a community creating for the relentless return of Sunday
God of every journey,
walk with us during these Lenten days.
Open us to your presence
in penitence, in scripture, and in all your world
so that we might be strengthened to follow you each and every day,
with Jesus Christ as our guide. Amen.
Some weeks just feel like there’s always one more thing to do. This week it was the Ash Wednesday bulletin, then the Sunday bulletin, then the Wednesday service, now thinking about those parts of the Sunday service that aren’t in the bulletin–because there’s so much more to worship than what’s printed there, right?
This week we have a prayer of dedication from the Rev. Sarah Rentzel Jones, pastor of St. Peter’s (Lischey’s) UCC in Spring Grove, PA…may it spark our thinking and praying and creating! What else do you need for this week? A prayer for illumination? A children’s time? A call to confession? Share you ideas here!
Dedicating the Offering
We give Thee but Thine own, O Lord, and we do this intentionally each week to remind ourselves that everything we have is on loan from you. The gifts that we have presented today are not all that we have, but a portion which we set aside, so that your work can be done in this church and in the world. Help us to be ever mindful of your generosity toward us, so that we might be generous in return. Amen.
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.
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
(written for an Ash Wednesday service in a park)
One: What seems like an ending
All: is really a beginning.
One: Secure in our ending
All: we begin.
One: Knowing that we come from dust, we will return to dust and we are forever in the care of Jesus
All: we begin.
One: With hearts that are fickle, with eyes that are woozy
All: we begin.
Submitted by Jodi Houdge, Humble Walk Lutheran Church, St. Paul, MN
recent comments