Liturgical Materials for Lent, 2009
(Download a Word Document to adapt for your congregation)
THEME: Reweaving our Covenant as Creation
CREATED AT ST. LUKE'S PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, JANUARY 23, 2009
Reweaving our Covenant as Creation
I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a covenant between me and the earth.
God call us to be creators within creation. God remind us with beauty of our covenant. God awaken us with the reweaving of our covenant as creation.
Be Gracious to me, O Lord, for I am in distress; my eye wastes away from grief, my soul and body also
God give us courage to quiet the despair of others. God give us the solidarity to face the despair of our own. God awaken us with the reweaving of our covenant as creation.
And Baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you- not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as the appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
God embolden us through our humility. God strengthen us with a call to service. God awaken us with the reweaving of our covenant as creation.
What Do We Seek From God?
One: Christians, what do you seek from your God?
All: I want to be whole. “To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul. O my God, in you I trust; do not let me be put to shame; do not let my enemies exult over me. Do not let those who wait for you to be put to shame; let them be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous” (Ps 25:1-2).
One: Christians, what do you seek from your God?
All: I want to be faithful. “Make me to know your ways, O Lord; teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth, and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all day long” (Ps 25:4-5).
One: Christians, what do you seek from your God?
All: I want to be forgiven. “Be mindful of your mercy, O Lord, and of your steadfast love, for they have been from of old. Do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions; according to your steadfast love remember me, for your goodness sake, O Lord (Ps. 25:6-7)!
One: Christians, what do you seek from your God?
All: I want to be loved. “Good and upright is the Lord; therefore God instructs sinners in the way. God leads the humble in what is right, and teaches the humble God's own way. All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness, for those who keep the commandments and decrees of God.
One: To God, we are the fruit of the earth ripening on the vine. Wait on the Lord, on the sun, the rain and the rainbow and you will be made whole.
AMEN.
God has planted the seeds of truth within us; tend this garden and it will grow.
AMEN.
Do not seek the living among the dead; you are forgiven, named and claimed in the waters of new life.
AMEN.
The very heavens are torn open with love for you; come near and believe.
AMEN.
Psalm 22:27 “All the Ends of the Earth Shall Remember”
All the ends of the earth shall remember.
All who slumber and all who usher in the night;
All who stand firmly and all who fall in the cracks of the road;
All who labor for truth and peace;
All who gather for the sake of another;
All who exist and all who will exist-
All the ends of the earth shall remember.
In the sigh of an evening breeze;
In the gush of the falling river;
From the whisper of a bird in flight to the fury of galloping horses;
In the peacefulness of a cocoon to the chaos of the stormy seas-
All the ends of the earth shall remember.
The fluttering wings of butterflies and robins,
The crash of thunder and the flash of lightning,
The stillness of ponds and grass and flowers,
The leaping of grasshoppers and deer,
All the ends of the earth shall remember.
The Tree
In the cool of the evening
You come to me
You caress my branches
And set all my leaves dancing
Your rain washes me
Runs down my trunk
Quenches my root's thirst
Your morning dew
Beads on my leaves, branches, trunk
Clothes me in jeweled light
Blessed are You Creator
In the Beginning
In the Beginning
God created the heavens and the earth
and all things
and all living things
And they said:
Let us plow up the grasslands
and fell the trees
to make fields
to harvest more
And so it was done.
And they said:
Let us cut off the mountain tops
to reach the riches beneath
And so it was done.
And they said:
Let us put down our nets
to catch the fish
to feed the multitudes
And so it was done.
And they said:
Let us build higher and farther
to house the growing throng
And so it was done.
And they said:
Let us pave and build roads
to get anywhere faster
And so it was done.
In the cool of the evening
God came
to walk in the garden
And God said:
Where are my passenger Pigeons?
Where are my whales and fishes?
Where are my wildcats, fishers, and foxes?
And God Wept.
Liturgy of Confession (based on Micah 6:6-8)
L1: Come to the feast of paradise!
L2: The Risen One invites us to share this meal which
Nourishes our hearts and hungers
Our hopes and dreams
Our laughter and our tears
Our resistance and compassion.
All: But with what shall we come before our God?
P1: Shall we come with vegetables harvested from poisoned soils of eroded wastelands?
P2: Will God be pleased with billions of plastic packages of processed food?
P3: Shall we come with unripened fruit picked by sisters and brothers paid below a
living wage?
Will God be pleased with the slaughter of millions of cows, chickens and pigs raised in
factory farms or the carvings of bushmeat from the bodies of our closest kin-
gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos?
O child
O woman
O man
O seeker
The Holy One has shown us, O human ones, what is good and how to find the way to
paradise,
Let us do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with God, who comes to us in the flesh
of all living beings.
Those who attended the workshop:
Steve Blons
Kaye Brandt
Julia Carlson
Deb Celley
Shirley Harper Cox
Megan Dimond
Doug Donley
Timothy Frantzich
Jean Greenwood
Brooke Heerwald
Sally Johnson
Sandra Krebsbach
Robert Kronschnabel
Karen Larson
Theresa Mason
LaLonne L. Murphy
Maggie Nancarrow
Gwin Pratt
Jo Ringgenberg
Marty Shanahan
Nancy Victorin-Vangerud