Service for Ash Wednesday 5 March 2025
Today’s service is led by the Revd Andy Braunston
Introduction
Hello and welcome to worship for Ash Wednesday. Today we mark the start of Lent – a time of preparation for Easter. We prepare through attending to the spiritual aspects in our lives, with prayer, giving and maybe through fasting but those preparations are always grounded in the earthly realities around us. The picture on the service sheet reminds of both the ash used in many traditions to mark the foreheads of believers but also the ash left after dreadful wild fires in California as a reminder to us of how human made climate change continues to demand our attention and action. My name is Andy Braunston and I am the United Reformed Church’s Minister for Digital Worship. I live in the beautiful Island county of Orkney and am a member of the Peedie Kirk URC here; I help out in a local Church of Scotland Parish and also help with Thurso URC just over the Pentland firth. Let’s join together in our Call to Worship.
Call to Worship
Come to pray, come to seek, come to rest, come to be changed, come to worship. Nothing is worthy of worship except God! Come to turn your lives back to God, to confront temptation face to face, to rend not your garments but your hearts. Nothing is worthy of worship except God! Come with hearts that long to worship God, come as friends of God to experience a mystery far beyond our reach, but near in tender love. Nothing is worthy of worship except God! Come and worship!
Hymn Led By the Spirit of Our God
© 1996, Bob Hurd. Sung by Chris Brunelle and used with his kind permission, OneLicence # A-734713
Led by the Spirit of our God, we go to fast and pray
with Christ into the wilderness; we join His paschal way.
“Rend not your garments, rend your hearts. Turn back your lives to me.”
Thus says our kind and gracious God, whose reign is liberty.
Led by the Spirit, we confront temptation face to face,
and know full well we must rely on God’s redeeming grace.
On bread alone we cannot live, but nourished by the Word.
We seek the will of God to do: this is our drink and food.
Led by the Spirit, now draw near the waters of rebirth
with hearts that long to worship God in spirit and in truth.
“Whoever drinks the drink I give shall never thirst again.”
Thus says the Lord who died for us, our Saviour, kin and friend.
Led by the Spirit, now sing praise to God the Trinity:
the Source of Life, the living Word made flesh to set us free,
the Spirit blowing where it will to make us friends of God:
This mystery far beyond our reach, yet near in healing love.
Prayers of Approach
We come into your presence, Eternal One,
and tremble before your greatness.
We come into your presence, Risen Lord Jesus,
and bow before your love.
We come into your presence, O Spirit,
and warm ourselves with your radiance.
Be with us, Holy Trinity of Love,
both as we worship and as we journey through Lent,
that as we practice religion with circumspection,
you will lift our spirits, strengthen our faith,
and renew our determination to live as your disciples. Amen.
Introduction
Lent starts, in Western Christianity, today. Around the world Christians pray and gather in church to listen and respond to God’s ever living word. Many will receive a mark in ash on their foreheads and be told to “repent and believe in the Gospel” and to remember “you are dust and to dust you shall return.” Many Christians use Lent to fast – in the earlier Church the Lenten fast was quite something – so much that Mohammad, learning of it from a friend who was a monk, felt it was too severe and limited Muslim fasting to just 28 days instead of 40 and only for the hours of daylight. Now, of course, folk see Muslim fasting as admirable, if a little hard, and don’t expect to see Christians to fast. Lenten observance fell out of fashion amongst Protestants during the Reformation era but in a new age of ecumenical appreciation our liturgical Calanders follow a broader Church Year and, today, we don purple (historically the best and most expensive colour) so we look joyful as we fast. We hear in our readings today patterns of Jewish devotion focused on fasting, prayer and alms giving and hear again Jesus’ counter cultural words telling us to be circumspect as we practice our faith. So let’s pray for the Holy Spirit’s guidance as we listen, that we may understand and follow.
Prayer for Illumination
Speak to us, O God, as we return to you,
rend our hearts with your uncontainable love,
that as we hear you in ancient and contemporary word,
we may understand, change and follow. Amen.
Reading Joel 2:1-2, 12-17
Blow the trumpet in Zion; sound the alarm on my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the LORD is coming, it is near – a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness! Like blackness spread upon the mountains, a great and powerful army comes; their like has never been from of old, nor will be again after them in ages to come.
