
Veople :
Your dy i ng we recal 1 ;
Your rising we proclaim;
Your coming we prepare.
The Invocation of the Spirit
Minister : Friends, we have learned that our Lib-
erator, by healing the sick, by refusing to do
harm, by telling the poor good news, put himself
so fully in others that nothing of him could die.
So by our self-offering among his peaceable people
we are made whole and given life. And we call
upon you, 0 Spirit of Jesus, to put his death and
life into this bread and wine, breaking down all
The Freedom Meal 127
barriers between rich and poor, black and white,
man and woman, old and young. East and West.
Gather us together as true sons and daughters of
our first parents to restore the paradise of Eden.
And strengthen us as servants of the poor and as
messengers of the peace brought in by our Brother,
through whom, in the community of love, nature and
history move to their desired Goal.
People: Amen. So may it be, here and everywhere,
now and always. Maranatha; come quickly Jesus.
Pater Noster
Minister : The covenant of peace is sealed; for
God at his right time has sent the Spirit of the
Liberator into our hearts, crying out:
All:
Abba, Father:
Blessed be your working;
Soon be your appearing;
Done be your desiring.
Our bread provide us;
Our debts forgive us;
From trials free us.
Breaking the Bread
Minister : The cup of celebration which we bless,
is it not a sharing in the blood of the Liberator?
The bread which we break, is it not a sharing in
the body of the Liberator? We many are one body,
for we all share the one loaf.
[1 Corinthians 10:16-17]
Here follows the Freedom Meal proper.
The Blessing
Minister and Veople:
M. Blessed are the poor:
P. For theirs is the Liberated Zone.
M. Blessed are all who mourn:
P. For they are comforted.
M. Blessed are the gentle:
P. For they shall inherit the earth.
M. Blessed are those hungry for justice:
P. For they will be satisfied.
M. Blessed are the merciful:
P. For they receive mercy.
M. Blessed are the pure in heart:
P. For they see God.
M. Blessed are the peacemakers:
P. For they are called the children of God.
128 The Freedom Meal
M. Blessed are the oppressed:
P. For theirs is the Liberated Zone.
[Matthew 5:3-12]
The Dismissal
l\('ader:
Go in peace and love.
Serve God, serve the people.
Keep the faith, baby:
You are the Liberated Zone.
People: Right on. Right on. Right on.
Join the Freedom Meal
Tune: "Rockingham," Miller-Webbe 1790 (The Hymnal
1940 no. 203; L.M. )
1 Tonight we join the Freedom Meal,
Reminding our f orgetfulness
How Jesus felt the Roman steel
And stood in Caesar's purple dress.
2 He drinks the cup his love had filled.
And blunts the violence of the Beast;
In solidarity we build
The golden circle of his feast.
3 The Great Ones of the world oppress
The poor, the black, the young, the brown;
But here the greater is the less.
Who makes his brother's need his own.
4 Our hands lift up the rising bread
In which the whole world's hope began;
We drink the blood our Vine has shed
To warm the heart of God and man.
5 We kneel to wash our brothers' feet
Within his Liberated Zone;
His new example we repeat
And make his pearl our cornerstone.
6 We look to see our Morning Star
Shine in the dark as friend to friend.
And raise the poor, from near to far;
Come soon, our Fountain and our End.
Refusing Induction
It's your choice
Ultimately you can listen to only one thing, not
your President, not your many misguided leaders,
save a few, not the Communists or the Socialists
or the Republicans or the Democrats, but you must
listen to your own heart, and do what it dictates.
Because your heart is the only thing which can
tell you what is right and what is wrong. And
after you have found out what you think is right
and what is wrong, then you must know that you can
say yes to what is right and no to what is wrong.
And you young men, for instance, if you feel that
to kill is wrong and to go to war is wrong, then
you have to say no to the draft. And if you young
ladies think it is wrong to kill, and war is
wrong, you can say yes to the young men who say no
to the draft. Because it is not the leaders and
the dictators, it is not God who is going to get
us out of the bloody mess we are in. It is only
you and only me. Joan Baez
The house of cards
Spirit of life, help me see that Castle Death is
only a house of cards; let me and my comrade pull
out our cards, and bring it down like the walls of
Jericho .
For freedom from violence
Jesus, you were angry at the unfeeling oppression
of Empire, and tempted to join the guerrillas
fighting for home and family; strengthen my hold
on justice to see oppression wherever it may be,
strengthen my hold on love to see that violence in
a just cause again becomes injustice.
For freedom from self -righteousness
Bread of life, I have not often been hungry, or
without clothing, or in need of medicine; close my
mouth when I begin to condemn the violence of the
hungry, the ill-clothed, the neglected. Let me
join them in their cry for justice; let me correct
the tactics only of those who are better off than
myself.
130 The Disarmed Forces Prayer Book
What causes wars?
The crop of justice In peace Is sown by peace-
makers. But what causes wars and fighting among
you? Is It not your greeds that fight among your
members? You desire and do not get; so you kill.
You do not have because you do not ask; you ask
and do not receive, because you ask wrongly — to
spend on your acquisitiveness. Don't you know
that the love of this age Is enmity with God?
Whoever wants to be a friend of this age Is an
enemy of God. James 3:l8-^:^
For polioej induotion personnel , draftboards ^
judges
Liberator of all persons, you showed me your way;
leave me on my own without your comforts, and show
what I have seen to all blind or unwilling Instru-
ments of a coercive system; find a way for them
also to remove their bodies from It, and to build
themselves Into the community of your love.
From the Acts of Saint Maximilian j A.D. 295
Proconsul : He must either serve or die.
Maximilian: I will not be a soldier. You can cut
my head off, but I refuse to serve In the armies
of this world. I am a soldier of my God.
P. ; Who has put these Ideas In your head?
M. : My conscience, and he who has called me.
P.: Be a soldier and accept the leaden seal, the
sign of enlistment.
M. : I have nothing to do with your sign. I al-
ready bear the sign of Christ, my God.
P.: I am going to send you to join your Christ,
here and now.
M. : That Is all I ask. That will be glory for
me .
P.; Become a soldier and take the sign; If not,
you will die a shameful death.
M.: I shall not die; my name Is already written
down with my God. I cannot be a soldier.
P.; Think of your youth and become a soldier. It
Is a fine life for a young man.
M. : My service Is under my God. I have already
told you. I cannot serve the world. I am a
Christian.
P. ; In the bodyguards of our lords the emperors
there are Christian soldiers, and they serve.
M. : That Is their business. I only know I am a
Christian and I cannot do wrong.
P.
M.
P.
But those who serve — what wrong do they do?
You know very well what they do.
Strike his name off.
The Disarmed Forces Prayer Book 131
On Unwilling Assignment
Rifle and bayonet drill
Jesus, I do not want to kill, or practice to kill,
or speak of killing. And still I am afraid of
punishment, of speaking my mind, of being thought
a coward. Lay your discipline on me as you did on
Peter when he took up the sword. With you at my
side let me drop this weapon and enlist in your
army of life.
On guard duty
0 Commander above all armies, I find myself as-
signed on guard duty, like the soldiers who stood
beneath your Cross and at your grave . Shake the
earth underneath this camp of death, open a way
for me to rise into your liberated zone of love.
Dangerous flight or voyage
Blessed Mary, the enemy deported you with your
child on a dangerous journey to an uncertain des-
tination. Give wisdom and skill to the pilot in
whose hands my life rests; give me confidence and
quiet. Your flight to Egypt preserved the world's
liberation; let no person take harm from my
travelling.
Against injury and death
Jesus, you accepted the nails yourself, but told
us to pray the Father for deliverance from trials.
We fall far short of your perfection; let us (if
we may) still be children, asking the Father we do
not yet know to shelter us from the violence of
the world.
On orders
My pursuer, I thought I had found a sanctuary
against your orders; now the Prince of this world
has given me his orders. Let me have courage in
surrendering to you, so that I may obey God rather
than men .
For the enemy
Liberator of the world, I hate and fear the man of
foreign language who is trying to kill me. Help
me to discern that the real enemy is he who put
this weapon in my hand and sent me here to another
man's earth. Protect me and lead me out of the
valley of this death.
Against genocide
Jesus, bring to my eyes the night when your mother
gave birth to her baby outside the inn. Let me
believe that the world's Liberator is being born
132 The Disarmed Forces Prayer Book
in every peasant family; show me him in every
homeless baby. Let me suffer disgrace, punish-
ment, harm, let my right hand be cut off before
lifting it against one of these little ones.
For the crops of the enemy
0 Creator of all beings, you have made all green
things food for animals and birds and men, you
make us all dependent on each other. When I am
dead and only historians remember the cause of
this war, there will still be mouths in this land
to feed; do not send them off hungry for any ac-
tion of mine.
In battle
Jesus, I am weak and afraid. Keep me from any
situation when I would be under direct orders to
fire, when I would have to fire to save my com-
rade. Help me show my comrade he need not fire to
save me; help me to not fire in my own defense.
Show me a comrade where I see an enemy.
But then what is the use of this weapon I am
holding?
VJounded
Our Liberator, without consulting me you have
given me a share in your Cross, and I do not yet
know the outcome. Stay with me, turn my suffering
like yours to good for some person unknown, do not
leave me hopeless.
For peace
Our Liberator, on the first Christmas men were
promised the benefit which above all others we now
desire. Take the weapon from every hand, burn the
vehicles and blunt the bayonets, break down all
barriers, and rule gently over us all in that
peace which is none other than yourself.
Exorcising the demon Kill
Enemy in my heart, it is you I must fear, and not
the enemy in the facing line or the ambush. I
tear you from me and, if I bleed, I accept a
transfusion from the heart of Jesus. I have put
on the breastplate of justice; never enter me
again, much less another human being in my place,
but like the pigs of Gadara, fall into the abyss
and perish.
Splitting
Son of Man, when the foxes had holes and the birds
nests, you could not find where to lay your head.
The Disarmed Forces Prayer Book 133
Walk here beside me, let my fear be your fear. Do
not let me wander forever; do not force me into
exile against my will; above all do not send me
back to that slavery I escaped from. Show me a
friend I can trust in your name, and through him
tell me what 1 must do.
Count me out
From the bayonet drill and the hating: Count me
out, count me out, count me out.
From the system that makes me machinery: Count me
out, count me out, count me out. And so on.
From the airdrop and the free fire zone:
From unquestioning obedience to orders:
From character guidance lectures :
From letting someone else think for me:
From the G.I. heart transplant of stone:
From now to the end of my walking:
On my sure days and on my unsure days :
In the face of exile and prison:
To face the face of my children:
To build a different America:
For the sake of the people who count on me: Count
me out, count me out, count me out.
By the bond of my union with Jesus: Count me out,
count me out, count me out.
Disarmament begins with me
If not with me, with whom, Jesus? Did I listen in
on a telephone call meant for somebody else, or
was it really me you were talking to? And did you
truly mean what you said? But what is that spot
on the khaki? Some kid from My Lai. I guess
Mary's time came in some hooch at My Lai. A spot
of your precious blood answers every question.
Wearing the khaki for me is no longer a question.
Off the World Pig
He still has his piggy claws in me, unexpectedly
strong; the wild boar's tusks graze my cheek from
beside his gasmask snout. I cannot fight him any
longer; I cannot fight any longer. Let him do
what he will. As he pulls out his claws let him
take his pound of flesh. The power of weakness
has delivered me from the power of the World Pig.
The grace of Jesus is sufficient. For the law of
the spirit of life has set me free from the law of
sin and death.
134 The Disarmed Forces Prayer Book
In Liberated Status
New issue of equipment
Jesus, I take off the bandolier of violence and
put on your belt of truth. I take off the flak
vest and put on your breastplate of justice. I
take off the combat boots and put on your walking
shoes of peace. I get out from behind the armor
plating and take up the shield of confidence. I
take off the camouflage helmet and put on the hel-
met of liberation. I break the rifle and take up
the weapon of the spirit, which is the word of
God. Only so can I dare to struggle, dare to win,
against the world rulers of this present darkness.
For the salary of my old condition was death; but
the free gift of God is the life of the Liberated
Zone under you my Commander.
Solidarity
I am liberated, but still closely hemmed in; I
have comrades outside, but I cannot see them or
speak to them. Spirit of truth, weld an unbreak-
able bond of solidarity among all who are strug-
gling for justice and love, in different ways and
places, unknown to each other. Show us that we
are all one army under the high command of the
Liberator.
Oath of allegiance
I undertake to follow the Liberator as my Com-
mander-in-Chief; I give unconditional obedience to
his orders alone. 1 wrap up the clothes of the
old way of life and mail them back to from where
they came. I have put off violence to my mother
the Earth, violence to my brother wherever he may
be. I accept commissioning in the Liberation Army
of Love.
Render unto Nixon
Jesus, you told us to render unto Nixon whatever
things belong to him. Help us to discover which
things those are, and to find no further use in
them. Show us also which things belong to God;
help us to set our hearts on them, and through
them to find love, joy, peace and all other fruits
of the Spirit.
Turning myself in
My struggle is not overseas or in exile but here;
I must stand freely in my own country under my own
name. Jesus, you allowed yourself to be turned in
at Gethsemane rather than do violence to any
brother. If the only way to freedom is through
The Disarmed Forces Prayer Book 125
prison, I also allow myself to be turned in. Help
me push beyond man's injustice to your justice,
beyond harassment to liberation, beyond violence
to love.
For strength in trial
Jesus, since they harassed you it is likely they
vjill harass me. You stood on your feet before
your accusers, and did not open your mouth asking
to be let off. Stand beside me during a play-act-
ing trial, and do not let me fall into self-pity
or anger. Plant the seed in those present which
may blossom after five, ten, twenty years into
love .
For strength in prison
Our Liberator, I cry out to you as the first po-
litical prisoner. Take my minutes of despair up
into your minutes of despair. Open the gates of
my heart and come in; at the right time open also
those other gates. Give me with my hope of re-
lease that strength and confidence which you had
in your hopelessness.
Looking toward release
Help me remember, my Brother, that the world out-
side is also a prison, enslaved by the same World
Pig who rules in here. Do not let me expect that
my family or comrades will understand what has
happened here. As you were a marked man, I am a
marked man, marked by your presence with me. Help
me stand on my own feet, and find my own work in
the struggle.
Thank you
We have been through bad times together, of which
the world knows little; and good times, of which
it knows less. I rely on you, as in some strange
way I believe you rely on me. Thank you for being
here. As one comrade to another, I take your
wounded hand in mine .
For the Others
For those still in slavery
Jesus, you did not come to call virtuous men but
sinners to repentance. We are your voice and
hands and feet; show us how the liberation we have
known can be brought to those still enslaved by a
system of violence and fear.
