A liturgy on Daily Bread for international women's day

A liturgy for International Women’s Day
Our Daily Bread, 8 March 2010

Call to Worship
We are gathered in the name of the Nurturing God.
We are called to share our gifts of life, and the symbols
from our different contexts and diverse expressions of spirituality.
God, our Sustainer, feed our bodies with strength and hope.
These symbols serve to remind us of the presence of our relational God, who takes care of creation.
Let us now reflect on these symbols, as we bring forward various experiences, instruments and tools used by women. These women care for our people, nurture our children and preserve life in our communities, creating healing, hope and wellness, even in the midst of despair.
God of Wisdom, we thank you for the breath of life in us.
Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will never forget you. See I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands, your walls are continuously before me. (Isaiah 49: 15-16)

God of Healing, embrace and reconcile us to strengthen our communion in your presence.
Prayer:
Let us pray acknowledging the nurturing God through nursing mothers:
We thank you, creating and nurturing God, for sharing the secrets of creating and nurturing with nursing women. As an expectant mother co-exists with her unborn child, You carry and com-mune with them in ways that only You can. You assure the mother of the certainty of life within her, and the baby of the mystery of life and love.
We want to thank you also for your provision to nursing mothers. We particularly thank you for providing gaat (porridge), prepared from barley flour.
We are grateful for the action of nurturing when women can take; ½ kg barley flour, ½ liter water per 100 g flour, and butter or margarine, pepper, salt, and yoghurt, to make a meal for three people.
For 10 minutes, they put the water in a pan and add a little salt. They add the barley flour gradually to the cold water and stir it energetically to avoid lumps. Stirring all the while, they leave the mixture to cook over medium heat until it becomes solid. They remove it from the stove and put it in a deep plate. Using a spoon, they make a big hole in the middle of the gaat to fill with warm butter (or margarine) pepper, and salt. They mix them together well and put some of the yogurt around the gaat and eat it while it is still hot.
As they do all this, they thank you, God, for sharing such birthing secrets with women.
And thank you also for creating barley and other produce that come from your bounty.
Yet, here we are, often so busy creating theologies and embracing spirituality that tends to overemphasize God’s power as if it were devoid of love and vulnerability.
(Gaat recipe, see LWF cookbook – Food for Life: Recipes and Stories on the Right to Food, p.64)

Response: Kyrie Eleison (Ukraine tune).

Call to Repentance
We acknowledge our inability to embrace the nurturing face of God, and we repent. Our daily ac-tions allow the dominant and powerful to flourish, even as God cares for and nourishes the needy. This practice of upholding the powerful over the vulnerable often leads us to become abusive, vio-lent and destructive, either by acting or by failing to act.
Our pride and incapacity to feel for others makes us too full of ourselves, while at the same time, we are like empty bowls.

Response: Kyrie Eleison (Ukraine tune).

Thanksgiving for God’s Forgiving Mercy
Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name.
Bless the LORD, O my soul, and do not forget all his benefits—who forgives all your iniquity,
who heals all your diseases,
The LORD works vindication and justice for all who are oppressed.
The LORD is merciful and gracious; slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
He will not always accuse, nor will he keep his anger forever.
He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities.
For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is his steadfast love towards those who fear him;
as far as the east is from the west, so far he removes our transgressions from us.
As a father has compassion for his children, so the LORD has compassion for those who fear him.
For he knows how we were made; he remembers that we are dust.

Psalm 103: 1-3, 6, 8-14.
Assurance of God’s Mercy and Healing
Together we commit ourselves to embrace your loving and nurturing qualities as the standard for our relationship with each other as part of your creation. We will embrace diversity as your divine gift to enrich our perspectives and renewal as we journey together toward transformative and re-storative justice. Yet, there are still some whose diversity is used as a justification for their margi-nalization and exploitation. Therefore, rooted in love, we will allow the Holy Spirit to stir us to restlessness until we seek justice together in all its forms. Go with us, loving, nurturing and just God, we pray.

The healing of our community should include physical healing, as part of our assurance of God’s mercy.
Learn from how the Meru people in Kenya use the njahi (black beans) for the restoration of health for our brothers and sisters who are HIV positive.
The women take a cup full of njahi, two medium size onions, three medium size tomatoes, garlic, and a dash of salt (to taste).
With loving care, the beans are washed and put to boil, until tender. Salt is added. The onions are peeled and garlic is crushed, and both are fried, adding in the tomatoes. The cooked njahi is added to simmer, until the stew is thick and appetizing. The beans can be served with steamed brown rice or ugali (maize meal cake).
We visualize the face of our God in the actions of these nurturing women.

