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illumination: you knew us

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Holy God,
you knew us before we knew ourselves.
You consecrate us even now to be your servants.
Create in us hearts worthy to be your prophets
that we might go where you send us,
and speak the Word that you give us.
Through the power of your Holy Spirit,
place your words upon our lips
and your grace upon our hearts
so that we might pluck up and pull down,
destroy and overthrow,
build and plant,
as you, alone, have commanded. Amen.
inspired by Jeremiah 1:4-10, the Old Testament lectionary passage for the Fourth Sunday after Epiphany (year C)
submitted by Stephen Fearing, student at Columbia Theological Seminary

confession: Love

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Call to Confession:
Whether we have the gift of beautiful speech, or the gift of understanding and knowledge, or the gift of faith or of generosity or of any other good thing—if we do not love, even our most precious talents are as nothing. And if we believe Love to be a only feeling or a thought, still we miss the Truth. Before God, with the people of God, let us confess the ways we have fallen short of God’s Love. Let us pray.

One:    Love is patient and kind
All:     and we are in a bit of a hurry…
One:    Love does not insist on its own way
All:     but really, God, my way is clearly best.
One:    Love is not envious or resentful
All:     and yet we hoard it as if there might not be enough.
One:    Love is all these verbs—rejoices, bears, believes, hopes, endures—
All:     but we are so tempted to confine it where we can understand and control, domesticating love into romance or intellect.
One:    God is Love, and those who abide in Love abide in God.

silence

One:    When we have not lived in your love, when we have insisted and hurt and believed ourselves to know fully even as we know only in part,
All:     Forgive us, O God.
One:    When we have thought, spoken, and acted in childish ways even as you call us to grow in your grace,
All:     Forgive us, O God.
One:    Draw us again into your embrace, that we may abide in faith, hope, and love.
All:     Amen.

Assurance of Forgiveness:
Friends, hear this good news: Though now we see dimly, as through a tinted window, Love is clearing the way for us to know God just as fully as God knows us. We will live the good news: in Jesus Christ, we are forgiven. Thanks be to God! Amen.

CTW: formed, known, appointed

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One:    The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, as it had come to many others before him:
All:     I formed you, I know you, I appoint you.
One:    And Jeremiah, like many others before and since, protested.
All:     But God doesn’t take excuses, and sent him to go and speak and build and plant.
One:    God put the words into his mouth, that he might proclaim good news.
All:     Still God puts God’s word out into the world through human mouths!
One:    The word of the Lord comes to us, too, in this place and this time: I formed you, I know you, I appoint you.
All:     And so we come to worship, to be made yet again into the builders of God’s kingdom.

 

Submitted by Rev. Teri Peterson, the Presbyterian Church of Palatine, IL.

confession: opposites

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Holy God,
you have brought us together as one body with many members,
each of us with gifts given according to your Spirit.
We confess that we struggle to discern what role we are called to do.
We speak when you call us to listen.
We listen when you call us to walk.
We walk when you call us to wait.
We wait when you call us to do.
Through the power of your Holy Spirit,
show this community who you have called us to be.
Guide us through this tension of One and yet many
that we might strive for the greater gift of unity
and play the part of disciples of the one Spirit.  Amen.

Submitted by Stephen Fearing, student at Columbia Theological Seminary

call to confession for the annual meeting worship service

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On days like today it is easy for us to celebrate all we have done, while forgetting what God has done. It is easy to look back with rosy glasses and then turn our eyes to the future, unreflective. But God calls us to honesty in both our individual and collective lives, so let’s take this moment to reflect on the ways we have failed ourselves, one another, the church, the world.

(begin in silence, then follow with unison prayer of confession)

 

Submitted by Rev. Teri Peterson, the Presbyterian Church of Palatine, IL.