Bulletin – Sunday, March 17, 2024 – Fifth Sunday in Lent

Sunday, March 17, 2024
Fifth Sunday in Lent

We Gather as People of Faith

Welcome

Announcements

Call to Worship

One:   When faith is lifted high and we move firmly in your love…
All:      you will be our God and we will be your people.

One:   When the pilgrimage is long and all our paths seem to lead to pain…
All:      you will be our God and we will be your people.

One:   When the way ahead is clear and we are surrounded by faithful community
All:      you will be our God and we will be your people.

One:   When the young diminish in number and the old grow feeble in mind and spirit…
All:      you will be our God and we will be your people.

One:   Gather us, know us, teach, lead us, write your name on our hearts so always…
All:      you will be our God and we will be your people. Let it be so.

Hymn – “I Am the Dream” (MV #106)

I am the dream and you the dreamer.
I am the song and you are the rhyme.
You are the tune sung in ev’ry silence.
You are the now in the endless stream of time.

I am the bell and you the silence.
You are the yearning I cannot curtail.
I am the blest and you the blessing.
You are the wilds in which I lose my trail.

You are the word and I the echo.
You are the leader and I am the led.
You are the joy and I the laughter.
You are the Rock on which I lay my head.

Candle Liturgy

One:   When we arrived this morning we entered into the normal bustle of a church on a Sunday morning: friends greeting each other, choir members getting ready for service, people bringing their energy and enthusiasm – weariness and stress. Now that we are sitting together in the pews, I invite you to close your eyes…and consider the word, “sanctuary.” A sanctuary is a place set aside for sacred things. It is a place of refuge and protection. This room is a sanctuary. The season of Lent is a kind of sanctuary, extended in time. And one of the things Lent teaches is that you, too, are a sanctuary. There is inside you a place for sacred things, a place where God abides.

(Silent Time)

One:   As we extinguish this light, we acknowledge the darkness and pain of was and oppression in the world.

(A candle is extinguished)

One:   Let us pray:
All:      Loving God, we open our hearts to you. We invite you into our inmost being, only to find you already there. Strengthen us in our quiet places and then lead us into the work of justice and peace. Amen.

Prayer of Approach and Confession

One:   God’s call comes down to us through the ages.
All:      God’s call is being written on our hearts.

One:   God’s call is constantly renewed.
All:      God’s law is being written on our hearts.

One:   God’s call is old but ever new.
All:      God’s love is being written in our hearts.

One:   God calls us to prayer; let us pray. Compassionate God, at times our hearts are empty. We expend all of our attention at work, at school, at church, in community until we have nothing left to give and our inner beings feel like vacant shells. Create in us a new heart, O God.

One:   Forgiving God, at times our hearts burn with resentment. Life has been unfair and we rehearse the dealings of our past until forgiveness of ourselves and others is nearly impossible. Create in us a new heart, O God.

One:   Faithful God, at times our hearts are paralyzed with fear. We wonder: Where is the safe and familiar? How will we move forward? What are we to do? Create in us a new heart, O God.

Words of Assurance

You can be assured that God longs to place truth in our inner beings; to make our hearts beat with the love, compassion, and justice of God’s own heart. With the dawning of each new day God creates newness with out and within and our spirits are restored with the joy of saving grace. “You are my sacred one,” is written on our hearts…live now with and in this truth. Amen.

Sung Response – “How Deep the Peace” (MV #95)

How deep the peace, the confidence, of those whose wrongs are forgiven.
How deep the peace, the confidence, of those whose hearts are healed.

We Hear God’s Word

Prayer for Illumination

Scripture is our song for the journey, the living word passed on from generation to generation to guide and inspire, that we might receive a holy revelation for our time and place from the human experiences and cultural assumptions of another era. God calls us to be doers of the word and not hearers only.

Hymn – “Lord, Prepare Me to be a Sanctuary” (MV #18)

Lord, prepare me to be a sanctuary,
Pure and holy, tried and true;
With thanksgiving, I’ll be a living sanctuary for you.

Scripture Reading:        Psalm 51

One:   Have mercy on me, O God, in your great kindness,
All:      in the fullness of your mercy blot out my offences.

One:   Wash away all my guilt, and cleanse me from my sin.
All:      For I acknowledge my faults, and my sin is always before me.
Sung Response:    In the abundance of your compassion, was my sins away.

One:   Put a new heart in me, O God,
All:      and give me again a constant spirit.

One:   Do not cast me away from your presence,
All:      do not take your holy spirit from me.

One:   Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and strengthen me with a willing spirit.
All:      Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you.

One:   O God, open my lips,
All:      and my mouth shall proclaim your praise.
Sung Response:    In the abundance of your compassion, was my sins away.

One:   You desire no sacrifice, or I would give it;
All:      you take no delight in burnt offerings.

