(A sermon preached by the Rev. Lisa G. Fischbeck. Lent One, 2010)
It is the first Sunday in Lent and the liturgy begins with the Great Litany,
Holy God, creator of heaven and earth
Have mercy on us.
And so it goes. On and on, slow and deliberate:
From all evil and mischief; from pride, vanity and hypocrisy;
from envy, racism, hatred and malice; and from all evil intent,
Savior deliver us.
The Great Litany. It’s quite different in content and tone from the Litany of Penitence that we recite at Ash Wednesday. In that Litany, we confess:
We have not loved you with our whole heart, and mind, and?strength.
We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.
We?have not forgiven others, as we have been forgiven.
Have mercy on us, Lord.
The Ash Wednesday Litany of Penitence is comprehensive. Anyone can find themselves and their particular faults in it, and as such its daily or weekly recitation in this Season could make for a good Lenten discipline.
The Great Litany is comprehensive too. But it is less of a confession and more of a giving ourselves over to God’s protection and care. Line by line, topic by topic, we place ourselves before God and petition God to spare us, to deliver us, to hear us.
Anyone can find themselves and their particular needs in it. So its regular recitation could make for a good Lenten discipline too:
From all oppression, conspiracy, and rebellion; from violence, battle, and murder; and from dying suddenly and unprepared,
Savior deliver us.
From sloth, worldliness and love of money; from hardness of heart and contempt for your word and your laws,
Savior deliver us.
The Ash Wednesday Litany of Penitence, The Great Litany.
Each in its own way, and the two of them together, are a good way to mark the beginning of Lent.
Each in its own way can make for a good Lenten discipline, day by day or week by week this holy season through.
But for those for whom these litanies, fantastic though they are, might prove to be too unwieldy, time-consuming or, dare I say, too comprehensive for regular use, I offer a simple alternative. A single phrase for your Lenten mantra.
It comes from Haiti.
The phrase is Nou led, nou la.
It means, “We are ugly, but we are here.”
Nou led, nou la.
Haitian American writer Edwidge Dandicot explains:
There is a Haitian saying which might upset the aesthetic images of most women. Nou led, Nou la, it says.
We are ugly, but we are here. Like the modesty that is somewhat common in Haitian culture, this saying makes a deeper claim for poor Haitian women than maintaining beauty, be it skin deep or otherwise. For most of us, what is worth celebrating is the fact that we are here, that we against all the odds exist. To the women who might greet each other with this saying when they meet along the countryside, the very essence of life lies in survival. It is always worth reminding our sisters that we have lived yet another day to answer the roll call of an often painful and very difficult life.
(from WE ARE UGLY, BUT WE ARE HERE By Edwidge Danticat:?The Caribbean Writer, Volume 10 (1996)
Nou led, nou la.
We are ugly.
We have faced oppression, we have faced hardship and degradation, but we are here.
Nou led, nou la.
We are ugly. Our bodies decaying, our minds are slipping, but we are here.
It is a powerful statement of existence. And given what the Haitian people have been through the past 5 weeks, it is a phrase that is powerful indeed.
For us Americans living far from the rubble and heartbreak of Haiti, the phrase can also serve as a prayer.
Nou led, nou la.
We are ugly. We don’t love others as we ought to, we are part of systems that oppress, but we are here.
We are here to give ourselves to you God, once again.
We are ready to turn, to turn and walk in your Way.
Nou led, nou la.
Or, given the opening words of the Haitian Creole Lord’s Prayer, we might say, Papa nou, nou led nou la.
Our Papa God, We are ugly, but we are here.
In the Litany of Penitence that we recite on Ash Wednesday, we confess our sinfulness, we confess the ways that we are not the creatures we could be, we are not the creatures God yearns for us to be.
We are ugly.
In the Great Litany that we recite at the start of the liturgy on the first Sunday in Lent, we realize our desire for God and our desire to put ourselves in God’s presence in Gods care.
We are here.
The two come together in this simple Haitian expression:
Papa nou, Nou led, nou la.
Our Papa God, We are ugly, but we are here.
Bless the Lord who forgives all our sins.
God’s mercy endures forever.
Papa nou, nou led, nou la.