Yet even now, says the LORD, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; rend your hearts and not your clothing. Return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from punishment. Who knows whether he will not turn and relent and leave a blessing behind him, a grain offering and a drink offering for the LORD your God? Blow the trumpet in Zion; consecrate a fast; call a solemn assembly; gather the people. Consecrate the congregation; assemble the aged; gather the children, even infants at the breast. Let the bridegroom leave his room, and the bride her canopy. Between the vestibule and the altar, let the priests, the ministers of the LORD, weep. Let them say, “Spare your people, O LORD, and do not make your heritage a mockery, a byword among the nations. Why should it be said among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?'”
Hymn Psalm 51: 1 – 9
© The Psalmody Committee, The Free Church of Scotland. Sung by an unknown Free Church of Scotland Choir.
O my God, have mercy on me in your steadfast love, I pray;
In your infinite compassion my transgressions wipe away.
Cleanse me from iniquity; wash my sin away from me.
For I know my own transgressions; I can see my sinful plight.
You, you only, I’ve offended, and done evil in your sight;
So your words are verified, and your verdict justified.
From my birth I have been sinful (such the nature I received)
Sinful from my first beginning in my mother’s womb conceived.
Truth you look for in my heart; wisdom to me you impart.
Cleanse with hyssop, purify me; I’ll be whiter than the snow.
Let the bones you crushed be joyful; may I joy and gladness know.
From my failure hide your face; blot out all my wickedness.
Reading St Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
Jesus said: “Beware of practicing your righteousness before others in order to be seen by them, for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven. So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. And whenever you fast, do not look sombre, like the hypocrites, for they mark their faces to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
Hymn O Matchless Beauty of Our God
© The Rev’d Colin Thompson (b 1945) based on St Augustine’s Confessions sung by the Rev’d Paul Robinson
O matchless beauty of our God so ancient and so new,
kindle in us your fire of love, fall on us as the dew!
How late we came to love you, Lord, how strong the hold of sin!
Your beauty speaks from all that is, your likeness pleads within.
You called and cried, yet we were deaf; our stubborn wills you bent;
you shed your fragrance, and we caught a moment of its scent.
You blazed and sparkled, yet our hearts to lesser glories turned;
your radiance touched us far from home, your beauty in us burned!
And should our faith grow weak and fall, tried in the wilderness,
let beauty blossom out of ash, and streams of water bless!
O matchless beauty of our God, so ancient and so new,
enfold in us your fire of love anoint us with your dew!
Sermon
Fasting, these days, seems more popular than it was. Maybe because of the prevalence of fasting in Islam during the month of Ramadan, and the rise in the number of faithful Muslims in the UK, all manner of celebrity diets now advocates fasting – even though many Muslims say they put on weight in Ramadan because they over eat in the non-fasting hours!
Of course, fasting found its way into Islam through Christian and Jewish practice. Orthodox Christians abstain from meat and dairy products in Lent, having limbered up by abstaining from meat for a few weeks beforehand. Catholic Christians try to abstain from meat on Fridays and to fast on Ash Wednesday – if not all of Lent. Whist our traditions reach back beyond the Reformation, Zwingli, an early Reformer and contemporary of Luther, held that abstaining from meat should not be compulsory and refused to condemn friends who tucked into a sausage supper during Lent. Calvin, however, saw fasting as a valuable way to prepare for prayer, to humble oneself and to subdue sin. He thought it was more useful as a communal exercise in times of calamity but should be occasional rather than habitual. He’d not have had much sympathy with modern fads where we’re urged to “cleanse” our bodies with fasting as if food makes us dirty. Nowadays we are encouraged to “fast intermittently” having a bare minimum of calories for a day and eating normally on the next day. These fasts, however, are for weight loss and health reasons not for the spiritual reasons seen in Islam nor in our readings today.
