Liturgy of Repentance

OPENING RITUAL

 GATHERING

 INTRODUCTION TO THE SERVICE - Bishop Roy I. Sano

 WELCOME OF GUESTS

Bishop Sano will recognize designated representatives from:  The African Methodist Episcopal Church, The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, The Christian Methodist Episcopal Church.

 CALL TO COMMUNITY - The Reverend Cynthia Wilson

"I Have a Dream" Setting by Carlton R. Young

 OPENING SENTENCES Lamentations 2:14; 3:40

Your prophets have seen for you
 false and deceptive visions;
they have not exposed your iniquity
 and so reversed your fortunes,
but have seen oracles for you
 that are false and misleading.

Let us test and examine our ways,
 and return to the Lord.
Let us lift up our hearts, as well as our hands
 to God in heaven.
We have transgressed and rebelled
 and you have not forgotten.

HYMN  - Stand as able - "Lift Every Voice and Sing"

Words: James Weldon Johnson,1921;   Music: J. Rosamond Johnson, 1921

Lift every voice and sing, till earth and heaven ring,
ring with the harmonies of liberty;
let our rejoicing rise high as the listening skies,
let it resound loud as the rolling sea.

Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us;
sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
let us march on till victory is won.

Stony the road we trod, bitter the chastening rod,
felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
yet with a steady beat, have not our weary feet
come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered;
we have come, treading our path thru the blood of the slaughtered,
out from the gloomy past, till now we stand at last
where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.

The Co-Chairs of "The Task Force on Acts of Repentance for Racism" of the General Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns, Ruth A. Daugherty and Rhymes H. Moncure are the readers.

INTRODUCTION TO THE SYMBOLS

The First Sign: The Plumb-line Amos 7:7-9

The LORD was standing beside a wall built with a plumb-line. And the LORD said to me, "Amos, what do you see?"

Amos said, "I see a plumb-line."

Then the LORD said, "See, I am setting a plumb-line in the midst of my people Israel."

Numbers 18:19; 2 Chronicles 13:4b-5; Matthew 5:13

The LORD spoke to Aaron regarding the responsibilities undertaken by the priests and Levites saying, "This is a perpetual covenant of salt before the LORD with you and with your descendants also."

The LORD the God of Israel called out: "Hear me Jeroboam and all Israel: Ought you not to know that the LORD the God of Israel gave the kingship over Israel to David and his descendants in perpetuity by a covenant of salt?"

Jesus said, "You are salt to the world. But if salt becomes tasteless, how is its saltiness to be restored? It is now good for nothing but to be thrown away and trodden underfoot."

HYMN - Stand as able - "Lift Every Voice and Sing"

God of our weary years, God of our silent tears,
thou who hast brought us thus far on the way;
thou who hast by thy might led us into the light,
keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met thee,
lest our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget thee;
shadowed beneath thy hand, may we forever stand,
true to our God, true to our native land.

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