Feb 22, 20236 min read

2/22/23 Ash Wednesday Bulletin

UNION CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH OF HANCOCK We respect tradition — and we welcome inclusive language about people and expansive language about God.Please pray using words most meaningful to you. Open and Affirming of ALL God’s Children

Ash Wednesday - Soup and Service at Noon February 22, 2023 This service will be in-person and on Zoom at 12:00 p.m. (Eastern Time) (Posted for later viewing on Facebook and YouTube) https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88327467219?pwd=Mis3ME4waGE1RmRBNzFXK3VUaDJXdz09 Meeting ID: 883 2746 7219 Passcode: 131738

Silent Prayer God of quiet love, turn me away from wordiness and things and toward your silence, grace, and restoration. Amen * Indicates points in the service when we stand in body or spirit Announcements Prelude Andante Cantabile Anton Rubinstein/ Lani Smith Welcome Introit Be Still, My Soul (v. 1) B. #488 Be still, my soul: for God is on your side. bear patiently the cross of grief or pain; Leave to your God to order and provide; in every change, God faithful will remain. Be still, my soul: your best eternal friend through thorny ways leads to a joyful end. *Call to Worship One: We come to worship God as the Lenten season begins, All: aware of our frailty and our failings. One: We come seeking God’s mercy, All: acknowledging our mortality. One: Having received the waters of baptism, we are marked now with ashes. All: The treasures of this earth do not last; our treasure is in heaven, our heart’s true home. *Hymn Again We Keep This Solemn Fast (vs. 1,3,5) B. #187 Again we keep this solemn fast, a gift of faith from ages past, This Lent which binds us lovingly to faith and hope and charity. More sparing, therefore, let us make the words we speak, the food we take, Our sleep, our laughter, every sense, learn peace through holy penitence. We pray, O blessed Three-in-One, our God while endless ages run, That this, our Lent of forty days, may bring us growth and give you praise. *Invocation (spoken in unison) Renew us, God, with your presence 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 New Testament Reading (Christian Scriptures) Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21 VII, 1994, “I would not have been a poet” (This Day, p. 154) Wendell Berry

I would not have been a poet except that I have been in love alive in this mortal world, or an essayist except that I have been bewildered and afraid, or a storyteller had I not heard stories passing to me through the air, or a writer at all except I have been wakeful at night and words have come to me out of their deep caves needing to be remembered. But on the days I am lucky or blessed, I am silent. I go into the one body that two make in making marriage that for all our trying, all our deaf-and-dumb of speech, has no tongue. Or I give myself to gravity, light, and air and am carried back to solitary work in fields and woods, where my hands rest upon a world unnamed, complete, unanswerable, and final as our daily bread and meat. The way of love leads all ways to life beyond words, silent and secret. To serve that triumph I have done all the rest.

Special Music Meditation on “ Beach Spring” arr. Jason Krug XIII, 2008, “By its own logic, greed” (This Day, p. 328) Wendell Berry

By its own logic, greed finally destroys itself, as Lear’s wicked daughters learned to their horror, as we are learning to our own. What greed builds is built by destruction of the materials and lives of which it is built. Only mourners survive. This is the “creative destruction” of which learned economists speak in praise. But what is made by destruction comes down at last to a stable floor, a bed of straw, and for those with sight light in darkness.

Confession of Sin UCC Book of Worship One: As disciples of Jesus Christ, we are called to struggle against everything that leads us away from the love of God and neighbor. Repentance, fasting, prayer, study, and works of love help us return to that love. I invite you therefore, to commit yourselves to love God and neighbor by asking God for strength to persevere in your Lenten discipline. Let us pray… All: Most holy and merciful God: We confess to you and to one another, and to the whole communion of saints in heaven and on earth, that we have sinned by our own fault in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone. One: We have not loved you with all our heart, mind, and strength. We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We have not forgiven others as we have been forgiven. All: Have mercy on us, O God. One: We confess to you, O God, the pride, hypocrisy, and impatience in our lives; our anger at our own frustration and our envy of those more fortunate than ourselves. All: We confess to you, O God. One: Accept our repentance, O God, for the wrongs we have done, for our neglect of human need and suffering and our indifference to injustice and for our prejudice toward those who differ from us. All: Accept our repentance, O God. Restore us into right relationship with you and all of your kin-dom. Amen Imposition of Ashes All in the sanctuary are invited to come forward to receive ashes on their foreheads or hands. All those at home are invited to impart ashes together or individually. Remember that you are God’s beloved dust, and to God’s beloved dust you shall return. A time of turning round Jan Sutch Pickard II, 1999, “I dream of a quiet man” (This Day, p. 196) Wendell Berry

I dream of a quiet man who explains nothing and defends nothing, but only knows where the rarest wildflowers are blooming, and who goes, and finds that he is smiling not by his own will.

Discussion Prompt What role does “impressing other people” or “acquiring status” play in your everyday life? How would your life change if these dynamics didn’t play any role at all?

*Hymn Bread of the World, in Mercy Broken R. #319

Bread of the world, in mercy broken, wine of the soul, in mercy shed,

by whom the words of life were spoken, and in whose death our sins are dead.

Look on the heart by sorrow broken, look on the tears by sinners shed,

and be this feast to us the token that by your grace our souls are fed.

Meal

*Hymn Lead Me, Lord R. #271

Lead me, Lord, lead me in thy righteousness, make thy way plain before my face.

For it is thou, Lord, thou, Lord, only, that makest me dwell in safety.

*Rend Your Heart - A Blessing for Ash Wednesday Jan Richardson

Postlude A Joyous Benediction David Paxton

(Please remain seated for the Postlude)

Many thanks to those who helped make this service possible –

in front of the camera and behind the scenes.

Music Minister – Debbie Riley

Deacon – David Wildes

Liturgist – Nick Davis

Graphics Minister – Cynthia Wood

Audio-Video Support – Mike Summerer

(Mike Summerer is happy to teach others this simple task. Please inquire…)

Office Secretary – Vicky Espling

Settled Minister – Rev. TJ Mack

The Body of Christ – You

Support our Church Financially

Please visit Hancock (Maine) UCC on Facebook or our new webpage www.hancockucc.com

(please note that www.hancockucc.org still exists as an archival site)

or visit this link to our PayPal account: paypal.me/hancockucc

or mail offerings to:

Union Congregational Church, PO Box 443, Hancock, ME 04640 (Attention: Treasurer)

Contact Us

hancockmaineucc@gmail.com treasurer@hancockucc.com revtjmack@gmail.com

207.422.3100 207.323.6743

Resources

Worship Ways and Feasting on the Word: Worship Companion

Be Still, My Soul

Contributors: Katharina von Schlegel, Jane L. Borthwick, Jean Sibelius

Again We Keep This Solemn Fast

Contributors: Peter J. Scagnelli

Bread of the World

Contributors: Reginald Heber

Lead Me, Lord

Contributors: Samuel Wesley

Rev. Teresa (TJ) Mack

2/22/23 Ash Wednesday Bulletin

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