At Peace Mennonite we are dipping into Dr. Wil Gafney’s A Women’s Lectionary for the Whole Church (Year W) and our primary reading this week is Song of Songs 4:9-15. It should be fun! I suppose it’s not surprising that I’ve had a difficult time finding hymns and words for worship that relate to this scripture. We will sing the text of Brian Wren’s beautiful hymn, “Good Is the Flesh,” and I wrote the call to worship below. (Leader reads the plain text, congregation reads bold, and all read bold italics.)

Blessings to you in your planning and worship this week.

---

We come to worship with our whole selves:
Our bodies in stillness and movement, pain and pleasure;
Our minds in alertness and rest, struggle and ease;
Our spirits, our emotions, our passion, our weariness—
We come to worship with our whole selves.

As we worship together, we welcome each other as each comes:
Eager or reluctant; chatty or reserved;
Early or late; focused or distracted;
Singing on-key or off; feeling put-together or falling apart—
We welcome each other as each comes.

In this time of worship, and always, God receives the fullness of who we are:
God created us;
God knows us;
God loves us–
And so, we come to worship with our whole selves.

*This blessing–in all or in part–might be a good companion for this call to worship.