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Lent

Sunday’s Coming: working toward March 4

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One Sunday into Lent, how are things going? How was worship yesterday? Was the atmosphere what you hoped? Did the liturgy work well with the music and the proclamation?

What are you thinking for this week? We have the name-changing covenant to work with this week, and of course the different kind of name-changing conversation between Jesus and Peter. Paul reminds us to have faith in the promise (after all, Abraham was “as good as dead” and he believed…). The psalm reminds us to praise the God who keeps his promise (to borrow a phrase from a John Bell hymn titled “God it Was”)–the promise will endure so long that those yet unborn will also hear it.

What word or phrase will is catching your imagination this week? What image or word is to be the seed of your liturgical expression? Put those ideas–even if they’re just a word, just three words, or a whole prayer!–in the comments so we can create together!

A Lenten Litany of Renewal & Purpose

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Every day is a day to be renewed…
to become the people God created us to be.
May we learn to recognize our true selves
as we reflect on God’s hope and intention for creation.
God calls us to proclaim the gospel
for the salvation of all humanity.
May we seek to be the presence of Christ in the world
without creating clubs that push people away.
God calls us to shelter, nurture,
and cultivate spiritual communion among all God’s children.
May we be a safe place for everyone
to question, to know, to struggle, and to grow
God calls us to worship in spirit and in truth.
May we abandon entertainment for profound awareness;
may we share our gifts and creativity in our expression;
and may the table at which we gather always have room.
God calls us to uphold the truth.
May we faithfully struggle to understand truth,
so that instead of being chained and imprisoned to it,
we may be joyfully and completely set free by it.
God calls us to be advocates for social justice.
May everything that seeks to undermine God’s love
make us uncomfortable and passionately counteractive.
God calls us to be a visible manifestation
of God’s vision of, and hope for, all creation.
May we live as if we truly believe that;
shining light in darkness…sprinkling salt on blandness…
and celebrating the joy of life that we all share together.
Let it be so!

Submitted by Scott Cervas, pastor at Meadowthorpe Presbyterian Church (Lexington, KY) as an Affirmation of Faith to be used during a series of sermons based on the Great Ends of the Church listed in section G-1.0200 of the Form of Government of the Presbyterian Church (USA).

Prayer: God of Rainbow Promises

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Prayer of the Day
How you love us, God of rainbow promises!
Like a mother who teaches her son
the steps for his first dance,
like the father who goes out
with his daughter after work
so she can learn how to drive,
you love us that much and more.

How you offer yourself to us, Brother of the beloved!
You gather us up in your arms,
simply to hear our deepest hopes;
you reach out your scarred hands
to gently wipe our fears away;
you stain a cross with your blood,
so we might washed clean in the tears
pouring down God’s face.

How you share yourself with us, journey’s Spirit!
You bathe our wearied souls
in the cooling waters of baptism;
you wipe the dust of the wilderness
out of our eyes so we can see the kingdom;
you teach us those ancient ways
which offer new life for each of us.

God in Community, Holy in One,
be with us in this Lenten season,
even as we pray, saying,
Our Father . . .

 

Submitted by Rev. Thom Shuman, author of Lectionary Liturgies.

ash wednesday: introduction to the imposition of ashes

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At the very beginning,
God scooped up the dust of the earth and molded it into human beings,
breathing divine breath into those creatures of dust.
Over time though, we dust creatures have forgotten who we are and whose we are.
We believed a serpent in the Garden of Eden who said we could become like God.
We believed that the gold calf Aaron made could guide us in the wilderness.
We believed the builders of Babel who thought by our own hands we could be greater than God.
We have covered up with leaves and clothes.
We have stopped taking time to walk with God in the gardens of the world God created.

But God does not stop finding ways to meet us.
God spoke through a burning bush, a whisper, a cloud pillar, the laws given to Moses,
and then ultimately through Jesus Christ.
By living a perfect sinless life,
Jesus exposed our lies of self-sufficiency.
Our sinful pride is brought into the light.
Our dusty nature is right there on the surface.

Come forward to reclaim the dust with which you were formed.
Come forward to recognize your need for the God who created you
and for the savior who desires to wash you clean.

Submitted by Kathleen Sheets, Pastoral Intern, First Presbyterian Church, Maumee, OH