For Jesus, and for Jewish people, fasting was and is a spiritual exercise. In our reading from Joel, we see a call to fast, pray, and rededicate the nation to God after a series of natural calamities. Of course, then as now, natural disaster brings economic ruin. A crop failure in the ancient world was as devastating as they are now but then they had fewer resources to fall back on. A plague of locusts “like blackness spread on the mountains” would devastate crops leading to the decimation of livestock. Economic ruin and poverty would follow just as it will follow the wild fires in California and rising sea levels around the world. Joel has these dreadful events as “the Day of the Lord” perhaps because he saw God in control, perhaps as something so terrible was beyond normal human vocabulary. The Joel passage sees successive waves of calamity to which the only response can be to turn back to God signified through prayer and fasting. Even in the face of this disaster, though, Joel wants the rending of hearts not clothes; an inner not outer change. There’s no sense of blame of the people for the disasters that have befallen them; unlike many contemporary preachers who blame people for their misfortune, people in the passage aren’t blamed. Fault is not found with minorities who displease self-appointed righteous folk, instead the people are asked to rededicate themselves to God.
Joel hoped that if the community united in prayer and fasting God would intervene in the ecological disaster that unfolds. The clergy were told not to condemn but to pray for the people even to the point of tears. The prophet even gave them some liturgical words for their prayers. Joel’s God is gracious and tender, merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and who relents from punishing.
Psalm 51 is often one we turn to when needing words to frame repentance. Often thought of (without any real evidence) as David’s prayer of lament after being challenged over his murderous behaviour as a predatory rapist, the Psalm has confession, remorse, owning of mistakes made, and a search for a fresh start with a restored soul nurtured by God’s ever gracious forgiveness. The Psalmist expects forgiveness out of a sense, we hope, of knowing God and not out of a sense of deserving forgiveness.
Today’s Gospel reading gives us a glimpse of Jewish religious practice in Jesus’ day – the giving of alms, prayer, and fasting. Jesus doesn’t suggest these as new or even interesting ideas, but jumps in with directions about how to go about these things circumspectly without drawing attention to one’s piety. In other words, he tried to correct abuses he’d seen but not undermine the practices themselves. Jesus differentiates between public perception of these acts and God’s reception of them – with God being honoured by what is done in private for good’s own sake rather than for public glory. Jesus’ admonition “Beware of practicing your righteousness before others…” is a bit of a blast against little acts of evangelism we may engage in. In recent years Catholics have been urged go back to small signs of witness like crossing themselves in public, abstaining from meat on Fridays etc. Many churches offer forms of loving service to the wider community due to our faith – foodbanks in the UK owe much to churches after all. Jesus doesn’t tell us not to give, pray, or fast but to do so with circumspection and privacy. Giving to the foodbank is fine, processing down the street with the food drawing attention to our generosity isn’t! It’s quite a counterblast to the religious folk of his time and ours.
Lent gives us a chance to explore what religion is about. As Reformed Christians we may baulk at fasting as it has fallen out of our religious patterns but it may offer us something – Calvin after all saw it as a useful exercise. Prayer, of course is at the heart of our Christian lives and generally in the URC we’re not ones for showing off in prayer. Repentance is one to ponder though. Often, we think of repentance as a feeling of sorrow. Being sorry about what we’ve done is one thing, doing something about it is quite different. Feeling guilty is of little help in a journey of grace, acknowledging our guilt and starting to put things right is a better understanding of the call to repent. All of us, for example, can feel dreadful remorse after offending against someone else and we may seek forgiveness but, of course, seek it without justice. It’s easy for the Church to rush to declare forgiveness without giving enough thought to processes of repentance. It’s easy to cease on the words of grace in worship without really thinking it through. Whilst declaring God’s freely-given grace we forget, sometimes, that this grace was costly. If there’s no sorrow, nor a desire to make amends for the wrong we’ve done then all we’re just wanting cheap grace. Abusers, for example, may go to confession or chat to a minister but not wish to go to the police; any assurance of forgiveness without justice is simply empty words. Worse, those empty words might move an abuser away from the imperative to change.
Seeking spiritual sustenance whilst ignoring earthly responsibilities is cheap grace. Instead, our sorrow needs to lead to action to change – the real meaning of repentance, after all, is “turn around”. It’s not about expressing sorrow, or being sorry, it’s about change. We may, in our current ecological disasters, be sorry about how we’ve lived but unless the human race turns away from polluting fuels, despoiling the earth, and misusing nature such sorrow is just cheap grace which will comfort our consciences even as we burn.
So, we can use this season of Lent to change, to mend our ways instead of rending our garments. We can give up the smugness which comes from believing we’re saved and, instead, look again at how we need to turn our lives, and the life of our world, around so that God’s costly grace can work in our hearts and lives.
