Mender of Broken Walls
Service Prayer for Ash Wednesday
Wednesday, March 2, 2022

Call to Worship

One:	Lift up your voice like a trumpet!
sound the alarms on the mountains. 
All:	We gather to begin again
with fasting, mourning, and hoping.
One:	Take your space, Take deep breaths.
the wilderness is beckoning.
All:	We gather to begin again
Restore to us the joy of your salvation
One:	Create in us clean hearts, O God
	Renew a righteous spirit
All:	We gather to begin again
	The Lenten Journey calls us forth
One:	Dust will praise, crushed bones will rejoice
Let us join the holy noise
All:	We gather to begin again
Help us to build where all seems broken
We must build where all seems broken

-	Joel 2:1, Isaiah 58:1, 12, Psalm 51

INVOCATION
God of the wanderers in the wilderness—
From Hagar to Elijah, and Miriam to Jesus—
you have been with us in our hunger and our thirst, in our doubt and uncertainty. We come to you in this moment of invocation desiring your presence more deeply; yet we know that your presence needs no summoning; you need no invoking for you are already and always with us. Emmanuel in the bleakness. Emmanuel in our iniquities.

So, invoke us, O God. Renew us as we begin this journey of transformation. Restore us as we strive to be our most compassionate selves. Revive us when we feel that all is lost. Help us to mend what has broken, for the sake of justice and mercy as we walk humbly with you. Amen. 

Song	Give Me a Clean Heart		New Century Hymnal #188
INVITATION TO CONFESSION / INVITATION TO CHANGE
For In-person: Have strips of paper and pencils in the pews. You may also hand them out upon entry into the worship space. Have a few basins of water on tables around the worship space or at the front.

For virtual: Ask people to have something to write on and a bowl of water at the top of service. If on zoom, those who feel comfortable can utilize the chat function. However, the physical paper is practical for the exercise.

Reader (optional):

Hear these words of Octavia Butler
“All that you touch
You Change
All that you change
Changes You
The only lasting truth
Is Change
God is Change”

Leader: We come into this moment of confession not from place of self-deprecating shame or as a routine offering up of all the ways we’ve transgressed. We come into this moment not merely seeking forgiveness for the ways we have separated ourselves from God’s vision for our lives. We come into this moment seeking change, making a commitment to transformation and mending what has broken for the sake of communal wholeness and liberation.

On a few pieces of paper, I invite you to write your commitments to transformation during this Lenten journey and beyond. 
-	What are you amending in your life that’ll have a positive effect on you 
            and your communities? 
-	How are you hoping to evolve? 
-	What practice will you pick up that will beckon change in your life? 
-	What habits might you lie down that are counter-evolution?

These are just a few prompts. You can have as many or as few confessions (or commitments to change) as you desire.

Soft instrumental music can be played during this time of reflection.

Leader (In-person):
When you feel ready, you may walk to a basin of water and place your papers in it. We are reminded that following Jesus’ baptism, he was swept into the wilderness for forty days. Let us remember our baptisms or our encounters will the readying power of water. We release our confessions so that we can make space for transformation. 

Leader (Online):
Leader: When you feel ready, you may place your papers in the bowl of water at your home. We are reminded that following Jesus’ baptism, he was swept into the wilderness for forty days. Let us remember our baptisms or our encounters will the readying power of water. We release our confessions so that we can make space for transformation. 

WORDS OF ASSURANCE
God’s grace and mercy abounds.
God is with us in the change.
God’s everlasting arms embrace us. 
Each of us is beloved, affirmed, and forgiven.

SONG		Out the Depths, O God, We Call 		New Century Hymnal #554

REFLECTION ON ASHES (Lay or Clergy)
It has been two years since our lives changed. Octavia Butler said, “God is change”, yet the change we’ve experienced doesn’t always seem godly. we come into this building that is less full than it was two years ago and run our fingers across the surfaces. particles of dust meet our fingertips, and we are reminded, ever so slightly, that something has been happening in our absence. There has been movement in our absence. There has been organization and, perhaps, life, in our absence. In the silencing of our human sounds and the stilling our human motions, has the dust found a way to praise God? 

If the rocks can cry out and the seas can roar—if floods can clap their hands and the hills can sing together with joy—surely this dust has something to tell us about God’s creation at work. Surely, the dust can be proof of the transformational possibilities at hand. If we, too, are dust, there is transformational possibilities within us all. In this moment of imposition, let us not only make acquaintance with our mortality; let us, like dust, come alive and awaken to the ever-constant change that shapes us.

MARKING WITH ASHES
All are invited to come forward to receive ashes on their foreheads or hands; the leaders say to each:
	Remember that you are God’s beloved dust, 
and to God’s beloved dust you shall return.

OFFERING
Leader: As recipients of the generosity of God, 
let us share our generosity with each other and the community.

PRAYER OF DEDICATION

One:	For the wondrous ways this offering will bless this community and the world, 
All:	We dedicate these gifts. 
One: 	For the ways it’ll help us nurture caring relationships with our neighbors
All:	We dedicate these gifts.
Let this offering, and the works of our hands and feet, help us build where all seems broken. Amen. 

BENEDICTION
Leader:
May God be with us in our fasting, mourning, and hoping.
May there be restoration of joy, cleansing of heart, and renewing of spirit.
May breaches be repaired. May broken walls be mended.
May we, like dust, awaken to the ever-constant change that shapes us.
Let us go forth and build where all seems broken. 

MUSIC SUGGESTIONS FOR ASH WEDNESDAY WORSHIP SERVICE:

O God, Who Teaches Us to Live		New Century Hymnal #359
Give Me a Clean Heart			New Century Hymnal #188
Out the Depths, O God, We Call 		New Century Hymnal #554

Service Prayers for Lent-Ash Wednesday March 2, 2022 Year C was written by Rev. Mia M. McClain, the Associate Minister at Myers Park Baptist Church in Charlotte, NC and a member of the Southern Conference UCC.