Author: ppadmin

     Call to worship
The season of Lent is upon us. Listen for your instructions!

Now is the time to flee Pharaoh’s national security state for the insecurity of the wilderness.

Now is the time to listen for the Word whose hearing bypasses the ears of princes and high priests but is heard only in the wilderness.

Oh people of Promise, let your eyes arise to the
hills above the hollows, where a cleft is prepared
and your sustenance is proffered.

God will not let your foot be moved. Heaven’s
Sheltering Wing neither sleeps nor slumbers.

The MercyFull One is your keeper. The tree
of righteousness towers above you.

Kyrie eleison.

Lord have mercy.

Jesus said: “The one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.”*

By wind’s pillar of cloud, by flame’s column of fire, do we live and move toward journey’s unseen home.

We are coming from slavery, yet with bones grown accustomed to imperial protection.

Whose memory shall we privilege; whose purpose confirm?

In that region there were shepherds, keeping watch over their flock by night.

Keeping watch. In darkest night.

Then an angel stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around, and they were terrified.

Narrator: Shortly before he turned toward Jerusalem, where he knew a confrontation would erupt, Jesus told his disciples, “If you want to become my followers, deny yourself and take up your cross and follow me.”

First voice: Is it OK if I’m just a believer and not a follower?

Second voice: Such negativity! Why didn’t Jesus accentuate the positive?

Into this House of Memory we gather with our young to bless them on their way. As with the Israelites, it is a journey of many stages. Hear these instructions, sons and daughters of promise:

The road to Freedom lies outside the border and bond of empire.

The escape begins in the shivering dark of urgent haste, creeping past sentries, no bounty for provision, no destination save that spoken by the wind. And you will have cause to ask:

As he came near and saw Jerusalem, Jesus wept.

As do we.

When he comes near Washington, and Ferguson, and Asheville, Jesus weeps.

Happy are those who walk in the Way of Beauty, harnessed in the Bridle of Mercy and according to the Weal of Justice.

In this Law I delight! May it rule soul and soil and society alike.

From Creation’s Promise to Redemption’s Assurance, may Your Faithful Word leap from our lips and exclaim with our limbs.

In the year now ending, many have passed from this mortal life: most, whose names we do not know; some, whose lives we admired; a few, who were dearly beloved. With the calendar’s turn we also recall hopes and dreams that have frayed and failed. Some will be forgotten entirely; some will linger with regret for a season; but some still threaten to unravel us.

Hear, Oh Promise of Bethlehem, the aches that bind our hearts and smother our dreams.

With the Magi, we set our sights on distant lights that lead to virgin hope.