Ash Wednesday At Home Worship...

This is a long post, but you have two options going through it, one for families with younger children, and one for adults. May you feel God's presence and forgiveness as you celebrate Ash Wednesday together.

Light a candle if you wish, or gather together around an open Bible or a cup and plate…or any combination of the above. If you’ve been home for a couple days with kids, let them decide and prepare the “worship space.”

Opening prayer:

Gracious God, your steadfast love endures forever. We gather in penitence. We gather in confidence. We trust that we belong to you. Restore us, O God, to the abundant life of trust and gratitude that enables us to serve our neighbor and proclaim the truth that your love and forgiveness will never fail. Amen.

Scripture readings: (If your children are very young, just read the Psalm.)
Isaiah 58:1-12, Psalm 51: 1-17

You can read the scriptures one at a time, then pause and talk about what they mean and use that as your meditation, OR you can read the brief meditation that follows the focus points.

Scripture focus:

• We find in Isaiah the expectation that Israel had that if they “worshipped perfectly” they could get God’s attention regardless of how they lived their lives. God’s prophet, Isaiah, reminded the people that God’s first priority is how God’s people care for others. Worship must be done in a context of serving and respecting others. 
• Psalm 51 explores the “penitent” heart. (Teach your children the word “penitent.” Humility and the recognition that we are not perfect allows God to work in us. This expresses itself in our ability to say “I’m sorry” when we are wrong and to listen carefully and respectfully to others’ point of view. We may not be as right as we think we are.) 

Meditation:

Imagine the following conversations:

“Honey, I know I shouldn’t have had an affair, but I was doing the best I could at the time. So, I wasn’t technically wrong to break our marriage vows."

“He hit me first as I was getting off the swing. So I hit him back. I can’t be in trouble if I didn't start it."

We are Christians. Clearly, therefore, God is on our side and so whatever decision we make will be the right decision.

Do they make you squirm just a bit? I remember squirming decades ago when a story of congregants refusing entrance to blacks was recounted as a justified protection to keep the congregation intact. After all, if blacks had been allowed in the doors, the congregation might have split.

The 1960’s show MASH is available on Netflix and I loved it when it was on. Decided to pull it up and watch some episodes. By the second episode, I was squirming at the rampant sexism. Did we really do that? Why didn’t someone say something?

Could it be, perhaps, because we didn’t want to admit we might be wrong? Could it be that we invested a lot in ignoring the fact that we are not perfect and make mistakes. Could it be that we hate with every fiber of our being to admit we are a sinful people. We cannot escape it, we cannot eliminate it, and often we cannot even see that we are doing it.

Our holy scripture is unique in its “self-critical” tradition. One-third of the Old Testament is prophetic writing, the prophets of Israel criticizing the behaviors of the people and institutions of Israel. Richard Rohr states it pretty bluntly in his daily devotional reading on Tuesday:

The biblical tradition hopes to reveal that whenever the prophetic function is lacking in any group or religion such a group will very soon be self-serving, self-maintaining, self- perpetuating and self-promoting. When the prophets are kicked out of any group, it’s a very short time until that group is circling the wagons around itself, and all sense of mission and message is lost.

We are never right or perfect or sinless all the time. Our refusal to be wrong puts us in the same boat as those condemned by Isaiah or those whose proud hearts are hardened against God’s love. In recent weeks we have justified the Crusades, the Inquisition, and Jim Crowe by saying we were doing the best we knew how to do at the time, therefore we were not wrong or sinful. That made me squirm.

Nowhere in scripture does God allow the justification of sin with “but if you were doing the best you knew how at the time…then you are fine.” Instead, God reminds us again and again with prophetic voices that we are sinful creatures.

This culture resists any admission of guilt, weakness, or being wrong. Contrast that with the joy of a “heart that is broken and crushed” in Psalm 51. The biblical “heart” is the center of emotions, understanding, and wisdom. It also represents the idea of commitment to a particular course of action and the discernment of good and evil. A broken and crushed heart is one that is open to God’s way and willing to obey God’s command. A hard heart is the refusal to admit any fault, any other way than one’s own, any concern beyond one’s self interest.

Who are we on this Ash Wednesday…and every other day of our human lives? We are sinful people. The Psalmist says, “Because I know my wrongdoings, my sin is always right in front of me. I’ve sinned against you—you alone. I’ve committed evil in your sight. That’s why you are justified when you render your verdict, completely correct when you issue your judgement.”

The broken and crushed heart is ready to be cleaned…a heart cleansed by God is one that steps closer to understanding what is good and acting to bring about that goodness.

If we buy the culture’s insistence that we are never wrong, that our opinion is our opinion, that we do the best we can at any given moment and cannot be judged for that--then living as a penitent people will certainly make us squirm. But squirmy or not, we are called to repentance. Participating in this ritual of imposition of ashes reminds us again of that we are sinful, human beings. It also reminds us that God is God and God’s steadfast love for us and all creation endures forever. Amen.

Litany of Penitence #1  (for families worshipping with younger children)

Holy and merciful God, we confess we have sinned.
We do the wrong things for the wrong reasons or we don’t do what we know we should do.
You love your creation. You created human beings and said that your creation was good.
We decide who is good and who is bad. We don’t like people because they look or act different than we do. We want our own mistakes to be forgiven, but we don’t want to forgive other people when they do bad things.
You ask us to be obedient disciples, loving you and our neighbor
We don’t always like to be obedient, especially when it is hard or makes us different than our friends. We too often prefer to spend time doing things that we like to do instead of serving others.
Forgive us, O God, for all the things we do wrong. Have mercy on us according to your steadfast love.
Clean up our hearts, O God. Bring us joy in obeying and serving you.
Amen.

Litany of Penitence #2  (for adults)
Holy and merciful God, we confess to you and to one another, and to the whole
communion of saints in heaven and on earth, that we have sinned by our own fault in
thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone.
We have not loved you with our whole heart, and mind, and strength. We have not
loved our neighbors as ourselves. Have mercy on us, O God.
Creator God, you love your creation and creatures; you made us all one and pronounced
us “good.”
Yet, we judge one another as “bad.” We permit where we were born to divide us
from each other. We separate ourselves by color, gender, economic status, or faith
and call it right and good. We refuse to see our own faults while finding every fault
in others. Have mercy on us, O God.
Forgive us Lord as we pretend not to understand our call to journey with you through the
cross and beyond.
We are reluctant to journey with Christ for we do not want to suffer. We are not
eager to re-live the pain and agony Christ faced on our behalf or even because of
our behavior. We do not want to identify with Christ’s suffering or our human
limitations. Have mercy on us, O God.
We cry “My God, my God, why have you forsaken us?" when it is we who have walked
away from you.
We are frustrated with our slow decline, with your apparent absence, with the
sense that nothing we try works to bring people to you. Forgive our shallow
attention to your ways. Forgive our inability to be obedient disciples when things
don’t go well. Have mercy on us, O God.Have mercy on us, God, according to your steadfast love.
Wipe away our wrongdoings according to your great mercy.
Restore the joy of your salvation to us and sustain us with your willing spirit.
Create a clean heart for us, God. Put a new, faithful spirit deep inside us. Amen.


MAKE THE SIGN OF THE CROSS IN OIL ON YOUR FOREHEADS OR OBSERVE A MOMENT OF SILENT CONFESSION
Say the Lord’s Prayer together.

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen.

Charge and Benediction:
May the God of peace make you holy in every way and keep your whole being— spirit, soul, and body— free from every fault at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Thess. 5:23)
Amen
Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.
Thanks be to God.