Ash Wednesday Gathering - March 2

Trinity United Church
March 2, 2022
Ash Wednesday
Worship

Worship Leader: Rev David Cathcart
Music Leader: David Rogers
Scripture Reader: 
Zoom Hosts:

Welcome:

May the Peace of Christ be with you. And also with you.

Welcome to Trinity United Church in Port Coquitlam. We are grateful you have joined us for worship this evening. 
Trinity United Church in Port Coquitlam resides on the unceded traditional territory of the Coast Salish People the Kwikwetlem First Nations. Our acknowledgement of unceded traditional territory is a first step in reconciliation between settler cultures and indigenous peoples and the decolonization of western systems that continue to oppress and exploit indigenous peoples and land.
If you are joining us on YouTube, please check out our website at ucpoco.ca. We would also appreciate it if you would subscribe to our channel and like and share our services, those buttons are just below the video. It does help our reach when you do so.
    I invite you to take a deep breath, and let it go. I invite you to take another breath, and let it go. And one more time, take a deep breath and let it go. Let us prepare our hearts and minds for worship.

Prelude: David Rogers

Tenebrae Candles

The word “Tenebrae” is from Latin meaning “darkness.” The practice is adapted from a Roman Catholic practice, dating back to the nineth century. It involves the extinguishing of many candles, reminding us of the approach of Good Friday in preparation for Holy Saturday and Easter Resurrection. The number of candles varies. In a single service as many as 16 candles will be extinguished, one for each of the “Good Friday” readings. This liturgy will have a candle for each of the six Sundays of Lent, Ash Wednesday, Maundy Thursday, and Good Friday.

“Have merc on me, O God, in your great kindness,
In the fullness of your mercy blot out my offences.
Wash away all my guilt, and cleanse me from my sin.
For I acknowledge my faults and my sin is always before me.
Put a new heart in me, O God,
And give me again a constant spirit.” (Psalm 51, VU 776)

Lent is a time for self reflection and spiritual practice, often characterized in abstinence or fasting. During the seasons of Lent, we abstain or fast from a decadence, or take on a healthy practice to deepen our journey with the divine. Every time I long for ice-cream, I remember that my longing for God is more important. Every time I sketch or write in my journal, I’m intentionally spending time with my creator. 

We extinguish this candle remembering that God disrupts our slumber, delivering us from ignorance to self-awareness.

[extinguish a candle]

Response: “The Light Still shines” WorshipCollective 

The light still shines the light is still there
Disrupted but delivered, it’s there
The light still shines the light is still there
We tread this lonely landscape
Following, transforming, surrendering 
we are yours we are yours
The light still shines

Do not sound the trumpet
Do not week nor wail
The heart fully cleansed
Goodness will not fail

The light still shines the light is still there
Disrupted but delivered, it’s there
The light still shines the light is still there
We tread this lonely landscape
Following, transforming, surrendering 
we are yours we are yours
The light still shines

* WorshipCollective

Opening Prayer:

Give us peace in our hearts, Lord, 
that we may forgive when we are slighted, 
that we may love without judgment, 
that we may be thankful for all that we have, 
that we may be the people you want us to be. Amen.*

*written by Judy Sears (adapted)
Found in Gathering L/E 2022 (Year C), p 29
Used with permission

Hymn: “O God How We Have Wandered” VU 112   CLICK HERE

Reconciliation Meditation:

I invite you to sit as comfortably as you can. Maybe let your eyelids close or rest half lidded. Become aware of your breath. You needn’t control your breath, just become aware of it.

Now imagine, as you inhale, energy coming up from the ground, through your feet and all the way out the top of your head. And when you exhale, imagine energy going the opposite way, from the sky all the way down through the top of your head, through your feet and deep into the earth. As you inhale and exhale, let your body be a channel connecting heaven and earth, letting energy flow back and forth. Imagine as the energy flows through that the spirit is making little adjustments to your heart, to bring your whole body back into alignment with God’s ways.

I am going to read a few words from scripture and then we will sit in silence, letting that energy continue to flow through us. If you find your thoughts getting busy or distracted, repeat the words silently to yourself and return to letting the energy flow.

