This is the day that the Lord has made.

Let us rejoice and be glad in it!

Announcements and Life Together

Call to Worship

We worship in the season of Lent,

a time to examine our hearts and our lives

   and journey with Christ through the suffering of the world.

Let us listen for the commandments of God

   and align our lives with God’s vision for peace.

God has marked us as beloved dust

   and called us together to worship.

Prayer of Praise

Eternal God, your kingdom has broken into our troubled world through the life, death and resurrection of your Son. Help us to hear your word and obey it, that we may become instruments of your saving love; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen

Call to Confession

Prayer of Confession

O Christ who chased the money changers from the temple,

chase the greed from our lives and our hearts.

As you overturned the tables, O Lord,

overturn the systems in our world

that contribute to cycles of poverty and oppression.

Forgive us, O God, of the ways we contribute to the world’s brokenness.

Forgive us, O God, and wash us in your mercy.

Forgive us, O God, and free us to try again.

Assurance of Grace

Hear the good news; God has claimed us as Gods own before we were even born. We are washed in the waters of Gods promises and in Jesus Christ, we are forgiven.

   Thanks be to God!

Children’s Message

Click here to download your own Sankofa. Watch the video below for more info. Grinning Face

Prayer of Illumination

Scripture Reading

John 2:13-22 (NRSV)

The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking of the temple of his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

This is the word of the Lord.

  Thanks be to God.

Second Scripture Reading

Exodus 20:1-17 (NRSV)

Then God spoke all these words: I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation[b] of those who love me and keep my commandments. You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not acquit anyone who misuses his name. Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it. Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

Sermon

Rev. Kim Smith-Stanley

Prayers of the People

The Doxology

THE SACRAMENT OF COMMUNION

Invitation to the Table

Prayer of Great Thanksgiving

The Lord be with you.

And also with you.

Lift up your hearts.

We lift them up to the Lord.

Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.

It is right to give thanks and praise…

Words of Institution

We Share the Bread and the Cup

The Lord's Prayer

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our debts,

as we forgive our debtors;

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever.

Amen.

Benediction

Let all God’s people say…

Amen.

Passing of the Peace