ASH WEDNESDAY
* Congregation stands
BOLD – Congregation responds
Please be mindful of your volume during the Prelude as we prepare for worship together.
PRELUDE Prelude and Fugue in D major J.S. Bach
CALL TO WORSHIP
O God the Father, Creator of heaven and earth,
Have mercy upon us.
O God the Son, Redeemer of the world,
Have mercy upon us.
O God the Holy Spirit, Sanctifier of the faithful,
Have mercy upon us.
O holy, blessed, and glorious Trinity, one God,
Have mercy upon us.
PRAYER OF INVOCATION
Lord, you have been our dwelling place
in all generations.
Before the mountains were brought forth,
or you had formed the earth and the world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
Teach us, Lord, to count our days
that we may gain a wise heart.
Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,
so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
Through Christ, our Lord. Amen.
* HYMN No. 538 I Need Thee Every Hour
PRAYER OF CONFESSION
Righteous God,
in humility and repentance
we bring our failures in caring, helping, and loving,
we bring the pain we have caused others,
we bring the injustice in society of which we are a part,
to the transforming power of your grace.
Grant us the courage to accept the healing you offer
and to turn again toward the sunrise of your reign,
that we may walk with you in the promise of peace
you have willed for all the children of the earth,
and have made known to us in Christ Jesus.
(Silent prayers of unburdening and confession)
IMPOSITION OF ASHES
(Prayers and Readings for Reflection)
“Lent is a double journey—a journey together (and alone) toward the mystery of God’s redemptive embrace in the death and resurrection of Christ. At the same time, it is a journey into the depths of our humanity. Without a shared, living memory of who Jesus Christ was, there would be no faith community . . . . Without a living encounter over time with who Christ is in our midst, there would be no unfolding of Christian life and ministry.”
– Don Saliers
Catch me in my anxious scurrying, Lord, and hold me in this Lenten season: hold my feet to the fire of your grace and make me attentive to my mortality that I may begin to die now to those things that keep me from living with you and with my neighbors; to grudges and indifference, to certainties that smother possibilities, to my fascination with false securities, to my addiction to sweatless dreams, and to my arrogant insistence on how it has to be; to my corrosive fear of dying someday which eats away the wonder of living this day, and the adventure of losing my life in order to find it in you.
– From Guerrillas of Grace by Ted Loder
“We too easily forget our Maker and Redeemer, replacing God with things and ambition. Lent is the season that does something about this situation. It calls us back to God, back to basics, back to the spiritual realities of life.”
– Robert Webber
ASSURANCE OF PARDON
Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence?
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
Even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast.
For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works that I know very well.
How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!
I try to count them. I come to the end—I am still with you.
CHORAL ANTHEM Craig Courtney
If You Search With All Your Heart
When you seek Me, you shall find Me
If you search with all your heart.
For I know the plans I have for you:
Plans of welfare, not of evil.
For I know the plans I have for you:
Plans of hope and a future.
I will bring you out of bondage
to the land I have prepared.
I will bring you out of bondage
I will bring you home to Me.
PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE
Congregational Response
Pastor: Merciful Lord
Congregation: You hear our prayer.
*HYMN No. 200 Lord, Who Throughout
PRAYER OF ILLUMINATION
God of love,
as in Jesus Christ you gave yourself to us,
so may we give ourselves to you,
living according to your holy will.
Keep our feet firmly in the way where Christ leads us;
make our mouths speak the truth that Christ teaches us;
fill us with the life that is Christ within us.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, forever and ever,
Amen.
SCRIPTURE READINGS:
Deuteronomy 8:1-10 p. 145
Matthew 4:1-11 p. 785
HOMILY Tempted Rev. Blaine Crawford
CHORAL OFFERING Judy Hunnicutt
This Do In Remembrance of Me
This do in remembrance of me;
Keep this feast and together we’ll be.
This do in remembrance of me;
Till you come to my kingdom
This is my body, broken for you,
Take and eat in remembrance of me.
Broken that you might rise up from death
Into a life everlasting.
This is my blood, I shed it for you.
Take and drink in remembrance of me.
Shed that you might rise up from death
into a life everlasting.
SACRAMENT OF HOLY COMMUNION
Communion Prayer
The Lord be with you. And also with you.
Lift up your hearts. We lift them up to the Lord.
Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
It is right to give our thanks and praise.
Creator God . . .
Sanctus
Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of hosts.
Heaven and earth are full of your glory.
Hosanna, hosanna in the highest.
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
Hosanna, hosanna in the highest.
Redeemer God . . .
Great is the mystery of the faith:
Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.
Sanctifying God . . .
BENEDICTION
Gracious God, out of your love and mercy
you breathed into dust the breath of life,
creating us to serve you and our neighbors.
In this season of repentance,
restore to us the joy of our salvation
and strengthen us to face our mortality,
that we may reach with confidence for your mercy,
in Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Go in peace.
POSTLUDE Erbarm dich mein, O herre Gott" Bach
Tonight's offering will be given to La Jornada,
one of our Lenten Mission partners for 2020.
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Blessing the Dust
All those days
you felt like dust,
like dirt,
as if all you had to do
was turn your face
toward the wind
and be scattered
to the four corners
or swept away
by the smallest breath
as insubstantial—
did you not know
what the Holy One
can do with dust?
This is the day
we freely say
we are scorched.
This is the hour
we are marked
by what has made it
through the burning.
This is the moment
we ask for the blessing
that lives within
the ancient ashes,
that makes its home
inside the soil of
this sacred earth.
So let us be marked
not for sorrow.
And let us be marked
not for shame.
Let us be marked
not for false humility
or for thinking
we are less
than we are
but for claiming
what God can do
within the dust
within the dirt,
within the stuff
of which the world
is made
and the stars that blaze
in our bones
and the galaxies that spiral
inside the smudge
we bear.
-Jan Richardson
From Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons