Trinity@316 (Noon) Good Friday April 15, 2022

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Artwork used with permission by Gwyneth Leech

 Good Friday  Stations of the Cross Trinity@316 Friday, April 15, 2022, 12:00pm

About the Artist Gwyneth Leech

NORWALK STATIONS OF THE CROSS New York Artist, Gwyneth Leech was commissioned in 2004 by Saint Paul's on the Green, an Episcopal Church in Norwalk, Connecticut to paint stations of the cross that blend traditional Christian iconography with contemporary elements. She found a vivid way of depicting Christ's journey to the cross for modern viewers, by incorporating the suffering and grief of people around the world who are caught in the midst of armed conflict, especially the war in Iraq. The paintings are on permanent view since 2005 in the church at 60 East Avenue, East Norwalk, CT 06851.

Gwyneth Leech is an award-winning American artist who lives and works in New York City. Her artwork has been exhibited across the United States and Great Britain in galleries including Zürcher Gallery, Susan Teller Gallery and the Flatiron Prow Artspace in NYC, Geoffrey Young Gallery in Great Barrington MA and in museums including the Pearl Fincher Museum of Art in Houston, TX, the i.d.e.a. Museum in Mesa. AZ and the Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museum in Scotland. She has been featured in the New York Times, the Village Voice, international print media and on NY1 News. She is the subject of a multi-award-winning short documentary, The Monolith, by New York filmmaker, Angelo Guglielmo. In November 2019, her construction paintings were featured on 1700 video kiosks across all five boroughs as part of Link NYC’s “Art on Link” public art project. Leech holds a BA from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, and a BFA and Masters-level Postgraduate Degree from Edinburgh College of Art in Scotland. The recipient of numerous awards and grants, including a Hell’s Kitchen Foundation Grant, several Scottish Arts Council awards, and a Thouron British/American Exchange Fellowship, Leech’s artwork resides in private and public collections.

We are grateful to have received permission from the artist to use these beautiful, contemporary and dramatic interpretations of Jesus’ final journey to Jerusalem for our Stations of the Cross liturgy today.

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 The Stations of the Cross  Welcome to our journey through the Stations of the cross inviting us to follow Jesus on his journey to the cross. As the service progresses, we invite you to settle into a place that will allow you to feel this journey deeply as this is not an easy path to follow. The pattern will be the same at each station- we will offer a brief meditation, a time for prayer followed by music for reflection before we “travel” to the next station. We will finish our journey with final prayers and a blessing and then head our separate ways on this holy day in silence until we meet again. Blessings for your journey.

Prelude

Via Dolorosa

Sandi Patty

(Kim Buehler and Grace Mauk)

Welcome & Introduction to the Stations

The Rev. Dr. Lisa Tucker-Gray

Station I Jesus is Condemned to Die Leader: Pilate said, “I find no fault with this man,” but when the crowd grew loud, Pilate grew silent. “I wash my hands. You deal with him.” Pilate had the knowledge and the power to stand and say no to the world as it sought to crush the Lord of Life. He made the choice that day not to use either.

How many times do we have the knowledge and the power to say no, and yet stay silent? How many times do we participate, by our silence, in the Passion of Jesus? Who will die or be injured, or be disrespected because we do not say no?

Prayer: Dearest Jesus, enter into the fear of our silence. Be with us when we make choices to protect ourselves instead of being brave enough to stand up for you and your love. By the power of your Holy Spirit, give us the courage to stand and say no with you. Help us to take up our crosses and follow you. Amen.

Music For Reflection

Were You There?

WLP #37

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

O! Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

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Station II Jesus Takes up His Cross Leader: This cross has been thousands of years in the making. Its weight grows greater each time we look for someone to blame for the pain in the world. Each time we insist that sin must be punished, we add an ounce to the burden Jesus carries for us. This is the cross he carries, the cross of blame, of vengeance.

When have we said, “Well, they certainly deserved that!” or “It’s only fair. Look at what they did!”? When have we failed to forgive as we have been forgiven?