One:   The sacrifice you accept, O God, is a broken spirit;
All:      a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
Sung Response:    In the abundance of your compassion, was my sins away.

Scripture Reading:         Jeremiah 31:31-34

³¹ The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. ³² It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. ³³ But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. ³⁴ No longer shall they teach one another or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more.

Hear what the Spirit is saying to the Church
Thanks be to God!

Meditation – “Written on My Heart”

Anthem – “On Christ I Stand”

My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness,
I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus name.

On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand,
A higher plane than I have found,
On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand.

When darkness seems to hide His face, I rest on His unchanging grace,
In every high and stormy gale, my anchor holds within the veil.

On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand,
A higher plane than I have found,
On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand.

When He shall come with trumpet sound, O may I then in Him be found!
Dressed in His righteousness alone, faultless to stand before the throne.

On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand,
A higher plane than I have found,
On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand.

I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly lean on Jesus’ name.

We Respond to God’s Word

An Invitation to Share

God calls us to be the church. God calls us to serve…offering our time, attention, love, compassion, and justice. Let us now gather and offer what we can when God calls to us to provide for the needs of others.

Offering Response – “These Lenten Gifts We Bring”

These Lenten gifts we bring,
Our living faith expressed,
We offer them, most lovingly,
And thus our hearts are blessed.

O loving God receive
These gifts we gladly give,
That show our faith and hope and trust;
Your way we seek to live.

Offering Prayer

One:   The news and events in the world these days call us to wonder about the effectiveness of our gifts. Will our worship speak to the needs of the coming generation? Will reconciliation arise out of conflict? Will we move from self-interest to concern for others? Will we see the faith community as a priority for ourselves and for our neighbourhood? Will we move to address the needs of a troubled world? Time will tell, but we are committed to keeping the cross before us and God’s law of Love in our hearts.
All:      Let our offerings be a symbol and measure of what we can achieve when you are in our hearts, O God. Amen.

Prayers of the People

One:   God who dwells among us.
All:      God who dwells within us.

One:   God who calls us to dwell together. Bless us now as we gather our thoughts in prayer. Creator God, we pray for your church, the church of Jesus the Christ. May our life as your Holy People always be marked by faithful testimony in both word and deed. Like Jesus, may we be known as people of prayer and service, truth and love, mercy and help—especially to those in need—those the world rejects—those we might turn away from ourselves.

One:   We pray for people all over the world who long to see your face and do not know how to find you. May they see You in us and us in You, through the loving care you call us to show. We pray for victims of neglect and of oppression, for those mocked and scorned, for those overlooked by the rest of the world.

One:   We pray for those throughout the world who are innocent victims of war, violence, oppression and corrupt politics. We specially acknowledge Ukraine, Russia, Israel, Gaza, and Palestine. May we find the faith the believe they are precious in your sight and may their needs be met according to the abundance of your grace.

One:   We pray for our families and for our neighbours and for all those whom you have placed upon our hearts today—those who grieve and those who rejoice—those who struggle with conflict in their families and those who celebrate new birth—those who need work and those who need a special healing or a sense of peace to overcome them. Hear now the prayers of thanksgiving and intercession we make for those we name aloud or hold silent in our hearts…

One:   Loving God, do not let our hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. Rather fill our lives in deeds of devotion and service and help us to follow the way of Jesus with joy and peace—knowing that in Him, we live, move, and have our being now and forevermore. Amen.

We Go Into God’s World

Hymn – “Spirit of God, Descend Upon My Heart” (VU #378)

Spirit of God, descend upon my heart;
Wean it from earth, through all its pulses move;
Stoop to my weakness, strength to me impart,
And make me love you as I ought to love.

I ask no dream, no prophet ecstacies,
No sudden rending, of the veil of clay,
No angel visitant, no opening skies,
But take the dimness of my soul away.

Have you not bid me love you, God and King;
All, all your own, soul, heart, and strength and mind?
I see your cross: there teach my heart to cling.
O let me seek you and O let me find!

Teach me to love you as your angels love,
One holy passion filling all my frame,
The baptism of the heaven descended dove,
My heart an altar and your love the flame.

Benediction

Let us go into this week trusting in the grace of God. Go and listen for God speaking in every heartbeat. Go knowing that God’s Law of Love is written on your hearts. Go hearing God declare that…only a heartbeat away is resurrection and renewal. May the power of God strengthen you, the hands of God protect you. May the way of God guide us all this day and every day. Go now in Peace. Amen.

Response – “From This Place of Prayer and Praising”

From this place of prayer and praising,
Cross and table, well-worn pews,
God, we leave to work and witness,
Living every day for you.

Bless us on our Lenten journey,
Loving Parent, Holy Friend;
Spirit, guide your people onward
Till once more we meet again.