Piety Practice

The Lenten season is an invitation to think creatively about our discipleship journey. It is designed to be an inward-focused season that challenges us to be outward-focused. The examination of our souls isn’t simply so that we can be better individuals, but so that we can find our place in a wider community and in a world created by God. This year, we chose to focus on the invitation that Jesus gives when he says that he wants to gather us up like a mother hen gathers her brood. So, this season is a call to be gathered—to be gathered together as a community of faith, to be gathered up to a new perspective on our world and life together. It begins with an admission of sinfulness, but within a context of loving grace and forgiveness. The ashes, then, represent not simply our sin and desire to repent, to turn around, but also the recognition that we have been claimed by Christ and now seek to walk with him on this journey of self-denial.

Greeting

LEADER: Why have we gathered in this place?

PEOPLE: We come in praise of the God of all life and in affirmation of Jesus Christ as the truth and center of our lives. We celebrate places where love is found in life, and we give thanks for the gift of new life that comes to us this Lenten season.

General Confession

LEADER: Rend your hearts and not your garments; return to your God.

PEOPLE: For God is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

LEADER: I know well my misdeeds, and my sin is ever before me.

PEOPLE: Wash away my guilt and cleanse me from my sin.

LEADER: Let us ask God to break forth light into the dark places of our hearts and confront us with hidden and secret sin, all that we keep in the dark.

PEOPLE: O God, open our hearts.

LEADER: Our preoccupation with ourselves,

PEOPLE: O God, open our hearts.

LEADER: Our lustful imaginations, our secret ambitions,

PEOPLE: O God, open our hearts.

LEADER: The buried grudge, the half-acknowledged enmity,

PEOPLE: O God, open our hearts.

LEADER: The bitterness of some past loss not yet offered to you,

PEOPLE: O God, open our hearts.

LEADER: The private comforts to which we cling,

PEOPLE: O God, open our hearts.

LEADER: The fear of failure which saps our initiative,

PEOPLE: O God, open our hearts.

LEADER: The pessimism that is an insult to your will and power,

PEOPLE: O God, open our hearts. Here and now, O Holy One, we bring our secret sins to you, we lie open in your sight. Let your piercing light be also our healing, for the sake of Jesus Christ, who both taught us and brought us your forgiveness. Amen.

Weadon United Methodist Church Worship Commission, in Bread for the Journey, edited by Ruth C. Duck, (Pilgrim Press, 1981), 32-33.

A General Prayer for the Day

Ash Wednesday

O Lord our God, as we your people come before you in adoration, open our lips that our mouths might declare your praise. You are the God of our salvation, and our tongues will sing aloud of your deliverance, that your mercy may be known to the ends of the earth.

You have called us to share what we have received at your hand. But instead of doing your works of mercy in private, we take delight in being praised by others. How much we enjoy having others see our great piety! But you, O God, have called for a true sacrifice of the heart. It seems so much easier to look holy than it is to be righteous in your sight. Create clean hearts in us, O God, and renew right spirits within us.

By the power of your holy Spirit enable us to be truly sorry for our sins. Help us to repent of our ways and to seek only your face. Make our time of fasting a true renewal of our faith; take our alms and transform them into acts of compassion.

In this time we recall your Son’s passion; we remember his suffering and death for our sakes. Receive into your care this day others of your children who are suffering and dying. Give relief to those who hurt; give calm to those whose minds are troubled; give peace to those who are dying and have mercy on us all.

O God, hear our prayers and answer them as you know is best for us, for we pray in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Timothy J. Crouch, OSL, Nancy B. Parks, OSL, Chris E. Visminas, Mark R. Babb, OSL, And Also With You: Worship Resources Based on the Revised Common Lectionary Year C, (OSL Publications, 1994,) 45.