When have we laid more weight on your blessed shoulders?

Prayer: Dearest Jesus, each step you take today is made harder by our hardness of heart.

You carry this weight so that no one else ever will, not even those of us worshipping today. By the power of your Holy Spirit, give us the desire and the strength to forgive, to lighten your cross. Amen.

Music For Reflection

Go to Dark Gethsemane

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The Hymnal 1982 #171

Station III The Cross is Laid on Simon of Cyrene Leader: We need you to die, Jesus, but our rage has gone too far. You are too weak to continue on to the head of the mountain because we have beaten you so severely. When you can’t go on by yourself, we look for a solution that won’t involve us too closely. We mustn’t touch the cross ourselves, but the process must go on. Then we find our answer. A stranger, someone who obviously has no idea who you are will carry the cross. He knows nothing of your innocence.

How many others have we called on to do our violence for us? How many soldiers pulled triggers because we could not? How many executioners pushed buttons for us? How often do we separate ourselves from taking responsibility of the decisions we make or do not make resulting in the deaths of others?

Prayer: Dearest Jesus, Simon stood in for us when you couldn’t go forward. He helped us carry forward your execution in ignorance. Witnessing your courage and love, he became your friend, and ours. By the power of your Holy Spirit, help us to see our reluctance for what it is, a sign that something very wrong is happening. Give us courage to step forward when we can’t go on and say, “Enough!” Amen.

Music For Reflection

Precious Lord, Take My Hand

Traditional Spiritual

(Bradley Baker & Grace Mauk)

Station IV Jesus Meets His Mother Leader: We want to make you a clown. We want to isolate you completely, but your mother will not permit it. She withstands the blows of taunt and sorrow to be present for you along the way. She alone remains to give you courage. She reminds us that you are someone’s child, just like us.

How many times have we watched another suffer, but from a safe distance?

How often have we simply forgotten that each of us is a child of God; each of us yearning to belong and to be loved?

Prayer: Dearest Jesus, your mother stood with you to give you strength, and to hold up your humanity in the face of our indifference. By the power of your Holy Spirit, help us to see the humanity of those whom the world wants to erase, and give us courage to stand with them, to strengthen them, and to claim them as brother or sister. Amen.

Music For Reflection

Sometimes I Feel like a Motherless Child (Chelsie Cree & Grace Mauk)

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arr. Moses Hogan

Station V Jesus is Stripped before the Crowd Leader: Physical humiliation isn’t enough. Spitting isn’t enough. We need to shame you.

We need to strip away your human dignity. We are blind to the dignity that forms the fabric of your very essence. Unable to see your deeper dignity, we revel in the shame we pour out on you.

How many times have we judged, condemned or humiliated someone else?

How many times have we labeled our brother or sister, setting them apart, reducing them, criticizing or shaming in hopes that we will seem better, brighter, bigger?

How many times have we failed to treat another the way we want to be treated ourselves?

Prayer: Dearest Jesus, as you stand there, stripped before the crowd, you are more dignified than any of us. In our blindness, we still believe that shame reduces you. By the power of your Holy Spirit, help us to see the dignity that you have; that every child of God has, a dignity that neither we nor anyone else can take away. Amen.

Music For Reflection

I Need Thee Every Hour

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LEVAS #192

Station VI Jesus is Nailed to the Cross Leader: Hanging for hours on a cross is not cruel enough, Jesus. Watching you suffocate will not mollify our rage. Life has been so unfair to us, we have such rage that we have to use nails, instead of the traditional ropes. Rage bleeds away as nails, meant for wood, cut easily through human flesh.

How many times have we allowed our rage to drive us to cruelty? How often have we let rage drive us to acts of cruelty, large or small? When have our words hurt another deeply? How many times has another had to live with the scars of our rage?

Prayer: Dearest Jesus, we cannot free ourselves of this frustration, this fury, by means of our own strength. This is a moment when we must ask for your grace and compassion. By the power of your Holy Spirit, free us. Take from us this rage, lest someone else suffer to ease our pain. Amen.

