Pastoral Prayer
Holy and beloved God, we need you. We can hardly remember a time when, as a community, a nation and a world, we’ve needed you more. People are sick and dying. Hospitals are overflowing, and being erected in parks while convention centers and hotels are being transformed into more beds to care for more sick. Doctors, nurses, EMTs and aids work until they drop, putting themselves at risk to care for others. People are out of work, and out of food. Children are out of school and, too often, out of food. Grocery store workers, truck drivers, cleaners and on-line order fillers continue to work to serve us, while putting themselves at risk. We pray for the most vulnerable and at risk, for the lonely and isolated, for those overwhelmed with anxiety and tormented by fear, for those for whom home is becoming a prison instead of a refuge. The list of needs and concerns is endless, and you know it far better than we do. We pray, merciful God, for your healing and holding, your compassion and mercy, your presence and wisdom.
Loving God, we see signs of your presence everywhere we look, for we see people who are going out of their way to share your love and live by your example, as well as those who are staying home in order to stop the spread of infection. We give thanks for those who make phone calls and deliver groceries, who sew masks and make hand sanitizer, who give away rolls of toilet paper and bowls of hot soup. We pray for your guidance and wisdom for scientists and researchers, for leaders making difficult decisions, for teachers who are searching for ways to support and encourage their students from afar. Help us all, O God, to identify what part we can play in the healing of your world, and by your loving hand, guide us to offer what we can.
Holy God, even as we ask you to accompany us through these days of COVID-19, we ask you also to help us walk with Jesus through these holy days of his time in Jerusalem, that we might watch and pray and learn what it means to love with his love, speak with his truth, trust with his faith, risk with his courage, forgive with his grace, serve with his humility. By your mercy, may we accompany him into Jerusalem and through each of the steps toward and onto the cross, that we might also walk with him in the promised days of a resurrected new life.
Hear our prayers, spoken and unspoken, and hear us as we join together in the prayer Jesus taught: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed by 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.
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