Prayer as We Gather: God of creation’s abundance, may this holy hour be our Gilgal moment, recounting the place you proclaimed to faith forebear Joshua “Today I have rolled away from my people the disgrace of Egypt.” Grant us relief from the stubborn legacy of guilty disgrace over our own past bondage, as we recall how on the very day your people first celebrated with food produced in the Promised Land, free manna from heaven ceased. Help us embrace the hard work spiritual freedom demands. Amen.*(Mitchell Simpson, inspired by Joshua 5)
Call to Worship:
The one whose wrongdoing is forgiven is truly happy!
The one in whose spirit there is no dishonesty is truly happy!
Lord, when I kept quiet I was groaning all day long,
Because your hand was heavy upon me.
So I admitted my sin to you; I didn’t conceal my guilt.
Then you removed the guilt of my sin.
You are my secret hideout!
You protect me from trouble.
The pain of the wicked is severe,
But faithful love surrounds the one who trusts the Lord. (from Psalm 32, The Common English Bible)
Morning Prayer: Lord, as we embrace apostle Paul’s call to be ambassadors for Jesus, help us live into the full implications of being ”an official messenger on some special errand, representing the highest qualities of her group.” How sobering to realize you would risk negotiating with the world through us, drawing all people together by Jesus’ example of not counting their sins against them. How staggering that Jesus would trust us with this ministry of reconciliation, inviting us from this point on not to recognize people by human standards. In our daily walk, grant that others would sense in us the presence of the reconciling Galilean who taught us to pray, saying … *(Mitchell Simpson, inspired by 2 Corinthians 5)
Prayer of Confession: Lord, forgive our chronic misapplying of Jesus’ trenchant short stories, none more so than the moving account of a loving father’s compassion we have clumsily reduced to a tale of “the prodigal son.” Ignoring the heart-breaking image of God as an elderly parent eager to offer unconditional love to a wandering child, we have too often seen ourselves as the naughty-but-darling younger sibling, longing as we all secretly do for a party to be thrown on our behalf in spite of our chronic, willful mischief. In our eagerness to cut the older child some slack for his disgust over the spoiled brat’s return, we have refused to see ourselves mirrored in his petulant jealousy, the familiar role we so easily assume in our daily lives of envy and sullen pouting over others’ good fortune. Have mercy on our stubborn refusal to enjoy other people’s victories and forgive their failings. Amen.* (Mitchell Simpson, inspired by Luke 15)
Assurance of Pardon: Hear the good news: God is the same loving, patient, forgiving parent as when Jesus crafted this multi-layered parable. Even when we throw our little jealous hissy fits over some perceived grace extended toward some perceived enemy we’d just as soon see dead, God’s rejoinder remains constant: “Child, you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad because this child was lost and is found.” Thanks be to God for grace so profound it still startles a hurting and cynical world, compassion so unbounded it would transform every community of faith on the planet if only we dared practice it. *(Mitchell Simpson, inspired by Luke 15)
Thought for a Lenten Sabbath: “Lent is a season when we seek to become like the son who has always obeyed his father. When this happens, we must recognize ourselves as scribes and Pharisees who resent Jesus’ welcoming attitude toward those who are not as good as they are.” - Justo Gonzalez, professor emeritus, Candler School of Theology