For medics
God of healing, you have left no place empty of
your witness. Make all medics doctors first, and
136 The Disarmed Forces Prayer Book
soldiers second or not at all. Maintain their
loyalty to the oath of Hippocrates and Luke, not
to the rulers of this age. Help them minister im-
partially to all, keep them witnesses to the revo-
lution of love in a sea of violence.
For GI journalists
Spirit of truth, you can break through walls where
none other can enter. Stay with all who have un-
dertaken to speak for you, in however unlikely a
place; maintain their loyalty to yourself alone,
help them ignore all threats and harassment in
fidelity to their vocation.
For the victims
My brother Victim, I was in part responsible for
your suffering. Please go out to those others for
whose suffering I was in part responsible, and
tell them that the one who did it has turned
against it.
For military prisoners
Our Liberator, we thank you for the witness of all
those now imprisoned for that witness. As we know
that you stand daily beside them, give us and all
others their commitment and fearlessness, so that
one day prisons will lie empty and derelict.
For the movement
God, you have made all men of one blood, but set
their hands to different works. Make us one with
our brothers and sisters in the revolution of love
through all countries. Do not let us suspect each
others' motives; rather by the weapon of your
spirit destroy that dark Power whose last resort
is to turn us against each other.
For chaplains
Jesus, forgive those who speak your words from out
of the citadel of repression. Let them do your
work in spite of themselves. Touch their hearts
with disquiet and uncertainty, lead them in your
way; and over against them set other ministers of
your liberation who suffer with the suffering.
For jailers
Mary mother of Jesus, who saw your son mistreated
by his captors; put it into the heart of all jail-
ers and their women to see their prisoners not as
prisoners but as human beings. Show each prison-
keeper that his keys lock up no man tighter than
himself; give him a longing for that liberation
which with pain you brought into the world.
The Disarmed Forces Prayer Book 127
For officers and nonooms
0 Power of History, our only true Commander, make
your orders known among those who have usurped the
authority which by right belongs only to you. Hu-
manize their conduct and increase their doubts.
Help them to find a brother in one they were told
to consider an enemy, and to find the enemy no-
where but in their own hearts.
For the powerful
0 you who drove the demons out of the violent,
look with anger and pity on those powerful men op-
pressed by the demons of oppression. At whatever
cost, free them from their tormentors, and free
the suffering poor and the planet from their
violence .
For civilian supporters of militarism
Spirit of truth, touch all who have been misled or
manipulated into fear. Show them that the armed
forces which they should fear, the missiles which
threaten their towns, are not posted overseas but
at home. Break through their walls, dispel the
smog of their obsessions, open their eyes, and
clothe them in invulnerability, which you alone
can give.
For family and friends
0 Mother of that Runaway whom you could not under-
stand; by your new understanding, be with our fa-
mily and friends who are absent and puzzled. Let
the sword in their hearts turn them to greater un-
derstanding, and to solidarity with yourself and
your son Jesus.
For the faithful dead
Jesus our comrade, we thank you for all those
faithful dead who struggled without seeing the
outcome on earth. We believe that they have seen
victory in you, and that they and their work live
on in us. As we do not mourn your death, let us
not mourn theirs, but organize on the foundations
they have laid.
138 The Disarmed Forces Prayer Book
Medical Cadre Manual
For confidence
Our Liberator, you suffered and died, and are liv-
ing in us. Then we do not need to be afraid of
pain and death; we may trust life. Give all med-
ics steady hands and hearts; give their patients
confidence in them; keep them both safe from new
inj ury .
For strength
0 Spirit of life., there is much distress in front
of our eyes, and our strength is failing. Let us
push through to the other side of fatigue. Put
your strength into our hands . We ask that the
suffering of others should be relieved, if neces-
sary at the cost of our own suffering.
Remembering the saints
Luke, physician and historian: Hold my hand
steady .
Louis Pasteur, physician and scientist: Hold my
hand steady.
Frantz Fanon, psychiatrist and revolutionary:
Hold my hand steady.
Che Guevara, physician and revolutionary: Hold my
hand steady.
Florence Nightingale, nurse and reformer: Hold my
hand steady.
Albert Schweitzer, doctor and musician: Hold my
hand steady.
Damien, priest and leper: Hold my hand steady.
Before an operation
0 Universal Power of Being, may your eye rest on
our brother [sister] who in pain and weakness has
put his life in our hands. Give both him and us
confidence and steadiness. Guide our hands with
all our own knowledge and skill; may Hippocrates,
Luke, Che, all physicians of the people stand be-
side us. Maintain the springs of life that we
cannot see, overcome the destructive forces we
cannot reach.
At a demonstration
Jesus our Liberator, you were fearless in prophe-
tic witness, tireless in relief of suffering.
Give all. medics here that same courage and
strength. Let no act of ours either bring on un-
necessary violence, or weaken the cry for justice.
For protection against attack
0 Strength beyond nature and history, we have
taken an oath to help the sick and wounded at
Medioal Cadre Manual 139
whatever risk to ourselves. Hold us steady to
that commitment and lift up the shield of your
protection over us, and all our brother and sister
medics; do not let the healer become another vic-
tim; keep the dark powers at bay.
For all brother and sister medics
Our Liberator, you make all persons whole. Send
the spirit of your compassion and skill on all our
brother and sister medics. Keep always in their
hearts an awareness of the fellowship which has
taken the same oath. Do not let the revolution of
love, or the renewal of the planet, be delayed by
any weakness or hesitancy on their part.
For all -patients
Jesus our Liberator, we have done for our brothers
and sisters here all that knowledge and skill
could do. We entrust them to the medics who fol-
low us and have taken the same oath. Open the
springs of healing in them which are beyond our
knowledge and skill.
For the seriously ill or wounded
0 Best of physicians, look at your brother [sis-
ter] here in the crisis of his need. We have
given him all the help that human hands could pro-
vide. You first took the dark route, you know
best the secrets of death and life. Take this one
in your hands, give him that wholeness and fulfil-
ment which were written down for him before all
worlds o
For the dying or dead
Compassionate Father, the spirit of your child is
returning to you who first gave it . Forgive all
he [she] did wrong, remember all he did well. We
entrust his life to you with confidence. Give
your child his true place in the society of man,
and in your secret renewal of the whole created
order, through Jesus the brother of us all.
The Hippocratic Oath (adapted)
1 swear by the universal Power of healing, in
grateful remembrance of Hippocrates the first doc-
tor, that I will always honor those who taught me
medicine; that I will continue studying it; that I
will support my brother and sister medics, and
share my knowledge with every sincere student. I
will never refuse the call for help. I will treat
friend and enemy with equal diligence, giving them
the best care my art provides. 1 will subordinate
my own convenience and safety to the needs of my
1^0 The Disarmed Forces Prayer Book
patient. I will neither give nor prescribe any
poison or dangerous drug; I will not work while
under the Influence of any drug myself. While on
duty I will seduce no patient, nurse, or other
person; nor do business to my own advantage; nor
use or carry any weapon. I will maintain all con-
fidences, even from an enemy. Inviolate. In every
professional act I will make relief of suffering,
justice for the oppressed, and restoration of
the environment my sacred and revolutionary
priorities.
Qucn/iilLi i^wt^fJici
Suitable fov Good Friday and Church conventions
I . At the Staging Area
Minister : Is it nothing to you, all you who pass
by? Look and see if there is any sorrow like my
sorrow. [Lamentations 1:12
Prophecy
Reader :
See my Servant shall be raised up;
He will be put high on display.
Many will be dismayed at him:
His appearance was distorted
Beyond the semblance of humanity.
And his form unlike the sons of men.
Many nations will denounce him;
Ministers will shut their mouths at him:
They will see what they never were told.
And know what they never heard.
Who has believed our announcement?
Who saw God's right arm made bare?
His Servant grew up as a worthless weed.
As a stick from stony ground.
Despised and rejected by the powerful,
A man of sickness, knowing pain;
The wealthy hid their faces from him.
He was scorned, we set no store by him.
But surely he has lifted our suffering
And carried our contagion;
We avoided him as infectious.
Punished by God and despicable.
In fact he was wounded for our guilt.
He was beaten up for our complicity;
The punishment of our peace was on him.
By his harassment we are healed.
We all turned aside like sheep.
Each one wandering in his own way.
142 Guerrilla Liturgies
And the Power of History piled on him
The criminality of us all.
He was exploited and oppressed
And he never opened his mouth;
As a lamb led to the slaughterhouse.
As a dumb sheep before the shearers .
He was arrested by law and order.
And who will now follow his way?
He is exiled from the land of life;
For a nation's crime he was executed.
His coffin is set among criminals.
He was buried in a field without markers.
Although he had done no violence.
And no lies were in his mouth.
God has accepted his suffering
As a substitute for the violent;
And so he will see his children.
His days will be long extended.
In his hand God's desiring is done.
He is reconciled with his suffering.
"My Servant the man of justice
Shall liberate the people by his life;
He receives the inheritance of the rich.
He shares the rewards of the wealthy.
Since he poured out his life in his dying.
And was counted among the criminals.
He carries the guilt of his people,
And makes himself bail for the prisoners."
[Isaiah 52:13-53:12]
Psalm 59:1-7
Liberate me from my enemies, my God;
Protect me from the repressors.
Liberate me from the criminals;
Save me from the men of blood.
See, they lay ambushes against my life;
The powerful have conspired against me.
For no crime or evil in me,
0 Lord, they run and make ready.
Wake up at my calling and see;
For you are the God beyond armies.
Awake to punish the oppressors;
Do not spare the conspirators.
In the evening they enter the city;
Howling like dogs they patrol it.
There they are, barking with their jaws
And snarling with their lips, "Who will
hear us?"
A Lament for Victims and Executioners 143
Reader: Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who execute the
prophets and stone all those sent to you, how
often I have wanted to collect your children, as a
bird gathers her chicks under her wings, and you
would not let me I See now, your house is left
desolate. I tell you, you will not see me again
until the time comes when you say, "Blessed is he
who comes in the name of God." 0 City: if even
today you could learn what things work for your
peace! But they have been hidden from your eyes.
The days are coming that your enemy will besiege
and encircle you and fence you in. They will
throw you to the ground with your children in you;
they will not leave stone standing upon stone in
you, because you did not recognize the time of
your visitation. [Luke 13:34-35; 19:41-44]
Minister : Brothers and sisters, we have come here
to lament in dead earnest the harassing and murder
of God's servant, our Liberator victim. But those
who sit in the seat of the scornful are mourning
over the fall of the World Pig; and rightly, be-
cause our Jesus like Samson pulled him down in his
own death. Let us take them at their word; let us
join in proclaiming the overthrow of Lucifer,
Chief Magistrate of an age of violence. Chief Ex-
ecutioner among the executioners.
Lament for Lucifer
Minister and People:
How you are fallen from heaven, Lucifer, son
of the morning: How you are fallen from
heaven, Lucifer, son of the morning.
God has broken the oppressor's rifle, who
ruled the nations in anger: How you are
fallen from heaven, Lucifer, son of the
morning. And so on.
The cedars and redwoods rejoice, "No logger
now comes up against us":
Hell is stirred up to meet you, it awakes
those once leaders on earth:
They all are saying together, "You have be-
come like one of us":
But you said in your heart, "I will spread
freedom over all lands":
All that see you will stare, "Is this he that
made the earth a desert?"
IHH Guerrilla Liturgies
You do not share their burial, because you
destroyed your people:
Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, that
made all nations drink the wine of the
wrath of her fornication:
Who is like that great beast? Who is able to
make war against it?:
No man can walk in its streets, unless he has
on his forehead the mark of the beast :
How you are fallen from heaven, Lucifer,
son of the morning.
Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and
has become the home of demonic powers:
How you are fallen from heaven, Lucifer,
son of the morning.
[Isaiah 14:4-21, etc.]
Minister: Friends, here we have been in our own
place. Let us go out to the place of the ex-
ploiter, and there speak to him in lamentation and
anger. For it was he that busted the Liberator of
all people; and there is a word from the Power of
History which he must hear before a worse thing
befalls him.
II. At the Procession
Psalm 22
My God, my God:
Why have you deserted me?
Why are you so far from helping me.
From the words of my torment?
I cry out by day and you do not answer;
By night, and I find no sleep.
And you are known as the Holy One;
You are called the Praise of Israel.
Our fathers trusted in you.
They trusted in your liberation;
They cried to you and were helped.
They trusted you and were not let down.
But I am a worm, no human being.
The scorn of man, contempt of the crowd.
All who see me make fun of me.
They stick out their lips and wag their
heads :
"He trusted in God, let God save him;
Let him rescue the one who calls on him."
And It was you took me from the womb;
You guarded me on my mother's breast.
A Lament for Victims and Executioners 145
I was thrown on you when first I was born;
From my mother's womb you are my God.
Do not go away, trouble is near;
There is no other to help me.
Many bulls are closing in on me.
Fat pigs are surrounding me;
They open their mouths at me
Like lions roaring for meat.
As water 1 am poured out;
My bones are all dislocated.
My heart has become like wax;
It is melted inside my body.
I am dried up like broken dishes.
My tongue sticks to my lips.
You have laid me in the dust of death;
The dogs are circling around me.
A gang of criminals have taken me;
They pierced my hands and my feet.
I can count all my bones;
They are staring and cursing at me.
They have divided my clothing
And are throwing dice for my garments.
Do not stand aside, my Liberator;
My helper, hurry to save me.
Save my life from their clubs.
My mouth from the mouth of the lion.
Release me from the paws of the dog;
Save me from the teeth of the pigs.
The Ghetto Passion
Black Jesus, our Liberator, free all your people:
Black Jesus, free all your people.
Our Liberator, ratbitten in your crib: Black
Jesus, free all your people. And so on.
Our Liberator who ate lead paint from the walls:
Our Liberator in your protein-deficient diet:
Our Liberator with no father at home:
Our Liberator who played with beercans in dirt :
Our Liberator who failed the intelligence test :
Our Liberator, tracked in vocational classrooms:
Our Liberator, knifed by the local dealer:
Our Liberator, with a switchblade scar on his
cheek :
Our Liberator, swimming with grapefruit rinds:
Our Liberator, hanging around with his friends:
146 Guerrilla Liturgies
Our Liberator, unskilled and unemployable:
conned by the recruiting sergeant
absent without official leave:
Our Liberator
Our Liberator
Our Liberator
Our Liberator
Our Liberator
Our Liberator
Our Liberator
Our Liberator
Our Liberator
Our Liberator
Our Liberator
Our Liberator
Our Liberator
Our Liberator
Our Liberator
Our Liberator
Our Liberator
Our Liberator
Our Liberator
Bl ack Jes
Our Liberator
worked over by pigs in the squad
car :
carrying Psalms with a bulletproof
cover :
busted in the housing march:
busted at the Induction center:
busted at the People's Park:
preaching in the storefront chapel:
replacing the broken glass:
busted for preaching with no
license :
denounced from Grace Church pulpit :
leader of brown men and red men :
harboring white runaway kids :
bombed as a dangerous radical:
busted for inciting to riot :
turned down by the probation
officer:
protesting prison meals:
screwed by the public defender:
sentenced by a deaf politician:
us, free all your people.
murdered by law and order: Black
Jesus, free all your people.
