God of Justice and Grace
Assurance of Pardon
Prayer of Confession – God You Heap Your Love Upon Us
Prayer of Confession
On The Economy of Food
We Pray for Mercy
An Act of Confession Based on Isaiah 58:5-7
ConfessionGod of justice and grace,
we come to you, hungry for your forgiveness.
We confess the brokenness of our world, made manifest in hunger;
the injustice that allows some to go without enough food
while others have more than enough.
We mourn the poverty that robs many people of their daily bread.
You are the Bread of Life.
Empower us to share in that life
by sharing your love and justice with others.
Help us to see you in the people we meet;
your grace in the relationships we share.
Help us to give bread, love, and hope
to a world that longs for these things.
Help us to move past our indifference, our selfishness,
to practice your love.
Help us to feed your sheep. Amen.
Assurance Our God is a God of mercy.
Those who seek forgiveness will find it.
Our God is a God of plenty.
Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be satisfied.
Our God is a God of abundance.
Those who are blessed by grace are inspired to share.
Our God is a God of love.
Rest in God’s love, and be transformed.
— from
Hungering for Righteousness: A Six-Week Series on Food and Hunger, by the Calvin Christian Reformed Church in Ottawa, Ontario.
Click here for a printer-friendly PDFto topGod, you heap your love upon us
like a parent providing for a family’s needs,
embracing a child with tenderness.
Forgive us
when, like spoiled children,
we treat your generosity as our right,
or hug it possessively to ourselves.
Give us enough trust to live secure in your love
and to share it freely with others
in open-handed confidence
that your grace will never run out. Amen.
—Copyright © Jan Berry, England, in Bread of Tomorrow: Prayer for the Church Year, ed. Janet Morley (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1992), p. 147. Used by permission.
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to topThis earth is Yours, O God.
You created its riches—
the water, the land, the minerals—
sufficient resources for all Your children’s needs.
We confess that we are not always good stewards
of all You have placed in our care.
Too often we think of ourselves first and only.
Creator God, forgive us.
We are short-sighted and selfish with Your gifts,
squandering today what needs saving for tomorrow;
hoarding ‘ours’ instead of sharing what is Yours,
refusing to use some gifts at all.
Gracious One, forgive us.
Fill us with the transforming power of Your love.
Show us new ways to respond to Your Gospel.
Challenge and equip us to turn our compassion into action
for all our Your children who suffer. Amen.
—Banquet of Praise, compiled and published by Bread for the World.
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to topWatchful God, we confess there is so much we do not know about the economy of food – how it is grown, who harvests it, who transports it, or how it is distributed. We eat what we are served. We select from the shelves at the store. An enormous system has developed around what was once a simple act. You grew the food you ate. You bartered for the food you ate. You knew the cost. Help us to recognize the hidden costs of our food. We want to see injustice clearly, the way Jesus did. We want to be awakened from our apathy and enraged by injustice, as Jesus was. Through Your grace we will learn, act, reflect, and change. God be with us. Amen.
From the National Council of Churches
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to topOne: Holy God, God of righteousness and justice, we pray for your mercy.
All: Day after day, week after week, Sunday after Sunday, we claim to seek after God. Yet we continue to serve our own interests, and in so doing, blindly oppress our neighbours, here in Canada, and overseas.
One: We confess that we use our acts of piety to make ourselves feel good about ourselves, to assure ourselves that we are Christians, to confidently claim that we are different from the rest of the world. We turn our heads upwards to the heights of heaven, walking blindly, unaware of our destruction.
All: The piety you desire, O God, happens as we contemplate the ways the lives we enjoy may be negatively impact others. You call us “to loose the bonds of injustice, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke… to share our bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into our houses; and when we see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide ourselves from the needy.”
One: We pray that in your mercy, O Lord, you will go before us, preparing our eyes and ears to contemplate our lives, so that we may discover the consequences hidden from us, and repent of our ignorance.
All: O Lord, as your prophet declares, we may begin to see how your light shall break forth from our midst like the dawn,” and your healing hands will work through ours. We will be given the profound gift of serving in your Kingdom, participating in your work of redemption, joining our lives to yours and tasting the fruit of eternal life.
One: Hold us in your grace, O God, that we may practice this kind of piety, the kind of fasting that bears witness to the justice of your holy embrace with which you hold the whole world. Amen.
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to topCall to Confession
We often think of sin only in personal terms—
whom we hurt, the relationship we didn’t treasure,
the brokenness of our spirit.
The sins of omission are less prominent—
whom we failed to help,
whom we left out,
the prayers we neglected to say.
But rarely do we consider sin as something to do with the hungry,
with our shopping,
with the way our societies treat those without a job.
Today we listen to God’s word through the prophet Isaiah,
who gives the concept of repentance a much larger dimension.
Scripture Reading:Is such the fast that I choose, a day to humble oneself?
Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush,
and to lie in sackcloth and ashes?
Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the LORD?
Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of injustice,
to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them,
and not to hide yourself from your own kin?
So we confess our sin.
(Silence)
Prayer of Confession
God of mercy
we confess to You our faulty fast.
Instead of setting the oppressed free
we buy cheap without asking who pays with poor wages and abuse.
Instead of inviting the homeless poor into our houses
we erect fences and gates to keep them out.
Instead of breaking the yoke,
we continue consuming until the earth cries out its pain.
Forgive us when we humble ourselves as an alternative to actually changing.
Forgive us when our spiritual disciplines turn us in on ourselves
and away from our neighbours both near and far.
Forgive us when we hide ourselves from our kin,
the hungry, the naked, the poor, our sisters and brothers in Christ.
Forgive us and turn us to the fast You desire through Jesus Christ. Amen.
—Rev. Terry Mac Arther, Evangelical Lutheran Church in Geneva, from an Ash Wednesday Liturgy (2011) written for the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance.
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