Note: During the season of Lent you may want to have the following items available for your gathering space: a candle and matches, a cup of water, a roll or a piece of bread, a cut out of a heart, a cross and a piece of purple cloth.
Welcome
Invite those gathered to bring a designated item and use this liturgy as a way to begin your time of learning together.
One: This is the season of Lent, 40 days to remember and pray, worship and think deeply on the ways we can…
All: Follow in the ways of Jesus.
One: He came as a baby to bring light to the world and how us how to…
(Place a candle on a table in your gathering place and light it.)
All: Follow in the ways of Jesus
One: The Bible tells the story of the way he called disciples when he was on earth and how he still calls disciples today who will…
(Place an open Bible on a table in your gathering place.)
All: Follow in the ways of Jesus.
One: When people were hungry, he gave them food. When people were thirsty, he gave them water. When people needed love, he loved them — even those the world thought were unlovable and called us to do the same as we…
(Place the bread, the cup of water and the heart in your gathering place.)
All: Follow in the ways of Jesus.
One: When it became obvious that we still had trouble being faithful, he made his way to Jerusalem and to the cross so that through his grace we would be able to…
(Place a cross on a table in your gathering place.)
All: Follow in the ways of Jesus.
One: And so, each year, for the 40 days leading to Easter we remember what Christ did for us, pray for forgiveness for our unfaithfulness, worship the God who loved us enough send us the Son and think deeply on how we can…
(Drape the cross with the purple cloth.)
All: Follow in the ways of Jesus.
One: We are here, Holy Spirit, ready for your leading.
God sightings and prayer offerings
Invite each person to share where they saw or experienced God this week. Invite each person to share something — a person, community, experience, event, etc. – for which they want to offer prayer.
Good and gracious God, we thank you for all the ways you were and are present in our lives and in the world. [Invite each person to say aloud the sighting they named earlier.] We bring our prayers to you, prayers for… [invite each person to say aloud the prayer need they named earlier]. In Christ’s name we pray, Amen.
Connecting with Scripture: Jeremiah 31:31-34
Read the Scripture aloud the first time using the New Revised Standard Version or the Common English Bible.
As you listen to the Scripture read a second time, pick out all the promises God makes.
Connecting through story
Listen and watch as the Jewish a cappella group Maccabeats sing “Home.”
- What message or themes did you hear in this song?
- How did they know where home was?
- Why did they want to get back home?
Connecting with our lives
Engage in dialogue:
- How does doing things that are displeasing to God separate us from God and one another?
- What do you think the people were doing that God needed to assure them, “I will remember your iniquities no more”?
- What do you think is the difference between a covenant where God requires the people to keep commandments and this covenant that is written on our hearts?
- Why do you think God made this new covenant with the people when they already had a covenant through Moses?
- Why did God write the covenant on our hearts? Why not on our minds or our feelings or even in a book?
- How does your heart help you find your way in the world? Back home? To God?
- Why do you think the Lord proclaimed, “I will be your God and you will be my people”?
- Why do we need to always remember we belong to God?
- In what ways are you reminded that you belong to God?
- When do you need to remember you belong to God?
- How can your heart remind you?
Teaching points that can be incorporated into your discussion:
- A few weeks ago, we read the Scripture about the covenant God made through Moses and how the people were given the Ten Commandment to know how to live according to God’s ways.
- Today’s text in Jeremiah is called a “new covenant,” or a new promise God makes with the people.
- This covenant is significantly different than the one made with Moses. Moses’ covenant was conditional: the people had to keep the covenant to stay in a good relationship with God.
- Jeremiah is speaking of an unconditional covenant where God makes the relationship right out of God’s own goodness and grace — not because of anything the people do to earn it or deserve it.
- God’s people had a very difficult time keeping their part of the covenant — being faithful to God and treating one another with love and justice. Sometimes they would worship other gods. Often, they would ignore the needs of people who were hurting or poor or pushed aside.
- God sent the prophet Jeremiah to warn God’s people to stop their selfish and unjust ways, but the Israelites would not listen.
- Finally, God allowed the Babylonians, who had a bigger and stronger army, to take the land away that the ancient Israelites were given as a part of the covenants made through Abraham and Moses.
- God’s people were even sent away from their homes to another country where they where strangers in a new and different land. They were exiles.
- For 70 years, they had to live away from their home and the people began to wonder if God had given up on them.
- But when you belong to God, God never lets you go.
- So, God sent Jeremiah to remind the people that even though they were not in their homeland, God was still their home and was with them wherever they were geographically.
- Jeremiah told the people of a new covenant where God’s love would be written on the hearts and all the things they had done to displease God (and which led to their exile) would not only be forgiven but forgotten!
- This gave the people hope. It helped them to remember who they were and to know that no matter where they were, they were always with God and, therefore, were always at home.
- When we read this passage through the lens of Christianity, we believe that Jesus is the fulfillment of this promise made in the new unconditional covenant, which is written on our hearts. Every time we come to the Lord’s Table for communion, we are reminded that Jesus tells us he is the new covenant. Christ’s love is written on and in our hearts so that we may know, not matter where we are, that we belong to God and we can always follow our heart back home to God.
Last week, your family was invited to think about what each of you personally, or as a family, could “take on” during the season of Lent that would deepen your understanding of what it means to follow in the ways of Jesus. This is our weekly “check in” with one another:
- What Christian practice did you “take on” this week?
- Share a story or describe an experience from this week that invited you to consider how you are following in the ways of Jesus.
Prayer
Close your time together by praying for one another, your neighbor, community and the world
REBECCA DAVIS is the associate professor of Christian education at Union Presbyterian Seminary in Charlotte, North Carolina. A teaching elder and certified educator, she served congregations for over 20 years before moving into academic teaching. In addition to teaching and mentoring students, her passion is child advocacy and ministry.
