Texts: Isaiah 50:4-9a; Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29; Philippians 2:5-11; Mark 11:1-11
Call to
Worship
Give thanks!
God’s love
is constant and devoted to us.
Let us
say over and over:
God’s
hope is unfailing in caring for us,
through
health care workers and researchers,
through
teachers reopening classrooms,
and
therapists available around the clock.
Give thanks,
O give thanks!
Justice is
the gate God opens to all.
Let us
say over and over:
God hears
the cries of those who are forgotten:
those who
sleep rough in forgotten streets,
those who
are most vulnerable around us,
those who
have no family to care for them.
Give thanks,
O give thanks, people of God!
God comes to
bring us new life.
Let us
say this over and over:
God takes
the stone tossed aside by us
to build
the foundation of salvation,
a
foundation made out of grace’s gravel,
the sand
of hope shaken out of Jesus’ shoes,
and mixed
with the waters of life.
Prayer of the Day
After a year of weariness,
we struggle to put one foot
in front of the other, if
we manage to pull ourselves
out of bed each morning.
But you take us by the hand,
Steadfast Love,
as we walk through
the streets of your community
of grace and wonder,
listening to the songbirds.
After a year of endless stories
of those who refuse to be cautious,
who could care less about others,
we try to keep our ears
from being stuffed with cotton,
Word of hope
for all,
so we might learn how to listen,
to the hearts which are ignored
by everyone,
everywhere.
After a year of staying in place,
it is no wonder we want to run away
for the days of exhaustion,
the overwhelming worries,
the fears that are velcroed to us,
so model for us,
Peace of the
weary,
how to dare to bear the injustices
of all those blamed by far too many
for these days in which we find ourselves.
Steadfast
Love, Word of hope, Spirit of peace,
God in
Community, Holy in One,
hear us as
we lift our prayer to you,
(The
Lord’s Prayer)
Call to
Reconciliation
After a year of struggling to follow Jesus faithfully, we know how we have worn down others by our angry words, how we have wearied loved ones with poor choices. Yet, we also recognize, that in every moment of every day, God has been with us with that love which never gives up, that grace which is always offered
freely to us. So, let us come with our prayers, to God's heart, so we may enter forgiveness and life anew. Let us pray
together, saying,
Unison Prayer for Forgiveness
We have been so busy this last year, focused on ourselves, Enduring Love, that we have forgotten to imagine what was on Jesus' mind in those days. We long to shout for joy on a day like this, smiling as we remember waving our palms, even as we look at our empty hands. We harden our faces, not in discipleship, but to turn away those who are still struggling in these days.
Yet,
because he was fully human like us, God whose compassion never fades, we can be
more like Jesus, if we dare. So, as we begin our journey through another Holy Week of worshiping apart, yet strangely more together than we imagine, help us to always choose humility over hubris, weakness over strength, tenderness over bullying, and to seek to stay faithful as we can in these days. We pray this in the name of our Teacher,
Jesus. Amen.
Silence
is kept
Assurance
of Pardon
God dares us
to think like Jesus, because God knows that if we do, we will find the strength to live through these days, to walk with others, to offer our lives in love and service to all.
God hears
our prayers, listens to our hearts, fills us with forgiveness, and walks with
us in these moments and in all the ones to come. Thanks be to God
for such incredible mercy! Amen.
Prayer of Dedication/Offering
We have discovered, in this year of pandemic, that we have more than we ever imagined, and discover we are given opportunities we never saw before to be
your grace, your hope, your love in the lives of those around us, as we care
for all your children in these days. In Jesus’ name, we
pray. Amen.
Great
Prayer of Thanksgiving
May the God
who opens the gates of justice be with you.
May God
be with you as well.
Let us empty
ourselves of our pride and power,
so that God
can fill our hearts with humility.
Let us learn
the songs of praise God would teach us,
so that we
rejoice in God’s steadfast love morning by morning.
You sent
Word and Spirit to gather up chaos,
as they
said, “God has need of it,”
as you
transformed it into creation,
colts to carry kings and servants,
palms to sway in breezes and wave in hands,
stones to be used as foundations for homes,
as well as for kin-doms.
You shaped
humanity in your image,
inviting us
to enter through the gate of love,
but we longed to be filled with power and privilege,
and so blessed sin and death as they came to us.
Those women
and men we call prophets
came morning
to awaken us to your call
to be
sustained by your love,
yet we continued to give new names
to the temptations which delighted us.
So, you sent
Jesus to us,
not in power
and wealth,
but as one
who was simply a Teacher
of steadfast
love and unfailing hope.
With those
who put down their hearts in welcome,
with those
who clutch doubts behind their backs,
we join in
songs of praise:
Holy,
holy, holy are you, Stonemason of salvation.
All
creation joins in recognizing this moment of grace.
Hosanna
in the highest!
Blessed
is the One who is peace and glory for us.
Hosanna
in the highest!
Setting aside privilege and power, Holy God,
your Child,
our Brother, chose to be made
in our
image, so we might see you face to face.
He could
have bossed us around,
telling us
what to do,
but chose to teach us compassion
because that was what was in his heart.
He could
have turned his back on us,
or kept his
earbuds lodged in tight,
but chose to listen to our stories,
to listen to our hearts breaking.
He could
have hardened his face
in judgment
for our foolish choices,
but turned it towards what awaited him
in that place where people would reject him,
friends would betray and deny him,
the powers would condemn him, and
death would claim victory over him
until you
raised him to resurrection life.
As we seek
to follow in the coming days,
as we
remember all he said and did,
we proclaim
that mystery we call faith:
Jesus died, willing to suffer for others;
Jesus was
raised, exalted by God for his faithfulness;
Jesus
will come, so we may once again cry,
‘blessed is the One who comes in peace and glory!’
Here at this Table, the weary are sustained,
the broken
are offered healing,
the ignored
are welcomed as family,
and the
simple gifts of the bread and cup
are
transformed into the treasures of your heart
as you pour
out your Spirit in these moments.
As the bread
whose brokenness reminds us
of the One
who was willing to suffer for all,
may we be
reminded that the Lord needs us
to worship with the outcast as well as the privileged,
to work with the hopeless as well as the arrogant,
in every place we can, we every word we speak.
As the cup
of grace is offered to us, may we remember
the One
emptied himself for those around him,
and that he
needs us to do everything we are asked,
as we bend
our knees to reach down
to seek justice for the oppressed,
to cradle the heart-broken
to hear the stories of 80-year-olds
who are reliving their childhoods.
And when we
are gathered by the One
who will
come in peace and glory
to bring us
to the Table of grace,
we will sing
of that name above all other names,
forever
praising you for your steadfast love,
God in
Community, Holy in One. Amen.
Sending
Now we will
set aside our palm branches,
to go and
serve at God’s side
in a
broken and fearful world.
Now we will
pick up our cloaks
and follow
Jesus wherever he leads,
to learn
from those the world ignores,
to be
touched by the grace within them.
Now we will
sing songs of wonder,
as we
work alongside the Spirit,
sustaining
the weary with peace and hope.
© 2021 Thom
M. Shuman
