LENT
Lent is a season of self-examination, reflection and preparation for the celebration of Jesus’ resurrection on Easter. Though it is an ancient tradition, it powerfully speaks to our modern condition because it calls us not to observe a ritual, but to engage in renewal. As theologian Robert Webber puts it, “We too easily forget our Maker and Redeemer, replacing God with things and ambition. Lent is the season that...calls us back to God, back to basics, back to the spiritual realities of life. It calls us to put to death the sin and the indifference we have in our hearts toward God and our fellow persons. And it beckons us to enter once again into the joy of the Lord–the joy of a new life born out of a death to the old life.”

REFLECTION

To me, there is actually great hope in Ash Wednesday, a great hope in admitting my mortality and my brokenness because then I finally lay aside my sin management program long enough to allow God to be God for me.  Which is all any of us really need when it comes down to it.

And this God of which I speak is nothing if not a God of hope and promise.  Here’s the image I have of Ash Wednesday: If our lives were a long piece of fabric with our baptism on one end and our funeral on another, and us not knowing what the distance is between the two, well then Ash Wednesday is a time when that fabric is pinched in the middle and then held up so that our baptism in the past and our funeral in the future meet. With these ashes, it is as though the water and words from our baptism plus the earth and words from our funerals have come from the future to meet us here today.   And in that meeting, we are reminded of the promises of God. Promises, which outlast our piety, outlast our efforts in self-improvement; outlast our earthly bodies and the limits of time.

— Nadia Bolz-Weber

Christ’s love sees us with terrible clarity and sees us whole. Christ’s love so wishes our joy that it is ruthless against everything in us that diminishes our joy.

— Frederich Buechner

COLLECT
Mystery of Goodness,
by whose gaze we are called into being and held in life:
 teach us the secrecy of prayer which seeks no reward;
 the generosity of love which forgets itself;
 the gift of a treasure uncountable and unconsumed;
 through Jesus Christ, the Son of the Wilderness. Amen.

PRELUDE

GREETING
Rev. Fred Harrell (he/him), Worship Leader

Leader: The Lord be with you.    

ALL: And also with you.

PREPARATION

CALL TO WORSHIP
from Psalm 42:5; 124:8, NRSV

Our help is in the name of the LORD,

the Maker of heaven and earth.

Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? 

Hope in God; for I shall again praise my Deliverer, my help and my God.

PRAISE

SONG

Be Still
Psalm 46:10 · Karl Digerness, 2017

SILENT PRAYER AND MEDITATION

VIDEO

Earthen Vessels

SONG

Shepherd Me, O God
Mary Haugen, 1986

LESSON ONE
Rev. Melisa Blankenship (she/her) - Reader
Isaiah 58:1-12, NRSV

Shout out, do not hold back! Lift up your voice like a trumpet! Announce to my people their rebellion, to the house of Jacob their sins. Yet day after day they seek me and delight to know my ways, as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness and did not forsake the ordinance of their God; they ask of me righteous judgments, they delight to draw near to God.

“Why do we fast, but you do not see? Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?” Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day, and oppress all your workers. Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to strike with a wicked fist. Such fasting as you do today will not make your voice heard on high. Is such the fast that I choose, a day to humble oneself? Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush, and to lie in sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord? Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?

Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am. If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday. The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail. Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.

The Word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God

SONG

All the Poor and Powerless
Leslie Jorden, David Leonard, 2010

LESSON TWO
Graham Dahl - Reader
Luke 9: 51-62, NRSV

When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers ahead of him. On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him; but they did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. When his disciples James and John saw it, they said, “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” But he turned and rebuked them. Then they went on to another village.