Isaiah 58:1 “Shout out, do not hold back!”

[silence for 90 seconds]

May we learn to shout out and not hold back in gratitude to our God. Thanks be to God! 

Reading:  
Isaiah 58:1-12
58Shout out, do not hold back!
   Lift up your voice like a trumpet!
Announce to my people their rebellion,
   to the house of Jacob their sins.
2 Yet day after day they seek me
   and delight to know my ways,
as if they were a nation that practised righteousness
   and did not forsake the ordinance of their God;
they ask of me righteous judgements,
   they delight to draw near to God.
3 ‘Why do we fast, but you do not see?
   Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?’
Look, you serve your own interest on your fast-day,
   and oppress all your workers.
4 Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight
   and to strike with a wicked fist.
Such fasting as you do today
   will not make your voice heard on high.
5 Is such the fast that I choose,
   a day to humble oneself?
Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush,
   and to lie in sackcloth and ashes?
Will you call this a fast,
   a day acceptable to the LORD?

6 Is not this the fast that I choose:
   to loose the bonds of injustice,
   to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
   and to break every yoke?
7 Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
   and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them,
   and not to hide yourself from your own kin?
8 Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,
   and your healing shall spring up quickly;
your vindicator shall go before you,
   the glory of the LORD shall be your rearguard.
9 Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer;
   you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am.

If you remove the yoke from among you,
   the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil,
10 if you offer your food to the hungry
   and satisfy the needs of the afflicted,
then your light shall rise in the darkness
   and your gloom be like the noonday.
11 The LORD will guide you continually,
   and satisfy your needs in parched places,
   and make your bones strong;
and you shall be like a watered garden,
   like a spring of water,
   whose waters never fail.
12 Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt;
   you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;
you shall be called the repairer of the breach,
   the restorer of streets to live in.

Psalm 51:1-17 VU 776 (refrain 1)

Reading: 
Matthew 6 [WorshipCollective video]

Hymn: “Throughout These Lenten Days” VU 108   CLICK HERE

Message:

Teach us piety, Holy One,
piety that is humble and honest,
piety that is generous and giving,
piety that is quiet and unassuming,
piety that places our treasure and our hearts in you and only you.
In the name of the one who gave all for all, we pray.
Amen.

Piety is a rather obsolete term. It's lost its meaning in recent years. Especially since it has been abused in exactly the ways Jesus tells us not to abuse it by so many very visible "pious" people.

As we begin our Lenten Journey we are called to reflect on our piety, though spiritual practices might be a more comfortable and familiar term.

What are our spiritual practices and how do they serve us and our community?

Jesus names a number of practices in today's passage: financial giving, prayer, and fasting.

Usually, fasting gets a lot of attention during Lent. We grew up with traditions of abstaining from luxuries during Lent. We often hear of people abstaining from chocolate, cigarettes, alcohol, sugar, fat... The intention is that every time we crave one of the above, we instead direct our longing to God.

In recent years, we've encouraged folks to add more variety to their Lenten practice by adding something to their daily practice instead of just abstaining. So adding daily reflection, or bible reading, meditation, or another healthy practice: daily walks, or other exercise; or maybe a daily act of service: making a phone call to someone who is isolated, or a daily donation to the foodbank.

The purpose is to create a little more daily awareness of God's activity and presence in our lives. Jesus is clear that these shouldn't be acts that we do publicly and boast about, but acts we can do quietly, intentionally deepening our relationship with God.

I would invite you into a quiet moment of reflection. You might want to think about how you would like to deepen your relationship with God this season. What kind of practice would you like to pick up? You might want to write it down on a piece of paper, or in a journal. I find it helps to write it on a card and put it in a visible place, like on the fridge so that I am reminded of it from one day to the next. I encourage you to keep it simple, but meaningful.

[3 min silence]

Three members of the Governance Team and I are taking a year long course call "Decision Making to Discernment." We were given homework this month. Some of the members of the team are looking at the homework like our instructor is crazy. The purpose of the homework is to awaken our creative imaginations.

