Let Go the Former Things 
Service Prayers for New Year’s Day
January 1, 2022

Ecclesiastes 3:1-13  •  Psalm 8  •  Revelation 21:1-6a  •  Matthew 25:31-46

Call to Worship 
Friends, rejoice! Know that you are beloved, and precious to God!
For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all!

The hungry of the cities, the small towns, the countryside 
throughout  the United States, are precious to God: 
For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all!

The sick, especially those that continue to be stricken with COVID-19, 
are precious to God:
For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all!

Prisoners, especially those incarcerated in the United States, are precious to God:
For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all!

Time is precious to God:
May our worship on this New Year’s Day sow seeds of justice in this world, 
so that all who are precious to God may reap God’s blessings upon them.

Invocation  
	O God, who makes all things new, 
You promise that the former things will pass away.
And so we call on you in this New Year: 
Exile hunger, and starve the greed that feeds economic inequality,
Deport vengeance, and transform the institutionalized violence of prisons,
Silence lies, and expose the power structures they uphold,
Ambush hatred, and change the hearts 
of those who profit from turning us against one another,
Declare wars over, and delight us in ways to share resources, 
Interrupt silence, and dismantle the privilege it justifies,
Overcome death, and heal the neglect that has led to too much of it,
Let all of these former things pass away,
And in the fertile soil of what is left behind in their passing,
Let us sow compassion, and reap justice.   Amen.

Confession 
A New Year brings with it a measure of hope.
We want what was dreadful in the previous year to be justified, 
somehow, by the following one.
Yet, we enter 2022 knowing that 2021 and 2020 before it 
have in many ways left a legacy
of hatred, and confusion, and injustice in our midst.
The dread may seem unending.
Take a moment to Lament this time. 

(a minute of silence; or an invitation to the congregation to name their laments) 

Now allow yourselves to move toward the threshold of hope. 
That is where you will find God,
who makes ways out of no way,
who formed you from dust,
who formed the universe out of mere void.
Pause here and reflect on the future God has promised for us all,
where every tear will be wiped away.

(a minute of silence; or an invitation to the congregation to name their hopes)

Assurance of Grace
Praise be to you, O Christ,
for teaching how to love where there is no love:
“Love your enemies.”
Praise be to you, O Christ,
for teaching how to grieve when there is no time for it:
“Love one another.”
Praise be to you, O Christ,
for teaching us how to live when living is difficult:
“Love your neighbor as yourself.”           Amen.
Offering

Prayer of Dedication
God, accept these gifts and transform them to your purposes:
Use them to feed the hungry, 
clothe and shelter the poor, 
welcome the outcast and alienated.
Use them to dismantle systems which oppress your children, 
and to create the systems that lead to peace.

Benediction
The home of God is here among God’s people. 
Go forth in God’s triune name 
and make this world into the promised New Jerusalem, 
a dwelling place befitting the God who is Love. Amen.

The First Things: Prayers for New Year’s Day was written by Stephanie Dorsey, chaplain resident at York Hospital in York, PA

Copyright 2022 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.