Music For Reflection

In Christ Alone (Lisa Tucker-Gray & Bradley Baker)

Keith Getty & Stuart Townend

Station VII Jesus Dies on the Cross Leader: We stand in stunned silence as we survey the result of our sin. The Lord of Life hangs dead from the tree. The peace we pursued as we chased you up the hill refuses to come.

As we gaze upon you, Jesus, our victim, the realization dawns. Violence will never again bring peace, and we are terrified.

Mute with horror, we stumble to our homes, as though the earth were moving under our feet. The ground itself seems unsteady as we contemplate a world without violence. On what will we stand?

Prayer: Dearest Jesus, keep my eyes fastened on you, hanging lifeless on the Cross. Not only today, but every day, remind us of the cost, the bankruptcy of our old ways, drive us into this silence so that we might speak a new world into being through our lives.

Amen.

Music For Reflection

Everlasting Spring (Grace Mauk)

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Station VIII Jesus is Taken Down from the Cross Leader: We have all departed by the time the guards permit those who love you to bring you down from the Cross. Once the spectacle ended, we are compelled to leave.

There is something horrible and fascinating about you as you hang there, and it frightens us. We leave the task of dealing with your body to those who are already unclean.

How often have we fled our own horror, left the care of the dead and the dying to others? How many times have we let our fear of the power of death drive us into hiding?

Prayer: Dearest Jesus, as your mother and your friends cared for your dead body, we are nowhere to be found. We refuse to become uncomfortable with what we fear and do not understand or cannot accept. Infuse in us a willingness to see what is difficult; help us learn how to grow in love and truth as we face into the darkness and lay our burdens down. Amen.

Music For Reflection

Abide with Me

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WLP #799

Station iX Jesus is Laid in the Tomb Leader: In a tomb that you could never have afforded, those who did not abandon you, those who refused to join the mob, lay your body to rest with great tenderness.

There is nothing divine in the torn flesh, nothing holy in the bloodied brow.

There is only sorrow, deeper than the greatest trenches in the ocean. Sorrow.

You will breathe life once again into our deadened spirits, Jesus, but not on this day. Today we walk as those robbed of hope, shuffling from one place to another as though we belonged in the tomb with you. Perhaps, without the breath of your new life, that is precisely where we belong.

Prayer: Dearest Jesus, we have seen ourselves in those who insisted on your torture and death. We are no different than the ones who demanded your death. We can be full of vengeance, greed, violence and selfishness. We wait now, for your redemption. We are hungry now for a life that doesn’t need the blood of victims to sustain itself. Our hunger threatens to consume us. By the power of your Holy Spirit, keep this hunger alive. Help us never again to be satisfied with the bread of this world alone. Amen.

Music For Reflection

Come Healing

Leonard Cohen

(Lisa Tucker-Gray)

CLOSING Collect Priest: The Lord be with you.

People: And also with you.

Priest: Let us Pray.

Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer of the world, by the cross you have paved a road of redemption for all of creation. We give thanks to you this hour for delivering us from the domination of evil and alienation. Through the power of your Holy Spirit you have brought us into the Kinship of your Son. We pray that through his death, he has recalled us to life, so by His love He may raise us to eternal joys; who lives and reigns with You, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

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The Lord’s Prayer A version of the Lord’s Prayer created by Parker Palmer.

Priest: And now, as our Savior Christ has taught us, we are bold to say: People: Heavenly Father, heavenly Mother, Holy and blessed is your true name.

We pray for your reign of peace to come, We pray that your good will be done, Let heaven and earth become one.

Give us this day the bread we need, Give it to those who have none.

Let forgiveness flow like a river between us, From each one to each one.

Lead us to holy innocence Beyond the evil of our days Come swiftly Mother, Father, come.

For yours is the power and the glory and the mercy: Forever your name is All in One. Amen.

