MICAH 6.8

The Fourth Sunday In Lent March 27, 2022 A Liturgy For Meditation and Worship We Are Invited To Be Part Of The New Thing God Is Doing
		WORDS OF CONTEMPLATION IN PREPARATION We worship you, God of promise, whose saving grace brought a people from captivity into a land of promise, and whose enduring love still leads us from places of captivity into peace, forgiveness and eternal life. Your promises endure for ever. Your promises will be fulfilled. —Birch, John. The Act of Prayer: Praying through the Lectionary. SONG FOR WORSHIP (Click Here For Music) This Is A Day Of New Beginnings INVITATION Like a loving Parent, God offers us freedom to choose our own path. In God’s freedom, we are a new creation.Like a loving Parent, God offers us freedom to choose our own path. Like a merciful Mother and Father, God offers us compassion when we lose our way. Like a loving Parent, God offers us freedom to choose our own path. In God’s mercy, we are a new creation. Like a loving Parent, God offers us freedom to choose our own path. Like a compassionate Caregiver, God welcomes us home with open arms. Like a loving Parent, God offers us freedom to choose our own path. In God’s embrace, we are a new creation. Come! Let us worship the one who makes all things new. OPENING WORDS You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, consecrated to the ministry of reconciliation in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of the One who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. And this mercy has made you one with God and one with each other, a common people united in love and sharing the ministry of making peace with justice. —1 Peter 2.9-10, (amplified and adapted) PRAYER FOR WORSHIP Holy God, Holy and Mighty, Holy Immortal One, we gather together today to give you thanks and praise your greatness. We praise your mighty works to the whole world. We praise you for your wonderful deeds. Your power is limitless, your wisdom is unparalleled, your grace is overwhelming, your love is never failing. You promised that you will never leave or forsake us. Let us worship you in spirit and truth. For blessed are You and blessed is your Kin-Dom, forever. Amen. LENTEN LITANY God of the journey, God of new beginnings, You are our provision, direction and destination, we praise your glorious name. God of the journey, God of new creation, You are our wholeness, forgiveness, reconciliation, we praise your glorious name. God of the journey, God of new possibility, You are our ministry, blessing and thanksgiving, we praise your glorious name. —Birch, John. The Act of Prayer: Praying through the Lectionary. (adapted) PRAYER FOR THE DAY Holy God, Sovereign of Hosts, whose Name is Most High, everything we need is found in you. For those of us who come here feeling broken, bring restoration. For those of us who come here feeling weak, bring strength. For those who come here weeping, bring joy. For those of us who come here with doubts, bring faith. For those who come here feeling shame, bring freedom. For those of us who come here feeling burdened, bring rest. For those of us who come here feeling anxious, bring peace. For you are the God of new beginnings. Amen. Revelation 21.1-7 1 Then I saw new heavens and a new earth. The former heavens and the former earth had passed away, and the sea existed no longer. 2 I also saw a new Jerusalem, the holy city, coming down out of heaven from God, beautiful as a bride and groom on their wedding day. 3 And I heard a loud voice calling from the throne, “Look! God’s Tabernacle is among humankind! God will live with them; they will be God’s people, and God will be fully present among them. 4 The Most High will wipe away every tear from their eyes. And death, mourning, crying and pain will be no more, for the old order has fallen.” 5 The One who sat on the throne said, “Look! I’m making everything new!” and added, “Write this, for what I am saying is trustworthy and true.” 6 And that One continued, “It is finished. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To those who are thirsty I will give drink freely from the spring of the water of life. 7 This is the rightful inheritance of the overcomers. I will be their God and they will be my daughters and sons. —Priests for Equality. The Inclusive Bible. Sheed & Ward. Isaiah 42.5-9 Thus says God, the Holy One Most High, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people upon it and spirit to those who walk in it: 6 I am the God of all, I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, 7 to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness. 8 I am the God who is, who was, who is to be, that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to idols. 9 See, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare; before they spring forth, I tell you of them. —New Revised Standard Version 2 Corinthians 5.16-21 16 And so from now on, we don’t look on anyone in terms of mere human judgment. Even if we did once regard Christ in these terms, that is not how we know Christ now. 17 And for anyone who is in Christ, there is a new creation. The old order has passed away; now everything is new! 18 All of this is from God, who ransomed us through Christ—and made us ministers of that reconciliation. 19 This means that through Christ, the world was fully reconciled again to God, who didn’t hold our transgressions against us, but instead entrusted us with this message of reconciliation. 20 This makes us Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making the appeal directly through us. Therefore we implore you in Christ’s name: be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake, God made the One who was without sin to be sin, so that by this means we might become the very holiness of God. —Priests for Equality. The Inclusive Bible. Sheed & Ward. MEDITATION Reconciliation. Making and restoring balance. Building and maintaining relationships in mutuality, equality, and equity. Healing and making well the broken and hurting. Turning an upside down world right side up. Creating and reviving peace with justice. Defining and transforming death with life. In theory, it all makes sense and sounds good. Especially in today's world, a message of eradicating all that is wrong with all that is of God's love and humanity speaks to the heart of all that needs redeeming. Yet, when it comes to how we become advocates and ambassadors of reconciliation in terms of actually living as the new creation that we are, we likely do better learning how to ask better questions than attempting to jump into answers. What does the ministry of reconciliation look like? How does bring ambassadors of reconciliation work in the world? These are questions that we certainly wrestle with. They inquire as to what is at the core of being new persons in God's making all things new. Hopefully to suffice at this point, sharing some examples that seem to fit the description quite well might aid in our contemplation. Dorothy Day, born into a