Scripture readings

Hebrew Bible/Old Testament: 2 Kings 4: 1-7
Now the wife of a member of the company of prophets the sons of the prophets');" onmouseout="return nd();">^* cried to Elisha, ‘Your servant my husband is dead; and you know that your servant feared the Lord, but a creditor has come to take my two children as slaves.’ ²Elisha said to her, ‘What shall I do for you? Tell me, what do you have in the house?’ She answered, ‘Your servant has nothing in the house, except a jar of oil.’ ³He said, ‘Go outside, borrow vessels from all your neighbours, empty vessels and not just a few. ⁴Then go in, and shut the door behind you and your children, and start pouring into all these vessels; when each is full, set it aside.’ ⁵So she left him and shut the door behind her and her children; they kept bringing vessels to her, and she kept pouring. ⁶When the vessels were full, she said to her son, ‘Bring me another vessel.’ But he said to her, ‘There are no more.’ Then the oil stopped flowing. ⁷She came and told the man of God, and he said, ‘Go, sell the oil and pay your debts, and you and your children can live on the rest.’
New Testament: Matthew 15: 21-28
21 Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. ²²Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, ‘Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.’ ²³But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, ‘Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.’ ²⁴He answered, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.’ ²⁵But she came and knelt before him, saying, ‘Lord, help me.’ ²⁶He answered, ‘It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.’ ²⁷She said, ‘Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.’ ²⁸Then Jesus answered her, ‘Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.’ And her daughter was healed instantly.

Reflection on the Word - Fulata Mbano Moyo
Desperation as enemy to women's dignity

Intercession Prayers

The Feast of Life
By Elsa Tamez, Mexico/Costa Rica
(Alternately in two groups)
Come on; let us celebrate the supper of the Lord
Let us make a huge loaf of bread
And let us bring abundant wine
Like at the wedding at Cana
Let the women not forget the salt,
Let the men bring along the yeast.
Let many guests come,
The lame, the blind, the cripples, the poor.
Come quickly,
Let us follow the recipe of the Lord
All of us, let us knead the dough together
With our hands
Let us see with joy how the bread grows
Because today
We celebrate
The meeting of the Lord.

(All) Today we renew our commitment to the Kingdom. Nobody will stay hungry.

Leader: We thank you, God, the Source of never ending love and creativity. Fill us with your love and unite us.
Those who don’t eat alone are never hungry
Those who share will receive
(Haiti saying in LWF cookbook – Food for Life: Recipes and Stories on the Right to Food, p. 32)

Bakerwoman God
By Rev. Dr Alla Bozard Campbell
(The Episcopal Church, USA)
Bakerwoman God, I am your living bread.
Strong, brown, Bakerwoman God,
I am your low, soft and being-shaped loaf.
I am your rising bread,
Well-kneaded by some divine and knotty pair of knuckles,
By your warm earth-hands.
I am bread well-kneaded.
Put me in fire, Bakerwoman God,
Put me in your own bright fire.
I am warm, warm as you.
From fire, I am white and gold,
Soft and hard, brown and round.
I am so warm from fire
Break me, Bakerwoman God.
I am broken under your caring Word.
Drop me in your special juice in pieces.
Drop me in blood.
Drunken me in the great red flood
Self-giving chalice, swallow me.
My skin shines in the divine wine.
My face is cup-covered and I drown.
I fall up in a red pool in a gold world
Where your warm sunskin hand is there to catch and hold me.
Bakerwoman God, remake me.

Hymn -“There is a Line of Women”
(John L Bell) (melody: Stand up, stand up for Jesus)

There is a line of women, extending back to Eve
Whose role in shaping history God only could conceive
And though, through endless ages, their witness was repressed
God valued and encouraged then through whom the world was blessed

So sing a song of Sarah to laughter she gave birth
And sing a song of Tamar who stood for women’s worth
And sing a song of Hannah who bargained with her Lord
And sing a song of Mary who bore and bred God’s Word

There is a line of women who took on powerful men
Defying laws and scruples to let life live again
And though, despite their triumph, their stories stayed untold
God kept their number growing, creative strong and bold

So sing a song of Shiphrah with Puah in her hand
Engaged to kill male children they foiled the king’s command
And sing a song of Rahab who sheltered spies and lied
And sing a song of Esther, preventing genocide

There is a line of women who stood by Jesus’ side
Who housed him while he ministered and held him when he died
And though they claimed he’d risen their news was deemed suspect
Till Jesus stood among them, his womanly elect

So sing a song of Anna who saw Christ’s infant face
And sing a song of Martha who gave him food and space
And sing of all the Marys who heeded his requests
And now at heaven’s banquet are Jesus’ fondest guests.

The Lord’s Prayer, each in his or her own language.
Leader: Blessing and Sending
We embrace each other in love, reaching out to each other with our hands; left hand with palm up, in an open hand, which receives from the neighbor, and right hand with palm down, ex-pressing our ability to give to the other. As we hold each other’s hands, we connect ourselves in the web of creation; we celebrate diversity, which brings out the beauty of God, enhanced much more through diversity than through uniformity.
Let us sing and dance!
May all of you come!
Arranged in a file
May you come and dance!
Arranged in a file
May you come without feeling shame!
Well dressed, having adjusted your tarachi,
Having arranged your ornaments,
May you sing and dance!
Grasping one another by the hands
May you dance!
Grasping one another by the hands
May you dance!
Like the swallow which is moving his body to and fro,
Like the hawk, which is making his circles in the air,
May you sing and dance!
(From the Head-Hunters of Western Amazonas)

Closing Hymn – We shall go out with hope of resurrection - Agape 105

A group of women from the Geneva-based church organizations—Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance, World Alliance of Reformed Churches, World Council of Churches and the Lutheran World Federation—jointly prepared this liturgy.