Our culture values linear thinking. From the moment we learn to speak, we are taught to follow rules so that people will understand what we are trying to communicate. The purpose of linear thinking is to maintain and build on order. Linear thinking is great for problem solving within a given system and decision making.

Linear thinking fails us when the box we are in no longer serves us. The very purpose of linear thinking is to establish and maintain a particular box. When the box no longer serves us, linear thinking is incapable of getting us out of the box.

And so we need to develop creative, imaginative thinking. I think of it as spiritual imagination.

Spiritual imagination lets us receive ideas that are not already bound by rules that are no longer serving us.

And we can only develop spiritual imagination by doing things that seem silly to linear thinking.

When on silent retreats, I often spend hours and days gazing at the clouds. At first I will only see cotton candy, cotton balls and pillows. But in a day or so, I start to see lions, and dragons, forests. Eventually, when I'm also well rested, I'll start to see entire scenes from the bible, or something I dreamed about while sleeping. Then I know that my spiritual imagination has fully awakened and I'm ready to start receiving what God is trying to tell me.

During Lent, I will often take up a creative practice, to try to awaken my spiritual imagination.

Something I might invite folks to do as Trinity is trying to discern what it is God really wants of us as we struggle with resources and the future of our ministry, is to engage in a playful creative practice, and while you do that intentionally pray for Trinity. Ask God what God's will is for Trinity. Ask God what God's will is for you at Trinity.

I will be trying to engage is some reportage, urban sketching to capture activities around Trinity. Don't be surprised to see me scribbling in a sketchbook at meetings and gatherings. But it will be done with prayerful intent as we attempt to discern what it is God wants for us here at Trinity in the coming years.

May God be with us in our Lenten Days
May our relationship with God deepen
May we receive promise and blessing our our Journey.
Amen.

Imposing of the Ashes (tattoo)
I invite you to prepare your tattoo.
Remove the plastic cover.
Wipe the area where you would like to place your cross.
Put the tattoo face down on your skin.
Hold the damp cloth on it for a minute.

And we pray:

Bless, O God these [crosses] and those who receive them.
Let them be for us a reminder of our mortality, 
a call to sincere [reflection], 
and a testimony to your abundant [generosity]
in Jesus Christ. Amen.*

*Feasting on the Word liturgies for Year B vol 1, p91 ff [adapted]

Slowly peal back the card from the tattoo. It should remain in place.

Hymn: “Dust and Ashes Touch Our Face” VU 105    CLICK HERE

Prayers of the People/Disciples’ Prayer:

In peace let us pray to the Lord, saying, Lord have mercy.

For the church throughout the word, that all who bear the name of Christ may find true repentance for their sins and walk in the way of peace, 
let us pray to the Lord,
Lord have mercy.

For the nations of the world, wherever there is poverty, war, or oppression of human spirit, that all people may repent of the evil they do to one another, let us pray to the Lord, Lord have mercy.

For the planet Earth, God’s gift to humankind, that we repent of selfish or thoughtless exploitation and tend it with care so that all may share justly in its bounty,
let us pray to the Lord,
Lord have mercy.

For the leaders of the nations, that they may work for the common good of all people and repent of arrogant nationalism, 
let us pray to the Lord,
Lord have mercy.

For our enemies, that we may learn to love them with regard for God’s compassion, forgiving wrongs and seeking reconciliation, 
let us pray to the Lord,
Lord have mercy.

For those who are sick or in trouble, for the defenseless, the weak, and the poor, that they may find help in time of need, and that the church may heed their cry, 
let us pray to the Lord,
Lord have mercy.

Loving God, hear the prayers of your people for the sake of our world.
With our prayers, accept the dedication of our lives that we may minister to the world in the name of Jesus, through whom we pray…*

*Feasting on the Word liturgies for Year C vol 1, p99

And now we turn to you as a child turns to hear mother seeking affirmation and comfort, praying the words Jesus taught us:

“Our father, who art in Heaven…”
[throughout Lent we will speak the traditional Disciples’ Prayer]

Hymn: “Jesus Christ Is Waiting” VU 117    CLICK HERE 

Blessing

Postlude