Black Mary, mother of the people's liberator:
Black Mary, free all your people.
Black Mary, sitting on the welfare benches: Black
Mary, free all your people. And so on.
Black Mary, evicted for a man in the house:
Black Mary, busted for living in trailers:
Black Mary, Death Row goldstar mother:
Black Mary, best hope of a messed-up planet:
Black Mary, free all your people.
A Lament for Victims and Executioners 147
Lonesome Momma Blues
(Song without tune)
Refrain:
"How often I wanted to gather
Your ahillen under my wings
Like the sage-hen out on the prairie j "
Your lonesome momma sings.
1 Oh it ' s misery for you that's plantin'
The tombstones of the just.
An' subscribin' to memorials
For the singers in the dust. Refrain.
2 "If we'd lived in the days of our fathers
We'd be clean from the singers' blood":
So you testify you is members
Of the lynchln' brotherhood. Refrain.
3 An' I sent you preachers an' singers
For your rope an' gasoline.
An' to whup them behind your churches.
An' follow them from the scene. Refrain.
k An' 1 puts their blood on your fingers.
From the blood of Abel the good.
To the singer you strung from the churchdoor
In Subsistence Neighborhood. Refrain.
5 I tell you, in this generation
Each injustice is reckoned due;
Oh City that lynches the singers
An' the preachers I sends to you.
Refrain.
6 So your houses are left there empty;
You won't see this chil' again
Till people are callin' him blessed
When he comes as the Son of men. Refrain.
[Matthew 23:29-39]
III. At THE Church
One or more of the following three Prophecies is
ready as the situation permits .
First Prophecy
Minister : My people have done two evils: they
have deserted me, the Fountain of living water,
and built themselves reservoirs, broken reser-
voirs, which cannot hold water. [Jeremiah 2:13]
Reader :
Hear the word of the Lord,
You rulers of Sodom;
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Pay attention to God's instruction.
You people of Gomorrah.
"What have I to do with your worship
services?"
Says the Lord of history.
"Why do you gather yourselves together
To appear before my face?
Who requested this from you:
To trample my sanctuaries?
Conduct no more empty services;
Your praise is abominable to me.
Your First Sundays and your festivals.
My soul has a loathing for them;
Their burden is unsupportable ,
I am finished with bearing them.
When you spread out your hands in prayer,
1 turn my eyes away from you;
When you multiply your prayers.
There is nobody listening up here.
Your hands are covered with blood;
Wash them with soap, make them clean.
Take away your complicity in crime
From before the sight of my eyes.
Bring your evil to an end;
Learn how to do good.
Struggle for justice;
Resist all exploitation."
[Isaiah 1:10-17]
Minister: Take the music of your songs away from
him, for he will not hear the tunes of your or-
gans. Will you let justice roll down as water,
and fairness as a stream perpetual? [Amos 5:23-
24] No, for this people have done two evils:
they have deserted the Fountain of living water,
and built themselves reservoirs, broken reser-
voirs, which cannot hold water.
Second Prophecy
Minister : An appalling and terrible thing has
happened in this country. The prophets prophesy
falsely, and the ministers teach at their instruc-
tion, and my people love it so; but what will you
do when the end comes? [Jeremiah 5:30-31
Reader :
For three atrocities of Gaza and for four,
I will not turn away their punishment;
For they exiled a whole population
And turned them over to Edom.
So I will send a fire against their wall
And it will devour their strongholds.
A Lament for Viotims and Executioners 149
For three atrocities of Ammon and for four,
I will not turn away their punishment;
For they ripped up the women with child in
Gilead
To extend their frontiers.
So I will send a fire against their wall
And it will devour their strongholds.
For three atrocities of Moab and for four,
1 will not turn away their punishment;
Because they burned to lime
The bones of the king of Edom.
So I will send a fire against their wall
And it will devour their strongholds.
For three atrocities of Israel and for four,
I will not turn away their punishment;
For they sell the just man for silver
And the poor man for a pair of shoes.
They trample the head of the oppressed
Into the dust of the earth.
But I destroyed the Amorite before you.
Whose height was like the cedars .
And you only have I known
From all the peoples of earth;
Therefore I will impose reparation
For all your crimes upon you.
[Amos 1:6-15; 2:1-3]
Minister : Dig under the rock, hide in the earth,
from before the terror of God. For the Power be-
yond all armies has a day against everything tall
and high, against all the cedars of Lebanon, and
against every high tower. [Isaiah 2:10-15] For
an appalling and terrible thing has happened in
this country. The prophets prophesy falsely, and
the ministers teach at their instruction, and my
people love it so; but what will you do when the
end comes?
Third Prophecy
Minister : They have put a hasty dressing on the
deep wound of my people; they cry out Peace,
Peace, where there is no peace. [Jeremiah 6:14]
Reader and People:
Woe to those who say evil is good and good is
evil. [Isaiah 5:20] Woe to those who say
evil is good and good is evil.
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Woe to those who acquit the guilty for a bribe,
and deprive the innocent of justice. [Isaiah
5:23] Woe to those who say evil is good and
good is evil. And so on.
Woe to those who join house to house, and add
field to field. [Isaiah 5:8]
Woe to those who pass unjust statutes, to rob the
people of their rights. [Isaiah 10:1-2]
Woe to everyone that builds his house with injus-
tice; who makes his neighbor work for him,
and does not pay him his wages. [Jeremiah
22:13]
Woe to those who grind the face of the poor into
the dust. [Isaiah 3:15]
Woe to one who builds a city with blood, and
founds a city on injustice. [Habakkuk 2:12]
Woe to those at ease in Zion, who are secure in
the suburbs of Samaria. [Amos 6:1] Woe to
those who say evil is good and good is evil.
Woe to those who make a covenant with death, an
agreement with destruction. [Isaiah 28:15]
Woe to those who say evil is good and good is
evil.
Reader: 0 Kremlin the rod of my anger; Peking the
staff of my fury I Against a godless nation I send
them; against the people of my wrath I deploy
them. They will loot and plunder; and trample
people down in the mud of the streets. But they
do not so intend; this was not their plan. For
when I have finished all my work on Mount Zion,
and destroyed my own people, then 1 will also pun-
ish their pride. For they say, "By the strength
of my hand I did it, by the wisdom of my under-
standing." Shall the axe boast over the one who
chops with it? Or the saw be greater than the one
who cuts with it? [Isaiah 10:5-15]
Minister: See, God claps his hands together
against the dishonest gain they have made, and at
the blood shed in their midst. [Ezekiel 22:13]
They sowed the wind and reap the whirlwind; they
plowed evil and reap injustice. [Hosea 8:7;
10:13] They have put a hasty dressing on the deep
wound of my people; they cry out Peace, peace,
where there is no peace.
A Lament for Victims and Executioners 151
The Woes
Here a pot can be smashed^ while there is read:
I will smash this people and this city the way one
smashes the jar of a potter, so that it can never
be mended [Jeremiah 19:11]
Reader and People:
Woe to you ministers and professors, hypocrites:
Woe to you ministers and professors, hypo-
cr i tes .
Woe to you that preach and do not practice: Woe
to you ministers and professors, hypocrites.
And so on.
Woe to you that lay burdens on others, and do not
lift your finger to them:
Woe to you that love fine suits, and head tables,
and being called Doctor:
Woe to you that shut off liberation, who do not
enter yourselves or let others enter:
Woe to you that compute percents, and neglect jus-
tice and mercy:
Woe to you who clean the outside of the cup, and
the inside is full of oppression and
violence :
Woe to you whitewashed tombs, full of dead men's
bones inside: Woe to you ministers and
professors, hypocrites. [Matthew 23:4-27]
Psalm 10:1-12
Why do you stand far away, 0 Liberator?
Why are you hidden in time of trouble?
In arrogance the wicked hunt down the poor;
Let them fall in the schemes of their own
devising.
The wicked boasts of his heart's desire;
The rich man curses God.
His ways prosper at all times;
He thinks, I will never see adversity.
His mouth is full of lies and oppression;
Under his tongue are wrong and injustice.
From his ambush he murders the innocent;
He draws the poor into his net.
The poor man is crushed and falls down;
He thinks in his heart God has forgotten.
Stand up, God; raise up your hand;
Do not hide your face from the suffering.
Reader: Now when Jesus was setting out on his
way, a man ran up to him, knelt down in front of
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him, and asked, "Good Leader, what must I do to
Inherit the coming Age?" Jesus said, "Why do you
call me good? No one Is good except only God.
You know his demands: 'Do not commit murder, do
not commit adultery, do not steal, do not lie, do
not exploit, honor your father and mother'." And
he said, "Teacher, all these I have observed since
my youth." Then Jesus looked at him, kissed him,
and said: "You lack one thing; go, sell all you
have and give It to the poor, and you will have a
treasure with God. Then follow me." But he was
discouraged at this saying and went away sad, for
he had much property. [Mark 10:17-22]
Minister : He who has an ear to hear, let him hear
what the Spirit says to the Church: Give it all
away. For it is by men of strange lips that he
speaks to this people.
The Reproaches
First Reader: 0 my people, what have I done to
you, or how have I wearied you? Testify against
me .
People: Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal,
have mercy upon us.
Second Reader: Because I brought you out of the
land of oppression, and gave you manna forty years
in the desert, and brought you into a land flowing
with milk and honey, you have prepared a cross for
your Liberator.
People: Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal,
have mercy upon us.
Third Reader: One American is worth a thousand
gooks; kill them when they're little before they
grow up.
People: Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal,
have mercy upon us.
First Reader: 0 my people, what have I done to
you, or how have I wearied you? Testify against
me .
People: Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal,
have mercy upon us.
Second Reader: 1 whipped Egypt with all her
firstborn for your sake, and you have whipped me.
I brought you out of Egypt through the Red Sea,
and you delivered me to the chief priests. I
A Lament for Victims and Exeautioners 153
opened the sea before you, and you opened my side
with a spear.
People: Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal,
have mercy upon us .
Third Reader: Others he saved, himself he cannot
save; we had to destroy the City in order to save
it.
People: Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal,
have mercy upon us.
First Reader: 0 my people, what have I done to
you, or how have I wearied you? Testify against
me .
People: Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal,
have mercy upon us.
Second Reader: I went before you in the pillar of
cloud, and you brought me to the pillar of
Pilate's judgment hall. I gave you the water of
life to drink from the rock, and you gave me gall
and vinegar.
people: Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal,
have mercy upon us.
Third Reader: I heard the sound of a B-29 engine;
my little brother was putting out his hand to
catch the red dragonfly on the wall, when sud-
denly there came a flash.
People: Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal,
have mercy upon us .
First Reader: 0 my people, what have I done to
you, or how have I wearied you? Testify against
me .
People: Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal,
have mercy upon us.
Second Reader: I struck kings for your sake, and
you struck my head with a reed, I gave you a
royal sceptre, and you set on my head a crown of
thorns. 1 raised you on high with great power,
and you raised me on the gallows of the Cross.
People: Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal,
have mercy upon us.
Third Reader: The fillings from their teeth were
neatly lined up on shelves. Their shoes were in
another room, all the left shoes in one pile and
the right shoes in another pile.
15^ Guerrilla Liturgies
People: Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal,
have mercy upon us .
First Reader: 0 my people, what have I done to
you, or how have I wearied you? Testify against
me .
People: Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal,
have mercy upon us.
Second Reader: Because I brought you across the
great ocean, out of the house of bondage, and set
you in this broad and fair land, you have extermi-
nated the inhabitant of the land, and brought
others into new bondage.
People: Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal,
have mercy upon us .
Third Reader: This black kid was laying there in
Springfield Avenue with a lot of holes in him; the
place was sticky for several days.
People: Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal,
have mercy upon us.
First Reader: 0 my people, what have I done to
you, or how have I wearied you? Testify against
me .
People: Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal,
have mercy upon us .
Second Reader: Because I brought you into the
land of my Great Spirit, a land of many waters and
deep forests, you have cut down the forests with
your axes, and poisoned the air that my creatures
breathe, the water they drink, the soil from which
1 made you.
People: Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal,
have mercy upon us.
Third Reader: Can't stand in the way of progress;
when you've seen one redwood tree you've seen them
all.
People: Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal,
have mercy upon us.
First Reader: 0 my people, what have I done to
you, or how have I wearied you? Testify against
me .
People: Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal,
have mercy upon us .
Second Reader: Because I liberated you from the
A Lament for Victims and Executioners 155
oppressor overseas, and led you safely through a
war of brothers, you have dropped fire from the
sky upon the poorest of peoples, and locked up in
your prisons the young men and women who spoke the
words of my judgement against you.
People: Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal,
have mercy upon us.
Third Reader: They was begging and saying. No.
No. And the mothers was hugging their children,
but we kept right on firing. Well, we kept right
on firing. They was waving their arms and
begging.
People: Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal,
have mercy upon us.
Reader: The Liberator suffered for the people,
leaving us an example to follow his steps. He did
no crime. No deception was found in his mouth.
When he was insulted he. did not insult back. When
he suffered he did not curse. He trusted the one
just Judge. He lifted off our complicity in his
body on the Tree, so that we might die to crime
and live to justice. By his wound we are healed.
We had wandered off like sheep; now we have re-
turned to the shepherd and guardian of our lives.
[1 Peter 2:21-25]
Minister : Is it nothing to you, all you who pass
by? Look and see if there is any sorrow like my
sorrow.
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The Shepherd of the Friendless
Tune: "Passion Chorale," Hassler-Bach I6OI (The
Hymnal 1940 no. 75; 76.76.D.)
1 The Shepherd of the friendless
By dogs and wolves is torn;
The King of pity endless
Is diadem 'd with thorn.
And must our liberation
Be purchased at such loss :
To nail the whole creation
On an imperial cross?
2 See there our Ground of being
By law and order slain;
The sun withdraws its seeing.
The earth is moved in pain.
Could not your love inherit
Another end than this :
Rejected for your merit.
Arrested by a kiss?
3 Your suff'ring is united
To victims everywhere.
By ghetto lords exploited
Or scarred with fire from air;
Although in our denying
Our lives are little worth.
We pledge a war undying
Till justice rules on earth.
4 Our Hero still is living
In all oppressed lands.
The righteous still forgiving
Who pierce his feet and hands;
A redwood arch is growing
Above his final strife.
From out his thirst are flowing
The waters of our life.
2. 'Si^^^OidUcH^i^^Uc'^c^t
An Act of Disaffiliation
Suitable for Ash Wednesday ^ March 16, August 6,
and other times of penitence .
I. The Preparation
Spokesman for people: Friends, in the knowledge
that demonic forces have infiltrated the institu-
tions of our society, we have gathered here to
disaffiliate ourselves from the powers of darkness
and to enlist in the army of life.
Minister : Already to the visionary eye, ragweed
is growing in the streets of the great city Baby-
lon and poison oak in its plazas; the vulture
nests in its towers, the hyena growls from its
alleys. At this time therefore we ask for the
mountain air of the spirit to blow through our
persons and our surroundings, so that we may have
strength to say what must be said and do what must
be done. Let us hear the words of the Power of
history on the great city Babylon.
Prophecy
Reader: Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen,
that great city, because she made all nations
drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.
And 1 stood on the sand of the sea, and saw a
beast rise up out of the sea, whose feet are like
the feet of bears, and whose face is the face of a
pig. And all the world wondered at the World Pig,
saying, "Who is like this great beast? Who is
able to make war against him?" And there was
given unto it a mouth speaking great things and
blasphemies. And authority was given it over all
tribes and peoples and tongues and nations. And
all that dwell upon the earth shall worship it,
whose names are not written in the book of life of
the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world.
And it causes all, both small and great, rich and
poor, free and slave, to receive a mark in their
right hand, or in their forehead, so that no man
may buy or sell, or travel to and fro, or walk
freely in the streets of the city, unless he has
by his hand the mark of the beast and the number
of his name.
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After this I beheld, and lo, an angel flying in
the midst of the sky, having an everlasting gospel
to preach to all those who live on the earth, say-
ing: "Fear God, and give glory to him, for the
hour of his judgement is come; and worship the one
who made earth and sea and the fountains of wa-
ters. And if any man has worshipped the beast and
his image, or received his mark in his forehead or
in his hand, let him repent himself, and take off
from himself the number of the beast, and return
it to the one that gave it."
Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is
become the habitation of demons, and the hold of
every foul spirit, and the cage of every unclean
and hateful bird.
Psalm 9^
0 Eternal God of vengeance,
0 God of vengeance, send your lightning.
Stand up, you Judge of the earth;
Pay the exploiters their salary.
How long, 0 God, will the oppressors.
How long will they pat their own backs?
They pour out their lying words.
The criminals praise their own motives.
They smash your people, 0 God,
They oppress the folk of your covenant.
Widows and minorities they shoot down;
They murder the orphan children.
And they say, "History will never notice;
The God of Jacob is oblivious."
Think it over, you dullest of people;
When will you fools understand?
Is the Maker of the ear hard of hearing?
Will the planter of the eye fail to see
it?
That Power will not abandon his people;
He never deserts his covenant.
For justice is done to the struggling.
But a pit is dug for the wicked.
Who stands up for me against the wicked?
Who takes my side against the violent?
If God had not been my comrade.
My life would have slept soon in darkness.
Does God favor the rostrum of evil
Which legislates murder by statute?
They conspire against just men together;
They pour out the blood of the innocent.
But the Power of history is my fortress.
My God is a rock of refuge.
Burn Out the Mark of the Beast 159
He will turn their injustice against them
And wipe them out in their crimes.
Minister : Hear also the words of the Liberator,
what things must happen to us as to him, and what
we must say.
Reader: If a person recognizes me before men, the
Son of Man will recognize him in the presence of
the angels. If a person denies me before men, he
is denied in the presence of the angels. Whoever
speaks a word against the Son of Man is forgiven;
but whoever blasphemes against the holy Spirit is
not forgiven. And when they turn you over to mock
trials, or arraign you before judges and magis-
trates, do not worry how to defend yourself, or be
anxious how you will speak, for the Spirit will
teach you what to say in that hour. [Luke 12:8-12]
Minister : 0 Spirit of that God who ever lives,
you have called us to speak out his will by slogan
and action like the prophets before us; take away
our hostility, and remove all defects of sight and
hearing in those who confront us, so that if pos-
sible we may be unharmed and your message may be
received; through the Prophet of Nazareth who
organized the first demonstration in God's Temple.
Amen ; so may it be .
II. Litany
Shall I wear the beast's mark in my forehead? You
cannot serve two masters.
Shall I cut down the redwood forest? You cannot
serve two masters. And so on.
Shall I take the gun in my hand?
Shall I drop down fire from the sky?
Shall I advertise false products?
Shall I follow the course of the stars?
Shall I wait for another to lead me?
Shall I drug my eyes into blindness?
Shall I stop my ears to the poor man's cry?
Shall I become chaplain to the violent?
Shall I return to the bed of forgetf ulness? You
cannot serve two masters.
Shall I follow the way of the majority? You can-
not serve two masters.
What way is then left to walk in? Burn out the
mark of the beast.
Let another begin the action. Burn out the mark
of the beast. And so on.
I have no talent for leadership.
What is the cry of nature?
160 Guerrilla Liturgies
What is the demand of the Power of History?
My brothers, what do you plan to do?
How shall we get the beast off our back?
What shall we tell our brothers and sisters? Burn
out the mark of the beast.
III. The Making and Use of Ashes
Prophecy
Minister :
For three transgressions of Babylon and for
four,
1 will not turn away the punishment;
Because they brought fire from heaven on
women with child
And sowed iron on their villages,
1 shall turn the children of Babylon against
her ,
And burn up her quarters with fire.
Because she cut down the trees of her
adversary
And spread poison upon his fields,
1 send a spirit of madness upon her
To cut down her forests with her own hand.
To cast a seed of fire on her cornfields.
To fill her air with the smoke of her
burning
And her waters with the refuse of her
streets .
Because Babylon has raised a levy of her
youth
To enlarge her borders in a distant land.
Behold 1 raise up her subjects in her
streets ,
And her young men shall resist her to her
face .
The lion has roared, who can but fear?
The Power of History has spoken, who can
but prophesy?
Interlude
First straight man: We found this man overthrow-
ing our nation, and forbidding us to pay taxes to
Nixon. [Luke 23:2]
Second straight man: We have heard these men
speak disrespectfully of motherhood and God.
[Acts 6:11]
First straight man: These men are disturbing our
city; they advocate customs which it is illegal
Burn Out the Mark of the Beast 161
for us Americans to practice. [Aots 16:20-21]
Second straight man: They are persuading men to
worship God contrary to the law. [Acts 18:13]
First straight man: Come and help us I These are
the men who are teaching against the Law; they
have brought unclean persons Into the temple, they
have desecrated a holy place. [Aots 21:28]
Second straight man: These men who turn the world
upside down have come here also; they are all de-
fying the orders of Nixon, saying there Is another
President, Jesus. [Acts 17:6-7]
First straight man: The men whom you put In pris-
on are standing In the temple and teaching the
people. [Acts 5:25]
Reader: Then the sergeant with his men went and
brought them, but without brutality, for they were
afraid of being stoned by the people. And when
they had brought them, they set them in the court-
room. And the magistrate interrogated them, say-
ing: "We issued a strict injunction that you
should not teach in the name of Jesus, and here
you have filled the city with this teaching." And
Peter and the Apostles answered:
All: We must obey God rather than men.
[Acts 5:26-29]
First straight man: You are all under arrest.
Who is your leader?
All: We have no leader but Jesus our Liberator.
The Disaffiliation
Then all who wish to disaffiliate from violence
say as follows, either after the Minister or along
with him:
If my hand has consented to murder.
Let my hand consent no longer.
If I have shut my eyes to the poor.
Today I take up their cause.
If I exploited my brother.
Today I ask his forgiveness.
If I harmed the living planet.
Today I do reparation.
If I walled myself off with religion.
Today I jump over the wall.
If I invented private ecstasy,
I accept communal suffering.
162 Guerrilla Liturgies
If ever I bore the mark of the beast,
I will bear its mark no longer.
If ever I carried its number,
I will carry its number no longer.
So help me God and his holy words.
In the hearing of these my brothers.
Minister : Brothers and sisters, a narrow door is
set before us, which, we are told, not everyone
will enter. We know that this universe had its
beginning in fire, and we believe that to fire it
will return. There are many things we cannot
choose; but each of us has a choice v/hether that
fire will be to him the burning love of his broth-
ers, or the cancer of self-reproach. As the whole
world is watching, in self-respect we have willed
to burn those instruments which once affiliated us
with an oppressive system. Today we affirm that
some property has no right to exist . We propose
this day to light in America such a candle as will
never be put out .
Then as each person burns the instruments of af-
filiation he repeats :
We must obey God rather than men.
Epistle
Reader: Hear an Epistle on holy disobedience from
our brother Daniel Berrigan.
Our apologies, good friends, for the fracture of
good order, the burning of paper instead of child-
ren, the angering of the orderlies in the front
parlor of the charnel house. We could not, so
help us God, do otherwise. For we are sick at
heart, our hearts give us no rest for thinking of
the Land of Burning Children. And for thinking of
that other Child, of whom the poet Luke speaks.
The infant was taken up in the arms of an old man,
whose tongue grew resonant and vatic at the touch
of that beauty. And the old man spoke; this child
is set for the fall and rise of many in Israel, a
sign that is spoken against.
Small consolation; a child born to make trouble,
and to die for it, the first Jew (not the last) to
be subject of a "definitive solution." He sets up
the cross and dies on it; in the Rose Garden of
the executive mansion, on the D.C. Mall, in the
courtyard of the Pentagon. We see the sign, we
read the direction; you must bear with us, for His
Burn Out the Mark of the Beast 163
sake. Or if you will not, the consequences are
our own. . .
[For] we are no more, when the truth is told, than
ignorant beset men, jockeying against all chance,
at the hour of death, for a place at the right
hand of the dying One...
We stretch out our hands to our brothers through-
out the world. We who are priests, to our fellow
priests. All of us who act against the law, turn
to the poor of the world, to the Vietnamese, to
the victims, to the soldiers who kill and die; for
no reason at all, because they were so ordered — by
the authorities of that public order which is in
effect a massive institutionalized disorder.
We say killing is disorder; life and gentleness
and community and unselfishness is the only order
we recognize. For the sake of that order, we risk
our liberty, our good name. The time is past when
good men can remain silent, when obedience can
segregate men from public risk, when the poor can
die without defense.
We ask our fellow Christians to consider in their
hearts a question that has tortured us, night and
day, since the war began. How many must die be-
fore our voices are heard, how many must be tor-
tured, dislocated, starved, maddened? How long
must the world's resources be raped in the service
of legalized murder? When, at what point, will
you say no to this war?
We have chosen to say, with the gift of our lib-
erty, if necessary of our lives, the violence
stops here, the death stops here, the suppression
of the truth stops here, the war stops here. . . .
Redeem the times I The times are inexpressibly
evil. Christians pay conscious — indeed religious
— tribute to Caesar and Mars ; by approval of over-
kill tactics, by brinkmanship, by nuclear litur-
gies, by racism, by support of genocide. They em-
brace their society with all their heart, and
abandon the cross. They pay lip service to Christ
and military service to the powers of death.
And yet, and yet, the times are inexhaustibly
good, solaced by the courage and hope of many.
The truth rules, Christ is not forsaken. In a
time of death, some men — the resisters, those who
work hardily for social change, those who preach
and embrace the unpalatable truth — such men
164 Guerrilla Liturgies
overcome death, their lives are bathed in the
light of the resurrection, the truth has set them
free. In the jaws of death, of contumely, of good
and ill report, they proclaim their love of the
brethren.
We think of such men, in the world, in our nation,
in the churches; and the stone in our breast is
dissolved; we take heart once more.
Here ends the Epistle.
Putting on Ashes
Minister : Brothers and sisters, we know that the
ultimate instrument of police brutality, scandal
to the Jews and folly to the Greeks, has been
transformed by the resistance of the Liberator
into the means of our life and peace. And there-
fore, 0 Jesus, in solidarity with your nonvio-
lence, we have cut out the mark of the beast from
our forehead and burned his number to ashes. In
their place, with penitence and hope, we accept
the mark of the cross.
The the Minister marks the ash from the burned
papers on the foreheads of all who wish itj
saying :
Render unto Nixon that which is Nixon's and unto
God that which is God's.
Minister : Friends, as the Power of History called
Abraham from his native city and led him a long
journey through the world, we likewise are pil-
grims and travelers here, with no permanent city.
When the Son of Man comes, will faith be found on
earth? We then take out naturalization papers in
that land where out true citizenship lies. For
sky and earth witness this day, that there have
been set before us good and evil, blessing and
curse, life and death. Which will you choose?
People: We choose life, that we and our children
may live.
Minister: By that covenant of peace let us enlist
in the army of the Liberator and hear the Apos-
tle's charge to his new recruits.
Reader: Be strong in the Liberator and in his
power. Be dressed in God's complete set of armor,
so that you can stand against the schemes of the
World Beast. For our struggle is not against
flesh and blood, but against demonic authorities.
Burn Out the Mark of the Beast 165
against the world-rulers of our Dark Age, against
evil spiritual powers in high places. So take up
the panoply of God, in order that you can offer
resistance in the evil day, and stand with your
work complete. Stand with the belt of truth
around your waist, wear the breastplate of jus-
tice, and put on the boots of those who announce
the good news of peace. Over all lift up the
shield of confidence, by which you can extinguish
the scorching missiles of evil. And take up the
helmet of liberation and the weapon of the Spirit,
that is, the word of God. [Ephesians 6:10-17]
1> . ^ccoiM^fy^lvyM^^o^: lie (\^z^ ol tic. litcu^io^
A form of words to aaaompany some action at a place
which does not expect it. Especially suitable for
Palm Sunday 3 Advent^ Reformation Sunday ^ and Pente-
cost.
I . At the Staging Area
Psalm 2
Why are the nations In conspiracy?
Why do presidents make empty plans?
The rulers have consulted together
Against the Power of history and the
Liberator :
"Let us break all their constraints;
Let us throw all their laws from us."
He who sits on the sky laughs them to scorn.
The Ruler of nature mocks at them.
Then he speaks to them in his anger.
He routs them with his indignation:
"Today I have set my King
Upon Zion the hill of my holiness;
I said to him, 'You are my Son,
Today I have begotten you;
I have made all peoples your inheritance.
The ends of the earth your possession;
Rule their kings with a rod of steel,
Smash them like broken china.'"
Now then you rulers understand this.
Be warned, all judges of the earth;
Serve the Power of history in fear.
Bow down before him with trembling;
If he is angry, your way is destroyed;
And his anger is quickly aroused.
Reader: Recognize what time it is: it is the
hour for us to be waked out of sleep. For now our
liberation is closer than when first we trusted.
Night is far advanced, day is breaking. So we
should throw off the works of darkness and get
dressed in the armor of light. Since it is day,
walk properly, not in folly and self-deception,
not in anger and competition; get dressed in Jesus
the Liberator, and pay no attention to the demands
of the present Age. [Romans 13:11-14]
Decontamination 167
Announcement
Minister : We interrupt this ser^vlce to bring you
a special announcement. Brothers and sisters, we
are told that the ruler and servant of this planet
comes at an unspecified time, on his schedule, not
ours. Not at a Presidential election but perhaps
at a sentencing; not at a military victory but
perhaps at a defeat; not announced in the media
but perhaps in the ghetto. His budget is not as
our budgets; his leadership is with the masses.
Our calendars cannot compute his Advent; he has
his own time-zones, he is his own air controller.
Friends, be sober, be watchful, be vigilant; re-
double your efforts; serve the Lord, serve the
people. Any day we may see on our streets the
political exile from every land, the universal
people's organizer. Daylight saving may be an-
nounced at any moment, be prepared to reset your
watches. Elections may be cancelled; the Times
may suspend publication indefinitely; the six
o'clock news is in doubt. Sit loose to your
calendars: at any time darkness may be turned to
day; any week may be all Sundays; any February may
get a thirtieth people's day.
And some year the war will be over, won not by
bombs but by bicycles, not by metal but by people,
not by top-level negotiations but by the smuggled
messages of political prisoners. We cannot say
that this is the Year of our Liberator Nlneteen-
Hundred-and-Something. For he is not dead but
living; he came long ago and he comes today. His
word has gone out to all lands; for the first time
in world history it is God's right time for God's
folk to triumph over Leviathan; World People car-
ries off the victory over World Piggery. The
clocks are ticking faster, fallout is falling, the
great sea is sick, poison is building up to a
critical level; but a new child is about to be
born. Be alert, be analytical; it will be told in
the streets when the war is over.
Brothers and sisters, when God's acceptable year
Is at hand, time no longer will be measured by the
past, but by the future. The Second Millennium
may not wait for the year Two Thousand. Tear up
the perpetual calendars. Friends, before the mid-
dle-aged in this audience grow old, before the
young people are draft-eligible, before new apple
trees bear fruit, the World Tree will bear the
fruit that all men and women have been reaching
168 Guerrilla Liturgies
out for. Tear up the calendars. Many difficul-
ties lie ahead but the Second Coming is at hand.
History is sailing into a new Pacific Ocean;
looming up we see the outlines of the Fortunate
Islands. Shortly a prophet of the New Age will
announce YEAR ONE OF PEACE AND LIBERATION!
The Rainy Day of the Chil'
Can be sung to St. James Infirmary and other
tunes .
That country don't come with watchin'.
It spreads around you plain;
The days are comin' you'll look for
One day of this chil' in vain.
When they cry, "See it out on the prairie,"
You better not to roam;
When they whisper "There in the back room,"
You better keep to home.
As it lightnin's from mountain to prairie
Will be the day of this chil'
But beforehand you'll see these people
Harass him for a while.
Like it was in the days of old Noah
Will be this chil's day;
For they was eatin' and drinkin'
Marryin' and givin' away.
Till the day he went up the gangplank
And the rain dropped quietly;
Like it was in the days of Sodom
The day of this chil' will be.
For they was buyin' and sellin'
Plantin' corn and raisin' wall.
Till the day Lot come out from Sodom
And the cin'ers commenced to fall.
In that day a man on the rooftop
Had best not get his pack.
Or a man in the field run home for
A shirt to clothe his back.
If you spare your life you lose it.
And the loser his life will spare;
Two men are plowin' together.
They take one and leave one there.
Two women at the oven bakin'.
They take one and leave one go.
But wherever the corpse is layin'
Lights down the carrion crow.
[Luke 17:20-37]
Decontamination 169
Interlude
Reader: And it came to pass, when he drew near to
Jericho, a blind man, the son of Timaeus , sat by
the road begging. And when he heard the crowd go-
ing along the way he asked what this might be, and
they answered him, saying:
People: Jesus of Nazareth is passing by 1
[Luke 18:35-37]
Straight man: Show us a sign! Show us a signl
Show us a signl
Reader: This is a wicked age; it asks for a
sign, and no sign will be given it but the sign of
Jonah. The way Jonah was a sign to the men of
Nineveh, so will the Son of Man be to this age.
The men of Nineveh will go to court with this age
and condemn it; for they repented at the teaching
of Jonah, and one greater than Jonah is here.
[Luke 11:29-32]
Straight man: Blasphemy, blasphemy, blasphemy I
Who but God alone can forgive sins?
Reader: Which is easier, to say, "Your sins are
forgiven," or to say, "Pick up your bed and walk?"
[Mark 2:7-9]
Straight man: Why does he not wash his hands be-
fore dinner?
Reader: Why do you wash the outside of the cup,
when your inside is full of exploitation and
wickedness? [Luke 11:38-39]
Straight man: Why does he eat with street girls
and dealers?
Reader: Sick people need a doctor, not well peo-
ple; he did not come to call righteous but
sinners. [Mark 2:16-17]
Straight man: He is stealing grain from the
fields; and doing it on Sunday I [Mark 2:24]
Reader: Sunday was made for man, not man for Sun-
day. A camel can go through a needle's eye quick-
er than a rich man into the zone of liberation.
You cannot serve God and Mammon.
[Mark 2:27, 10:25; Luke 16:13]
Straight man: If he were a prophet, he would know
this woman for a sinner. [Luke 7:39]
Reader: Her sins are forgiven, for she loved
170 Guerrilla Liturgies
much; he who loves little is forgiven little.
[Luke 7:47]
Straight man: Let me first go and bury my father.
Reader: Let the dead bury their own dead.
Straight man: Let me first say goodbye to my
family.
Reader: No one who puts his hand to the plow and
looks back is fit for the Liberated Zone.
[Luke 9:59-62]
Straight man: We saw a man casting out demons in
your name, but he does not follow us, so we for-
bade him.
Reader: He who is not against us is on our side.
[Mark 9:38-40]
Straight man: This man casts out demons by Beel-
zebul Lord of the Mansion, the prince of demons.
Reader :
Any country is made desolate
That is divided against itself;
And any household will fall
Divided against itself.
If Satan is set against himself.
How will his country stand?
And if it is by Beelzebul
That I drive out the demons.
Who do your sons drive them out by?
So they can be your judges.
But if I by the finger of God drive them out.
Then Liberation is upon you.
When a strong man armed keeps his house.
His property is in safety.
But when one stronger comes to his house.
Binding the strong one hand and foot.
He takes the panoply that he trusted
And distributes the spoil.
When an unclean spirit leaves a man.
He goes to the desert searching a home;
And when he finds no home there he says,
"1 go back to my house that I came from."
And when he comes, he finds it vacant.
Swept clean and neatly tidied.
So he gets seven demons worse than himself
And takes them with him to live there;
And the last condition of that man
Becomes worse than his first.
[Luke 11:15-26]
Decontamination 171
Straight man: Are you he that is coming, or do we
look for another?
Reader :
The blind receive their sight.
Lame men are walking;
Cancers fall from the skin.
The deaf get back their hearing;
Dead men are raised up.
The poor hear a new preaching;
And blessed is every one
Who finds in me no stumbling.
[Luke 7:20-23]
Minister : We interrupt this service again for an-
other special announcement. We have just received
word that the Liberated Zone has been set up at N.
Free water-fountains, free bread, wine without
price. Entry permits now being issued, no formal-
ities, no delay. First preference given to whores
and dealers .
II . The Procession
Reader :
Dance with joy, daughter of Zion;
Sing out, daughter of Jerusalem.
See your King is coming
With justice and liberation;
Gentle and riding on a donkey.
On a colt the foal of a donkey.
He cuts off the chariot from Babylon
The cavalry from Sodom.
The tool of battle is lopped off,
He demands peace of the nations.
He governs from sea to sea.
From the River to the ends of the earth.
And see 0 daughter of Zion
By the blood of his Covenant with you
He frees your captives from the prisons.
From the deserts where no water is.
Return, you hopeful prisoners.
To your hill-camps beside the stream;
He restores to you today
Double for all you endured.
[Zechariah 9:9-12]
172 Guerrilla Liturgies
We Hope and Trust in Jesus
Tune: "St. Theodulph," Teschner I615 {The Hymnal
1940 no. 62; 76.76.D. )
Refrain :
We hope and trust in Jesus
Our Liberator King;
To him the flower children
Their gifts and incense bring.
1 The Brother of humanity.
He is the Prince of Peace;
In God's name he is coming
To make all warfare cease. Refrain.
2 He rides along the avenue
Upon the donkey's back;
The powers of darkness stumble.
And Caesar's stick will crack. Refrain.
3 The children of the Hebrews
With palms before him went;
The hopes of the exploited
Before him we present. Refrain.
4 We burn the monster's number.
His mark is off our brow;
The day of liberation
Is celebrated now. Refrain.
5 We melt the guns to plowshares
We sink the bombs off shore;
The nations fight no longer
And study war no more. Refrain.
6 But lovers sit together
Beneath their fig and vine.
On whom the Sun of Justice
With peace and love will shine. Refrain.
7 In all his holy mountain
They shall not harm again;
The babies play in safety
Upon the rattler's den. Refrain.
8 Beside the mountain lion
The sheep may safely graze;
The paradise of Eden
Is planted in our days. Refrain.
9 The logger's axe no longer
Shall cut the living tree;
Our cedar and our redwood
Stand green above the sea. Refrain.
Decontamination 173
Lesson
Reader: And when they came near Jerusalem, by
Bethany at the hill of olivetrees, he commissioned
two of his companions: "Go to the village over
there. When you enter it you will find a donkey
that no man has yet sat on; untie it and bring it.
If anybody asks you what you are doing, tell them
its owner needs it, and they will let you have it
immediately." So they went and found the donkey
tied outside the door to a grapevine, and they un-
tied it. And some people standing there asked
them what they were doing, untying the donkey.
And they answered as Jesus told them, and they let
them go. And they brought the donkey to Jesus;
they threw their cloaks on it, and he sat on it.
And many people took off their cloaks and threw
them on the street; and others cut palm branches
from the fields and threw them on the street. And
the crowd that went in front of him and behind him
cried out, saying: [Mark 11:1-10]
Litany
Leader and FeoipZe:
Who is this riding among us?
Jesus the Prophet of Nazareth.
Blessed is he who comes in the name of God.
Hosanna, may his Way be victorious.
Who is this riding the animal of peace?
Jesus the Prophet of Nazareth.
Blessed be the coming Kingdom of David.
Hosanna, may his Way be victorious.
Who is the Liberator of Israel?
Jesus the Prophet of Nazareth.
Blessed be the Liberated Zone he brings.
Hosanna, may his Way be victorious.
Who is this carrying the palm of peace?
Jesus the Prophet of Nazareth.
Blessed be our leader the Prince of peace.
Hosanna, may his Way be victorious.
Who is this that destroys the weapons of war?
Jesus the Prophet of Nazareth.
Blessed is he who comes in the name of God.
Hosanna, may his Way be victorious.
Who is this that frees the oppressed from
prison?
Jesus the Prophet of Nazareth.
Blessed is he that releases all captives.
Hosanna, may his Way be victorious.
17^ Guerrilla Liturgies
Who is this that restores the Paradise of
Eden?
Jesus the Prophet of Nazareth.
Blessed is the Maker of all the worlds.
Hosanna, may his Way be victorious. And
so on ad lib.
Ill . At THE Destination
Lesson
Reader {in vox clerica) : Here beginneth the Les-
son. So the supervisors and foremen of the people
went out and said to the people, "Thus says Phar-
aoh, I will give you no straw. Go out, get your-
selves straw wherever you can find it; but your
quota will not be decreased." So the people were
spread out all over Egypt to get stubble for
straw. And the supervisors bore down on them,
saying, "Finish your daily quota as you did when
you had straw." And the foremen of the children
of Israel, who had been appointed by Pharaoh's
supervisors, were beaten and interrogated: "Why
have you not finished your quota of bricks today,
as you did yesterday?" Here endeth the Lesson.
[Exodus 5:10-14]
Canticle
If possible 3 sung to Anglican chant.
Blessed art thou, 0 Lord, / our Property;
Praised and exalted above / all persons ' for
ever.
Blessed art thou for the Name / of our Rights;
Praised and exalted above / all persons * for
ever.
Blessed art thou in the / temple of ' consumption;
Praised and exalted above /all persons ' for
ever.
Blessed art thou that beholdest the land values,
and dwellest be/tween the brokers;
Praised and exalted above / all persons * for-
ever .
Blessed art thou in the firmament / of the market;
Praised and exalted above / all persons ' for-
ever.
Decontamination 175
Conversation in Darkness
Minister : In the beginning the Energy of creation
made heaven and earth and all that Is In them; and
he looked at all he had made, and lo, they were
very good. Today he looks in at them from outside
space and time, and lo, they are very bad. For a
demon of stupidity entered the heart of Adam, that
he should increase and multiply and destroy beyond
all limits, and pull down the roof of the sky on
his own head. Now we are standing on land occu-
pied by demonic powers, whose names are Beelzebul
and Mammon. And the sons of man came to consult
with the demons that live here, saying:
Header: Teach us to saw down the cedar and fir,
and tread the lilies into the mud; prepare poisons
for us to kill the creeping things and whatever
feeds on them; show us how to fill the air with
waste products of asphalt, the birds that fly in
it, the earth and its inhabitants, the waters and
all who live in them; and give us your gold and
silver, with which to buy the burning ash of
death, that we may cast it on the heads of our
enemies .
Minister : And the lying demons said to them:
"Here are the poisons; go and prosper, only make
sure they touch not your own heads." Again a
second time the sons of man came and said:
Reader: It is too light a thing, that we have
learned how to bend the earth to our will and
yours. Teach us also to subdue the inhabitants of
the land; help us bring people from all continents
to be our hewers of wood and drawers of water, and
wall them off in the quarters of our cities; show
us how to destroy the woman with child and the
young men in all places we wish to go; give us
chains to bind all humanity to our desires.