non-churched family, became a Catholic Christian, Being a socially concientous woman, she kept within her faith her activist spirit. She lived expressing her faith in her writing and social activision, especially caring for the poor and those in need. She is remembered as a woman of radical faith. She was central to the swuffrage movement and was arrested several time for her witness and protest. She was labelled a socialist. But, her fight for justice was more than such a label. She was working for equal rights in those decades of the 20th century. Sojourner Truth, a former slave, became an outspoken advocate for abolition, temperance, and civil and women's rights in the nineteenth century. Her Civil War work earned her an invitation to meet President Abraham Lincoln in 1864. She is remembered as the first black woman to sue a white man and win. She was an activist who spoke out against discrimination and in favor of woman’s suffrage. She was especially concerned that some civil rights leaders such as Frederick Douglass felt equal rights for Black men took precedence over those of Black women. In her work she kept the edge of advocacy for women and issues of justice there found. Harriet Tubman found freedom from slavery but her legacy was not simply her own liberty, but the freedom of many other slaves. She was a key component in the Underground Railroad. Her activism, however, was far reaching in being both a scout and a spy for the Union during the Civil War. She was the first woman to lead an armed assault against the Confederacy which resulted in the freedom of 750 slaves in 1863. She worked endlessly for woman's rights and is remembered as a central figure of the woman's suffrage movement. Mary Jane McLeod Bethune was an American educator, philanthropist, humanitarian, womanist, and civil rights activist. After the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, which enacted women's suffrage, Bethune continued her efforts to help Blacks gain access to the polls. She solicited donations to help Black voters pay poll taxes, provided tutoring for voter registration literacy tests at Daytona Normal and Industrial Institute, and planned mass voter registration drives. She was an educator and through her work established schools for learning. She had unprecedented access to the White House through her relationship with Eleanor Roosevelt, being a close friend of the president and the first lady. She ewas outspoken about civil rights and worked to educate both whites and blacks about the accomplishments and needs of black people. The Rev. Bp. Dr. William Barber II heads the Repairers of the Breach movement and is also the co-chair of the Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival. He travels the nation teaching and preaching a message of reconciation directed at ending economic oppression and the racism inherent in such dysfunction. The Hon. John Lewis had served in the House of Representatives from 1987 until his death in 2020. His work as a representative focused on civil rights activism and voting rights. His non-violent leading of marches against racism echoed the work of his mentor, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. César Chávez worked to unite immigrant farm workers and change a system of circuitous poverty. He was one of the forerunners in seeking civil rights and union affiliation for these farm workers. Today, Shane Claiborne heads a new monasticism and is a social activist who works for the end of violence and peace. He literally is taking weapons and in blacksmith crafting transforming them into tools for gardening, crosses, and instruments of peace. Earlier in life he worked beside Mr. Teresa of Calcuuta and in peace efforts within Iraq and is now very active in protesting and bringing a end to capital punishment. And, there are countless others. None perfect. But each living their life with reconciliation at the center of their work. How might we take up such advocacy and ambassadorship working for reconciliation? How might we live in each day to foster peace, enable justice, give birth to healing, and bring comfort to each who is suffering? PRAYER FOR A NEW DAY Grant us a willingness to say ‘sorry’ and a heart for repentance. Grant us a childlikeness to accept your word and know forgiveness. Grant us a humbleness to start anew and put the past behind us. God of grace and mercy, be the new beginning that starts with our repentance and leads us into tomorrow. —Birch, John. The Act of Prayer: Praying through the Lectionary. SONG OF PROMISE (Click Here For Music) Hymn Of Promise PRAYERS OF INTERCESSION In peace let us pray to God saying, God, in your compassion and mercy, hear our prayer. For the church throughout the world, that all Christians may embody the reconciling love of Christ . . . let us pray to God. God, in your compassion and mercy, hear our prayer. For the nations of the world and its leaders, that all may dwell in peace and that justice may be tempered by mercy . . . let us pray to God. God, in your compassion and mercy, hear our prayer. For the planet Earth, God’s gift to humankind, that all may share wisely its resources and conserve its riches for our children’s children . . . let us pray to God. God, in your compassion and mercy, hear our prayer. For our enemies, that we may regard them with the reconciling love made manifest in Christ . . . let us pray to God. God, in your compassion and mercy, hear our prayer. For those who are sick or in trouble, for the defenseless, the weak, and the poor, that they may be restored to wholeness of life and livelihood . . . let us pray to God. God, in your compassion and mercy, hear our prayer. For the lost, for those who have abandoned God, friends, or family, and for those who have never known such love, that they may come to know the joy of love’s embrace . . . let us pray to God. God, in your compassion and mercy, hear our prayer. Loving God, hear the prayers of your people for the sake of your world. Amen. —Feasting on the Word Worship Companion: Liturgies for Year C, Presbyterian Publishing Corporation. PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING How can we thank the one who forgives, loves and accepts us, who will not reject us? With the offering of our hearts, the service of our lives and a sacrifice of praise. How can we thank the one who loves us, laid down his life for us, heals and restores us? With our attitude to others, the compassion we show and a faith that grows. —Birch, John. The Act of Prayer: Praying through the Lectionary. SONG OF DEDICATION (Click Here For Music) If You But Trust in God to Guide You SENDING FORTH In Christ, we are a new creation. In Christ, we are made anew. In Christ, the lost are found. In Christ, we find our true home. In Christ, those who were dead find new life. In Christ, those who drank bitter dregs are invited to God’s heavenly banquet. In Christ, we reside with the saints. Go forth with these promise and live the new thing God is doing. Amen.