Koonung Heights Uniting Church
Service of Worship at Home
Ash Wednesday – 18 February 2026 – 7pm or whenever possible
You may like to light a candle during your time of worship.
Feel free to text the Peace to other members of the congregation.
Acknowledgement:
This land is God’s land and God’s Spirit dwells here.
As we gather this evening, I acknowledge the Wurundjeri
WoiWurrung Peoples of the Kulin Nation.
I pay my respects to their elders, past and present,
and to all future leaders and generations.
Gathering:
Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of our Lenten journey. Ash Wednesday is a day when we come before God, thinking about the ways we live our lives. In ancient times ashes were used to express sadness and grief. People would pour ashes on their heads or smear them on their clothes and faces to show that they were sorry for the things that they had done wrong. Christians adopted the practice of using ashes as a sign of turning away from sin and towards God. That practice will mark part of our Ash Wednesday service, as we confess our sin and accept God’s forgiveness, and invite God to work in us and transform our lives.
Yet that is not all. Lent was originally a season for new converts to learn and prepare for their baptism on Easter Sunday. During that time they would study what was central to Christianity. This Lent, we are going to look again at what was central to Jesus’ life and ministry: radical welcome, love for neighbour, care of the vulnerable, nourishment for the hungry and non-violence in the face of injustice. At the heart of Jesus’ teachings we find liberation, love, mercy and grace – all of which are meant to be very good news for us all.
So tonight, as we gather, let us not only reflect on how we live, but also remember Jesus’ emphasis on radical inclusion, demonstrating the way that God continues to seek us out and doesn’t stop issuing invitations until the table is full.
Call to Worship:
If God threw a party,
all would be invited.
If God hosted a dinner,
there’d be a seat saved for each of us.
If God prepared a banquet,
a cheer would go up when you arrived.
This is the good news:
God is throwing a party.
God is hosting a dinner.
God is preparing a banquet and all are invited.
Call to Prayer:
Family of faith,
if someone declines our invitations again and again,
in our human ways, we tend to stop inviting them.
We get the hint. We assume they’d rather be elsewhere.
With God, however, things are different.
No matter how many times we overlook or ignore God’s outstretched hand,
God will never stop reaching for us.
With that good news in mind, let us go to God in prayer.
Prayer of Approach and Confession:
Loving God,
at the beginning of Lent we come to you.
You know who we are.
You know what we are like.
You know what is important to us.
You know what we regret.
You know where we hurt.
We come to you seeking forgiveness,
strength for the journey,
and healing and love.
We ask that you would meet us here.
We know, loving God,
that you continue to invite us deeper into faith,
deeper into relationship and deeper into community.
You invite us to your table, but we cling to the wall.
We RSVP ‘maybe’ and come up with excuses
for why we can’t attend.
Forgive us for doubting the invitation,
and forgive us for doubting our worth.
Show us how to respond to you
with confidence instead of hesitancy,
and joy instead of doubt.
With gratitude we pray,
Amen.
Words of Assurance:
Friends, no matter how many times we mess up,
no matter how many times we lose our way,
no matter how many times we decline God’s invitation,
God will never stop inviting us to the table.
There is and always will be a seat saved for you.
So join me in these good news words:
We are forgiven, again and again.
We are invited, again and again.
We are loved, from beginning to end.
Thanks be to God, our Inviter.
Amen.
Bible Reading: Luke 14:15-24
– The Parable of the Great Dinner
15 One of the dinner guests, on hearing this, said to him, “Blessed is anyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!” 16 Then Jesus said to him, “Someone gave a great dinner and invited many.
17 At the time for the dinner he sent his slave to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is ready now.’ 18 But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a piece of land, and I must go out and see it; please accept my regrets.’ 19 Another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to try them out; please accept my regrets.’ 20 Another said, ‘I have just been married, and therefore I cannot come.’ 21 So the slave returned and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and said to his slave, ‘Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.’ 22 And the slave said, ‘Sir, what you ordered has been done, and there is still room.’ 23 Then the master said to the slave, ‘Go out into the roads and lanes, and compel people to come in, so that my house may be filled. 24 For I tell you, none of those who were invited will taste my dinner.’ ”
Reflection:
This passage tells the story of a great dinner that many are invited to. Jesus is at a banquet when one of the dinner guests says to him ‘Blessed is anyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God’. (Luke 14:15) For the individual who makes this proclamation ‘anyone’ is more expansive than he knows. He is thinking about people like himself – the important and well-to-do who invite peers to their parties. People self-important enough that when they enter they seek the highest seat so that they can be appropriately recognised. This is the ordinary social behaviour of the time, and it’s why the householder in Jesus’ parable starts out by inviting people like himself. He, too, does the ordinary, and all is well, at least to begin with. When his peers decline his fabulous invitation in order to attend to their own affairs, the householder is humiliated. Yet it is in this moment that he repents of his ordinariness and leans into the extraordinary.
The householder does not invite another group of socialites, or those the next level down the social ladder. Instead, he extends his welcome to those who have nothing. He declares his intent to share his feast and his company with those whom life has broken: ‘the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.’ (Luke 14:21) Those who have been banished from proper community are those who inherit the bounty that the high and mighty reject.
The kin-dom of God is like that! It redefines the meaning of communal belonging, of who might be included in the circle. Ordinarily the host of a banquet invites and serves the very people who have no need of the bounty prepared. The extraordinary people who hope to emulate God’s transcendent love, invite into their company not just those who have, but those who need. They make the broken ones socially whole and physically welcome.
So what does this mean for us? I invite you to spend a couple of minutes in silence thinking about how you might answer a couple of questions. Firstly, if we imagine God as the host of the banquet, how do we respond to God’s invitation? Secondly, if we imagine that we are the host, then who do we seek to dine with and what are our intentions. Do we simply set tables for status and honour? Or do we search far and wide for those who are desperate to be fed physically, spiritually and emotionally?
This story reminds us that God has extended such an extraordinary welcome. As we journey to the cross this Lent, we will see this extraordinary welcome in arms stretched out for the world. As we travel that path this Lent, may we not only be generous hosts, but also humble guests. May we embody the good news of great joy for all people, which means that God’s invitation is cast wider than we think. May we be surprised by who shows up.
Amen.
Prayer:
Table-setting God,
this Lent we do not want to miss your invitation.
We do not want to be so caught up in our own business
that we miss the holiness right in front of us.
Help us hear again your invitation.
May we respond to your good news once again.
Amen.
Imposition of Ashes:
In a moment you will be invited to come forward and receive a mark on your forehead or on your hand. The mark is the sign of the cross, a sign that many churches use at baptism, a sign that indicates that you are a follower of Jesus and that you belong to God. This sign reminds us that God loves us, no matter what we have done or who we have been, and welcomes us with forgiveness and love.
As you receive the ashes I will say:
Remember that you are dust
and that unto dust you will return.
Turn away from sin and be faithful to God.
Everyone is invited to respond:
As you enter into this season of Lent,
may God forgive you, Jesus bless you
and the Spirit enable you to grow in love.
Amen.
Blessing:
May you be blessed.
As you walk into Lent,
may God’s invitation remind you
that God is always near.
May you be blessed.
As you travel towards Good Friday and Easter,
may the gift of friends and strangers
be companions on the way.
May you be blessed today and always,
and may you know that you always belong to God.
Amen.
Thanks to all those who have assisted in preparation for this liturgy with encouragement, prayers and conversation. I have also utilised the following resources:
Tell Me Something Good (Grounding ourselves in the good news this Lent)
and Spill the Beans (Issue 58)