Minister : And the lying demons said: "Here are
chains; go and bind them on all people, only be
sure they touch not your own legs and arms."
Again a third time the sons of men came and said:
Reader: All these things we have done, and more;
and now our own sons and daughters stand up
against us. Give us therefore confused images to
put before their eyes, empty sounds in their ears,
and false books in their schools, so that they
will not hear the words of the poets of GOD, and
turn and overthrow us their parents.
176 Guerrilla Liturgies
Minister : And the lying demons said: "See, here
are the words of confusion; go and turn them
loose, only be careful to stop up your ears, so
that you are not caught in your falsehoods, and
ours . "
But the demons could not deliver what they prom-
ised, for they are lying demons, and weak. For
the Word of the Power of history is an antidote to
every poison, a two-edged sword to cut every
chain, a light eclipsing every falsehood. ListenI
At the heart of the place where the demons stand,
a sound of struggle.
Reader: Come out of the man you rotten spirit!
Straight man: What is there between me and thee,
Jesus thou Son of God most high? In the name of
God I adjure thee, torment me not.
Reader: What is your name?
Straight man: American Legion is my name, for we
are many. Send us not out of the country; send us
into the swine that we may enter into them.
Reader: May it be as you have spoken.
Minister : And the rotten spirits came out and
went into the pigs, and the whole herd rushed over
the cliff into the sea, about two thousand of
them, and were drowned in the abyss. [Mark 5:7-13]
Psalm 80:8-16
You brought a vine from Egypt ;
You drove out the foreigners and planted
it;
You cleared the ground for it;
It struck down root and filled the land.
The mountains were covered with its shadow.
The cedars of God were under its branches.
It spread its leaves to the Sea,
And its shoots to the River.
Why then did you break down its wall?
Each passerby rips off its fruit.
The Pig from the desert grubs it up.
Each Beast from the wilderness feeds on
it.
Look down, 0 God, from the heights
On the vine which your right hand has
planted .
They have burned it with fire and smashed it;
May they fall at the anger of your face!
Decontamination 177
Litany
On strike, shut it down, off the World Pig: On
strike, shut it down, off the World Pig.
When Pharaoh raised the brick quota, Moses and his
people said: On strike, shut it down, off
the World Pig. And so on.
When Pharaoh offered concessions, Moses and his
people said:
When they ripped up women with child, the prophet
Amos said:
When kings sold the poor for sliver, the prophet
Amos said:
When they asked the priests to bless them, the
prophet Amos said:
When Athens shut eyes to murder, Socrates stood up
and said:
When they busted him for corrupting youth, the
youth stood up and said:
When Jesus disrupted the Temple, all his followers
said :
When he broke up sacred monopoly, all his follow-
ers said:
When they handed out Incense for Caesar, all the
Christians said:
When the Pope put the keys In his pocket, Martin
Luther said:
When they put a gun In his hand, George Fox stood
up and said:
When they told him to stop his preaching, Wesley
stood up and said:
When they slapped on a war surtax, Thoreau sat
down and said:
When the British licensed sea-salt, Mahatma Gandhi
said:
When Hitler said Bow down and worship, Franz
Jaegerstaetter said:
When Hitler said Don't ask questions, Dietrich
Bonhoeffer said:
When the Kremlin bugged the typewriters, Boris
Pasternak said:
178 Guerrilla Liturgies
When the Kremlin tanks rolled in, Jan Palach sat
down and said:
When the helicopters came over, Che stood up and
said :
When the orange toadstool pushed up, Abraham Muste
said :
When the church said Keep your mouth shut, Norman
Morrison said:
When they exempted clergy, the Berrigan brothers
said:
When the Dow recruiters came round, the D.C. Nine
all said:
When a white man gagged a black man, Dave Dellin-
ger stood up and said:
When they break the farmworkers ' heads , we stand
up and say :
When they build the detention centers, we stand up
and say:
When the Blue Meanies come on the Avenue, we stand
up and say:
When they turn off the microphone, we stand up and
say :
When the chainsaw hits the redwoods, we stand up
and say :
When the captain says Babies also, we stand up and
say: On strike, shut it down, off the World
Pig.
When murderers speak of gradualism, we stand up
and say: On strike, shut it down, off the
World Pig.
Decontamination
Minister : So a fourth and last time the sons of
men came to the demons and said:
Reader: You have given us poisons to cast on the
earth, and chains to cast on the limbs of men, and
lies to cast in the ears of our sons and daugh-
ters. But intolerable words still ring in our own
ears; give us, we pray, some device by which we
may stop our ears against the witness of the
prophets of the power of history.
Minister : And the lying demons said: "Take the
words given to those prophets by that Energy whom
Decontamination 179
we despise and acknowledge; write the words in a
book; build a tower to reach the sky; put the book
in the tower, and set a priest of unclean lips to
reading it for a people of unclean lips. Then at
last you will have rest from the word which you
fear."
And the people did as the lying demons commanded
them: they wrote the book, and built the tower,
and put the book in the tower; and set a priest of
unclean lips reading it to a people of unclean
lips; and they called the name of that tower
CHURCH. And in every age it came to pass as the
demons said. Over our heads rises the tombstone
of God, we stand in the cemetery administered by
the prince of the demons, whose name is RELIGION.
But in every age it came to pass also (for the
demons are lying demons, and weak) that a fountain
of living waters broke through the rock on which
the tower stood, and there were found men and wo-
men to drink the water, and hear the word spoken
there at the command of the demons, and it is for
them a fountain of youth.
Worthy is the Lamb which was slaini For the gates
of Hell have done their worst against his people
and not prevailed; the Lion of Judah is victorious
over Sin and Death. In true recollection, over-
coming the smog of amnesia, we declare today that
the place of confusion, the tower of Babel, is the
place of the breath of God. As the cloven tongues
of flame descend on us, the demonic powers are
dispersed like autumn leaves. Through the libera-
tion brought in by Jesus, the victim who refused
complicity, the high priest who rejected exploita-
tion, we are no longer either victims or accom-
plices, but with him priests to the Power of na-
ture and servants to humankind. In his name I de-
clare this place DECONTAMINATED from the fallout
of religion and pride and fear, and RECONSECRATED
to hope and life and love. The demons have re-
turned to the nothingness from where they came.
EarthI Waterl Air'. Firel Witness our libera-
tion! Brothers and sisters: Plant seeds in
earthi Wash bloodstains off stone'. Fill air with
vibrating tongues of love I Burn instruments of
demonic affiliation.' Repeat to ends of earth vic-
tory slogans:
Here are repeated the Affirmations God is not dead
etc. from p. 123.
180 Guerrilla Liturgies
Then the act of liberation (posting theses^ wash-
ing flags y etc.) is carried out ^ while there is
read:
Reader: And Jesus went into the Sanctuary, and
started pushing out all who were buying and sell-
ing in the Sanctuary; and he overturned the tables
of the money-changers, and the booths of those who
sold doves; and he demanded that nobody carry of-
fering plates through the Sanctuary. And he edu-
cated them, saying: "Does it not stand written:
My house shall be called a house of prayer for all
races? But you have made it a cave of murderers."
The ministers and the elders heard him, and tried
to find a way to destroy him; but they were afraid
of him, for the whole people was carried along
with his teaching. [Mark 11:15-18]
tf . T^e ^M^civ^^ td Pe^icc
An order to mark out a sanctuary for refugees ^
either symbolic (Mary and Joseph, war-victims ) or
real (political resisters ) . Especially suitable
for Christmas and Epiphany .
I . At the Refugee Center
The refugees arrive singing liberation songs:
Psalm W7:1-6
It is a good thing to praise our God;
A celebration song is proper.
For he builds up Jerusalem,
He gathers the exploited of Israel;
He heals all broken in heart.
And bandages their wounds.
He prescribes the number of the stars.
He calls them all by their names;
Great is our God, great his power;
There is no limit to his wisdom.
God raises up the oppressed.
And throws criminals to the ground.
Psalm 126
When God brought back the refugees to Zion,
We were like those who dream;
Our mouth was filled with laughing.
And joy was on our tongue.
Then it was said among the nations,
God has done a great thing among them.
Restore our refugees, 0 Liberator,
Like the rivers in the desert.
May all who sow their seed with tears
Gather up its fruit with joy.
Surely whoever goes out with tears,
Carrying his seed in his garment.
He will come home with shouts of joy.
Bringing in his sheaves with him.
The refugees ask for a sanctuary appropriate to
their situation.
Reader :
See my servant, I hold him straight;
I am pleased with the man of my choice.
I have laid the spirit of my breath on him;
He gives justice to all nations.
He does not shout or raise his voice.
Or make it heard in public places;
182 Guerrilla Liturgies
A bruised grassblade he will not break.
Or blow out the feeble flame.
He announces justice with truth.
He does not give up or lose heart;
Until he builds community on earth.
The continents wait for his liberation.
[Isaiah 42:1-4]
Minister: Brothers and sisters, today these
things are fulfilled in your ears. The World
Architect has taken justice as his blueprint, and
is laying a precious cornerstone — the pearl of
great price, whose finder buys it for all he has.
The stone rejected by the builders, the rock of
stumbling has become the sanctuary of the poor.
Into that sanctuary the liberated of God flow in
with singing, the desert is covered with the cam-
els of refugees, bringing their precious things.
Friends, the sword will not again go through your
land; here and in Sill homes of God's people sanc-
tuary is to be found. In these our last days, God
has done his new thing. The Liberator has ap-
peared in every land, under many incognitos, but
always himself.
The Sun and the Moon
Buddha is the Moon; Christ is the Sun.
Buddha is the Mother; Christ is the Father.
Buddha is Pity; Christ is Justice.
Buddha retires to the mountain to keep himself
spotless and pure; Christ goes forth to the world
to fight the battles of faith.
Buddha weeps for the sins of the world; Christ
fights to redress the wrong.
We love and admire Buddha, but we worship Christ:
worship him not with rosaries and prayerbooks, but
with heroic deeds he claims from his worshippers.
God made two great lights; the greater light to
rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the
night .
We love the Moon and we love the night; but as the
night is far spent and the day is at hand, we now
love the Sun more than we love the Moon.
And we know that the love of the Moon is included
in the love of the Sun, and that he who loves the
Sun loves the Moon also. [Kanzo Uahimura]
The Sanctuary of Peaoe 183
Lesson
Reader: Now Judas Maccabeus and his men liberated
the temple and the city, for God was going before
them. They dismantled the altars built in the
business district by foreigners, and tore down
their chapels. They reconsecrated the sanctuary
and built another altar of sacrifice. Then they
struck fire from flints, and resumed the sacri-
fices; they burned incense, lighted lamps, and set
out the bread of life. Then they prostrated them-
selves, and prayed God that they should never
again fall into such complicity; and if they did
do wrong, that he should discipline them gently,
and not hand them over into the power of obscene
and uncivilized races. Now it happened that the
reconsecration of the sanctuary took place on the
same day it had been defiled. They celebrated it
for eight days with great joy, as at the Feast of
Tabernacles, remembering how not long before they
had celebrated the feast living like animals in
the mountains and caves out of their guerrilla en-
campments. They held up the thyrsus, green
branches and palm fronds, and raised loud music in
honor of the one who had guided them to reconse-
crate his sanctuary. [2 Maccabees 10-1:7]
Psalm 72
God, make the king your judge.
And set your justice on the son of David;
Let him judge your people with fairness.
And your exploited ones in truth.
Let mountains raise up peace for the people
And the hills bear justice.
May he liberate the sons of the poor
And smash every oppressor.
May his days endure with the sun;
May his age be as long as the moon.
May he fall like rain on the grass.
Like showers that water the earth.
May justice grow green in his days,
And peace rule while the moon remains .
May he rule from the sea to the sea.
From the River to the ends of the earth.
May the continents kneel before him
And exploiters lick the dust.
May all kings fall down before him.
All countries do his service.
For he answers the poor in his crying.
He lifts up the needy and helpless;
l84 Guerrilla Liturgies
He is sorry for the weak and poor.
He liberates the life of the exploited.
He ransoms their life from violence;
Precious is their blood in his sight.
Long may he live honored with gifts;
Let the gold of Sheba be brought him.
Let prayer in his name be constant.
His blessings be pronounced daily.
May the land be covered with grain;
May it wave on the tops of the hills.
Blessed is his working forever;
May his name endure with the sun.
May all men bless themselves in him;
All nations acknowledge his splendor.
II . The Procession
Minister : Let us go forth in peace. As the tab-
ernacle of peace moves through the desert of vio-
lence, may the Spirit of God accompany it in a
pillar of cloud by day, a pillar of fire by night.
Take stakes and cords, build a moving sanctuary;
even so the splendor of Being was seen by
Ezekiel, rolling above his people wherever they
went. Build the peace temple.
Litany
All refugees and resisters from all countries:
Build the peace temple.
Refugees from Biafra, starved by the affluent:
Build the peace temple. And so on.
Refugees from Palestine in your relocation camps:
Refugees of Viet Nam in your strategic hamlets:
Refugees from the American wilderness in your
reservations :
Refugees from Africa in urban ghettos:
All chemists who have gone out from the poison
factories :
All who have gone out from the global police
forces :
All who have deserted the underground command
posts :
All who have given up counterinsurgency :
All who have left off shuffling papers:
All who have resigned from strip-mining crews:
All who throw nails in the blades of chainsaws:
The Sanctuary of Peaoe 185
All who shut down the chimneys of death:
Prophets and poets fired by the Churches:
Scholars and wise men fired by the Colleges:
Honest reporters fired by the papers :
Honest biologists fired by Industry:
Reformers and fighters fired by government:
Children who plant flowers and play with kittens:
Children who plant rice and play with beercans :
Woman who plant gardens and bear male children:
People united against repression:
Lovers and craftsmen, farmers and builders:
Organizers for peace and justice:
Political prisoners beside us In spirit :
Planters of parks, sowers of seeds:
Induction refusers, martyrs to Caesar:
Mahatma Gandhi, world conscience:
Abraham Muste, walking beside us:
Martin Luther King, walking beside us:
Francis our friend, walking beside us:
Isaiah and Mlcah, prophets of the new Age:
Simeon and Anna, who found the Liberator:
Mary the mother who bore the Liberator: Build the
peace temple.
Jesus our brother who became the Liberator: Build
the peace temple.
Ill . At THE Church
Minister :
Lift up your heads, you gates.
People :
Open up, you everlasting doors,
For the King of splendor to come in.
Minister :
Who is this King of splendor?
People :
Our God strong and mighty.
