Enwombed One
Service Prayers for the Fourth Sunday of Advent
December 19, 2021

Call to Worship
Enwombed one! Dependent one!
Triumphant one! Mighty one!
Toppling-expectations-one! 
Magnified one! Satisfying-with-Justice one!
We are hungry for you. 
Fill us with your good things.

Prayer of Confession (Based on Psalm 80:1-7)
Our God, restore us. 
Show us your true face and save us.

We make enemies of the weak and poor
And leave them to fend for themselves.
You were poor. 
Show us your true face and save us.

As a country we have not kept up.
We are rightly mocked for our outlandish disparities.
You knew how it was to be treated Less Than. 
Show us your true face and save us.

We are caught in a cycle, not understanding mercy.
Even our prayers are vengeful.
You taught us to pray. 
Show us your true face and save us.

Assurance of Pardon
Here is our hope and our challenge:
Christ is among us. Christ is incarcerated. Christ is hospitalized. 
Christ is malnourished and inadequately clothed. 
Christ is on Food Stamps. Christ is disabled. Christ is abused. 
Christ is a young, black man with a taillight out. 
Christ is transgender. 
Christ is playing with a toy gun. 
Christ cannot afford medicine. 
If we have courage to seek, we may yet find him. 

Call to Offering
Jesus’s cousin John leaped in his mother Elizabeth’s womb,
Filled with joy at the mere nearness of God Incarnate.
How much more joyfully should we, fully embodied and fully aware 
Of Christ’s saving life, death, and resurrection,
Accept our calling to be with Christ Incarnate in our midst!
Let our gifts be pledges to live in covenant with our God of Peace. 

Prayer of Dedication
Emmanuel: God with us…
God, take these gifts and
with us create a new world:
Where we allow the “them” to become the “us”
The “those” to become the “us”
The “really?” to become the “really us!”
We are one body and always must be. Amen.

Benediction
Enwombed one! Dependent one!
Triumphant one! Mighty one!
Toppling-expectations-one! 
Send us forth in love 
to bear your hope, peace, joy and  justice into the world.

Enwombed One: Service Prayers for the Fourth Sunday of Advent was written by Stephanie Dorsey, chaplain resident at York Hospital in York, PA

Copyright 2021 Faith INFO Team, United Church of Christ, 700 Prospect Avenue, Cleveland, OH  44115-1100.  Permission granted to reproduce or adapt this material for use in services of worship or church education.  All publishing rights reserved.