An Ash Wednesday Service
~~~~~~~~~
Opening Meditation
Now is the season for inward searching. Close your eyes. Be still. Listen. We are entering a holy time, the time of Lent ~ journeying to the sacred center of our faith ~ where our best friend, Jesus, is waiting for us; reaching out to us; inviting us to leave ordinary time to follow him along the journey that brought him to the Cross.
Let us listen in silence.
Call to Worship
One: Our Loving God does not desire the death of sinners, but rather that we turn from our distorted lives and live.
All: Therefore we gather now for true repentance born of true confession. May our concern and our lament be real.
© Jeanyne Slettom, in A Service of Ashes.
Hymn #435 ~ “Just As I Am”
Scripture ~ Psalm 51:1-17
1 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. 2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. 4 Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgement. 5 Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me.6 You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.
7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. 8 Let me hear joy and gladness let the bones that you have crushed rejoice. 9 Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. 10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. 11 Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me. 12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit. 13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you.
14 Deliver me from bloodshed, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your deliverance. 15 O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. 16 For you have no delight in sacrifice; if I were to give a burnt-offering, you would not be pleased. 17 The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
Call to Confession
One: On this first day of Lent we pause, look within and examine our hearts and minds, our deeds and the consequences of our deeds.
All: Have mercy on us, O God, according to your steadfast love.
One: Where we have neglected prayer, been apathetic in worship, found reasons to avoid generosity or lacked compassion:
All: Have mercy on us, O God, according to your steadfast love.
One: Where we have colluded in the oppression of those who become invisible in their suffering:
All: Have mercy on us, O God, according to your steadfast love.
One: Where anxiety has eroded the gift of Your peace, and where we have cared too much about what others think:
All: Have mercy on us, O God, according to your steadfast love.
~silent confession~
One: The invitation is not to focus on our inadequacies, but on God’s gift of grace and love which transforms our hearts and minds.
All: That gift is given to us again, here and now. We can be encouraged. Amen.
© Ann Siddall, in Lent to Easter liturgies: Year C
Reflection on Repentance ~ "Give Up Pretending" ~ Pastor Annette
I read dozens of liturgies to get ready for this service, way too many of which sound vaguely narcissistic -- lines we recite to get through the door of Lent as quickly as possible, to concentrate on denying ourselves chocolate, or caffeine, or cable TV. Lent is meant to be a long season of reflection on our spiritual mortality, the pain and the mess and death we inflict on ourselves and on each other -- blindly, ignorantly, blissfully sometimes -- because our faith in the God who loves us more than anything gives us permission to believe that being forgiven relieves us of the burden of true confession and true repentance.
What would true repentance look like? Those writers might have read from the 2nd chapter of Joel: rend your hearts and not your clothing. I don’t even rend my clothing. If I DO anything at all, it’s say a few words and hope for the best. More often than not, I don’t even do that. I much prefer to bliss out in the tranquility of God’s great love for me. For me, me, me -- and for all people that I love most. Because that’s why Jesus came and died and rose again -- right?
Yes. . . . .but also NOOOO!
Jesus came and died and rose again so that every person and all of humanity and creation itself may bliss out in the tranquility of God’s great love for the whole lot of us. The gospel is no permission for me to isolate myself and my way of life from the consequences my life generates. What pain or injustice is left in my wake is real and so must be my repentance -- the clean-up and the correction of those consequences.
Ash Wednesday is the first day of the season set aside for opening our eyes to those consequences -- seeing them for what they really are -- and making the to-do list of repentance.
Best case: we did a good job last Lent and so we only have to go back a year. But maybe not -- doesn’t matter. Finish some items on a long list is better than none on a short one. Of course, sometimes we are the ones waiting for someone else’s repentance. We are the ones offended and harmed.
Psalm 51 is David’s confession for his sin with Bathsheba, the murder of Uriah, and the death of his infant son. That’s a whole lot to forgive. David didn’t do anything to me personally and I don’t want his confession to count! I don’t care how heartfelt and true it is, I don’t want him to have another happy day. But life is too long to carry around that kind of bitterness and resentment and hatefulness.