The Power beyond all armies.
186 Guerrilla Liturgies
Minister :
Lift up your heads, you gates.
Teop le :
Open up, you everlasting doors,
For the King of splendor to come in.
Minister :
Who is this King of splendor?
People :
The Power beyond all armies,
He is the King of splendor.
[Psalm 24:7-10
Psalm ^6
Or the metrical version on p. 116.
God is our fortress and guard.
In oppression our sure supporter.
We will not be afraid of earthquake.
Though the mountain slides into the sea.
Though the great wave rolls white.
Though hills are cracked by its crying.
A Power above armies is with us.
Our castle the Helper of Jacob.
A stream makes happy his city.
The sacred home of the Highest;
He stays in her, she cannot stumble;
He defends her in the first dawning.
When nations fall into violence
By his mouth their dominions are melted.
A Power above armies is with us,
Our castle the Helper of Jacob.
Come and see his astounding acts:
He stops war to the ends of the world;
The bow is smashed, the steel blunted;
The armored cars melt in his flames.
Be still and see, he is your God,
Controlling all peoples and countries.
A Power beyond armies is with us,
Our castle the Helper of Jacob.
Interlude
straight man: Since we like to think of this our
sanctuary as a House of Prayer for all people, be-
sides welcoming our courageous defenders to this
service, we are happy also to greet your little
delegation. It gives me great pleasure to intro-
duce our three Directors of Refugee Work.
The Sanctuary of Peace 187
Dollar-Sign Star lights up over the altar as Three
Kings enter singing We three Kings of affluence
are, etc.
First King: We have seen the Dollar of his Star
in the east and are come to worship him; all na-
tions come to this light, they bring gold to the
brightness of his rising. And what we bring to
the baby Jesus we bring to all mankind: mold-cast
Infant Jesus of Pragues, convertible six percent
debentures, crocheted kneelers, wall-to-wall car-
peting, quickfrozen crepes suzette, taperecorded
lifesize Barbie dolls, prepaid moon vacations,
plasticized diocesan administrators. Give us (in
the words of Lady Liberty) your tired, your poor.
Under the plexiglass firmament of America, has
anyone yet asked for bread and been given a stone?
They need only command their stones to be made
bread.
Minister : Man shall not live by bread alone, but
by every word proceeding out of the mouth of God.
Second King: We have heard the threat of Herod
the atheist and are come to protect the newly
born, in the name of the Lord of Hosts, And the
shield of defense, the sweet frankincense of se-
curity we hold over the baby Jesus we hold over
all mankind: a nuclear umbrella, tariff quotas,
black capitalism, law and order, work-welfare pro-
grams, anti-riot legislation, counterinsurgency ,
aid to underdeveloped countries, chaplains,
search-and-hold missions, rehabilitation programs,
and computerized baptismal social security regis-
tration. Has the Lord of Hosts ever yet failed to
help and defend those who trust in him? Only give
up your ethnic peculiarities, put your whole con-
fidence in us your well-wishers; throw yourself
down from the pinnacle of this temple into our
melting pot. He will give his angels charge of
you, to keep you in all your ways; they will bear
you in their hands, lest at any time you dash your
foot against a stone.
Minister : Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.
Third King: We have seen the obscureness of his
birth, and are come to of fer. him publicity. And
the permanence of message, the embalming as by
myrrh, that we offer to the baby Jesus we offer to
the world: multi-media exposure, missionary out-
reach, prime time. Life and Time y a plug-in to our
ecumenical ghetto and refugee strategy program.
188 Guerrilla Liturgies
To the poor and oppressed we say: all the king-
doms of the world can be shown your plight in a
moment of time, for they have been given to Media,
and Media gives them to whom it will; all these it
will give you, if you fall down and worship Media.
Minister : Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God,
and him only shalt thou serve .
Benedictus II
Reader: See, this child is set for the falling
and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that
will be spoken against. [Luke 2:34]
And you, child, are called a prophet of the
Highest ;
You precede the Great One to prepare his
ways.
To give knowledge of liberation to his people
Through the cancelling of their
complicity ;
By the gentle pity of our God,
In which the Dawn from on high will spread
over us ,
Shining to all that sit in the shadow of
death.
To direct our feet into the way of peace.
[Luke 1:76-79]
The Consecration
Minister : God has made a covenant of peace with
us; it shall be a covenant of all ages; he will
bless us and set his sanctuary in the middle of us
forever. For only see: the tabernacle of God is
with men; he will live with them, and they will be
his people. He will wipe away every tear from
their eyes, and death shall be no more, nor will
there be mourning and pain again, for old things
have passed away.
[Ezekiel 37:26-27; Revelation 21:3-4]
Then the bearers of stakes and oords form them-
selves into a square^ and install the refugees
in their midst.
Let the circuit here marked out enclose an area
forever free from oppression and violence. Let no
weapon be brought into it; nor any uniform be worn
in it, except the linen of those who have made it
white in the blood of the Lamb. Let every person
who takes refuge in this sanctuary, whether sinner
or saint, be welcomed for the sake of the Liber-
ator whom he bears. And for that purpose, let
The Sanctuary of Peace 189
this community dedicate itself to preserve our
sanctuary inviolate; let their bodies become the
sanctuary of God's spirit, a home of nonviolence
and peace.
The Kiss of Peace
Minister and People:
Peace on earth to men of God's pleasing: Peace on
earth to men of his pleasing.
Shalom, the peace of God be with all men: Peace
on earth to men of his pleasing. And so on.
Peace in the hatreds of the Holy Land, Salaam^ the
peace of God:
Peace in India, land of Mahatma, Shantih, the
peace of God:
Peace to Russia, our sister, Mir ^ the peace of
God:
Peace to oppressed Prague, Miru^ the peace of God:
Peace for the poor of Latin America, la PaZj the
peace of God:
Peace in Viet Nam, land of Buddha, Hoa Binh^ the
peace of God:
Peace to the whole creation, Eirene, the peace of
God: Peace on earth to men of his pleasing.
Peace in all lands to all men, the peace of God:
Peace on earth to men of his pleasing.
There is no peace without freedom: There is no
peace without freedom.
We shall overcome: We shall overcome.
Venceremos : Venceremos.
Jesus has overcome: Jesus has overcome.
Shalom, my brothers and sisters, the peace of our
Liberator be with you all, Shalom.
Here if there is still opportunity the familiar
nativity story from Luke can be read, while (for
example ) the figures in the creche are replaced
with Vietnamese figures . Or there can be read the
following
Homily
Now when the cry of the trumpet sounds, it assem-
bles soldiers and announces war. Shall then the
Liberator, who has sung a melody of peace to the
190 Guerrilla Liturgies
ends of the earth, not assemble his own soldiers
of peace? For he has drawn together, 0 Humanity,
by his blood and word, an army that sheds no
blood, and entrusted to them the zone of his lib-
eration. He has sounded the trumpet of his mes-
sage, and we have heard it. So let us arm our-
selves for peace, putting on the breastplate of
justice, taking up the shield of trustfulness,
placing on our head the helmet of liberation; and
let us sharpen the sword of the Spirit, which is
the word of God. So peaceably does the Apostle
array us for battle: these are our invulnerable
arms, in their panoply we may stand in the lines
to resist the Evil One.
[Clement of Alexandria]
s. e^Mi^d^Md
A form for consecrating a park
Suitable also at Easter,
Rogation time , Thanksgiving .
I . At the Staging Area
Slogans
Repeated by the Crowd after the leader.
Plant the world park.
Let the earth live.
Give grass a chance.
Liberate the park of your choice.
Support your local garden.
Dig up all asphalt.
Break all carburetors.
Pulverize plastic.
Smash insecticides.
Destroy vinyl flowers.
Stamp out astroturf.
Pass out the pill.
Make chalnsaws illegal.
Chop down telephone poles.
Eliminate defoliants.
Exterminate fallout.
Neutralize napalm.
Segregate all arsenals.
Zap sonic boom.
Chain self to redwoods.
Bust poison factories.
Butterflies are people.
Protect pelicans' rights.
Support all carnivores.
Trees are gods.
Fair play for deer.
Squirrels have feelings.
Decent housing for hermit crabs .
Safeguard hummingbird culture .
Power to the plankton.
Reparations for robins.
Equal protection for shellfish.
Green is beautiful.
Recycle all garbage.
Live invisible.
Make love not war.
Weave the great web.
192 Guerrilla Liturgies
Replace wheels by feet .
Smash consumer culture.
Shut down machines.
On strike shut it down.
Planet on strike.
Planet on strike.
Planet on strike.
Plant the world park.
Leader :
1 saw the earth, and it was waste and void;
And the sky, and it had no light.
I saw the mountains, and they shook back and
forth;
And all the hills were quaking.
1 saw, and behold, there was no man;
And every bird of the air had gone.
1 saw, and behold, the garden was a desert;
And all its cities were ruined.
[Jeremiah 4:23-26
Hail and fire mixed with blood fell on the
earth;
And a third of the earth and the trees
were burned.
And all the green grass was burned.
A burning mountain of fire was thrown into
the sea;
And a third of the sea was turned into
blood ,
And a third of the sea creatures died.
And a great star named Wormwood fell on the
rivers and springs ;
And a third of the waters became bitter.
And many men died from drinking them.
And a third part of the sun was dimmed,
A third part of the moon and stars.
And a third of the day lost its
shining. [Revelation 8:7-12^
The Law of Life
Leader :
Hear the great law of life from the prophet
William Blake.
A robin redbreast in a cage
Puts all Heaven in a rage.
A dog starved at his master's gate
Predicts the ruin of the State.
Each outcry of the hunted hare
A fibre from the brain does tear.
A skylark wounded in the wing,
A cherubim does cease to sing.
Earth Rebirth 193
He who shall hurt the little wren
Shall never be beloved by men.
He who the ox to wrath has moved
Shall never be by woman loved.
Kill not the moth nor butterfly,
For the Last Judgement draweth nigh.
He who mocks the infant's faith
Shall be mocked in age and death.
He who shall teach the child to doubt
The rotting grave shall ne'er get out.
The beggar's rags, fluttering in air.
Does to rags the heavens tear.
The poor man's farthing is worth more
Than all the gold on Afric's shore.
One mite wrung from the labourer's hands
Shall buy and sell the miser's lands.
The soldier, armed with sword and gun.
Palsied strikes the summer sun.
The strongest poison ever known
Came from Caesar's laurel crown.
Nought can deform the human race
Like to the armor's iron brace.
The whore and gambler, by the State
Licensed, build that nation's fate.
The harlot's cry from street to street
Shall weave old England's winding-
sheet .
TRIAL
straight man: Hear ye, hear ye, the district
court of the Great Chain of Being is now in ses-
sion, the Honorable the Great Spirit presiding.
All stand please. The defendants at the bar have
heard the appropriate sections from the statute
book of life. How do they plead?
The Crowd repeats line by line after the leader:
Your Honor, we enter a plea of Guilty
In the court of the Great Spirit
To first-degree murder of redwoods.
To grand larceny of grasslands.
To statutory rape of minor woodlands.
To unnatural acts of urban living.
To wilful arson of forests.
To unwarranted seizure of ricecrops.
To mutilation of the human form divine.
To misappropriation of natural resources.
To wilful violation of the Pure Pood and
Drug Act,
To genocide against herbivores.
To drunken driving across continents.
194 Guerrilla Liturgies
To improper combustion of fossil fuels.
To lewd and lascivious waterproofing of the
earth.
To unlawful possession of insecticides.
To writing blank checks on the future.
To unauthorized handling of fissionable
materials ,
To illegal dumping of detergents.
To illegal manufacture of garbage.
To trespassing on private property of
animals ,
To trespassing on the private property of
the Great Spirit,
To rape and murder of the air.
To rape and murder of the water.
To rape and murder of the earth.
To rape and murder of flora.
To rape and murder of fauna.
To rape and murder of black men.
To rape and murder of red men.
To rape and murder of yellow men,
To repeated public acts of self-abuse;
We enter a plea of Guilty
To constant adult delinquency;
We accept the penalty prescribed
By the inflexible laws of nature.
And we ask the Power of Being
To change our mind for the future.
Leader: Air, blow the smog of false desires out
of our lungs and replace it with the west wind of
the Spirit. Amen.
Ocean and all waters, wash the synthetics out of
our blood and replace them with our own true chem-
istry. Amen.
Earth of decay and rebirth, break down the chlori-
nated hydro-carbons in our flesh and let us live
together with all other flesh. Amen.
Fire of the sun, blunt the needles of radiation in
all our biosphere and replace them with the desire
of life. Amen.
Brothers and sisters, let us take up the loads of
our common task. As we shake off from our feet
the dust of the City of Destruction, let us turn
our eyes to the New Jerusalem, and consecrate that
Temple whose pillars have come alive as the forest
cathedral. Let us be on our way, off the road, to
the City whose street is a river of living waters,
where the tree of life is blooming, and its leaves
are for the healing of the nations.
Earth Rebirth 195
Canticle
How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange
land?
How shall we sing the Lord's song in a world of
hunger?
How shall we sing the Lord's song in a house of
hatred?
How shall we sing the Lord's song with a gun in
our hands?
How shall we sing the Lord's song on burned-over
hills?
How shall we sing the Lord's song in a land of
synthetics?
How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange
land?
Leader: All the days of the earth, seedtime and
harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and
night shall not cease .
II, Litany in Procession
At streetoorners J when held up by copSy eto.^ it
would be good to rehearse the original Slogans
again.
Restore our earth household: Restore our
earth househol d .
All powers of being, restore our earth house-
hold: Restore our earth
househol d .
