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SEEKERS CHURCH

A Christian Community

In the Tradition of Church of the Saviour

Lent 2007 - Darkness in an Age of Glare

GATHERING

ENTRANCE

REFLECTION

"Not to flood darkness with light so that the darkness is destroyed, but to enter into darkness, mystery, so that it is experienced."

Denise Levertov

CALL TO WORSHIP

Leader:      Resting here in the drowned world

                  we surrender to when we sleep,

People:      we feel the dark river that flows

                  through every heart-beat,

                  the pulse of deep music.

Leader:      In the heart of the world

All:             we are called to be the Body of Christ.

INVOCATION

HYMN

WORD FOR THE CHILDREN

SILENCE

RESPONSIVE READING     of the Psalm for the week

SILENCE

PRAYERS

COMMON CONFESSION

Leader:      While diamonds and oil, dreams and new concertos

                  churn in the making dark,

                  we back away from the flash and shine

                  of sleek airplanes, of guns, knives, portfolios,

                  missiles, the afterglow of drugged hallucinations.

People:      Evil in our time is massive and open,

                  done in broad daylight,

                  planned under harsh fluorescent lights,

Voice 1:     Done on filmed battlefields and in our living rooms,

                  propelled by whatever science we can decipher

                  from the stunning beauty

                  of cells and microbes, planets and stars.

Voice 2:     With all our old symbols of candles and torches,

                  with our little logos of lamps of learning,

                  since ancient times we have always been taught

                  to seek and pursue the light.

                  But sometimes now we shield our eyes

                  from all the glitter and glare,

All:             And sometimes, God, we tremble in fear

                  of some blinding ray or nuclear flash of ultimate light

                  that could level to ashes

                  our creating and destroying of the world you gave us.

INDIVIDUAL PRAYERS OF CONFESSION

ASSURANCE

Leader:      Now we rest for a moment

                  in the shadow of the Almighty,

                  embraced by God's love.

PRAYERS OF THANKSGIVING AND INTERCESSION

JESUS PRAYER

All:             O Birther! Father - Mother of the Cosmos

                  focus your light within us - make it useful.

                  Create your reign of unity now -

                  through our fiery hearts and willing hands.

                  Help us love beyond our ideals

                  and sprout acts of compassion for all creatures.

                  Animate the earth within us: we then

                  feel the Wisdom underneath supporting all.

                  Untangle the knots within

                  so that we can

                  mend our hearts' simple ties to each other.

                  Don't let surface things delude us,

                  but free us

                  from what holds us back from our true purpose.

                  Out of you, the astonishing fire,

                  returning light and sound to the cosmos.

                  Amen.

HYMN

THE WORD

SCRIPTURE

SERMON

SILENT REFLECTION

OFFERING 

The first Sunday of each month we switch to a Communion Liturgy here.

SHARED REFLECTIONS

ANNOUNCEMENTS

HYMN

BENEDICTION

Leader:      Coming out of this dark, show us, O Holy One,

                  as for the first time, the rich glowings

                        of our different skins,

                  the eyes of the oppressed searching like beacons,

                  the flares of wonder

                        that play in the eyes of our children.

All:             By way of darkness, seeing anew,

                  we pray to live again

                  in the wonder of the light of Christ.   Amen.

Worship Resources:

Liturgy adapted with permission from "A Litany Prayer for Darkness in an Age of Glare"

by Rod Jellema.

Jesus Prayer from the original Aramaic,

translation by Neil Douglas-Klotz in "Prayers of the Cosmos"

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