It makes us sick. Most of all, it isn’t how God designed creation or humanity to work. We can’t have back the life we had before. Sin killed it.
Whether it was our sin or someone else’s, that life is dead and gone. And we may grieve it forever. Sin is real. Its destruction is real. But sin is not all that is real.
There is also healing -- healing that is as true to God’s nature as destruction is to sin. We make, or we suffer, terrible damage; and from the mess of it, from the very center of it, healing rises up. The grief itself turns to joy -- joy made all the more intense for being so infused with grief.
Today -- Ash Wednesday -- the very first day of Lent, of all you might consider giving up, I invite you -- AND ME -- to give up pretending -- pretending we have done no harm, contributed to no injustice, that we have no amends to make, no REAL REPENTANCE to offer.
And -- as the case may be -- give up pretending we have not been harmed, that the offender can never be sorry enough, does not deserve to be forgiven -- ever to be happy again. There is nothing simple about it, friends, nothing easy either.
Sin is persistent, as is our pretense. The truth comes hard to us all, and it is tempting to avoid the truth. How wise of the Church to invent this season -- this opportunity to hold hands and jump in together -- to encourage and sustain one another in the scary, faithful work of repentance.
Hymn #101 ~ “How Deep the Father’s Love for Us”
Imposition of Ashes
Those who wish to be marked are invited to come forward.
Taizé Singing – Jesus, Remember Me
Benediction
One: Let us remember that we are dust and to dust we shall return. Let the memory of our incomplete humanity
awaken us to the wonders, joys, sorrows, and pain of life.
All: Let the ashes we wear be the ashes of transformation; of awakening to beauty and love and justice for all people.
One: Let it be said of us that here in this little part of eternity we lived fully, loved extravagantly and helped humanity heal and
grow into all that God created us to be!
All: We are fearfully and wonderfully made, in the image of the One who is was and evermore shall be.
© Pastor Dawn, http://pastordawn.com
Removal of Ashes ~ Matthew 6:1
Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.
Now is the season for inward searching. Close your eyes. Be still. Listen. We are entering a holy time, the time of Lent ~ journeying to the sacred center of our faith ~ where our best friend, Jesus, is waiting for us; reaching out to us; inviting us to leave ordinary time to follow him along the journey that brought him to the Cross.
Let us listen in silence.
Call to Worship
One: Our Loving God does not desire the death of sinners, but rather that we turn from our distorted lives and live.
All: Therefore we gather now for true repentance born of true confession. May our concern and our lament be real.
© Jeanyne Slettom, in A Service of Ashes.
Hymn #435 ~ “Just As I Am”
Scripture ~ Psalm 51:1-17
1 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. 2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. 4 Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgement. 5 Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me.6 You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.
7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. 8 Let me hear joy and gladness let the bones that you have crushed rejoice. 9 Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. 10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. 11 Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me. 12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit. 13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you.
14 Deliver me from bloodshed, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your deliverance. 15 O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. 16 For you have no delight in sacrifice; if I were to give a burnt-offering, you would not be pleased. 17 The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
Call to Confession
One: On this first day of Lent we pause, look within and examine our hearts and minds, our deeds and the consequences of our deeds.
All: Have mercy on us, O God, according to your steadfast love.
One: Where we have neglected prayer, been apathetic in worship, found reasons to avoid generosity or lacked compassion:
All: Have mercy on us, O God, according to your steadfast love.
One: Where we have colluded in the oppression of those who become invisible in their suffering:
All: Have mercy on us, O God, according to your steadfast love.
One: Where anxiety has eroded the gift of Your peace, and where we have cared too much about what others think:
All: Have mercy on us, O God, according to your steadfast love.
~silent confession~
One: The invitation is not to focus on our inadequacies, but on God’s gift of grace and love which transforms our hearts and minds.
All: That gift is given to us again, here and now. We can be encouraged. Amen.