Sea of Air, blowing out the smog of our
self -poisoning:
Snow and rain, washing down the poisons of
our combustion:
Salts of the sea, decomposing the life-
killing chemicals:
Fire and light, breaking down the products
of our industry:
Crabgrass and dandelion, cracking the water-
proofed surface:
Worms and woodlice, reconverting all foreign
materials :
Rust and decay, restoring all metals to
earthloam :
Plankton of the deep, feeding the great
whales :
196 Guerrilla Liturgies
Streams and rivers, purifying the land's
body :
Termites and rot, levelling old settlements:
Squirrels and all rodents, distributing
acorns :
Deer and buffalo In cooperation with grass-
lands :
Bear and hawk and all carnivores, completing
the cycle:
Insurgent Red Men, restoring the land to its
Spirit :
Insurgent Black Men, putting a new song in
our mouth:
Insurgent Brown Men, taking over the vine-
yards :
Insurgent Yellow Men, resisting patented
poisons :
Children who take to the streets with picket
signs :
Hippies who fly kites at helicopters:
Biologists who sit down in front of
bulldozers :
Women who stop being breeding-machines :
Students that plant flowers in the face of
teargas :
Mothers pushing strollers past the line of
gasmasks :
Spirit of James Rector, martyr in Berkeley,
marching beside us:
Spirit of John Muir, keeper of the garden,
marching beside us:
Spirit of Johnny Appleseed, planter of Eden,
marching beside us:
Yin and Yang, male and female principles of
creation :
Buddha the compassionate, surviving the cycle
of dying:
Adam and Eve, first parents in the paradise
of Eden:
Earth Rebirth 197
Angels and guardian spirits, watching over
this planet :
Seeds of life In the sun. In the space be-
tween stars:
Our galactic mother, enfolding the planet In
her spiral arms :
Bllllon-year heartbeat of the cosmic
expansion:
Nameless Energy upholding the space-time
manifold :
Eternal principle of nonviolence, letting
each do Its own thing:
Jesus our loving brother, nonviolence In our
own flesh:
All the world's rejects, bums and hoboes,
wlnos and freaks :
Hippies and street people, blacks and
Chlcanos, women and children:
Victims of genocide, Blafrans and Vietnamese,
named and nameless:
Refugees In the blackened ruins of the
doomed city: Restore our earth
househol d .
All who build a new world on the vacant
lots of the old: Restore our
earth household.
III. At THE Park
Leader :
The wilderness and arid land shall be glad.
The desert is smiling and blossoming.
It flowers all over with the crocus;
It rejoices with happiness and song.
The crown of Lebanon will grow in It,
The trees of Carmel and Sharon.
Springs are bursting through in the
wilderness ,
And rivers in the desert.
The burning sand becomes lakes.
And the thirsty ground pools of water.
{Isaiah 35:1-2, 6-7]
Interlude
First straight man: Young people, I am very happy
to address you future consumers on the occasion of
198 Guerrilla Liturgies
this ecological conference. The teaching of the
Judeo-Christian tradition has been that we should
not let nature go on in her old wasteful way, but
by our own skills improve on her. And what has
been the greatest source of improvement in world
history but the inventive genius and capital of
our own nation? As a simple businessman, who in a
small way has shared in guiding this country's
destiny, I should like to make one addition to
your slogans: What's good for the military-indus-
trial complex is good for you.
Seaond straight man: I am sure you agree with me,
that the great enemy does not only live in some
overseas capital; it is also right here, in the
heart of each unproductive individual who has been
tricked by an international conspiracy. Never
forget that such meetings as this are only pos-
sible by the nuclear shield over our skies forged
by our own native talents. Technology is neither
good nor bad in itself; its dangers can be con-
trolled by better technology. And only that tech-
nology stands between us and the creeping cancer
from abroad. I am a refugee from that system, I
know whereof I speak. Your own leader has said,
"Be watchful, for you know not what hour of the
night the thief is coming." Only by constant
testing can we trust our defenses; physical dis-
comfort is a small price to pay for that guarantee
of our freedom. I also should like to give you a
slogan: Thank God for fallout.
Third straight man: You have heard the parable of
the foolish virgins who had no oil for their
lamps, and so missed the coming of the bridegroom.
Shall this happen to us? The New Age is on our
threshhold; shall we turn it away in our folly?
The earth was made for man: as Paul says, "Does
God care for oxen? Is he concerned for seagulls?"
Our great commuter cities rely on oil; the oil-
depletion allowance permits our most public-
spirited citizens to go on serving us; by oil the
Liberator is recognized. I would like to add one
more slogan: Oil brings in the Kingdom.
Fourth straight man: In view of the reception you
have given the other speakers on this platform, I
have no recourse but to inform you that you are
trespassing on private property. By order of the
governor of this State, in five minutes you will
all be arrested. This vacant lot has been sur-
rounded. If anybody resists arrest, a chemical
Earth Rebirth 199
agent will be sprayed on this area by helicopter.
Please obey the orders of the officers with blue
armbands. While you are lining up, let me remind
you that your chief executive must look to the in-
terest of all citizens, not just small pressure
groups. When the sentiments of a few birdwatchers
conflict with the expressed will of an expanding
population, which should give way? On your scenic
bus trip to the county rehabilitation center, re-
member this: When you've seen one redwood you've
seen them all.
All four straight men together :
What's good for the military-industrial
complex is good for you.
Thank God for fallout.
Oil brings in the Kingdom.
When you've seen one redwood you've seen
them all.
Leader: You fools, when you see a cloud rising in
the West, you say. The rain is coming; and so it
happens. When you see the south wind blowing, you
say, it will come on hot; and so it happens.
Pools and hypocrites: you that can discern the
signs of earth and heaven, can you not discern the
signs of the times? [Luke 12:54-56]
He then arrests the four straight men, and the
Crowd makes a circuit of the park, repeating the
Slogans .
The Covenant
Leader: Brothers and sisters, hear the words of
the Covenant of Peace which the Power of Being has
made with all life on this planet, in the words of
the poet and prophet Ezekiel:
Assistant : I will seal with them a covenant of
peace, and I will remove all violent life from
their land; they will live safely in the great
wilderness and sleep in the forests. And I shall
make all places round about my mountain a bless-
ing. I shall bring down the rain in its season;
there will be showers of blessing. All the wild
trees will bear fruit; the land will give its in-
crease, and all people will be secure in their own
land. They will know that I am the Master of his-
tory when I break the bars of their yoke, and lib-
erate them from all their exploiters . No longer
will they be a prey to foreign nations, nor will
Violent life destroy them; they will live se-
curely, and nobody will terrify them.
[Ezekiel 34:25-28]
200 Guerrilla Liturgies
Leader: I call sky and earth to witness, that the
Power of Being has set before us this day good and
evil, blessing and curse, life and death. Which
will you choose?
Crowd: We choose life, that we and our children
may live.
Antiphon
You that turn justice to wormwood.
Seek for the Power of Being and live.
He who made the Pleiades and Orion
And pours waters out on the earth.
[Amos 5:6-8]
Psalm 65:9-13
You visit the earth and water it.
You make it blessed in abundance;
Your river is full of water.
And thus you ensure their grain.
You water its furrows deeply.
You soften it and bless its growth.
You crown the year with your goodness.
Your wagon tracks flow with oil.
The upland pastures are moist.
The hills dress themselves with happiness;
The meadows are clothed with sheep.
The valleys are wearing corn.
Together they laugh and sing.
Consecration
Here are buried in the earth old Christmas trees^
cartons 3 eggshells ^ coffeegrounds^ comic books ^
Sunday supplements, etc. Genuine organic matter
is shredded for a mulch pile while the leader
says :
We proclaim liberty to the land and its inhabit-
ants. As we all travail together in the covenant
of peace, on this ground consecrated to the life
of the earth, we remove all wastes, blotting out
the years that the locust has eaten. We bury all
organic life, all that can be decomposed; we re-
move and recycle all metal, everything useful; we
break up and dispose whatever is neither organic
nor useful.
From earth you were taken.
And to earth you will return;
Her life comes to dying.
And in her the dead is reborn.
Earth Rebirth 201
The seed we sow is not quickened
Unless first it passes through death.
In this ground all shall be well
And all manner of thing shall be well.
Then new living things are planted during the fol-
lowing Homily.
We see the cycle only in part, and we prophesy in
part; we are children picking up pebbles on the
shore while the great waves roll unnoticed. But
what we do see we testify: when we stand on our
own earth, we lose our fear of alienation, of our
neighbor, of death, of doing wrong, of ourselves.
As our City is decontaminated, the plagues of civ-
ilization recede: the thistles find their proper
niche, the slum rat becomes a healthy field ro-
dent, synthetic bread gives way to bread, chemical
ecstasy is replaced by ecstasy of play. The land-
slide makes way for new forest; from the cracks of
the earthquake the sycamore sprouts; in the fresh
lava the fireweed is blooming; the rise and fall
of the seas, the melting and freezing of icecaps
are seen as recirculation of the planet's blood.
We move naturally to death as a shock of wheat,
old and full of days, when we know that our grand-
children will continue our work on the land we
were loaned, eating apples and olives from the
trees we planted. We hail as our brother Smokey
the Bear, "Wrathful but Calm, Austere but Comic,"
set in the skies and untouched by any bath in
Ocean, "bearing in his right paw the Shovel that
digs to the truth beneath appearances, cuts the
roots of useless attachments, and flings damp sand
on the fires of greed and war"; disappearing in
winter and rising in spring to eat earth's sweet-
est product, the honey of life perpetual. In his
name we declare this land freed in eternity from
all usurpation, and henceforth CONSECRATED TO THE
WORLD PARK, the exclusive property of children,
animals, trees, blackberries, and the Great
Spirit .
0 Risen Bear, type of the Liberator, our Brother
who eats the honeycomb; take in your paw the hands
of all foresters, gardeners, biologists, and farm-
ers; accept them as your assistants to tend the
paradise of this emerald planet, in the splendor
of the Great Spirit. Amen; so may it be.
202 Guerrilla Liturgies
Blessing
May the long time sun shine upon you.
All love surround you.
And the pure light within you guide
you all the way on.
The Song of Francis
All-High, All-Strong, good Master
Yours is all praise, all splendor.
Each honor and each blessing.
You alone, All-High, deserve them.
No man can hope to name you.
Be praised by all your creatures;
And first by Sun our Brother
In whom you make our daytime.
He is fair with great brightness;
You, 0 Highest, are his meaning.
Be praised by Moon our Sister,
By Stars you made as jewels.
Be praised by Wind our Brother,
By Cloud and every Weather,
Through which you feed your creatures.
Be praised by Sister Water,
Chaste, precious, and most useful.
Be praised by Brother Fire,
In whom our night is brightened.
Handsome and strong and jocund.
Be praised by Earth our Mother,
Who upholds and maintains us.
Bears fruits with colored flowers.
Be praised by all who pardon.
And suffer in harassment.
Blessed are all who witness.
In peace their lives conducting.
For you. Most High, will crown them.
Be praised by Death our Sister,
None living will escape her.
Woe to all that die in violence;
But blessed, all in your pleasing.
No second death will touch them.
Praise the Maker, all his creatures.
And build the world he shows you.
twU)^ U ^'kUXcA, Icct^^o/M'
Many of the new translations ov paraphrases in The
Covenant of Peace are suitable for use as lessons
or oantioles outside the contexts of the services
in which they occur. The following index is a
guide to the longer or more important of these texts
Page numbers are printed in italics .
Genesis 147, 181
V:l~S%789-90 Ecclesiastes
4:8-12, 72 1-2-9. 112
9:12-16, 69 Song of Solomon
11:1-8, 77 2:10-12, 94
Exodus
Numbers
16
22
23
24
27
40
46
59
65
72
80
90
94
98
116
142
200
82-83
111, 54-55
4:18-25, 86
5:10-14, 174 Isaiah
14:21-29, 70 1:10-17, 147-148
10:5-15, 150
T'Th-ol f^fi 11:1-9, 122
b-24-2b, 66 14:4-21, 144
Job 25:6-8, 124
26:10-13, 71 35:1-7, 197
38:4-11, 69 42:1-4, 181-182
Psalms ^2:6-7, 108
2 Ififi 51:9-11, 70
10, 251 52:13 to 53:12, 141-142
58:6-7, 52
61:1-4, 78
61:8-9, 57
114
144-145
65
185-186 Jeremiah
117 4:23-26, 192
108 31:31-34, 52
E z e k i e 1
33:2-9, 95
111 Hosea
158 2:18-20, 63
Joel
126, 181 2:28-29, 81
128, 90 Amos
139, 61 1:6 to 3:2, 149
142, 104-105 5:6-8, 200
146, 108
204
Index
Jonah
2:2-6,
71
M i c a h
4:3-4, 122
Zechariah
9:9-12, 171
2 Maccabees
10:1-7, 183
Matthew
5:3-12, 127-12^
5:23-24, 12S
8:11, 124
23:4-27, ISl
23:29-39, 147
Mark
1:1-11, 72
5:7-13, 176
10:13-17, 62
10:17-22, 252
11:1-10, 173
11:15-18, 180
12:29-31, 88
Luke
1:46-
1:67-
1:76-
2:29-
4:16-
6:27-
7:20-
7:36-
11:15
11:29
12:8-
12:22
12:54
13:34
17:20
18:9-
19:41
22:25
24:13
55, 66
75, S7
79, 188
32, 112-113
21, 106
36, S3
23, 171
38, 76
-26, 170
-32, 169
12, 1S9
-34, 117-lli
-56, i55
-35, i43
-37, 168
14, 55
-44, i43
-30, 96
-35, 53-S4
John
2:1-11, 90-91
Acts
2:1-11, 75-S^
2:41-47, 57
5:25-29, i^i
12:6-11, 103-104
Romans
6:3-11, 82
8:14-17, 64
13:11-14, 166
1 Corinthians
2:6-13, 79
5:7-8, 85
10:16-17, 127
15:20-21, 85
2 Corinthians
3:18 to 5:5, HO
5:11 to 6:2, 113
11:23-31, 104
Gal ati ans
3:27-28, 91
Ephesians
6:10-17, 164-165
P h i 1 i p p i a n s
2:5-11, 95-96
Colossi ans
3:3-4, 85
2 Timothy
4:6-8, 115
Hebrews
13:20-21, 119
James
3:18 to 4 :H ,130
1 Peter
2:21-25, 155
Revel ati on
8:7-12, 192
18 9 32
///J;^,
DATE LOANED
CAYLORD 3S63
PRINTED IN U.S.A.
T^ C?<^V^4^^^4^ td P^^^cc
As the bleeding witnesses to peace and liberation multiply,
we feel an overwhelming urgency once again, for our time, to
put together texts that will point a wandering Church back to-
ward its pole star. We can't help it if the message we're com-
mitted to is the two-edged sword of the God who is a consuming
fire. We are in conscience bound to warn users that they are play-
ing with fire; but also that in the end we will all, whether by
decisive act or by repeated indecision, fall into the hands of the
living God.
—from the Preface.
The Covenant of Peace "retains the dignity of liturgy, the
music of the word, the arching phrase; it also touches earth
reassuringly, from time to time, becomes specific, tastes dirt,
senses anger, like the Psalms themselves.
"It catches the rhythm of today's music, the songs of the
marches, for justice and peace. It lifts up the glory of these times
without sentimentality. It reminds us of the horror of these times
without hopelessness.
"It is good liturgy, sound theologically, prepared by a scholar
who has been on the streets. It points the way to the liturgical
future."
—Paul Moore, jr..
Bishop Coadjuter of New York
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