As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” But Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus said to him, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

The Word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God

LENTEN MEDITATION
Rev. Fred Harrell (he/him)

OFFERING OURSELVES & OUR GIFTS

The offering is a way for Christians to support the mission and ministry of the church. Christians offer a sacrificial portion of their resources–time, talents, possessions–as an act of faith and gratitude in response to God’s grace. While many at City Church make their regular contributions through online giving and automated bill pay, offerings are a part of our worship service as an opportunity for the regular, proportionate and generous giving of the resources God has given us.

GIVE HERE

OFFERING PRAYER

God of extravagant mercy, with hands outstretched you have poured out wonder and pleasure and delight, goodness and beauty and bounty. So take these offerings, we pray, as our protest against all that is evil and ugly and impoverished, trivial and wretched and tyrannical, in San Francisco, our world and in ourselves, that all may know the healing of your new kingdom. Amen.

MUSICAL OFFERING

The Longest Night
by Mark Orton

INVITATION TO THE OBSERVANCE OF THE LENTEN DISCIPLINE

Siblings in Christ:
 Every year at Easter we celebrate with joy our redemption and renewal
 through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
 The season of Lent is a time to prepare for this celebration
 and to make room in our lives for the Spirit of God to renew us in this mystery. We begin this holy season by acknowledging our need for repentance
 and our need for the love and forgiveness shown to us in Jesus Christ.
 I invite you, therefore, in the name of Christ, to observe this season of Lent,
 by self-examination and penitence,
 by prayer and fasting,
 by practicing works of love,
 and by reading and reflecting on God's Holy Word.

SILENT REFLECTION

PRAYER OF CONFESSION
Psalm 51:1-4, 6, 9-12, NRSV

Song

Mercy Refrain
John Arndt, David Gungor, 2014

Have mercy on me, O God, 
according to your steadfast love; 
according to your abundant mercy 
blot out my transgressions. 

Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, 
and cleanse me from my sin.

For I know my transgressions, 
and my sin is ever before me. 

Against you, you alone, have I sinned, 
and done what is evil in your sight, 
so that you are justified in your sentence 
and blameless when you pass judgment.

Mercy Refrain

You desire truth in the inward being; 
therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart. 

Hide your face from my sins, 
and blot out all my iniquities. 
Create in me a clean heart, O God, 
and put a new and right spirit within me. 

Do not cast me from your presence, 
and do not take your holy spirit from me.

Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and sustain in me a willing spirit.

Mercy Refrain

SILENT CONFESSION

PRAYER

Almighty God, you have created us out of the dust of the earth: May these ashes be a sign of our mortality and penitence. Help us always remember that it is only by your gracious gift that we are given everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.

IMPOSITION OF ASHES
Genesis 3:19

By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

Song

Jesus, I Come to Thee
William Sleeper, 1887 · Greg Thompson, 2000

ASSURANCE OF PARDON
1 Peter 2:24, NRSV

Jesus bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that we, free from sins, might live for righteousness; by his wounds we have been healed. Know that you are forgiven, and be at peace.

Thanks be to God!

PASSING THE PEACE

The peace of Christ be with you all.

And also with you.

SONG OF ASSURANCE

Psalm 126
Isaac Wardell, 2013

CONCLUDING PRAYER

Gracious God, out of your love and mercy you breathed into dust the breath of life, creating us to serve you and our neighbors. In this season of repentance, restore to us the joy of our salvation and strengthen us to face our mortality, that we may reach with confidence for your mercy, in Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

Amen.

BENEDICTION

May God the Creator, who does not despise the broken spirit, give you a contrite heart. May Christ, who bore our sins in his body on the tree, heal you by his wounds. May the Holy Spirit, who leads us into all truth, speak to you words of pardon and peace. And the blessing of God almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be among you and remain with you always.

Amen.

DISMISSAL

Ever mindful of our frailty, and through humble reliance on Christ alone, let us go forth to serve the world as those who love our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Thanks be to God!

POSTLUDE

MUSICIANS

Jason Slota, vibraphone

Lucas Chen, cello

Minna Choi, piano/vocals

Karl Digerness, guitar/vocals