Let’s pray
Help us understand the cost of your grace, O God,
that as we follow Jesus to Calvary this Lent,
we understand the terrible cost of discipleship,
a cost born for us, but a cost that demands our all.
Amen.
Hymn We Rise Again From Ashes
Tom Conry © 1978 OCP Publications OneLicence # A-734713 sung by Chris Brunelle and used with his kind permission.
We rise again from ashes, from the good we’ve failed to do.
We rise again from ashes, redeemed, O Lord, by you.
Our penance, Lord, our sorrow, our grieving hearts renew,
an offering of ashes, an offering to you.
We offer you our failures, we offer you attempts,
the gifts not fully given, the dreams not fully dreamt.
Our stumbling gives direction, our visions, wider view,
an offering of ashes, an offering to you.
Then raise us up from ashes, your healing ease our pain.
Though spring has turned to winter, and sunshine turned to rain,
your rain will nurture growing and create our world anew –
an offering of ashes, an offering to you.
Give thanks to God the Father, who gave us life and breath.
Give thanks to Christ the Saviour, who saved us by his death,
who, with the Holy Spirit, creates the world anew
from an offering of ashes, an offering to you.
Confession and Ashing
We come to you, O God, with a desire to change,
to turn sorrow into action, to fast from selfishness and sin,
to rend the fabric of our comfortable lives, and to turn back to you.
We come to you, O God, with our failures,
our broken hallelujahs, our failed visions,
and the ash of our lives that you may convert us.
We come to you, O God, that you may raise us from ash,
give healing for pain, joy for sorrow, energy for exhaustion,
that we may offer you our lives and our world,
to be transformed by your costly grace.
Silence
Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return; +
turn around and believe the Gospel.
Almighty and merciful God, you hate nothing that you have made,
and forgive the sins of all who are penitent;
create in us new and contrite hearts,
so that when we turn to You and confess our sins
we may receive your full and perfect forgiveness,
and the courage to change, through Jesus Christ, our redeemer, Amen.
Intercessions
Gracious God,
we bring you the ashes of our world, from Gaza to California,
and we look for time;
time to make a change, time to make a difference, time to turn back to you.
We pray for all who are homeless
as their homes have been reduced to ash,
for those who make public policy,
that we may turn away from war on each other and on the earth.
God, in your mercy, hear our prayer.
Holy God,
we bring you all those who feel that their lives have turned to ash,
who taste only bitterness and gall,
whose lives seem devoid of meaning and purpose,
and we look for time;
time for a wider perspective,
time to heal, time to find meaning, love and purpose,
and we pray for all who make public policy,
that investment in health care and social infrastructure may increase.
God, in your mercy, hear our prayer.
Healing God,
we bring you the power of ash to cleanse and heal,
to fertilise and to stimulate rain,
knowing that nothing in all creation is despised by you
and we look for time;
time to use the resources you give us to adapt to climate change,
time to shelter the poor, time to work for justice,
and time to be agents of change and healing in our world
God, in your mercy, hear our prayer.
God of ash and life,
in a moment’s silence we bring our prayers to you…
God, in your mercy, hear our prayer.
With Jesus we pray, Our Father….
Hymn Come Down O Love Divine
Bianco da Siena (d.1434) translated Richard Frederick Littledale (1833-1890) (alt.) Performed by the Riverside Church Choir, New York used with their kind permission.
Come down, O Love Divine, seek out this soul of mine,
and visit it with your own ardour glowing;
O Comforter, draw near, within my heart appear,
and kindle it, your holy flame bestowing.
O let it freely burn, till earthly passions turn
to dust and ashes, in its heat consuming;
and let your glorious light shine ever on my sight,
and clothe me round, the while my path illuming.
And so the yearning strong, with which the soul will long,
shall far outpass the power of human telling;
for none can guess God’s grace,
till love creates a place wherein the Holy Spirit makes a dwelling.
Blessing
May the One who delights not in pomp and show,
the One who craves a humble and contrite heart,
the One who creates a new and right spirit in us,
overturn your love of worldly possessions,
fix your hearts more firmly on God,
that, having nothing, you may yet possess everything,
a treasure stored up for you in heaven.
And the blessing of Almighty God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
be with you all, now and evermore, Amen.