Final Blessing Priest: To Christ who came to love and heal the world, but whom we mocked and scorned and put to death; to him be glory and honor in this hour of darkness.

To Christ who loves us as we stand quietly at his tomb and wait for the promise of new life; to him be glory and honor in this hour of darkness. Amen.

Dismissal Deacon: People:

Go in peace to serve our Loving, Liberating, Life-Giving God. Thanks be to God.

Please remain as long as you would like in the sanctuary maintaining silence and then leave with God’s love and peace until we gather again.

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The 100th Anniversary of the Good Friday Offering ‫ • תודה‬Thank you In any language, the phrase “thank you” means the same thing: an expression of gratitude for an action that has made a difference. As we celebrate the centenary of the Good Friday Offering this year, gratitude is on the lips and in the hearts of many people whose lives have been changed because of your generosity.

The Anglican Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East recognizes the importance of presence— of following our Lord’s model of unconditionally loving people first. With your gifts, the Good Friday Offering has helped fund the following: • • • • •

The Mission to Seafarers in the United Arab Emirates, where ships are loaded not only with goods but also sailors and other workers who labor for long hours thousands of miles from home.

The Arab Episcopal School in Irbid, Jordan, which provides a strong educational program for blind students.

St. Christopher’s Cathedral in Bahrain, which focuses on providing food and other care for migrant workers who have lost their jobs and cannot get a flight back to their home countries.

Arab Ahli Hospital in Gaza, a ministry that works tirelessly, despite shortages of medical disposables, medicine, fuel for electrical generators, and food assistance for the poor.

And many more important ministries across the region.

Thank you for the difference you are making through the Good Friday Offering in the lives of a wide diversity of people throughout Jerusalem and the Middle East. “Shukran,” “toda,” thank you, for helping us and our worldwide ministry partners become a church that looks and acts like Jesus.

In this time of exceptional circumstances, please make a gift to the Good Friday Offering in one of the following ways: •

Scan the QR code here:

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Give securely online at www.trinitytoledo.org/online-giving You can also still send your check contribution by mail to: 316 Adams Street, Toledo, OH 43604 Please make out your checks to Trinity Episcopal Church with “Good Friday Offering” in the Memo 11

Trinity’s Daily Bread- As a community of faith, we are called to love and be loved; to serve and be served, to give and to receive. In short, we don’t want anyone to “fall behind or drop out.” In this season of connecting in new ways, we are introducing Trinity’s Daily Bread. Please let us know if you need prayer, assistance or connection by filling out our Daily Bread form on our website, www.trinitytoledo.org!

Trinity Episcopal Church Vestry Leadership Donna Steppe, Sr. Warden, Jeffrey Albright, Jr. Warden Leah Reed, Clerk, Gary Franklin, Treasurer Dennis Degnan, Becky Koskinen, Fritz Hany, Karen Keune & Jamie Paul

Parish Staff The Rev. Dr. Lisa Tucker-Gray, Rector Heather Meyer, Director of Operations and Community Development Chelsie Cree, Director of Music & the Arts Grace Mauk, Trinity@316 Accompanist, Brian Buckner, Trinity@Home Accompanist Lynzi Miller, Communications Coordinator ADDITIONAL RESOURCES & COPYRIGHT INFO: Readings from: Revised Common Lectionary: lectionarypage.net, 2020 Lord’s Prayer: created by Parker Palmer Bulletin Image: Artwork used with permission by Gwyneth Leech.

All printed music from The Hymnal 1982, Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing, My Heart Sings Out, Wonder, Love, and Praise was used by permission through purchase of riteseries.org.

All other printed music permission through purchase of CCLI Copyright license #20577215 Size B Streaming License #20577284 Size B Secular music permission through purchase of CCS WORSHIPcast Copyright license #13190 All printed music from Gather permission through purchase of onelicense.net License # A-700000

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316 Adams Street, Toledo, OH 43604 (419) 243-1231 www.trinitytoledo.org Facebook.com/TrinityEpiscopalToledo

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