© Ann Siddall, in Lent to Easter liturgies: Year C
Reflection on Repentance ~ "Give Up Pretending" ~ Pastor Annette
I read dozens of liturgies to get ready for this service, way too many of which sound vaguely narcissistic -- lines we recite to get through the door of Lent as quickly as possible, to concentrate on denying ourselves chocolate, or caffeine, or cable TV. Lent is meant to be a long season of reflection on our spiritual mortality, the pain and the mess and death we inflict on ourselves and on each other -- blindly, ignorantly, blissfully sometimes -- because our faith in the God who loves us more than anything gives us permission to believe that being forgiven relieves us of the burden of true confession and true repentance.
What would true repentance look like? Those writers might have read from the 2nd chapter of Joel: rend your hearts and not your clothing. I don’t even rend my clothing. If I DO anything at all, it’s say a few words and hope for the best. More often than not, I don’t even do that. I much prefer to bliss out in the tranquility of God’s great love for me. For me, me, me -- and for all people that I love most. Because that’s why Jesus came and died and rose again -- right?
Yes. . . . .but also NOOOO!
Jesus came and died and rose again so that every person and all of humanity and creation itself may bliss out in the tranquility of God’s great love for the whole lot of us. The gospel is no permission for me to isolate myself and my way of life from the consequences my life generates. What pain or injustice is left in my wake is real and so must be my repentance -- the clean-up and the correction of those consequences.
Ash Wednesday is the first day of the season set aside for opening our eyes to those consequences -- seeing them for what they really are -- and making the to-do list of repentance.
Best case: we did a good job last Lent and so we only have to go back a year. But maybe not -- doesn’t matter. Finish some items on a long list is better than none on a short one. Of course, sometimes we are the ones waiting for someone else’s repentance. We are the ones offended and harmed.
Psalm 51 is David’s confession for his sin with Bathsheba, the murder of Uriah, and the death of his infant son. That’s a whole lot to forgive. David didn’t do anything to me personally and I don’t want his confession to count! I don’t care how heartfelt and true it is, I don’t want him to have another happy day. But life is too long to carry around that kind of bitterness and resentment and hatefulness.
It makes us sick. Most of all, it isn’t how God designed creation or humanity to work. We can’t have back the life we had before. Sin killed it.
Whether it was our sin or someone else’s, that life is dead and gone. And we may grieve it forever. Sin is real. Its destruction is real. But sin is not all that is real.
There is also healing -- healing that is as true to God’s nature as destruction is to sin. We make, or we suffer, terrible damage; and from the mess of it, from the very center of it, healing rises up. The grief itself turns to joy -- joy made all the more intense for being so infused with grief.
Today -- Ash Wednesday -- the very first day of Lent, of all you might consider giving up, I invite you -- AND ME -- to give up pretending -- pretending we have done no harm, contributed to no injustice, that we have no amends to make, no REAL REPENTANCE to offer.
And -- as the case may be -- give up pretending we have not been harmed, that the offender can never be sorry enough, does not deserve to be forgiven -- ever to be happy again. There is nothing simple about it, friends, nothing easy either.
Sin is persistent, as is our pretense. The truth comes hard to us all, and it is tempting to avoid the truth. How wise of the Church to invent this season -- this opportunity to hold hands and jump in together -- to encourage and sustain one another in the scary, faithful work of repentance.
Hymn #101 ~ “How Deep the Father’s Love for Us”
Imposition of Ashes
Those who wish to be marked are invited to come forward.
Taizé Singing – Jesus, Remember Me
Benediction
One: Let us remember that we are dust and to dust we shall return. Let the memory of our incomplete humanity
awaken us to the wonders, joys, sorrows, and pain of life.
All: Let the ashes we wear be the ashes of transformation; of awakening to beauty and love and justice for all people.
One: Let it be said of us that here in this little part of eternity we lived fully, loved extravagantly and helped humanity heal and
grow into all that God created us to be!
All: We are fearfully and wonderfully made, in the image of the One who is was and evermore shall be.
© Pastor Dawn, http://pastordawn.com
Removal of Ashes ~ Matthew 6:1
Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.